The sunblade danced in the air, mimicking how Yuriko would have moved it had she been holding it instead of directing it from afar. She kept the fighting within her perception range, which helped immensely with her control. It was one thing to try a sword dance while not being able to feel and see around the weapon, and quite another when she had a bird’s eye view of the fight. Well, not just from above, but from the front, behind, underneath, and all sides, too. She forced her body to remain still instead of mirroring the movements even while the sword dances’ Animus patterns spun in her body. It was a good thing she wasn’t fighting anybody yet, but just shadow fighting.

Her usual method was to act like the sunblades and sunshards were at the tip of an extended blade. And when she forced the shards to strike the enemy from behind, she noticed that they had lost most of the charm of the sword dances and were merely like arrows or plasma bolts at that point. She had the idea to reorient herself in the sense that she imagined she was holding the blade in her hands even if she wasn’t. Hence the attacking from different angles except for straight ahead was giving her some trouble. Nothing she couldn’t train past now that she was aware of it.

After a while, she conjured another sunblade and controlled both to perform the Four Phases, though she did not use the same Style and Form on either one. Nor did she have them orient straight ahead. Instead, one faced left and the other faced backwards. She struggled for quite a bit, making mistake after mistake. Her main problem stemmed from the fact that there was no anchor for the swords. They were simply floating weapons and she couldn’t help but think of them as projectiles rather than weapons she was holding. After a long moment of consideration, she tried to create floating hands to grasp the weapons. When that didn’t prove as useful, she changed them to hourglass gauntlets instead, and the inclusion of the wrists served to anchor her intentions. One gauntlet per sunblade, which was modelled after a sideblade rather than an arming sword. Which meant that it had a circular guard and a single edge. The weapon wasn’t curved back, and was as straight as a ruler, allowing her to make thrusting attacks easily. The hilt only had space for a single gauntlet to hold them.

With the gauntlets, it was much easier to visualise that they were extensions of her hands rather than free-floating projectiles, and it was as if a dam had broken in her understanding of enlightenment. She was able to express the Four Phases more easily, and since she could see and position her weapons because of her perception aura, she managed to resonate them with the ambient Chaos. Every now and then, elemental energies swirled around either sunblade. The only issue she had was that the gauntlets were for the left and right hand, which did limit the range of movement. Still, she was willing to put up with the handicap if it meant mastering the sword in a new way. She could also feel her Anima, core, and Essence pulse with interest. There was a brimming feeling of rightness. This was the path or, at least, it was the beginning of one. She somehow knew that if she perfected this kind of thing, she’d be able to complete her preparations and enter Transformation soon.

Her practice continued until she spotted another barbarian patrol. Unlike the last couple of days, this one was not a group of twenty. In fact, she couldn’t really call them a patrol as they were clearly a warband of a thousand. They were marching towards the south, using the broad, and often used valleys and plains. There was a tramped-down path where nothing grew that stretched north to south, and by her reckoning, it probably led straight to the Chaos Fortress.

Now then. Should she intercept? On her own or with Eli’Theria? Head-on or hit-and-run style? Oh right, it was too late to hide. She was only a hundred paces away, and because they were in the valley, there had been no cover. The vanguard was already rushing towards her.

She leapt towards the valley walls and scaled the steep hillside. It wasn’t quite a cliff, but the mud and grass meant that it wasn’t an easy climb either. She managed it without disturbing the landscape while the grey skins churned the land. As soon as she reached the crest, she sent two sunblades down at them.

“I guess this isn’t going to be as easy as I expected,” Yuriko muttered a couple of minutes after she engaged in battle. Oh, the sunblades slaughtered the barbarians in pursuit, but the rest of the warband wasn’t stupid. In fact, almost as soon as she made her stand, she was bombarded with throwing axes, javelins, and stone-headed arrows. Not that those were weak or ineffectual. They were all coated in potent Animus and she had to conjure another pair of gauntlets and blades to cut the attacks away. She kept her hands firmly at her sides though.

Still, attacking with ranged weapons from lower ground was untenable so they gathered in a large group, the front line carrying heavy wood and bone shields, then charged up the slope. The churned and slippery mud was boiled dry by lightning as the antlered barbarians sent their attacks before the rest.

Behind her was a steeper slope, but this one was covered in foliage. It would be an awkward run if she pushed that way. She could fly, of course, and she really wasn’t fooling anyone by trying to be discreet, but this was a challenge that her Anima craved. Too many times she forced her path using brute force. When she began her path, she did so with superior skill. The fight against the Chaos Duke’s minor incarnation opened her eyes, even if the realisation took longer than expected.

So she stood her ground and threw herself into the deep end by attempting the gauntlet and sword combination a dozen times. The strain of making sure each pair acted independently and using her sword dances and Four Phases was more than enough to give her a headache. Still, with her freshly empowered and refined Anima and body, she was more than capable…

Oh look, the warband was trying to flank her position. She sent a couple of sword pairs to intercept on either side, but the volume of assailants meant she couldn’t stem the tide before they closed in on her, prompting Yuriko to pull back. She clicked her tongue in annoyance.

When the first grey-skinned barbarian reached her side, she kicked him hard on the knee.

Crack!

The man grunted but still reached for her even as his leg crumpled underneath him. A kinetic blast knocked him into his fellow and both barbarians rolled down the hillside.

The barbarian behind the first got stabbed in the back by her sunblade, while the other pair cut off a third one’s head. On the other side, the pair of blades and gauntlets chopped down a couple of wolf-legged barbarians using the third dance in ascendance. With little need to defend itself, she found it easier to apply the third when fighting from a distance. She recalled another pair to defend herself against ranged attacks.

She held the line for a few minutes before the barbarians began to withdraw. She looked down at them curiously as the warband leader, a particularly large specimen of grey-skinned barbarian, yelled out in their language, and waved a giant handaxe in the air. She half expected him to throw it at her, but contrary to that, they retreated instead. That was far from normal.

She watched them put distance between them, running with fur-covered boots down the valley. She glanced at the casualties, which were about fifty bodies, then wondered if she should follow and wipe them out. They were headed south after all. But the fortress was up ahead and she’d be moving away from her target. Why were they running away?

Glaring at them, she decided that while she wouldn’t chase, she wasn’t about to let them leave so easily.

The Radiant Lance implement appeared at her side and she gathered Radiant energy and ambient Chaos around it. It charged up quickly, and before the barbarians could get more than a longstride away, she flew up and flung the Radiant Lance at them.

Wheeee! Booom!

The projectile careened towards the tail end of the barbarian warband, struck the ground, and exploded into a fiery, Radiant, cloud. When it cleared, there were a hundred bodies less than before, but that still left more than eight hundred warriors. “Tsk.” The problem with the Radiant Lance was that it wasn’t meant to destroy an army. It was meant to puncture through formidable defences or to act as a siege weapon.

She noticed that the barbarians were in a scattered formation, too.

And of course, she just revealed her position and presence to the rest of her enemies. Not that it would do much. She noticed a few of the warband’s rear guard running back to the north.

She continued on her path. The depleted warband would face the might of the Imperial warriors, and the south would be better aided by her destruction of the Chaos Fortress. Or rather, she was only supposed to figure out their strength and let the Legate know. But still…

As she exited the valley and finally beheld the fortress, she couldn’t help but freeze and stare.

When she heard of the Chaos Fortress, she really thought that the Chaos dwellers had built a…well, a fortress. But it wasn’t that. Instead, she was staring at a Fysalli. Right smack in the middle of a plane was enough Chaos to create a lake large enough to create a stable island of reality. A Fysalli.

Ancestors. How was this supposed to be destroyed?

As she looked, she saw a contingent of barbarians. No, not a warband, but an actual caravan of northern barbarians entered the Fysalli and disappeared from sight as soon as they crossed the threshold. Now would be a good time to summon Eli’Theria.

She rose to the skies and called the Orb of Authority to hover in front of her. She laid both hands on it, sent her Animus within and called Eli’Theria. The Colossus manifested around her and she found her consciousness expanding to encompass the five-pace tall war machine. As always, her connection to her own body faded away to be replaced by Eli’Theria’s. Her Anima, grown to ninety-nine paces, was amplified to a hundred and forty-nine. She manifested several pairs of blades and gauntlets around the Colossus before moving towards the Chaos Fortress’ threshold.

She expected to be intercepted by Chaos dwellers, nameless or true Chaos Lords, but after a moment, she realised it wasn’t in their best interest to do so. Out here, they were suppressed by the plane, but in there, it was the opposite. Her only advantages lay with her Colossus and her Radiant energy.

The barbarian caravan panicked when they saw Eli’Theria, and unlike the ones she fought earlier, their emotions were not muffled at all. In fact, they acted exactly like what she expected of the barbarians. The men tried to attack her, foolish as that was, while the womenfolk and children retreated. She ignored them for now, as her goal was right in front. They touched the threshold and it was as if a barrier of repulsive force stood in her way.

Eli’Theria’s finger splayed flat against the invisible wall, but ripples of force moved away from the point of contact. She could feel it blocking her way, but it wasn’t an absolute force. She used her Anima, which was infused with Radiant energy, and forced themselves through. The invisible burst to flame and a hole large enough to fit them appeared.

Yuriko briefly saw the space behind it, empty save for the Chaos flows that were as pure as the Sea, then she was through.

And that was when the Chaos dwellers attacked.