The ritual chamber lit with Animus fires as Sadeen activated the beacon by investing her Animus, as well as nearly half of the Watchtower’s reserves into the pattern. The lights traced the lines, spiralling out from the chamber, into the hallways, and then out onto the surface, and deep into the tunnels. The natural ambient Chaos flows were drawn in by the current, diverting their normal path to the Luminous Sorceress’ desire.

Light green Animus light, silvery Luminous energy, and neutral Animus of several hues covered the land, focused into an orb above the Watchtower’s peak, and slowly grew larger until it was several hundred paces across.

Sadeen waited, along with the rest of the warriors stationed in the Watchtower, the Silver Tiger, and the Implacable Jade. The young prince who would be her son-in-law remained within the Chaos ship, though he had spoken to her briefly before she began the Ritual. Haunting words through a voice that held too much wisdom and more than a bit of familiarity. Sadeen chose to bow her head and obey, for she knew who held the reins to his lease.

Still, prophecies and foretellings were only of a hoped-for future, and one not set in stone. For what else were they doing except to defy the Threads of Fate?

Idle thoughts yet focused hands. Her fingers squirmed as she conducted the small changes in the ritual, accounting for the heavier interference she faced from the plane itself. The Veil rippled as it resisted the perversion of its purpose, but the weakness brought forth by the Tidelands was its own undoing.

The orb grew larger, then, after an hour since the start of the ritual, it collapsed into a singular point, and shot into the Veil, bordering on the Tidelands. It pushed through intervening Fysallis, and one could see the armada yet engaged in battle against the swelling forces of the two Chaos courts. The beam of green light pushed away the squidships, and the Chaos dwellers, and engulfed the entirety of the armada and the Planar Suppression Formation. It took but an instant to receive an answer from every mortal onboard, and after that, the entire fleet sailed down the beacon light. While it looked like it would only take moments, the actual crossing took much, much longer. And all the while, the Chaos dwellers tried to attack the beacon, to channel their ire through the opening in the void. Alas, even as the Planar Suppression Formation prevented much of their excess, Legate Jiro Segawa’s water domain, which utilised the nearly impossible act of compressing water, prevented their attacks from reaching through. As for Sadeen, the planar Veil protected them to a greater extent.

Hours passed while the armada made the crossing. And it would be the ideal time for the Haveenians to attack. And unsurprisingly, they did.

______________

“Did I miss something?” Yuriko muttered at the portal at the end of the tunnel. It led directly to the same frozen plain from whence she entered the Chaos Fortress and when she sent some sunblades through, her perception did not show any illusion or trickery. The fortress had simply been a couple of nested Fysallis, then a maze structure two levels deep, with thousands of MiJin of stone in between. “There must be something hidden there.”

She spun around and floated back down the tunnel, this time using her perception to sink into the stone. Doing so earlier had been a pain, but now she had to look for secret chambers as well as what created the Chaos Fortress in the first place. It had taken a while, but she finally recalled what the significance of the plain was. It was exactly where she had been thrown out of Rumiga three years before. The rift had been formed by an unfortunate confluence of a Chaos Storm as well as Fri’Avgi’s uncontrolled ignition.

Or, in other words, this was her fault.

There was nothing close to the entrance tunnel, but she debated carving her way down. She would have to remain within a longstride of the spot she dug, however, or she could simply have the sunblades melt through the layers of stone and travel with her. She didn’t have an excess of time, however, and had to return to Faron’s Crossing. The beacon ritual was either close to activation or was already done. In the latter case, Mum would need Eli’Theria’s protection to confront the Chaos Duke.

She sent several hundred sunblades in a grid pattern to go through the stones. She made sure that they remained within a pace of each other so that her perception through them would cover all the spaces. The stone was resistant to the heat, but Radiant energy eventually overcame the material’s incredible toughness. The blades moved at a glacial one and a half pace every second and she didn’t know how long it would take. She had them going straight down first.

Nearly half an hour later, they reached the Fysalli’s border and there was nothing but stone in between. Shrugging to herself, she had the blades crisscross the area. There were no tunnels left behind the sunblades since the molten stones simply solidified after some time. And it wasn’t as if she was actively scooping the material out. She paced down the maze, noted that some of the sunblades arrived back into the original maze she entered, and continued on.

It took nearly half the day before she finished inspecting underneath the maze. And another half a day before she did the same through the ceiling. The latter took less time actually, since the distance between the upper maze and the border was less. And the result? Nothing.

She saw no sign of Kato, Caera, or any kind of secret room. She did find the exit out to the Chaos Sea, but the Waypoint line was cut. She was sure it led to the Forge, but no longer. Now, her dilemma was what to do with the captive barbarian women.

She couldn’t let them loose without removing the worms, and she didn’t know how to remove them without killing them. There were five other chambers with women, each containing roughly a hundred each. She can’t leave the Chaos Fortress alone, and she really should have waited for the Legate’s reinforcements. None would come since she hadn’t reported back, but then again, from the looks of the camp, they might be too busy or beleaguered to help.

So it was up to her. And she didn’t have a reliable way of communicating. The messenger crane tower system was broken too. So…let them die or give them the final mercy? Perhaps some of them could survive the extraction.

Or she could simply bring them along without removing the worms? Maybe that would work, loathe as she was to bring them into Rumiga.

Sighing to herself, Yuriko allowed the sunblades to dissipate. She went to one of the chambers and used her Animakinesis to carry the women out. She half expected them to turn into quivering messes once they left the Chaos Fortress, but nothing happened.

And now she felt guilty for getting that first woman killed.

Sighing in regret, she didn’t let that worry her too much. Instead, she grabbed all the prisoners and deposited them just outside the Chaos Fortress’ entrance. There wasn’t much else of value in the fortress, except for a room filled with assorted personal effects. Coin purses, backpacks, extra clothes…they weren’t of barbarian make and were clearly Imperial. She scavenged the coins and counted roughly three thousand Sovereigns worth in silvers and coppers. Once she finished looting, she set about figuring out how to close the rift.

Just let Fri’Avgi loose, Damien said.

Shrugging to herself, she did as he advised and ignited the artefact. She stood near the tunnel exit and allowed Fri’Avgi to imbed herself into the surrounding stone. Yuriko didn’t know what to expect, but a couple of minutes later, Fri’Avgi’s animating spirit asked for a hefty infusion of Radiant energy.

‘Better to combust the substance of the Fysalli.’

‘Alright.’

She gathered as much Radiant energy as she could from her Essence and core, then infused it into the artefact, which then spread it out evenly after weaving them into threads. That somehow prevented the energy from combusting early, and Yuriko memorized the pattern. Fri’Avgi chuckled at her when she noticed the stare and said, ‘It could be used for other things, too.’

Once Yuriko and Fri’Avgi spent an hour suffusing the Chaos Fortress with Radiance, the animating spirit tugged at one of the ‘strings’. The woven thread unravelled quickly, and when it did, began to consume, convert, and then propagate throughout the Fysalli. A few minutes later, the earth around them shook as the Fysalli was consumed and turned into a raging ball of Radiance and Flame.

Yuriko gasped as the rift spewed the flames and sunlight. She staggered away from it reflexively, even though the Radiant energy was simply absorbed into her body while the heat and fire were shrugged away as too weak to hurt. She was somewhat thankful that she didn’t leave the captives too close to the entrance, which gave her a fraction of a second to scoop everyone up and run away while the hole in the fabric of reality destabilised into a ball of angry destruction.

Bra-koom!

Lighting from clear skies struck down, thunder rolled across the plains and meadows, and the earth shook as though a giant grabbed and shook it hard.

But Yuriko and her captives were nearly a hundred paces away already and gaining more distance. A minute later, the rift gave one last mighty explosion which left a dark plume of smoke rising towards the Firmament. A visible shockwave went through the land, flattening trees and sending boulders flying. It broke against Yuriko’s Adamant Guardian Seal, and just like that, the Chaos Fortress was no more. She left the prisoners, now unconscious, on a hillside and went back.

A crater fifty paces deep was where the fortress used to be. Steam and smoke rose from it, while its side still gleamed with heat. Of the hole in reality, there was nothing. Or rather, it was no longer a coherent portal but several broken shards that were slowly closing. They spewed concentrated Chaos into the land but nowhere near the level before. The ambient Chaos density was slowly thinning, actually, and she was sure they would close in time. Nothing to be done about it now, however.

She returned to where the barbarian women were, picked all five hundred of them up, and flew towards Misttyre. Thankfully, this wouldn’t be her problem once she got there. She flew a bit slower since a large majority of her Animakinesis was focused on carrying and moving the women. The value of an inch of expansion was more than the initial measurement she used, which had been five Jin moved at a pace a second. That had only been valid when her Anima had three paces of reach. Still, trying to calculate made her head hurt so she didn’t even bother. Suffice it to say that she could carry all five hundred of them and still move fast enough to make it to the refugee village in a day. Er, it was already getting close to dusk, but she didn’t want to camp out with all of them, so she fought off her drowsiness and moved on. By dawn, they came within sight of the village.

They were noticed immediately and an alarm was raised. Yuriko stopped nearly a longstride from the Agminis camp and landed on the hillside, disturbing a large flock of sheep in the process. She carefully laid down her burden and waited for the inevitable inquiry.

Of course, it was Tribunus Agatha Kaspar, accompanied by half a dozen legionnaires, who arrived soon after. The red-haired woman took a long look at the barbarian women, then glared at Yuriko. Then, she gave a long-suffering sigh. “You took care of the Chaos Fortress?”

“Yup.”

“And these are?”

“Rescued captives. There’s something controlling them, but they're dormant now.”

“And you’re dumping them on my lap?”

Yuriko grinned. “It’s your job, isn’t it.”

Agatha closed her eyes and grumbled. “Sure it is, but the paperwork… the paperwork!”

Yuriko just grinned back and was happy that she wasn’t saddled with that.

“Well, thank you for a job well done.”

“My pleasure.”