“Ah!”

No sooner had the skies turned red, and the ground changed to a bloody cast, that Tiernan suddenly crumpled into a heap, clutching at his belly.

Yuriko whirled and leapt to his side and grabbed his shoulder. She could feel him tremble under her fingers, and his cry choked off into a gurgle. She turned him over on his side, though he tried to curl around into a foetal position. Whitish foam bubbled out of his lips.

“Tiernan!” Yuriko yelled as she shook his shoulder, but Tiernan continued to shudder and foam at the mouth. She froze, eyes spinning. What was happening? What could she do?

The only first aid techniques that were taught to her during the reserve officers’ training was to make sure the person was conscious and able to use Recovery. If not, call for help, stop any bleeding, and make sure the person was breathing properly.

Tiernan didn't look physically hurt. There was no wound, at least none she could see. She almost took his robe off, until she remembered that the Chaos pressure was likely to kill him before she could do anything. They sat there frozen for several moments until someone pushed her away from his side.

Shara knelt beside Tiernan, her hands aglow with pink Animus. She frowned as the light covered the boy’s face.

“Get him on his side!” Shara yelled. Tiernan had rolled over on his back and had started choking. Yuriko and Reinhardt turned him over to his right. Shara pressed her fingers and thumb on his jaw, forcing his mouth open, then with her other hand, stuck a couple of fingers in his mouth.

“Blargh!” Vomit spread on the ground. Where once was grey was now the crimson hue of fresh blood and the bile he spat out took on the same colour.

Tiernan retched and retched, dry heaving until nothing more came out. Yuriko didn’t know if there were flecks of blood with what he threw up. By the time it was over, he had passed out.

For a timeless moment, she thought it would never end, and that he would…die. Yuriko felt worry twist her tummy. What had happened? Tiernan’s pale face was now completely without colour and his cheeks were sunken in.

“I think we’ve lost our way,” Reinhardt muttered, then coughed when she looked at him reproachfully. “We’ve no idea where to go and get help. Shara isn’t a healer, even if she knows a few tricks.” He shook his head. “And I don’t think we should stay here either.”

Frowning, Yuriko looked to where he faced.

“What the…?”

The grey stone plains were gone, replaced by red. But it wasn’t a featureless plain anymore. Instead, she could see rolling hills and even mountains in the distance. Her eyes riveted to a heaven rising pillar, much like the spire in Kogasi, and the root in Euphoril.

“Is that the town of Serenity or Tranquility?” she muttered. Those had been the nearest towns that Guard commander Levain had pointed out, but she wasn’t so sure. For one thing, they hadn’t gone in the correct direction. Unless distance and direction in this place were as fluid as those of the Tidelands?

And…the mountains with the giant sky-reaching pillars were close together. There were two right in front of her, probably less than a dozen leagues away, and maybe the same distance from each other. That wasn’t all either.

When she looked to their right, left, and back, there were two mountains with pillars, and unless her eyes were deceiving her, settlements and towns at the base. Where had those come from?

“Are we in the Tidelands?” she muttered. There was no other way to explain how it happened.

“Can’t be,” Devion answered. “It doesn’t feel like a Tideland.”

“Each Tideland is different.” Yuriko shook her head, “But more importantly, what now?”

She looked at each of the mountains. None of them were distinct from each other. Even the shape of each settlement was the same, like a slice of pie. Perhaps they should just continue in the direction they had been on?

But if they were in a Tidelands, when space shifted, they may have been turned around without noticing it. Indecision paralysed her while she fretted. The wrong move could bring them farther from the Ebon Horizon and she didn’t trust the settlements, not after what she experienced in the Temple in Euphoril.

“Let’s just pick one and go. Tiernan Hersal must recover before anything can be done.” Reinhardt decided for them. “Let’s go there.” He pointed at the mountain in the direction they were initially headed to. “It’s as good a choice as any.”

“I suppose it is,” Yuriko said as she got off her heels.

“Let me,” Devion said just as she was about to pick Tiernan up. He grabbed the boy by the middle and laid him across his shoulders. “I’ll have to rely on you two to protect us.” He said to Kallas and Michi.

“As long as you don’t drop him!” The redheaded woman laughed.

“Thank you,” Yuriko said. Devion’s face reddened and he gave a gruff nod.

The red hue made it a bit harder for Yuriko to distinguish details, not without using Enhanced Sight, anyway. She took the lead while Kallas and Michi took either side. Devion walked just behind Reinhardt and Shara. She couldn’t help but glance back every now and then, and when she did, the prince would give her a reassuring smile.

They were perhaps halfway towards the mountain when the ground rippled.

“Fallen Sun!” she muttered under her breath, blushing a moment afterwards. She rarely cursed with such a strong oath and she could practically hear her Da saying, “Such a foul mouth is unbecoming of a young lady!”

Of course, Mikel’s mum, Aunt Amiri, had such a potty mouth that it was frankly strange that her son rarely cursed.

The ripples were a multitude and came from all around them, even right under her feet. She flared her Anima and condensed them around her fist, and readied herself to strike as soon as the stone creature came out.

Reinhardt and the others huddled together, away from the ripples, but from what she could see, as soon as the creatures materialized, they would be surrounded. And there was no use running either, for the ripples covered the ground as far as she could see.

“Where did these things come from?” Shara muttered angrily.

Yuriko moved closer to the group but she had just taken her second step when the creatures finally emerged.

“Haaah!” She yelled as she struck, but she stuttered to a halt once she saw what emerged.

A human silhouette slowly filled in with colour to blood red. The one in front of her wore militia green, and even carried a collapsible spear and resonating buckler. The man’s face…no, he was a young man with a worn look and sunken eyes. He looked at her for a moment, then his lips twisted into a feral grin.

‘His sclera is black!’ she absently thought as she watched his attack, as slow as molasses to her eyes.

The figures that materialised all around them were similarly humanoid. Most were human, but some were beast-kin. There were even a couple that she saw from the corner of her eyes, that were as large as the Oskans but had inhuman features.

Swoosh!

She slapped the spearhead to a side, grabbed the haft, pivoted her lead foot and yanked. The warrior was dragged forward a step before he had the presence of mind to let go. Instead, he grabbed the side-blade on his hip, drew it in a smooth motion and stabbed at her.

“Die!”

Yuriko grabbed the blade with her other hand, pinching it in between her thumb and forefinger, then twisted it out of his grasp. Disarmed, she expected him to back off and was startled when he lunged at her with teeth bared, in an attempt to bite her. Her foot moved before she could think.

Thud! Squish.

Clutching at his crotch, the man fell on his knees, and a moment later, dissolved into a bloody puddle. The weapons she disarmed from him followed a moment later, disintegrating to rust in the blink of an eye.

Pink crystals left a glowing streak from her side, and they smashed into another blood warrior’s head. They burst from behind the skull, swerved in midair, and threaded another enemy, striking eyes and mouth. This time, the crystals shattered and perforated the poor man.

“Yuriko, watch out!” Reinhardt yelled.

While she had casually defeated the blood warrior, three more had attempted to get at her. Reinhardt took care of two, but the third was too close. The warrior’s spear rose and stabbed forward, striking like a snake.

Thonk!

And was promptly blocked by her Anima. The strike wasn’t even strong enough to give her Anima micro-fissures.

Shaking her head, she grabbed the spear off his hands and thwacked his head. This time, the body shattered into a blood spray even before it fell to the ground.

Shara, Michi, and Kallas made short work of their own assailants but given the number of ripples she saw, they should have been swamped by the blood warriors already. But only a handful that were close to them attacked. The rest…they fought and killed each other.

“Kill!”

“Die!”

“No! Not again!”

“Only the pure live!”

Battle cries, death rattles, gurgling gasps, and the clash of weapons filled the air. To her right, a small group surrounded a giant man wielding a similarly large spiked club. They circled him like wolves, baiting him to strike while the ones behind him threw blows while he was distracted. They eventually brought the giant down, but as soon as the body dissolved, the squad turned on each other until there was only one left. That one had a multitude of wounds, but Yuriko saw them heal over quickly. Then the survivor stalked towards another fight, interrupting a duel between two swordsmen and managed to kill both.

Five paces.

That seemed to be the limit that the creatures, the blood warriors, had. If she came within that distance, the warriors inevitably turned to fight her, even if they were already embroiled in a brawl of their own.

The two bodyguards seemed to have caught on, and only killed those that came too near, but Reinhardt kept shooting his crystals at anything that moved. He did manage to kill them in a single blow, so she supposed it wasn’t an issue.

They stayed within a small clump and moved towards the mountain. Despite the constant fighting, the blood warriors were weak. None of them used any kind of Animus technique, not even those that strengthened the body. It was as if a group of unawakened children were handed weapons and left to their devices. Well, their weapon techniques were spot on, Yuriko decided after watching for a while.

The movements were crisp and simple, and there were no superfluous movements, no grand display of prowess that did nothing more than making them look like buffoons. There was also a level of savagery to their attacks as if none of them cared if their blow was countered, aiming only to take out their foes.

It took a few minutes, maybe half an hour, before enough blood warriors died that their numbers thinned enough that Yuriko and the others didn’t attract an attack with every step they took.

“What do you think these are?” Reinhardt asked quietly. He’d had his fill of slaughter minutes ago and was simply walking with her now.

“I don’t know,” Yuriko replied. “This is my first time here too.”

“Ah, right.” He glanced around surreptitiously, frowning at the blood warriors in the distance. “Do you think they’ll fight until there’s only one left?”

“To what point though?”

Reinhardt just shook his head.

Another half-hour and none of the blood warriors were nearby, much to their relief. It wasn’t even a rousing fight, and she barely broke out a sweat. She retracted her Anima back to its normal levels and checked in on Tiernan. The cadet officer was still unconscious, though he wasn’t as pale anymore. Or maybe the blood-red moonlight had more to do with it than anything else. His breathing was a bit laboured but it probably had more to do with how he was being carried. His lips were stained with drool and vomit that she wiped off with the corner of her cloak.

“Why is it so quiet?” Reinhardt muttered.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The footsteps echoed in the suddenly still air. Yuriko turned towards it, even as she felt cold sweat run down her back. While the blood warriors were weak, the footsteps sent a reverberation that set her teeth on edge.

A slender figure approached, barely as tall as she was, and carrying a spear leaning against the shoulder. The blood warrior’s face was obscured by a bloody mist, revealing only eyes, golden irises and black sclera. Those eyes met hers, and there was a clear challenge to it.

Yuriko held out her hand and called Fri'Avgi. The greatsword’s slight weight was a comfort to her suddenly shaken mind. The warrior’s blood veil parted just enough that Yuriko could see a feral grin. Then he, or maybe she–Yuriko couldn’t tell since he wore metallic armour over loose clothing–lunged, leading with the spear.

The second sword dance flowed within Yuriko’s Anima and Fri’Avgi, and it told her to avoid touching the weapon at all costs! The spearpoint dug into the earth as she slipped out of the way, and a moment later, a concussive blast showered her and the others with pebbles and dirt. A red haze covered the warrior, and he suddenly seemed larger and more terrifying.

Yuriko’s mouth felt dry but her hands tightened on Fri’Avgi’s hilt. She fused the three dances and readied to include the fourth. Why did she feel it wouldn’t be enough, though?