Walking along Rumiga Road brought back memories of the first time Yuriko travelled along it towards Rumiga City. She remembered they passed by several villages before reaching Horswick, but she couldn’t quite remember their names. They sort of blurred together anyway, since they were practically copies of each other.

Take the first one they reached from Horswick, Nirham. If not for the fact that Horswick was at the foot of the Zarek Mountain pass, hence the road was sloped, they were identical. The main road passed by the central square which housed the village hall, the inn, the schoolhouse, and the Church of Everlasting Order’s temple. From the village centre, a road intersected it and led north and south, but was narrower and not as pretty as the main road. Those led to farmsteads, Yuriko assumed, and also to the rest of the village.

Since they arrived close to twilight, they stayed in the inn for the night. Marron paid for the rooms, and he insisted on six individual rooms, which were just barely big enough for the single bed, a small wardrobe, and a mirror. There was a communal bath area, though that was segregated by sex.

Dinner consisted of bread, ham, and assorted cheeses. Simple fare, but oh so delicious compared to a steady diet of bland ration bars.

Strangely, or perhaps to be expected, her appetite wasn’t any bigger than anyone else’s. She’d long since gotten used to her enlarged appetite after training and using Body Forging, but now, it was as if she actually didn’t need to eat much.

Duh. Since you’ve finally managed to get ahold of the Radiant Ennoia, your energy needs can be met by converting ambient Chaos to Radiant energy. And since you’re replacing and integrating it into your body, what you need now is more Radiant energy rather than mundane food.

Right.

Did that mean when she advanced her Ennoia further there would come a point when she didn’t need to eat or drink anymore?

Damien didn’t answer, but she suspected that on some level, she was right. Already, she only slept at night when she felt like it and spent more hours meditating than anything else. It was different when she was in the Chaos Sea, however. There, it seemed that sleep was easier to stave off. In Rumiga, there was still that sense of regularity and it was easy to succumb. She didn’t feel any worse if she got less than eight hours of sleep, though she hadn’t really pushed how far she could go. Plus, meditation seemed to be able to replace some of that need.

Breakfast was a pile of pork sausages, hard-boiled eggs, and more bread. Unlike last night’s soft dinner rolls, today’s morning bread was brown, crusty, and tough. It filled the tummy well enough though.

They left Nirham without much fanfare. A few of the layabouts in the village stared at her as they made their way west, but Marron’s legionnaire uniform must have intimidated them enough. Her resistance training was going well and she’d gotten used to the extra weight and difficulty of moving. None of the others commented on the way she moved so maybe they didn’t notice. She managed the trick Damien told her about, and by thinning out her Anima and condensing it close to her skin, her aura became barely perceptible. Perhaps in an enclosed room with little light then it would be visible, but certainly not out in the day, or under the Chaos Streams and the Moon at night.

Last she checked, her skin tone was still pale and translucent, even to the point that if she held her arm up against the sun’s rays, she could easily see her veins. With the condensed Anima and her outer reserves, her skin tone was closer to what she had before her Atavism. Not quite her usual tan, and darker than porcelain white. There was that golden glow too.

She couldn’t tell if the Radiant Body Refinement worked or not since she couldn’t mark any increase in her strength. Maybe her skin grew tougher too? She had materialised an Animus knife and poked her arm with it, and her skin only sunk by a tiny fraction of an inch. When she tested the edge against the wardrobe, it easily sunk into the wood. Ehehe. She left a few silver marks to pay for her transgression.

About an hour after breakfast, they settled their bill at the inn and left. The Commuter Tram station was closed, too, and there were hardly any landcrafter about in the village. The place was small enough that it wasn’t too much trouble to just walk wherever they wanted to go, and since the harvest was already in, there was little traffic from the neighbouring farmsteads.

Still, as they travelled down the Rumiga Road, Yuriko couldn’t help but look at the barren fields. Desolate and lonely. She could see a few haystacks in the distance, and a few herds of goats or sheep. There was even a heifer chewing on her cud all by her lonesome on a hilltop, looking placidly down at the pedestrians. Where was the farmer? She spotted the figure on watch atop a small makeshift observation tower a couple of hundred paces away. The herder waved at them amiably, which Yuriko and the others returned.

The next village would probably take them a few hours to get to. Hmm, her initial assessment of taking no more than a couple of days to get to Faron’s Crossing was off. Her Radiant Body Refinement slowed her down, but the others didn’t seem to mind. The tranquillity of the western countryside did wonders for their minds. She was honestly still wound up from the battles over the past Season, and she was prone to twitching at the merest suspicious sound.

Ah, like that explosion of flame out in the distance. Who would be throwing flames out here? Were they trying to burn down the weeds on a field or were they trying to create a planting field using fire?

Smoke rose out in the distance, down south. But…that wasn’t the only thing she heard. Explosions of flame, the crack of thunder? And a strange smell that lingered in the wind.

“Maru…” she murmured.

“Yes, I don’t think that’s something innocent,” her brother replied, a serious cast on his face. He even ignored her using his nickname. Heh.

“Let’s take a look,” Yuriko said decisively, undoing her restraints as she did so. The freedom from the oppressive weight she’s been under for the past couple of days gave her the feeling that she could fly.

Well, she could if she shaped her Anima into wings. Heh.

Hand on the hilt of her arming sword, she kicked off from the road and ran towards the hills.

____________

‘It seems we bit off more than we can chew,’ Heron thought coldly as he angled his air shields to deflect a blow that would have severed Danika’s arm. The stocky girl grunted her thanks and drove a gauntleted fist at the Federation spy’s face, but the kinetically charged blow was intercepted by a round shield.

Clang!

The man staggered back and Danika cursed. The trouble with using fists in a fight was the abysmally short range. She drew the side-blade from her hip and attempted to stab the attacker but the man sidestepped and hacked at her with his axe.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mikel unleash a cone of flame at two of the spies, who quickly brought their shields up and blocked the attack with Animus reinforced steel. Covering plasma bolts from Lelland, Krystal, Amirah, and Asami flew above their heads but as with Mikel’s fireburst, Animus-enhanced shields protected them. Worse, Heron was all but certain that one of the spies was a Knight-level opponent. It was easy to make her out, as her weapon of choice was a greatsword that glimmered with blue flames.

Peyton tangled with the Knight, or rather, he tried as much as he could to keep her occupied while keeping his life intact. Only his tower shield, his defence-oriented Facets, and Heron’s Air Shields were the reason they were holding on.

He used the shield he assigned to Peyton to run interference with the Knight’s movements. With how translucent they were, if the enemy didn’t use some sort of Chaos Sight, it was easy to overlook. So he manually controlled the shield to knock into her arms when she attacked, or to trip her up when she moved. But he couldn’t devote his entire attention to the Knight, otherwise, he’d lose his head.

Angling his shield upwards, he managed to deflect a thrusting spear. The Animus contained in the attack cracked his Facet technique and he cursed under his breath. Another two grazing blows would shatter it unless he invested more Animus, but he had already blown off half of his reserves just materialising the things. He was only a First Order Journeyman, with the minimum reserve of a hundred lumens. Nearly half of that was taken up by his Facet inlays, Empowered Strike, and Strengthen Physique, leaving him a total usable reserve of fifty. Twenty-four lumens, four each, to the six shields, and another three invested into his spear. He had yet to strike the enemy where it hurt so the Empowered Strike had not lapsed.

“Heron, back up one step. Assist Zeyn, pattern three, assist Patrick, pattern four!” Asami’s battle instructions were the only reason they hadn’t lost anyone. She was the eye in the sky, their method to sort out the pandemonium on the battlefield. And even if she was huddled behind a rock, as the controller, she was still very much effective.

“Ahh!” Peyton cried out in terror and pain as the blue-flame sword cut off a piece of the shield, and part of his arm with it.

Heron took control of the shield and tried to bash the woman Knight, but this time, with her eyes glowing red with Chaos Sense, she parried and swatted it away.

“No!” He couldn’t help but yell, but there was nothing he could do. The greatsword rose up, then fell.

Swish!’

A plasma bolt, from a Lancet, struck the Knight’s wrist and managed to divert the sword’s trajectory so that it only chopped off Peyton’s left arm instead of through his collarbone. The Agazan Cadet staggered back, clutching at the stump of his arm.

Heron bashed the warrior in front of him with both the air shield and his own resonating buckler, followed by an underhand thrust with the shortened spear. Fear and anger lent his attack wings, but the emotions made his attack sloppy. He gashed an upper leg, but it wasn’t even close to being a decisive blow.

Patrick Olivier wielded a two-handed spear, and his thrust broke past the enemy’s shield, stabbing right through it. But… now the weapon was trapped, and the man opposite it twisted the metal slab and pulled the man low. Then, an overhead smash with his warhammer crunched past Heron’s air shield and broke Patrick’s shoulder.

“Pull back. We’ve suffered too much!” Asami’s voice rang in Heron’s ear, but it wasn’t as if the Federation would just let them go.

The Knight kicked Peyton away, having carved off the other arm, and she rushed straight at Heron, having identified him as the source of the annoying shields.

Cursing under his breath, he shoved the opposing warrior back, leveraging as much of his strength as he could. His desperate manoeuvre succeeded in surprising the other, and he pulled away to face the incoming Knight.

The Radiant Sun shone directly overhead, and for reason, he felt the soothing warmth calm him down. If he were to face his end here…

This had been a foolish endeavour. He shouldn’t have given in to glory-seeking. At least the Watchtower had been alerted, and they would be avenged.

Gritting his teeth, he could do nothing but wait for the Knight to approach.

A moment later, a crescent-shaped bolt of plasma slammed into one of the Federation shooters. And an instant later, a bright line of fire and death lanced through the Knight. The woman’s face was agape, even as her hands twitched towards the fist-sized hole in her guts.

Boom!

A figure landed right next to the woman, carrying an impossibly large sword. A familiar and unforgettable weapon. And then a wave of golden light caused his heart to twinge, and he saw everyone around him, friend and foe alike, react the same.

And, finally, when he saw the achingly beautiful face turn towards him, he was lost.

He must be dreaming, unconscious, or dead.