Sunshards didn’t cost Animus to use, but manipulating the shards without the sword dances activated made the movements feel hollow. Yuriko defaulted to expressing the Four Phases of the Sword with them, and instinctively grouped them into four instead of three, with a shard using a Phase.

Fri’Avgi was summoned back to her hand, but she only used the artefact to control the shards rather than using it as a blade. Instead, she used the Arclight Sword to attack any who managed to come close.

The worker Femorants were tougher, Yuriko realised, while inside this place. It took several strikes by the shards before they fell, though only a single one of the Arclight Sword. Probably because, unlike the shards, the sword she directly held benefited from her boosted physique.

And while the ants were stronger, the limited space of the chamber and the tunnels actually worked in her favour, so she was able to progress quickly down the tunnel she chose.

Any of the tunnels would do, actually. After she killed enough workers to give her breathing room, Yuriko sunk into the dreamscape and checked her Mien. It told her that Orrin and Asami could be reached no matter where she picked, and once she actually thought about it, she realised that it made sense. While she was inside Rumiga plane, she was simultaneously inside a pocket of Chaos.

In here, Intent mattered more than directions. She was absolutely certain that if she went straight, she’d find Orrin and Asami. So she went straight.

The tunnels were empty, and for a wonder, they weren’t subtly curving as most tunnels underneath Rumiga were. They had angular turns, not quite ninety degrees, but close; it was either thirty or sixty degrees. She faced wave after wave of worker ants, which she slaughtered freely. Then she fought warrior ants embedded into groups of ten workers or so. Although why didn’t the warriors didn’t clump up together to fight her was a mystery.

But maybe it had to do with how the workers were even tougher and faster when they were around was the answer. However, her strength was just that much above them to matter.

Five minutes. Ten. Twenty. She fought and killed, but she had the feeling that she was actually getting farther and farther from her friends. It wasn’t as if she were going around in circles considering the tunnels she took alternated left and right. But Orrin and Asami never felt closer the few times she paused and checked.

These rotting tunnels! The sameness of each tunnel grated on her nerves. They weren’t even fully square but bent outwards and inwards at regular intervals. And the ants! They wouldn’t stop coming!

Didn’t the workers she killed matter?

It certainly seemed like it didn’t. Gritting her teeth, Yuriko stopped in the midst of the tunnel and smashed at the walls with her Anima-protected fist.

Boom! Crack!

The wall crumbled in front of her fist and her pique of anger revealed another path. A chamber that wasn’t a hub for tunnels. It was an irregular chamber, with a turn a few dozen paces away. It wasn’t empty, and was filled with worker Femorants, as well as cylindrical bodies…baby ants?

As soon as she stepped inside, the workers’ heads all turned towards her, their antennae stiffened in shock, and with a high-pitched squeal, they charged at her. Half of them scooped up the larvae, which were about a third their size, and scooted out towards the opposite end.

Somewhat dazed, Yuriko fought off the attacking…defending ants. She danced back and frowned, her thoughts warring with each other. So this was a nest. And there were the Femorant babies. Should she kill everything and burn it to the ground?

Even if she didn’t kill the larvae herself, by slaughtering every adult ant, she would consign them to death anyway.

But they took her friends.

They were a scourge upon the land.

They were anathema.

But who said they were? Yuriko asked herself. Who defined the creatures as anathema to the Radiant Sun and Luminous Moon?

All she had were the words on the obsidian tower’s walls.

But how they acted now, pretty much told her what they were. But then, her group had been the one to trespass on their territory.

But then, this had been a city, not an ant’s nest. They were the ones to trespass. But then…

Child! Get a hold of yourself! Damien shouted in her mind.

Yuriko shook her head and growled. The Chaos around her had pressed down on her mind and she noticed the tendrils that were trying to dig into her Anima. Mental influences? Like her Mien or that temple in the Pure Lands?

The larvae were no longer in sight, but it didn’t matter. One had to kill pests all the way to the roots. Otherwise, they’ll come back as strong as ever.

She might change her opinion later, but not now. Not when they had her friends.

Sunshards spun and struck, killing hundreds of workers. She strode into the chamber, following the fleeing workers. She hesitated for a moment, then stayed her hand. She didn’t need to kill them directly, all she needed to do was to destroy whoever controlled this Chaos lake.

The chamber led into another chamber, one already devoid of workers and larvae. Instead, at the opposite end, was a gargantuan creature. It was a Femorant, of course, but one that was nearly twice the size of the warriors. Its carapace was bulky and jagged, filled with spikes that she suspected were covered in some kind of venom or acid.

Behind it was another ant, but one that was slender and sported a serpentine tail. A third ant on the rear left was just as slender as the snake-tail but had a bulbous abdomen, which leaked some kind of white discharge.

And above was one flying on gossamer wings, and its hands and feet were tipped with long stingers.

Their mandibles clacked and their antennae swayed. And the one above her flung its hands, and the stingers shot straight at her, gleaming with condensed Animus.

Yuriko sent sunshards to deflect them, but… with the sword dances inactive, she missed. The stingers bypassed the first set she sent for defence and bypassed a second set before she spread a third and fourth set out. Jade Mountain Style didn’t work well with flying mini-swords, but oddly enough, Sweeping Gale did.

And then, when the remaining stingers struck the edge of Yuriko’s condensed aura, it suddenly occurred to her that saving Animus at this point in time would only waste time, even if fighting without using the sword dances seemed like an excellent challenge.

Not wasting time and saving her friends was very much the priority over getting stronger, so she activated the sword dances and deflected the snake-tail’s attack with Animakinesis, simultaneously running it through with Arclight Sword. She didn’t release an Arclight to go with the attack, since she was still trying to conserve Animus. The arming sword was sharp, but the creature’s carapace was tough enough that the point skidded off rather than penetrating.

Frowning in annoyance, she used the third dance to bash it with Fri’Avgi. The slippery creature ducked behind the hulking one, who braced with its thick forearm carapace and actually stopped Fri’Avgi cold. Well, it skidded a couple of inches back, and the jagged Animus cut into the carapace by a fraction of an inch. At the same time, dust blasted away from its feet, venting the momentum away.

Ptang! Ptang!

Sunshards struck at the creature’s shoulders and neck, but again, the carapace, along with this place’s endowment, prevented them from piercing through. Yuriko danced back as stingers peppered the space she had occupied, while another strike by snake-tail almost caught her arm.

She released Arclight Sword and held it with kinesis. She channelled Animus into the weapon and allowed it to build up a charge, while she took Fri’Avgi in both hands and transitioned to a proper stance. The sunshards were set to defence and distraction, as while they couldn’t penetrate the carapace easily, they could still strike and knock things around.

The hulking brute stepped forward and smashed its forearms at Yuriko, but at differing angles. She dodged out of both trajectories but had to deflect a kick with sunshards. She spun around and slammed Fri’Avgi against its side, her speed more than enough to overcome its defences. The artefact greatsword slammed into its side and knocked it off its feet. The hulking brute skidded away so she launched an attack at snake-tail, whose strike managed to glance against her Anima.

The creature’s tail was an actual serpent, with a head, mouth, and more importantly, envenomed fangs. The bite didn’t penetrate her aura completely, but it did manage to cut through half of it.

The limit of her condensed aura was squeezing a hundred inches worth of Anima into one inch, and it looked like their strength was above her limits. She could condense more, but then, the aura became too bulky and unwieldy.

She supposed she could condense her aura and allow them to move freely within her reach, just like how Heron used his…

“Burning Moon!” she muttered. Why, she could even attach Adamant Guardian Seals on them so she could shift the angles of her defence, couldn’t she? Huh.

Her mind spun with other ideas and probabilities, but it was only a couple of strands of her consciousness. The rest were focused on the battle.

Having knocked the brute away, and endured most of the snake-tail’s venomous bite, she stepped into the second one’s reach, deflected its attempt at fending her off with sunshards, then slammed Fri’Avgi over its head.

She expected a squish, but what she got was a clang instead. Snake-tail reeled back, staggering off its feet, while the stinger thing dived at her, with its weapons extending out of its hands and abdomen.

She threw several quads of sunshard at it and succeeded in knocking it away. As for the brute, it stabilised its stance a moment after getting bashed away and lunged at Yuriko’s back.

She sidestepped out of the way and placed another set of sunshards to strike its ankles as soon as its other pair of feet lifted off the ground. This managed to sweep it off its feet and it landed on its face. But, in a display of unlikely agility, it rolled back onto its feet and swiped at her. She could barely read their facial expressions, but she was sure the brute had been surprised when Yuriko ducked away from the attack, even though she wasn’t looking at it.

Then, she thrust Fri’Avgi at the snake-tail’s attack, and this time, she struck true. With Fri’Avgi coated with Animus from the sword dances, and reinforced with Radiant energy, the edge split the creature’s tail in twain.

Skreaaaaagh!

Snake-tail screamed and collapsed in pain, and Yuriko ignored the other two to finish it off. The brute tried to tackle her to the ground, and the flier tried to move Snake-tail out of the way, but Yuriko had sixty sunshards, sixty extra appendages to work with. She deflected the brute with two dozen, slammed another couple of dozen against the flier, and used the last dozen to pin the wounded creature on the ground.

She heaved Fri’Avgi up and over her shoulder, invested as much Radiant energy as she could, and slammed it down on Snake-tail’s head and torso.

Splat!

Blood and viscera spattered the entire chamber, but of course, her Anima protected her from being soiled.

The brute and the flier seemed stunned at the death, and then, they turned berserk.

The brute lunged again, and this time, there was no holding back. The flier screeched and sent a fusillade of stingers, then dived at Yuriko. The strength of both of their attacks would have pierced through her condensed aura, but it was too straightforward. She spun and danced, letting nothing touch her.

The way they fought now was without finesse or even a single shred of self-preservation. And without that…

Splat! Squish.

They were no more than pests to be exterminated.