Even as Yuriko fought against the big skelly, now humongous skelly, she was painfully aware of the deaths of several of her allies. Most of the casualties were from the Federation explorers simply from the fact that there were nearly five times more of them than her group, but the battlefield was no place for invalids. Faeril had awakened from his unnatural slumber, but the other one had not, and in the initial havoc, no one had been able to stop the skinless humanoids from dealing a fatal blow.

The other wounded scout, Faline Remdall, lost an arm and part of her leg to a vicious strike, and she was in danger of losing her life even if those monsters did nothing more. There was little she could do other than painfully watch through her perception aura. Big skelly’s form had tripled in height, and more than doubled in width. He was certainly dozens of times heavier, and his strikes were more than enough to blow her away if she was foolish enough to take it directly. The only saving grace was that the intelligence behind his eyes had faded away and had been replaced by unthinking rage and fury.

Yuriko deflected an attack using her shards and moved away from a follow-up blow. His attacks formed a clear pattern and cycle now, and she could tell what kind of attack he was going to throw next. Not that it helped since the attacks were fast enough to cover the momentary gaps in his defence.

Instead, she was painfully aware that what she was doing wasn’t nearly enough to keep her people safe. She felt it keenly, in the centre of her Anima, that those she’d brought into this battlefield were losing their lives. She didn’t know how she knew…perhaps through her Mien?

She knew that in the dreamscape, her Mien had spread its threads all over. In the midst of the furious battle, she could no longer focus and enjoy the challenge. Worry and regret…they clouded her focus and made her a bit sloppier than she should be. She danced around the humongous skelly, striking when the chance presented itself. However, his armour had been covered entirely with bony protrusions and every time she damaged it, it took less than a second for it to grow back.

What she needed to do was knock him down and wail on him until he’d been turned to smithereens, but he was quite quick on his feet. In fact, she thought that he was actually fighting better now even with his mind practically gone. Some frenzied instinct, or something?

Why was her focus so scattered? She couldn’t help but observe the others fighting for their lives. In the process of flitting around and trying to find a weak point, she was actually far from the others. Too far for her to watch them with her perception aura. She kept her eyes trained on the skelly…so how did she know they were having trouble? The brief glimpses she got wouldn’t have painted a good picture…

Why did she know that Asami was on the verge of a breakdown and that Orrin was strangely calm? How did she know that Braden was completely focused on keeping Desire safe and that Heron’s emotions juggled between despair, hope, and elation? Ah, now it was completely focused and determined. Gwendith was completely focused on the fight, too…

But…didn’t she leave her other friends back in that other city? Why was she suddenly so sure that they were within this mess? And…

A flash of light burst just a few hundred paces away. And when she looked, she saw a completely new structure, a defence tower, as well as the flashing plasma bolts that struck against skeletal and corpse-like monstrosities? Why did that tower remind her of Aunt Layla as well as her cousins?

She could feel them, she abruptly realised. She had an inkling of what they were experiencing, and more importantly, she just knew that through her Mishala Mien, she could push her Anima to create a resonance.

She tried to send words, but for now, it wouldn’t take. So she sent impressions instead. The tower represented safety of sorts, and she directed her friends towards it. She felt them move, even if she could tell that they did so unconsciously.

She felt the weight of Riley’s gaze on her and felt his desire to help. But she also felt that he didn’t know if what he could do would ultimately help or hinder.

So she felt their Animas resonate. A strange feeling came over her, like she were in two places simultaneously. One was her body, but the other was with Riley. She felt that she couldn’t give him direct instructions, but she could send her own intentions. She also noted that her Animus reserves were depleting at a prodigious rate, and if she kept this up for more than a minute, she’d run empty.

So she gritted her teeth and hoped that her cousin could read her moves, and hoped that he could strike this rotter just at the right place and at the right time…

And just like that, she felt the connection as well as Riley’s intentions. She continuously sent feints mixed in with actual attacks, sending her intended movement to her cousin. And in one of those sets, Riley fired a plasma bolt packed with so much Animus that the ambient Chaos around it was practically torn apart. It struck the huge skelly just as it was about to dodge her blow, and with the gap created by the absent movement, she struck home. Then, she continued to rain blow after blow, relishing in the sound of disintegrating bones and metal, until nothing was left of the creature but fragments and scrap metal.

‘Don’t let up!’ Fri’Avgi yelled as Yuriko was about to step back.

“Huh?” she grunted. The huge skelly was scattered all over the ground…and misty, grey wisps were steaming out of the fragments!

Yuriko’s sunshards and Fri’Avgi’s swept through the cloud, burning everything it touched to ashes, but through her perception aura, she noticed that some of the wisps had sunken into the ground. She sent more shards after them, and she sent an arclight blast towards the largest concentration, and she was reasonably sure that she’d destroyed every last one that came out of the bones.

But then, she had little leisure to make sure that the skelly was thoroughly eradicated. Avos Zarek roared in pain as hundreds of materialised monsters swarmed its sides and dug into its flesh.

Staggering away, Yuriko looked towards the tower and at the beleaguered Avos. The creatures attacking it were busy chipping away at its shell, while those at its neck were vigorously shaken away or struck with stone spears. She couldn’t see where the tentacled beast was, though she could see beams curving around the stalactites and pillars.

Lucian and the remnants of his group were hurrying towards the Imperial tower. She noted Asami and Orrin were within their midst, feeling a bit calmer now that the humongous skelly was gone. She absently shot her sunshards at materialized monsters, one that looked like a human corpse centipede, and another that looked like an amalgamation of hundreds of legs wrapped around a sphere. Not all of the legs were humanoid, and most were tipped with talons and claws.

When she activated Chaos Sight, she felt the blood run cold. The ambient Chaos were swirling in a complex formation, and it was slowly changing from its normal state to that of Decay and Entropy. The energy motes concentrated into points all over the air, and from there, she saw rifts open. But what was beyond was not the Chaos Sea, but a dark shadowy place that sent shivers down her spine.

“The Abyss?” she muttered.

She felt something stir within her. Curiosity. Then anger. The Abyss. Images of what attacked her and her Mum back in the Pure Lands surfaced in her mind. It was a Primordial Incarnation. And what was attacking the Avos now? She looked towards where the beams were coming from and was suddenly illuminated. It was something from the Primordials, too.

Damien, who’d always been in slumber, or at most, a half-awake state in her mind, suddenly, completely woke. And what he felt was…hunger.

Primordials. He hunted them before. Slew one of them. One of his greatest treasures and prizes had come from the heart of the Primordial of Lust. And what he felt now, and consequently, what Yuriko suddenly felt, was indignation. How dare these creatures come before him as though they were predators? They were prey. Something to blood his blade. Something for him to hunt. For sport. For the sheer pleasure of battle.

Primordials were the only thing that God-Monarchs could have a relatively equal fight with. Well, there were other God-Monarchs too, but who was Damien? He was the Supreme…

‘Get off!’ Yuriko’s mind yelled as she struggled against the tide of Damien’s memories and emotions. She was herself! She was not Damien, and she wasn’t a God-Monarch! She was merely an Actualised Ancient in the middle of a tumultuous battle that could determine the fate of this plane.

She shuddered as Damien withdrew back into half wakefulness, but the lingering desires had seeped into her mind, and she couldn’t shake the sudden need to hunt the Primordial Spawn and mount its eyes stalks on a trophy. At her level, those things were just the right challenge.

With half her mind occupied with sorting out her desires, she hurried towards the tower, fighting off the attacking creatures in the process. It took only a few minutes to reach the tower, and surrounding it was a carpet of bodies. Somebody threw down a rope ladder while the defenders on the battlements shot at the monsters. The tide seemed endless. No sooner had one been destroyed than another two replaced them. A corpse chain took several bolts in its middle but grey wisps congregated on both severed ends and created more corpse links. The foot amalgamation sphere was large enough to easily roll over the buildings and it was on a path to ram the tower. A barrage of bolts was barely able to slow it down, but Riley’s focused blast knocked a hole clean through. That wasn’t able to stop it though, so Yuriko blasted an arclight crescent at it and bisected the thing.

“Is there even enough room up there?” she muttered.

But then, the tower suddenly trembled and shot up half a dozen paces, and created another platform above where the current battlements were.

“Go!” She yelled at Lucian and his men. They scrambled up the ladder. Another one was thrown over the battlements and Orrin went up that one, with Asami following closely behind.

Yuriko cleared the space around the ditch and cleared the fallen monsters, too. She could feel Gwendith and the others coming closer and she headed towards their direction. When they came over the small rise, Yuriko’s heart fell at how few of them were left. There was only half of their number on their feet, and they carried another third on their backs. She wasn’t sure if they were alive…

She wordlessly pointed towards the tower and Gwendith nodded solemnly. She saw Heron at the rear, fighting off the corpse-spawn with his spear. He was swinging his spear as though it were a glaive, and the strange thing was that it actually cut the creatures in twain even if the metal never actually touched them. He glanced at her and nodded, but kept pace with the other defenders. Yuriko was left alone on the ground, casually killing any creature that came close.

The city was becoming a sea of monsters, and what they were doing now was ultimately futile unless the Primordial Spawn was stopped.

Avos Zarek roared, then demanded that she kill the monsters and protect them. She shook her head, not in denial but to clear her mind of Damien’s sudden outpouring. The spawn… where was it? And even if she could see it, what could she do?

‘Little Dame, ignite me.’ Fri’Avgi said, ‘let the Radiant sear the filth off this place.’

Yuriko nodded. Right, she could do that. She brought Fri’Avgi in front of her, then rested her forehead on the red gem. Fri’Avgi’s distilled Chaos reserves were deep, perhaps enough to last for a couple of minutes. That was all the time she needed.

Her Anima reached into the artefact, finding the correct pattern and twisted it. Runescript lines flared along the blade, and it split into seven pieces, six short swords that hovered around her. Glowing golden runescript spun into existence, as well as six minor rifts that let in a sea of Chaos, but controlled by the runescript mandalas. Then, she took a deep breath and began to Shape.