Douglas Hart couldn’t help but gape when Yuriko and her incredibly hot mum flew into the giant automaton. Well, he wasn’t sure if it still qualified as an automaton when clearly, it had a spirit. Was it alive? Nothing in Karcellia even came close to the technology of this wondrous place.

He winced when he remembered the fortification room and the commensurate pain and suffering he had to go through the past couple of weeks, not to mention Darren turned out to be a Darla. That had been a surprise! No wonder he’d…she’d been so standoffish in class!

He had to temper his thoughts, especially about the fairer sex. He only had to look at his teacher to know that women were capable of so much strength. It was hard to overcome a lifetime of such things, however, even if it had only been eighteen years.

No, the past couple of weeks had proven Darla’s mettle and really made him question his own. Now that they were the outsiders of the group, he’d suddenly gotten closer to both his classmate and the older magus, Edison Matthews. The old man didn’t even intend to go with them, as he had been trapped in the portal chamber when the tunnels collapsed. Still, the other two bore the hallmarks of their training well. The marines had begun giving them extensive lessons, both in language and in Animus techniques, once Miss Davar had gotten preoccupied with her quest.

Her peers, those beautiful people who were both younger and stronger than he was, also helped them along. Her inner circle, which contained that mountain of a man, Heron Muryh, Gwendith who he was infatuated with, and the sly Foster twins, pushed the three of them hard.

“If you want to remain with this group, you have to keep up. Otherwise, when Yuriko inevitably brings us somewhere dangerous, you’ll die,” Heron said bluntly.

That was the thing though. He wasn’t sure he wanted to keep following behind Yuriko. He was finally away from Karcellia, and in a world full of arcane mysteries. And while he loved to explore, to learn, he wasn’t sure if it was worth training heavily every day just to keep up. Well, he couldn’t stay here, of course, as according to the elders, this was a forsaken ruin and nowhere near civilisation. Another complication was that the place they were returning to, Rumiga, was also embroiled in a war.

He entertained the thought of simply asking to be dropped off at the nearest peaceful place, but then, he’d be a stranger in a strange land, devoid of friends, connections, and power. So, there was little choice but to keep up for now. Notwithstanding his infatuation, it was rather clear that Gwendith fancied Yuriko, and if that forbidden romance had him shivering to his toes, it also gave him a voyeuristic thrill.

The fortification room had been the turning point. According to Mrs Cypher, the room etched Strengthen Physique directly into the Anima, bypassing the need to inlay it…whatever that meant. Oh, it was a specific Imperial…that is, Eternal Empire Animus technique that none of the three Karcellians were privy to.

Douglas had ended up bedridden for the rest of the day, and it took the next couple of weeks to regain control of his body. Otherwise, he was more likely to hurt himself than anything else. He was stronger, faster, and tougher than he’d ever been, but the sudden jump in strength had been jarring. It was hard to enjoy life when even touching his bowl of food was more likely to break the bowl than getting actual food in his mouth.

When that was done, the resulting power allowed him to utilise more Animus techniques. He realised that Yuriko was completely correct in deriding Irvallan techniques. Or rather, those techniques were only suitable in Irvalla where the ambient Chaos levels were so low. Here, his spell cards barely functioned since the ambient Chaos burnt out his runescript etchings before activating the effect. The spell cards had their advantages, namely in the fact that he only needed to feed it power and direct its output. He could probably make spell cards for every occasion, but he had to reformulate his ink first. As it were, he only knew how to do Empowered Strike with his fists.

When the Colossus moved, he jumped in surprise. It moved as smoothly as a human of his size would. The Colossus stretched its arms out to the side, twisted its torso nearly a hundred and eighty degrees, bent backwards until the top of its golden helm touched its heel, then twisted around until it wound up bent forward and touching its toes. It got upright then extended its arms forwards, then moved its fingers, bending forward and backwards until the fingertips touched the forearm. There were no creaks, twitches, or any sounds. The colossus operated as silent as a grave, sending chills down Douglas’ spine.

And then, a golden aura spread out from it, extending until it covered the entirety of the hangar and was significantly wider than Yuriko’s aura.

It was then that Douglas felt something touch his Anima and his infatuation was suddenly wrenched from Gwendith to this divine being. He wasn’t sure if he was hankering for Miss Davar or her Mum, though in truth, he was attracted to both. Even the fact that he knew that they were out of his league didn’t stop his feelings. He sank down on his knees and worshipped the Colossus, and he knew that he would do anything, even die for it, should it wish him to…

All at once, the feeling retracted and he was left with emptiness inside. He regained his senses and found that everyone, except for Mister Davar and Yuriko’s comrades, was on their knees.

Her father was frowning sternly, and Douglas’s jaw dropped when he saw the Colossus tilt its head and giggle like a naughty child. Oh, One Above…which now turned out to be this divine figure…

Shaking his consternation away, he watched as the Colossus sat back down the throne, leaned forward until its back was parallel to the floor, and opened its back hatch. The two women emerged out of it, looking not a little bit out of sorts. Their flight suits cum armour hugged their bodies so much that it left little to the imagination, but neither of them seemed uncomfortable with it. He definitely wasn’t and didn’t know whether to look away in embarrassment or stare. Either way, the suits vanished with a flash of light, leaving them in their normal clothes, which inexplicably covered more of their figures than the armour.

Yuriko floated down, followed by her smaller mother. Virgil Davar walked up to them, and the family spoke amongst themselves quietly but was soon joined by the group’s leadership. The others returned to their tasks, which were really to take and store away the varied relics within the hall. Most of them were assorted tools, but there were information storage devices that looked like purple metal sheets.

After a few minutes, Mister Davar said in a loud voice, “We will leave Siderious tomorrow and rendezvous with the Silver Tiger. There are thousands of Wyldlings outside so prepare yourselves.”

Wyldlings?

“Creatures born directly from the Chaos Sea. Mindless beasts at the lowest level, but they grow cunning with age and growth stage,” Braden answered when he asked him. “We killed our first swarmlings and Wanderers when we were thirteen. All you need is a weapon and Empowered Strike.” He paused, then continued, “Attacks without the support of Animus will not work on them, just like the daemons.”

“Oh.”

Now Douglas was really nervous, but the young blond man chuckled and said, “I doubt any of those will even get within a dozen paces of you. Your landcraft will probably be at the back or the middle, so don’t worry about it.”

“Alright.”

For the rest of the day, Douglas fiddled with the cars in the vehicular garage. It was quite the distance from the Colossus hangar or even the residential block. It was actually across the Orchard, too.

Thankfully, the Command Seal Yuriko retrieved opened up several passages so they didn’t actually have to use the lifts to move around. Instead, a corridor had been opened that led directly to the vehicular garage. It was only when he arrived there that he nearly screamed in fright. The garage wasn’t empty, instead, hundreds of automatons, with wicked built-in weapons, were in block formations across the empty floor. The armoured combat vehicles had been moved to the sides too.

At the front of each square, which he estimated to be around fifty strong, were metal men who looked to be the commanders. The things turned to face Douglas and the others as soon as they arrived, and just when he expected them to turn hostile, one of the bigger metal men raised a gauntlet and clenched it into a fist. The six-limbed soldiers returned to attention and practically ignored the humans.

At least until Yuriko arrived. At that point, the lead metal man approached her and knelt down on one knee, quickly followed by the other automatons. Yuriko didn’t seem surprised. Instead, her golden aura stretched out and connected to the metal men, then to each of the smaller automatons. But with how many there were, she couldn’t reach all of them, and her expression became drawn out, until she sighed, shook her head, and retracted her aura. She spoke with the lead metal man using Dawn tongue. From what he could gather, she was ascertaining if they were to be under her command. The metal man answered in the affirmative, and she gave them the command to get ready to leave.

At that point, the automatons marched into one of the bigger transports, with each square formation fitting in one. The soldier automatons folded themselves in to fit everyone like stacks of crates.

Twenty such transports were filled, and as soon as they were, the trucks moved out of the garage and into the large hallways that presumably led outside of the fortress.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of getting ready, dinner in the mess halls, and finally, a fitful night spent tossing and turning in his bed.

The next morning, after a cold breakfast, Douglas and the other Karcellians joined Sheamus Dorn in one of the armoured cars. It was a boxy design, with controls reminiscent of the ones back in Karcellia. Which begged the question of why his nation’s automobiles looked like the ones here. According to the others, this place had been abandoned for millennia, yet their technology was even more advanced than Irvalla’s. But then, the things ran on Chaos shards, ambient Chaos, or powered by the Animus of the driver, nothing quite like the internal combustion engines back home.

Soon enough, they left the fortress. Apparently, Siderious was the name of the plane, not just the facility. From the few maps he’d seen, the structures actually encompassed most of the underground, too. He just wasn’t ready to think that this place was a chunk of land floating on something called the Chaos Sea…

They soon came out of the Wall. When he looked back, he couldn’t believe that it wasn’t a mountain, given how tall it was. He was so awed by it that he didn’t even notice when the forward cars of the convoy ran over the Wyldlings. From the window, looking out on the frozen landscape, he could barely make out the creatures.

Grotesqueries. He couldn’t help but shudder at their unnatural shapes. Then, the shooting began. Some people popped out of their car roofs and shot at the things with their Plasma Casters.

Whoosh!

The humongous Colossus flew overhead, and with its golden aura, it burned the Wyldlings just by bathing them in its light. The aura spread out and covered the entire convoy from front to back, spanning more than a longstride.

It was both awe-inspiring and frightening.

The passage was easy and Braden was right. No Wyldling even came close. And then…they came to the planar Veil. Douglas’ mind blanked as Yuriko’s Colossus picked up every last vehicle with her aura, parted the Veil, and entered into the Chaos Sea.

Everywhere…madness. Everything shifting, everything changing. What was up? What was down? Was there air? There wasn’t. But how was he breathing? He was hyperventilating, and he wasn’t the only one. Edison Matthews looked catatonic, and Douglas envied that fact. Why couldn’t he faint? Darla, though…she was looking out into the Chaos with sparkling eyes and a manic grin.

It was only when he saw the Chaos ship in the distance that he released his tense breath. But then, how were they all going to fit in it? He didn’t think he wanted to see any more reality-defying sights…so…

He pulled out a spell card with a sleep charm and used it on himself. He didn’t even feel it when his head hit the dashboard.