“What?” Yuriko blurted despite herself. She clapped a hand over her lips as soon afterwards but the Chaos Lord’s lopsided grin only grew wider.

“Come now, I’m sure your ears work properly. I said, I have something of yours.”

“And what would that be?” Yuriko asked sourly as she shifted her feet to the right, attempting to squeeze her way out of the tomb. Her light covered the entire space, but the void around the Chaos Duke was slowly growing. She could feel Threads slowly worming their way towards her Anima, and she used Radiant energy to burn it. The heat vented into the cave, and it was slowly growing hotter. Some parts of the wall were actually starting to glow.

“Let us take things a bit slower. You want to fight, and I honestly couldn’t care less about this incarnation. Kill this one, or run away matters little. So why not indulge in a little chat?” The duke’s half-melted face had recovered to the point where flesh covered his exposed teeth and jaw. Oddly enough, even though his tongue was half melted, his words were as clear and crisp as before.

“What do you want?”

“I know that you know my goals. After all, didn’t you take several of my things?”

“Devotee isn’t a thing!” Yuriko blurted out.

“Ah, yes. The Wielder of…” He stopped with a frown. “Pardon, that was no longer its name. What did you name it?”

“Devotee…” Yuriko’s teeth clicked as she snapped her mouth shut. She just glared at the duke long enough for the man to guffaw.

“No matter. Even though you claim it…” he smirked, “I was its original owner. But that wasn’t what I was going to point out, and hmmm, I guess not telling you exactly what I mean will make things more amusing.”

“You!” Yuriko yelled as she flung more sunshards at the man. Behind her, she was already spinning the Trinity into a couple of sunshards, but she wasn’t sure how effective they would be. The problem was that she couldn’t hit him reliably, not that she couldn’t hurt him. Actually, the burst of Radiant energy was how he got melted anyway.

Instinctively, she tweaked the circular pattern of the Trinity. She merged the two sunshards and changed the second line. She connected the Channel pattern into a set of runescript patterns to convert Animus, or rather, ambient Chaos to Radiant energy. Then, to another Channel runescript pattern to store the energy, then to explode the entire thing once it overflowed.

The sunshards she sent were easily avoided and the Chaos Duke simply bobbed and weaved while speaking.

“You know, you could simply leave. I will claim this Rumiga plane, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Your betters all tried, but they failed. And I am in control.” He arched an eyebrow, “You can leave and live. The Empire is big. There are enough planes to fit every Imperial citizen living in Rumiga.” He smiled, “Why don’t you take my offer to your leaders? I will tell my minions to hold back, and you can arrange for your people to escape.”

She glared right back at him. Her first instinct was to refuse. Rumiga was her home, and there were millions of Imperials living on the plane. There weren’t enough Chaos ships to fit everyone, and whoever was left, was fated to die.

“We can’t leave so easily. There aren’t enough ships.”

“You have an armada just outside the plane,” he said curtly. “You can fit a good amount of people there. Yes, some will be left behind, but so what? Are you telling me that every last one of those peasants is related to you? Do you even know any of them? Your family will be safe if you just choose to leave.”

Unbidden thoughts. Yuriko couldn’t help but imagine it. She and her family, as well as her friends and their families, could simply leave. No one to stop them, and they would be safe from the war. Rumiga was nothing but a frontier town, with barely a fifth of its surface area occupied by the Empire. Probably less than a fifth, considering that they were located in the middle of the hourglass-shaped plane. The Haveenians and barbarians could have the rest of this place, and let them fight over it instead. Let the Watcher rule over it while she and the others head towards greener pastures…

The Watcher…

Yuriko gasped as she felt his subtle influence. If not for how her Mien coiled within her Anima, she would not have noticed it! She stepped back and waved away the illusion playing in her mind. She glared at the duke, not even daring to name him in her head. She pulled every scrap of Radiant energy she had command of and flooded her body and Anima.

A burning sensation, a whiff of smoke drifting from her hair…

“Stubborn…but think about what I said. I have something of yours, and if you chose to fight… Well, maybe that something would be…lost.” He raised a hand, as though to shake a deal, “I don’t want to waste time, and fighting you and yours is nothing but that. I will possess Rumiga, that is inevitable. The only question is, would you live to see it, or would you and yours die in its futile defence.”

Yuriko felt sweat beading down her back. The enhanced Trinity sunshard behind her was almost complete, but she couldn’t help but wonder. Why was the Chaos Duke intent on getting her and the others to escape instead of fight? Three Knights Domini can match a Chaos Duke, and as long as they fought within the boundaries of a plane, then they had a chance. It wasn’t futile, and the ending was far from certain. His honeyed words will not sway her!

“I refuse!” She yelled as she flung the Trinity shard at the Chaos Duke. His eyes widened in surprise, but even so, he was already moving out of the way. But then, the shard had not been meant to hit him. Instead, as soon as it came within a pace of the Chaos Lord, it triggered an explosion. Radiant energy converted from motes of dust, ambient Chaos, and air, then compressed to almost liquid form, burst out of containment, and covered the entirety of the chamber.

Yuriko had jumped away as soon as she attacked and condensed her entire Anima to protect her. Yet the explosion threw her against the wall, and her head bounced painfully on the stone. The last thing she saw of the Chaos Duke was a sardonic grin and cheeky way, even as the Radiant energy consumed his form.

Consumed it and converted the extra dense Chaos into more Radiant energy.

Krakabooom!

The air and stones shattered. The ceiling broke, and hundreds of MiJin of stone and earth fell down into the chamber and buried her alive.

__________

When Yuriko came to, she groaned and pushed with her hands. Her condensed Anima pressed against the rocks, preventing them from crushing her, and from how her aura felt, she had only lost consciousness for a few seconds. A minute at most.

Her Anima perception told her the entire story, however. She was completely buried. She pushed her perception as far as it would go, through the dirt and pebbles. She could feel a large boulder hanging just above her, held in place by her Anima and several other rocks. It was pressing down on her, however, and she could already feel parts of her Anima fracture.

She pushed out as hard as she could and won herself a couple of inches of space as the dirt compressed away from her. The shift also unbalanced the rock, and it put more weight down on her. She forced her perception to cover the thing’s surface and realised it was three times larger than she was. It was a jagged piece, pretty round, but tilted towards her side. She applied pressure to push it away, but the weight above it wouldn’t allow it to shift. How much air did she have? She could hold her breath for quite a while, but no more than half an hour, at most. She could Shape a breathable atmosphere, but not while worrying about getting crushed. Her frantic scouting showed a bit of a hollow a few paces away and coincidentally moved her past where the rock would eventually crash down.

Loose rocks, pebbles, and mud blocked her path, so she shifted her Anima’s outer shape into a spinning drill. She spun it towards the hollow and managed to push earth and stone out of the way with a bit of effort. The strength of her Anima was more than enough to force her way through, and she half wondered if she could actually carry the weight of the cliff. A quick check told her she couldn’t. Yet. Maybe once her Anima reach was at a hundred paces.

Trying to recall where the tunnel entrance was, she realised she didn’t have a frame of reference. Other than up, anyway, which was easy enough to figure out. The tomb was under a cliff that was roughly fifty paces high and was probably the safer direction to go rather than sideways. She decided to go at an angle. Either she’d wind up on the cliff face or at the top.

With her Anima drill spinning, she pushed herself with Animakinesis, making about a couple of paces every minute or so. She detoured around a few large boulders, and half an hour later, she encountered tree roots and water. She pushed her way around the roots and popped out of the ground under a shrub. Soon enough, she was on the surface, and her tunnel had been facing away from the cliff. She hurried towards it while the dust and mud fell away from her condensed aura, leaving her mostly pristine. Well, she had sweat a lot during the battle, and what the Chaos Lord said wore away at her mind, but she pushed it aside for now. She’d tell her Mum about it when they returned to the Watchtower.

She had been avoiding thinking about those monstrosities that the Chaos Duke had sent outside. And she dearly hoped all of her friends survived. Shillogu had quickly run outside, and hopefully, he would have been able to protect the others. When she arrived at the edge, she quickly pinpointed where the tomb entrance was, and where the others were. She immediately saw Shillogu on his belly. Still breathing, though he had several wounds. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw a couple of people lying down next to him, but she sighed in relief when she saw they were breathing. The others were trying to dig into the cliffside, and from the looks of the dirt pile, they’ve been making serious progress.

“Hey!” She yelled at them while waving furiously. Shillogu looked up at her and snorted, while the injured team members waved back. She leapt off the cliff and used her Animakinesis to bring her towards the team. Someone yelled to the diggers, and they piled out of the makeshift tunnel.

Yuriko winced when she saw Mikel with his arm in a makeshift sling, while Zeyn and Danika wore bandages across their torsos and limbs. One of the heavily injured was Rorke Dinia, while the other was the militiaman named Maurice. Both of them had broken legs.

“You’re alright.” Krystal sighed. “What happened? Those monsters just came out and attacked.” She pointed at a pile of steaming sludge.

“Chaos Duke,” Yuriko said with a scowl. “A minor incarnation, barely at the Chaos baron level. But he outfought me.” She hung her head in shame. The duke was far more skilled than she was, and she dreaded how she’d fare if she actually faced his true incarnation alone. Thankfully, she had no plans to. “We need to return to the Watchtower.”

“Yes, but…” Krystal gestured towards the wounded.

“I can carry them. I can carry all of us, actually,” Yuriko said. “So let’s hurry.”

“Alright,” Krystal agreed.

In short order, she had everyone wrapped up in her Anima and they went off flying towards the Watchtower. Well, everyone but Shillogu, who returned to his lake after thanking her for her help.