The Knight of the Abyss stirred from his seat as he felt the broken shards of Anima return. Many still felt rage and resentment, both toward their previous lives, no matter how long it had been, and to their master who had given them glorious purpose in return for service. The Knight was ever thankful for the chance, even if he didn't exactly remember what he had been angry and resentful for.
And now, with the broken shards returned, he needed to recast their chains. The master could have done it, of course, but the Knight could do so as well. He breathed in. Water rushed through his mouth, and into the emptiness of his armour. The blue steel was the only thing keeping his bones covered, after all. But along with the ocean water, the fragmented shards entered his core. A physical, glowing, crystalline core that served to house part of his Anima, as well as take the place of a heart. It pulsed and pushed Animus around his frame, empowering pseudo muscles, tendons, and bones.
The shards, once inside his core, released their memories. Many were of the revenants battling the city dwellers. Those foolishly weak creatures cowered behind walls, and didn't even have the grace to reach for true power.
The patterns of his mind moved in grooves. His previous life, most of which was a mystery, seemed to have ingrained certain thoughts and habits into his current existence. But he was cognizant enough of his inborn arrogance. As long as it was tempered, it should still serve him well.
Death and destruction.
Though mostly it was of the weak revenants. The creatures were born from the master's plucking of angry spirits and stuffing them into Chaos constructs. They weren't even anchored using actual bits of their corpses, unlike him. That made the power that kept them active and alive mostly consumed in creating a vessel to inhabit. Given time, the vessel would strengthen and the revenants would grow.
But, there was a far easier way to empower his forces. Battle. Even those defeated brought a fraction of improvement back with them. He breathed out and bubbles of Animus encased the broken shards. They seeded the bedrock and blossomed into new bodies. Well, it would take days before the new set of reborn revenants would be ready, but he had time. He had all the time in this World.
Hmm? What was this? Memories of a golden light burning through the revenant shells?
It pulled at him with its familiarity. What was that light?
Where was the master, anyway? The Knight looked above him. The ocean's surface was several dozen paces above, but the tentacled form of Master Qatir was absent. Was the master hunting for more shards to turn?
No matter. Familiar or not, now wasn't the time to breach the surface. He had sent the revenants roaming. Up above the surface and down below, in the depths. Already, some revenants returned and showed him tunnels that led deep into the earth. Flooded tunnels, yes, but none of them needed to breathe.
What was his purpose? He didn't know, but he found himself contemplating that. In the meantime, the Knight of the Abyss breathed in the ambient Chaos, processed it into Animus, and used the dross to empower his vessel. While he had been created a servant, somewhere deep within him, in his secret heart of hearts, he wondered if he could be more.
_________
The journey back towards the oasis would have taken a couple of days, but only if they took breaks. Yuriko figured that if they kept at it for the rest of the night and most of the day, they'd arrive there by afternoon or early evening. That wasn't to say that she would be fine doing that. By herself, she could probably reach the oasis by morning, but leaving everyone behind wasn't the point.
And, she could see that her childhood friends and colleagues, the twins, Asami, and Gwendith, were already reaching the limits of their endurance. She glanced back towards Uaran and the multitudes of creepy creatures that were about to beset it.
Was it guilt that she felt?
She could have helped them fend off those things. It was too easy for her. A single strike by a sunshard infused with Radiant energy could kill those things. It was as if their protections melted away like snow on a campfire pot whenever her Radiant light touched them. But there was no mistaking their resilience.
Heron had trouble fighting them. His condensed aura had been spread all over his weapon, but that wasn't the point. She had tested him before, on their journey. Ten inches of condensed Anima was equivalent to a hundred lumens worth or Empowering Strike, and even so, he had trouble fighting them.
He didn't have an Ennoia, Yuriko knew, and she wasn't sure if he was even close to touching one. For that matter, the only people she knew to have touched one were Gwendith and Saki. Those who touched upon an Ennoia were strong beyond what their Anima level indicated, she knew, but she didn't realise that the gap was so wide.
A glance back in Uaran's direction showed nothing. No blasts of elemental light, no sparks from metal colliding, and no shouts of pain, fear, or anger. In fact, it was as if the battle they fought had been naught but a fleeting dream. Still, she knew that those things wouldn't stop once they started. They gave her the feeling of inevitability.
They crossed a couple of leagues before Yuriko called for a quick break. Rolland and Kassy were still as fresh as ever, almost as if they'd just woken up and had a refreshing bath rather than just a fight and a run. When they first reconvened after the fight, she had noticed through her perception, that both beastkin had wounds on their hands and arms, scratches from slamming through metal armour, she assumed, or blocking swords with their arms. When they shifted back to their humanoid forms, however, the wounds had closed, and the blood fell away.
"We'll keep watch and patrol," Kassy said while staring boldly into Yuriko's eyes.
"Thank you."
With a nod, the two beastkin sped away from the campsite and left her in deep thought. She didn't know why the beastkin family stayed with her. By their own words, they were nomads roaming the planes amid the Chaos Sea, and Sheamus thought that they were adventurers too. After rescuing their sister, they should have already left.
Not that Yuriko wasn't grateful to them. They provided quite a bit more muscle to the group. After all, having eight Knight-level fighters was much better than five. They could be considered a Century now, though a regular one would only have the Centurion as the Knight, and maybe the second and third in command.
Maybe. Alright, so their strength was higher than a Century. The thing was, an Imperial troop would never field unawakened, so she supposed it cancelled out.
Nobody built a fire. They just had a small snack then tucked into their bedrolls. Yuriko was too keyed up to sleep, and she had taken a nap earlier in the day. She noticed Heron and Gwendith chatting quietly by the side, and, not wanting to eavesdrop, she approached them. Both gave her a tired smile.
"What're you talking about?"
Gwendith grinned. "Aside from how good you look when you fight?"
Yuriko rolled her eyes at Gwendith's teasing tone but noticed that Heron blushed furiously. "Oh?"
Gwendith giggled and said, "It's the differences between the three of us. Our Animas, anyway. Do you know why? I think it's based on our personalities, but Heron insists he's not a brute."
"I'm not," he grunted. "All of my Facets involve manipulating air and turning them into shields, and now…"
Both of them looked at her, and she could only shrug uncomfortably and admitted, "I don't know. You know, I couldn't do either when my Anima first expanded. It took training and time to manage it. So…perhaps with training, you both can do that too?"
The two of them exchanged glances, the Heron blurted out, "Do you spend most of your time training?"
"Uhm, yeah. I think so," Yuriko muttered.
She had, didn't she? Even now she had her aura condensed to restrict her movements. It weighed down on her body making even the act of breathing laborious. Still, it rewarded her each day with a thousandth percent of progress.
How long before she completed the refinement? she wondered. While reaching an acceptable level would happen by her seventeenth birthday, she was loath to leave it at that. Oh well, it wasn't as if she was lacking in power now, and she thought that forcing things would only make it worse for her later.
"Huh," Heron mumbled while Gwendith rolled her eyes. "How did you train to expand, condense, and use Animakinesis?"
Yuriko shrugged. "I wanted to condense it, so I did. I want to move things with my Anima, so I did. At first, I couldn't, but then, I pushed and pushed until it happened."
"So…just keep trying?" Gwendith asked drily.
"Ehehehe."
"Probably need to exert our Wills," Heron muttered.
The two of them meditated while Yuriko did the same. She had too many things to train. Radiant Body Refinement. Anima reach. The sword dances and the Four Phases. The Radiant Lance and Sorcery. And just as important, Animus manipulation. The last one was the foundation of many things, actually, so she should focus a bit more on that, right? The fact that she hadn't only occurred to her now.
She…didn't have enough time each day. She felt it keenly. The passage of hours and days, while her progress with getting stronger slowed to a crawl. Her reach hadn't increased much last Season too, and she still had a pace and a half to go before the threshold. And then, Damien said that ten paces was just the minimum. Perfection was actually at a hundred paces, and there was no way she would go less than that.
What were the effects if she didn't advance when she reached fullness, anyway? Damien never said, but…he didn't need to. Deep within her, she abhorred leaving imperfections. It…was an obsession? Huh. But it was still better to do the best she could anyway.
Her time every day was still limited though. Evenings were when she meditated on the Radiant Lance and practised Animus manipulation. She sank into the dreamscape and pulled up the Sorcerous Implement.
The Radiant Lance was taller than she was, at around a couple of paces. Currently, it was shaped more like a javelin rather than a spear, much less an actual jousting lance. Er, calling it Radiant Lance just sounded better than Radiant Spear or Radiant Javelin, ehehe.
She moved it to float horizontally above her lap and stared at the runescript patterns etched all over the haft and the spearhead. It was ironic since the implement was something she created, and yet she had no idea what most of the runescript words meant. She vaguely recalled how she created it, and she was sure that it was more by instinct or Damien's intervention than anything else. The man denied helping her though, so she wasn't sure. She could see hints of the Threads of Fate, long since severed, lingering on the implement, so maybe that's where it came from?
Either way, the lance was a great way to further her runescript studies. According to Essential Runescript for the Neophyte Scribe, runescript words were a reflection of reality. They weren't created by people but were discovered in nature and in Chaos instead.
Most of what she could understand from the runescript lines dealt with limits. There was an input runescript word, too, and all of the ambient Chaos and Animus it would syphon was channelled into a complex set of lines that she had yet to decipher. It took up nearly half of the lines on the implement, as well as within. It was strangely beautiful, with cursive lines, sharp domineering angles, and loopy parts.
Every time she looked at it, she felt warm and at peace, as if everything was right in the world and all her cares melted away. Even now, as she traced the lines with her eyes and fingers, she felt herself relax. She'd probably fall asleep in a few minutes if she kept it up, which was why, just before that threshold, she stopped and called Fri'Avgi to hand.
The artefact had several runescript lines embedded within itself, too, and she liked studying her right after the lance.
After a couple of hours, she pulled herself back to her body and began a few Animus exercises, focusing mostly on a complex set that forced her to divide her attention nearly fifty ways and to perform accurate and precise movements that could be akin to weaving a spider's web, expect a few dozen times at once.
Afterwards, she slept for a few hours, and at dawn, it was again time for physical training.
Er, she deferred that to the travelling they needed to do instead. That evening they were reunited with the rest of the company.