Chapter 155: Book 3-07.3: Desperate

Yuriko hurried down the bloodstained tunnel, keeping her paying as much attention to what she could hear. Every now and then, one of the ceiling light panels worked, though that meant islands of light in a river of darkness and shadow.

“How much blood did this guy lose?” she wondered.

She must have run a longstride already. There weren’t any doors on this level, just endless sinuous tunnels that went left, right, up, and down. It wasn’t until she looked behind her that she realised this--the curves had been that gentle.

She paused feeling somewhat winded. She’d run farther than this without trouble so why now? The pressure of the dense ambient Chaos was there but she could hardlly feel it. She didn’t bother projecting her Field as that would be a waste of Animus.

She’d kept the second dance running slowly along its path and that had an attrition of its own. Her nerves felt raw and she nearly jumped at every stray breeze. For all she knew, another Hunter was stalking her right now.

It hadn’t been readily apparent but she was under thousands of MiJins of rock and earth. The tunnels were finished stone after all. If anything happened, an earthquake, a powerful attack, the tunnel could collapse and trap her here until she died of thirst and starvation. She briefly regretted leaving her backpack behind.

For that matter…was she lost? She hadn’t seen any intersections, side passages, or chambers for several minutes now.

She shook her head and firmed her resolve. What did she need to accomplish here? She needed to protect innocent civilians from rampaging Wyldlings. She needed to help her fellow cadets to fight.

With a calming breath, she continued at a slightly slower pace. It wouldn’t do to encounter an enemy while she was tired from running.

Just beyond the next island of light, she suddenly found herself at the entrance of a larger cavern. This one was clearly a natural one, albeit reinforced by man-made structures. It was relatively large with stalactites and stalagmites that met and formed pillars. There was even the smell of moisture and the faint susurration of flowing water.

The blood trail had petered down to small droplets every few paces or so. Evidently, the wounded person had received some first aid. Yuriko ventured into the cavern, wondering where she was. A visual inspection yielded mixed results, with the far wall shrouded in shadow. Actually, the only remaining light came from her glowing Animus.

She followed the wall to her right, figuring that by staying near the wall, she would eventually find a connecting tunnel. There was a voice in the back of her mind, her voice this time and not Damien’s, that said she should turn back and seek another path from the crossroads.

The glow coming from her skin slowly revealed the wonders of the cavern as bits of quartz or perhaps some other sparkly mineral, glimmered from beneath the limestone. There was a shallow, slow-moving stream in a channel cutting through the chamber. She thought she could see something flitting about in the shallow water.

She saw a blood drop near the wall and she hurried in that direction. Soon enough she found another, and another, leading into a roughly-shaped tunnel. This one didn’t have light panels.

Why would they go all the way here?

Frowning, she hurried down the tunnel. Though the walls were rough-hewn, she was sure it was still man-made from the reinforcing wooden beams and the somewhat rusted metal tracks on the floor.

After a few more minutes, the blood drop trail stopped. Still, there was only one path to follow, so she kept at it.

A few minutes later, she heard a thud, a scraping sound, and some footsteps. A single set of footsteps, Yuriko noted. She hurried on, doing her best o avoid kicking or scuffing her shoes on the loose rocks and pebbles.

Then, it came into view.

The source of the blood was clear. It was a corpse, what was left of one anyway. Now, there was only a leg, with the rest of it stuffed in the creature’s mouth. For a moment, Yuriko thought it was a Wanderer, an Antid type.

It was large, more than a couple of paces tall and if it weren’t hunching its shoulders, maybe it was closer to three paces. Her footsteps had alerted it and it slowly turned around. It had beady black eyes on stalks sticking out of its head. Its mouth had two sets of mandibles with the inner one picking at the flesh of its meal. The leg was still half-clad in the black slacks of the uniform, with the combat boot still on the foot.

The creature had only one set of arms, at least, though they were tipped with huge paws and broad nails.

“Ancestors!” Yuriko gasped.

The creature dropped the leg when it turned to face her, mouth salivating. It raised an arm menacingly and lunged.

Yuriko waited almost at the last moment, right when the claws were an inch from touching her skin. Then she ducked under its extended arm, sidestepped past it and stabbed at its armpit, sinking the blade almost all the way to the hilt. It went in as easily as a hot knife went through butter.

The creature gasped and staggered while she pulled her weapon out, kicked it on the back of its knee, and when it dropped down, she cut the back of its neck, cutting easily through its spine. She moved past before the head fell off and the blood spray could stain her clothes.

“Ancestors welcome your Anima home,” she murmured at the leg. She had no way of knowing whose it was.

She stared at the corpse for a few seconds, waiting to see if it would give off distilled Chaos but nothing happened. It must have been a native beast. Well, she’d have to report this once this was all over.

She flicked the blood off her blade and made her way back. It took nearly half an hour since she didn’t want to get lost in the natural cavern. The blood drop trail was still there, so at least she could follow it back. Once she was back in the tunnels, she ran,

She’d used up maybe half of her reserves from the training and the short but furious battles. Well, that meant she could still fight for hours still. The Chaos winds were starting to take a toll on her though, mentally, if not physically.

It had this odd call to it, as though it was telling her to follow. Follow it back to the Chaos Sea and find her true purpose. Sullen whispers in her mind, beckoning.

She channelled her Animus into her Facet, instinctively lighting up the Radiant Sun pattern without calling the Golden Silhouette or bringing her into the dreamscape. The golden glow of her Animus intensified and the oppressive weight she didn’t even realise had been pressing down on her, disappeared. It wasn’t the pressure of the ambient Chaos, she knew, but something else.

Graaahh!

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Argh!

Ptang!

Sounds of battle, mundane compared to the whispering darkness and Yuriko followed it with a sense of relief. She was back at the multi-entrance chamber, where she had parted ways with Ishika.

The sounds of battle came from further away, down another of the tunnels. She hurried down the one she judged to be the correct one and was rewarded when the noise intensified.

A minute later, she arrived at a pitched battle between cadets, most slightly older than she was, and a small horde of swarmlings. It was still along the tunnel, with the Wyldlings between Yuriko and the others. A quick use of Enhanced Sense allowed her to identify the students and she recognised those who had been in the reserve officer training program, though she didn’t know the names to match faces.

Almost as soon as she came into view, the cadets saw her. She could see eyes widening with fear and concern and they doubled their efforts to hold the line. They had their shields out with their spears behind and a few Plasma Lancet bolts peppering the crowd. They were outnumbered ten to one.

“Run!” one of the cadets screamed at her. Yuriko ignored him, readying herself to fight.

The tunnel was about five paces wide, the swarmlings piled on the cadets nearly shoulder to shoulder with the rest of them squeezing forward. The cadets were slowly retreating to prevent themselves from being overrun but if more swarmlings came at them from behind…

One of the cadets was a Destroyer, sending a fan of superheated plasma with a short-barreled Plasma Caster but Yuriko could see the glow of her Field fading as she ran out of Animus.

Some of the swarmlings must have noticed her, as a bunch of them looked back and charged.

Yuriko only had a single blade and if this were before the events of Shillogu Woods, she would have run already. Instead, a powerful confidence buoyed her heart. These were only swarmlings, the lowest of the low. She would take the distilled Chaos inside their cores and use it to reforge her body and Anima anew.

There is no need to defend if they cannot attack. They cannot attack if they’re dead.

Damien’s voice washed over her, and all at once, the endless hours of watching the Golden Silhouette demonstrate the braided sword dance Intents galvanized in her mind. She had been treating each Intent as a separate strand to be forced together.

Instead, it was all one single Intent. Each dance was a different facet of that one thing. What was the purpose of fighting? What was the purpose of the dance? Wasn’t it to kill? Protecting herself was but one aspect of destroying her foe. All that mattered, was that those who bared their teeth at her would fall.

The timeless instant she found herself in vanished with the flaring of her Animus. The swarmlings had taken a single step in her direction and by the time they took that step, her sword dance was ready. Braided cords of Animus ran along her veins, smooth and easy, made of three strands, each with a different Intent. But the strands woven together were as one. It was one rope, not three separate ropes wound together. And a single rope was much easier to manipulate than three different ones.

Like before, she waited until they were almost at her. Then, with a flick of her wrist, the blade carved into the nearest swarmling’s face, taking off the top of its skull. As it collapsed bonelessly, she moved with the body, smoothly transitioning to the third Intent to crush the one next to it.

She moved towards the wall, using the falling bodies to shield her from the coming blows. She sidestepped a thrust, deflected another with her palm, even as the rough carapace scratched her skin. She kicked one at the joint of the leg, breaking it, then rammed the tip of her blade into an eye.

Blue blood sprayed, spurted, dripped. She didn’t avoid it this time. Some of those claws caught the fabric of her uniform, tearing into it, while the tip of the claw dug into her skin. She tightened her muscles, blocking it from digging any deeper, and stepped back, spinning on her heel and moving away from the point.

Her golden hair floated in the wind and even if the swarmlings attempted to grab it, their claws somehow found no purchase and she slipped away. She danced back, swept with her single blade, broke joints with a punch, a palm, a knife-hand, or a low kick. The squealing of the creatures rose in a cacophonous wail.

Still, her Animus flared, and where her light touched the brown carapace, it steamed and smoked. She lost count of how many times she drove her blade into flesh. Every time she did, every time one of them died, a mote of green light rose from their wounds. Each time it did, she drew a sharp breath and swallowed the light. It burned all the way to her tummy, melding into her Anima, or was swept into the flows of her Animus.

She could feel it now. The straining of her Anima to contain her Intent. The strain to resist the Chaos wind and the strain to keep the combined dance flowing. She could feel cracks filling her like cobwebs, slowly shattering her being. And she could feel the distilled Chaos melding into those cracks, filling it with their infinite potential, and in the process, changing her. It made her stronger, washed away her fear, and firmed her resolve.

At the back of her mind, the Golden Silhouette, Damien, laughed. It was a loud belly laugh, filled with pride and disdain.

“I know you know!” he seemed to say, but Yuriko barely took notice.

Between one moment and the next, there was the battle, then there was peace. She spun her weapon in a flourish, flicking off the blue blood from the blade. She was a dozen paces from her initial starting point and between her and the squad of cadets was a sea of corpses.

She looked at their slack-jawed faces and bulging eyes as she sheathed her blade. During the fight, her hair tie had broken, leaving the long strands aglow with her Animus floating against the Chaos wind.

She released her breath with a long sigh, while she sought out the squad’s leader. It was a familiar face and it took a moment for her to recall his name. Danazzo Aralka, one of the boys who had been a participant in Agaza’s elite trials with her.

“Ancestors!” The oath seemed to break whatever spell held them frozen, and they surged towards her, but they stopped a couple of paces away.

“What now?” she asked Danazzo.

“I think we continue to hunt.” He said, a slight quaver in his tone.

“Agreed.”

Her Anima was flushed with distilled Chaos, but she could always use more. She felt the barrier holding her back from advancing to Apprentice was close, and it was beginning to crack.

“Let’s go.”

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