Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Edward Turner’s clone, or Eddie as he liked to think of himself, smiled with smug satisfaction when he saw the quarry flying a few longstrides away. Farsight gave him a clear view of her expression, and the satisfaction he felt when he saw her surprise, and what he imagined to be despair, crossed her face. It only lasted a moment before it was replaced with resolute impassivity. 

Why did she continue to resist anyway? He’d seen the future through his mind’s eye, and every path from here led to her defeat. The overriding purpose that filled him would finally be fulfilled and his fragment would reunite with the origin and he would become whole again. He could hardly wait.

He turned to face the Commander of the 33rd Battalion, Colonel Jothan Barnard, an Advanced Magus whose Personal Truths touched upon his Sound Affinity and Coordination. 

“Switch the Ritual from Concealment to Control.” 

“Yes sir.”

The colonel nodded and sent the message spell to five caster brigades. Eddie made sure that the brigades passed the message properly to its five companies, with each company composed of five platoons, of which there were five squads of five Magi, each at least at the Journeyman level. Only the platoon commanders were required to be full Magi, and even the colonel was only an Advanced Magus. 

The empire only had the original as an Archmagus, and there was only one Grand Magus who had been the apprentice. True Magi were not nearly as scarce, as there were hundreds of them within the military. Being an Advanced Magus was not a requirement for commissioned officer ranks, but it helped. The fifteen battalions that comprised the invasion–ehem, war training group–all had Advanced Magus commanders…

The caster squads shifted positions like clockwork and carefully depowered the Concealment Ritual before beginning the Control Ritual. In the meantime, the non-Magus elements of the battalion moved to engage the singular enemy who was supposedly a True Magus, but was as powerful as a Grand Magus. 

Eddie knew for a fact that Professor Yuriko Davar was not of that rank considering she didn’t have a Personal Domain, but that special spell she used more than made up for the power gap. If he didn’t know any better, he might have thought that she was an Authoritarian Conclavist, but those nosy stuck-ups rarely used Prime Elements. Well, more like never. 

She might be a strange Magi, or someone with a unique lineage or discipline, but the only way to find out was to ask her. Whether she answered willingly or under duress was the only question. 

He focused on his active spells. His Elemental Heart was limited to True Magi levels, so he could only sustain five at once, and each one could not be more than a thirteen-circle spell. Future Sight was his primary method, and being able to see the flows of time three seconds in advance was proving insufficient to fight this foe. Any more than that would cause the vision to fracture into so many possibilities as to be useless, and even three seconds was pushing it. He had his flight spell, a shield spell, and his basic obsidian arrows ready. But he didn’t think it would be necessary this time. Professor Davar should be worn down by this many foes. 

‘If only Freeze actually worked on her, this would have been over several days ago!’ he thought furiously. That heartstopping moment when she shrugged off the spell without even seeming to notice was etched in his mind. He fully expected the original to want to study her seeming immunity, but the exchange of memories happened only when Eddie fulfilled his purpose and merged back. A pity he had not been given more potent spells to work with, but this artificial mind wasn’t as strong as it could be. 

He briefly turned his attention to the baggage the professor was escorting. The wagons were moving off the road but they were still in the midst of that process. The professor had already moved to engage the Golem Riders, and she was using her multiple sword spell. 

He paused to admire the beauty of their movements. They were too agile and purposeful, so he was sure that there was a Personal Truth embedded there, as well as her active control. Her mind was a wonder, and it should be one of the things that he longed to ascertain for himself. Hundreds of individually controlled flying weapons that were more than capable of engaging and occupying the Golems, even as hundreds more flew towards the flanking cavalry…

He winced at the sudden slaughter, and Colonel Barnard barked orders, which were easily transmitted to his relay spell. The flanking units on controlled Elementals moved away from the professor, seeking to bypass her range. 

Eddie knew and had informed the colonel of that distance, which was about half a longstride, but the good colonel had been somewhat incredulous at that bit. Most low-circle spells had ranges that were less than a hundred paces, and only siege spells could reach longstrides and beyond. But here the woman’s signature spell had incredible reach, incredible numbers, and incredible lethality. He must learn that spell! 

Ah, but it's probably not an Element he had an affinity for. But the spell structure, once he knew it, could be adapted to take in any other element! Hmm, Personal Truths broke the rules though, so it might be that. 

The range of his obsidian arrows spell, boosted for reach, barely matched the woman’s range, at least for active control. But the beauty of conjuring material projectiles was that they kept their speed and acceleration well past the point where control was lost. 

He held back from attacking though. He could not win a fight of attrition, not by himself. The woman was tougher than he was by a huge margin, and he was sure she was tougher than the original, too. That level of specialisation probably meant that her spellwork would be limited by comparison, but the beauty of her build was that her signature spell was more than versatile enough to overcome the lack of generalisation. Specialised in a versatile spell, that was the thing. Everything hinged on that weaving, and he really, really wanted to learn it. He could feel himself salivating in anticipation. But no, his mission took priority. He needed her to decipher that golden shard that held the key to ascension. 

The golden weapons flew towards the Golem Riders and successfully tied them up. But it occupied her arsenal too. So what would she do once the cavalry flanked her? 

The Caster Brigades had finished shifting the Ritual. Elemental energy flows around the battalion shifted from making them harder to track and concealing their traces, to stilling the Elemental energy flows that weren’t directed by the Ishodirian forces. 

What would she do now that her spells would lose power? He rubbed his hands in glee. Soon, she would fall…

______________

Five hundred sunblades wasn’t quite enough to easily take out the hundred Golems of the vanguard at once, so Yuriko only designated one sunblade each to keep them occupied then used the four hundred left over to quickly mince each one. It took roughly a second to finish each one off but by the tenth one, the Golems began to retreat. 

Yuriko had sent a message spell to Juliette to have the caravan retreat towards the Conflux, but it would be slow going. She would have to fend off the enemy battalion for quite a while to escape. Or she could kill all of them, came the bloodthirsty thought, and she wondered if that would be the best thing she could do. Anima Pride had its place, and she shouldn’t apply it to a military force that was intent on capturing her and killing her charges. 

Each sunblade she conjured had a Bolt spell in runescript form etched into it. And she allowed the spells to activate once they neared the enemy infantry. A group of soldiers on top of that looked like horses made out of moving earth, circled around the vanguard Golems, but they were close enough that she could hit them with her sunblades’ spells.

The Golems retreated a few seconds later, jumping far enough from her that they exceeded her sunblades’ reach. Just barely, and if she advanced, they would once again be within reach. But that meant allowing the mounted soldiers free rein towards the caravan. 

Behind the Golems and in the midst of the battalion, she could feel the elusive Magus’ baleful gaze on her, but when she glanced towards his direction, she couldn’t see him. Instead, thick Elemental mists flooded the area around the battalion even as most of the soldiers spread out. Several thousand of them levered their firearms towards her, and she was more than thankful that the hill was between them and the caravan. She only heard the explosive sounds after the bullets struck her condensed aura. She winced at the impact of the metal, and each once burst out with a heterogenous chunk of Elemental energy that hurt just as bad as the impact when they tried to corrode her Anima. 

She spread out her defences so that the projectiles would deflect away from her instead of striking directly, and that proved effective enough that none of the follow-up volleys hit her up close. 

She was not distracted by the suppressive fire as the Golems launched their own attacks. Their spells proved solid enough that her diffusive shields didn’t work well against them, so she had to use her defensive sunblades to block the spells. 

At the same time, the sunblades with Radiant bolts cut down the first wave of cavalry. The bolts burned through whatever protective spells they had after a couple of shots, and each sunblade blasted out a spell every second. The elemental horses whinnied and ran off when their riders fell, though they dragged the wounded back to their lines. 

Several groups of chanting Magi within the battalion sent a shiver of apprehension through her spine. She couldn’t hear what they were chanting, but the thickening Elemental mists, and the confident looks on their faces didn’t bode well. 

They were too far away for her sunblades, however…

Within her Anima, Yuriko took hold of the Radiant Lance implement. The lack of Chaos around her meant that the potency of the Sorcerous working would be limited, but she could ameliorate that with the amount of Radiant energy she could supply. The spell itself was somewhat outdated and had been designed to work within her capacity as an Actualised Ancient. Now that she was in Transformation, its power was weaker than what her sunblades could do, and its only advantage was its range, which was effectively unlimited as long as she could throw it that far.

Improving the implement to her current level would need her to return to the Chaos Sea, but it would also require far more resources to cast as well. She supposed this was fine, for now. 

The fact that it was a level lower than she was meant that the Radiant Lance didn’t take a minute to cast. It was practically instant and she had a spear of shaped Radiant energy held within her right hand. 

As she kept the cavalry and the Golems occupied, she raised the lance above her head and drew back. She used her Animakinesis to augment her physique, and when she jerked forward to throw, the lance practically turned into a beam of light as it careened towards the battalion command. 

Yuriko grinned and hoped to see a powerful explosion of Radiant energy wipe out the centre. But what happened instead froze her in surprise. 

The Elemental mists around the battalion thickened as the Radiant Lance approached, and caught the projectile a few paces into it. Then, the mist crunched down on the Sorcerous Working, which then caused it to explode with all of its Radiant might. 

The explosion propagated through the mists, but not for as much distance as she hoped. A fair chunk of it lit up into golden energy, but the lack of a follow-up, or an Intent, only caused it to wash over the rest of the mists and left the casting Magi untouched. 

A moment later, the mists expanded explosively and she was caught within.