Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

The myriad bolts slammed down on the dome, tore up the amalgam of energies then powered through the Radiant energy coating the underside. The lightning slammed into the camp and struck the temporary structures there. 

It was a good thing that the troops slept in temporary buildings made out of earth rather than flimsy tents, otherwise, the lightning would have burned the leather and cloth, and the flames might have taken hundreds, if not thousands of lives. As it were, Yuriko saw that dozens of soldiers, mostly runners and messengers, were hit directly. 

One of the runners hit was barely able to blink before his body turned into charcoal. He collapsed on the ground, still twitching from the energies running rampant within before he completely stilled. Yuriko could do nothing but watch as the attacks came down faster than she could react, but when she saw the bolts heading towards her quarters, and worse, she saw Ryoko standing by the door…

Krakaboom!!!

Adamant Guardian Seal. 

Mandalas of golden light formed around a thrown pebble that appeared just before the lightning struck. The bolts were diverted towards the mandala’s centre and were subsequently repelled. 

“Go inside!” Yuriko yelled and Ryoko jumped in fright, hastening to obey. 

“Gather!” Field Marshal Mauro Garcia roared. His voice caused shockwaves that blasted dust and water outwards. Lightning sparks surrounded each of the stricken bodies, and when the sound reached them, they flickered. Some were extinguished, but most persisted. A moment later, those stricken stopped moving and expired. Their charcoal bodies began twitching again after a timeless moment, then the flesh burst and released fist-sized scarabs made out of blue and black lightning. 

“Rotter…” Yuriko swore as the black lightning scarabs escaped from the corpses and immediately made for the buildings…well, not all of them. About half of the scarabs went for other soldiers. 

A Bresian soldier’s basic kit included a personal Shield spell activation tool, but that one still required focus and a bit of Intent to activate. The lightning scarabs’ movements were so erratic and quick that most soldiers were unable to react before they were struck down, especially the freshly recruited and trained militia. 

Yuriko cursed as she sent her sunblades to counter the scarabs. She had her full complement ready ever since the start of the battle, and at first, she was able to keep them at bay, losing only a handful of warriors to the initial rush. 

And she wasn’t alone in the defence. Mauro’s spell activated and hundreds of steel pillars materialised from the ambient Elemental energy and stabbed into the ground. The lightning scarabs that flew within a couple of paces of each pillar, and the lightning bolts still falling the skies were diverted to them. 

“Lightning Intent,” the Field Marshal growled. “There are only three Lightning Magi in the empire…” The man was muttering to himself but since he was within Yuriko’s range, she heard him clearly. 

As the lightning continued to fall, she gritted her teeth and poured more Radiant energy into the barrier device, hoping the dome would stabilise. Unfortunately, the rain didn’t cease. 

She was just about to leave the safety of the camp, hoping to find the origin of the lightning storm, when a tall pillar of steel rose from behind the marshal. All of the lighting was sucked towards it, and even though the metal turned red from the heat, then white, water from Magi cast spells were splashed on it. Steam clouded around the lightning rod, though Yuriko felt the metal warp as it cycled through the two extremes in temperature. She didn’t know why, but as the metal turned white hot, the lightning storm was able to escape its influence. 

Her Radiant energy pouring into the barrier device was barely making any difference. But the thing was…she didn’t know where the lightning was coming from. Er, from the sky and clouds, obviously, but who was directing it? Field Marshal Garcia’s face looked horrid. He knew. 

“Who?” she yelled at him. 

He shook his head and didn’t answer, fear etched into his expression for a moment. 

“Tsk.” Yuriko clicked her tongue.

He said Lightning Intent right? Knight-Commander…no, True Magus level? Her last fight with True Magi had been with the Sha’ledras, Khuni, and the unknown Rift Magi…and she quickly judged this one to be more troublesome. 

The lightning bolts struck the pillar, and she thought that would be the end of that assault, but a minute later, the bolts they struck rebounded off the white-hot metal, then formed into electric scarabs, though this time, they had a metallic tint to their light. 

They spread outwards from the pillar and were headed right at the Field Marshal. But with the edge of surprise gone, the Magi corps managed their counterattack. Bolts of metal and stone shot out from spell activation tools: wands, staves, caster’s orbs, and caster gloves. The spells homed in on the scarabs and knocked them down. A single spell wasn’t enough to destroy the things, but it was enough to remove their flight. Still, the insects started crawling and left a sparkling trail behind them. 

Yuriko’s Anima pressed down on the flames and smothered them, but the lightning scarabs fought back against her pressure, and through it, she felt the weight of Intent holding them together. 

What was the difference between spells and techniques infused with Intent and those that were not? Yuriko only had a shallow idea. She knew what Damien knew, though the knowledge was locked behind her memory palace. She knew what Da said, though a Knight-Commander’s insight on the fundamental underpinnings of strength was shallower than an Ancient’s or even a Chaos Lord. It was ironic that the Eternal Empire’s weapons against the Chaos masses were less knowledgeable and wise. It wasn’t that she was looking down on Da either, it was the limitations of the Imperial Knighthood that the Empress created. 

…how did she know that?

Yuriko shook her head and wondered if Damien’s memories were seeping through from the lock. But no, this was not something he should have known, right? Unless the Empress had done this while Damien was still around. 

Then, there was the uncomfortable sensation of realising that the man’s memories contained scenes of him and the Empress…as well as the Mishala Ancestor, having fun. It was just a single image, one that she felt had been intentionally implanted by that perverted old man before he passed on. It felt distant in the temporal sense from every other memory locked in her Anima. Most of that had been in his youth; that image had been when he was at his prime. 

No, what she was concerned about was the earlier thought was a mental process of deductive reasoning that she would not have made. But…she knew that the Imperial Knighthood system was a creation of the Empress to empower her people against the Chaos Tides, but it was also made as a shackle. A sour and bitter feeling rose up to the back of her throat and she wondered if it was already too late to change her family’s path. The Knighthood was only concerned with the density of Animus within the body, and touching on Ennoias and personal Truths didn’t matter at the lower levels. Unlike the Ancients’ Way where the stages of Ennoia marched in lockstep starting with Actualisation. 

But she supposed the Knighthood worked as intended. There were three hundred Knights Domini in the Empire and each one was roughly on par with a Chaos Marquis. Considering that this realm, Arcadia, was huge, there were only three or four Grand Magi who were on par with a Knight Domini, yet the country’s living area and population ratio was higher than the Empire’s. 

Although…like the Magi who would be hampered if they ventured into the Myriad Planes and the Chaos Sea, she knew Imperial Knights, Geist Users, and Spirit Binders would also have difficulty living in this place. Only she, an Ancient, was versatile enough to thrive. 

That made her curious about the Conclavist Ancients that Gwendith and the others met. Well, she would find more when Gwendith and Heron reach her, and she really should focus on the battle instead. Ah, dedicating one consciousness strand to idle thoughts allowed her other consciousness strands to hyperfocus on everything else without becoming weary, so there was a purpose and benefit to this, huh? 

Her perception covered the entirety of the camp as well as half a longstride around the dome, but she couldn’t see the caster of the Lightning Intent. Instead, the Bresian forces were being pummeled outside. The large Steelds protected their drivers well enough, but lightning struck them enough times to cause the metal to glow orange. The flankers were the ones having trouble and they were already in retreat. About a twentieth of them had fallen to the assault. 

Since she was inside the dome, she couldn't use her Enhanced Sight to search, and she was blind to everything beyond her augmented perception range. Still, she deployed her sunblades outside too, and the Radiant energy weapons intercepted and absorbed the lighting. It was only then that the casualties stopped accumulating. 

Field Marshal Garcia was still casting a powerful spell, but from the mandalas circulating around him, Yuriko realised it was not an offensive or defensive manoeuvre. Instead, it was an attempt at communication. 

“Ah!”

She understood what he wanted to do, but the lightning scarabs were slowly overcoming his lightning rod. Yuriko was still attached to the barrier device but she had to move. Her dwelling, her handmaiden, and her familiar were hiding inside, but at the rate the lightning storm continued, they would soon be exposed. 

“Take over!” Yuriko hissed at the nearby barrier Magus, but the man shook his head, face pale with fear.

“Swarm fodder!” she hissed in frustration. The camp would be overwhelmed if she retreated now, and she didn’t want the deaths of fifty thousand men and women on her conscience. 

A minute later, something else interrupted the lightning storm. 

Rumble! 

The camp’s walls suddenly expanded upwards and formed into a new dome. The lightning struck the earth, but it only skittered across the surface and then into the ground. Some rock was blasted off, but the earthen dome, powered by hundreds of Earth Affinity Magi, resisted the efforts of a single powerful enemy. 

Field Marshal Garcia finished his cast. This time, the spell didn’t propagate through the air. Instead, it was the original True Connection spell that wormed through the in-between layers of reality. 

“The Grand Magi will know now,” he said with some satisfaction. “They will arrive soon and fight off this blatant disregard of the Rules of Engagement.”

Yuriko sighed, half in relief, and half in regret. With Ryoko and Fluffington safe, her mood shifted from desperate defence to the need to challenge. 

She could still hear the lighting bolts hammering the dome, while the lightning rod collapsed under its molten weight. The lightning scarabs were soon snuffed, and the camp grew silent. However, the dome cut off the view from outside, and who knew how the vanguard and the flankers fared? And the Ishodirians were far from done. 

“Professor, you are relieved from barrier duty,” Field Marshal Garcia said. 

“Agreed.”

Yuriko let her hands fall from the device’s input nodes. Her Radiant energy overflowed as it stopped being siphoned away, and she drew it all back inside and into her hair. She was just about to head to Ryoko when the world turned white. 

Kaboom!

A blast of lighting, thicker than a man, pierced the dome and almost incinerated the Field Marshal had his reflexes been weaker. 

A haunting voice hissed and echoed into the dome, an oddly echoing voice that almost sounded as if multiple people spoke in unison and complete harmony. 

“Come out, come out, little light. Come face me in glorious battle.”