Bloodcrete: Chapters 25-26 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

Before you read the chapters, please take a look at the image above! If you recall the previous WIP, this is supposed to be the penultimate step: nearly completed but lacking some detail on the environment. If anyone notices anything that seems strange or has suggestions, now is the last chance!

Meanwhile, these chapters are more bouncing around between everyone as we get very close to the climax.

-

Chapter 25

Running through a battlefield was simultaneously very easy and very hard. Theo freely cast gravitational fields around him that rendered the majority of opponents unable to effectively strike him, thus giving him a clear path. But the instant an Authority noticed him, or a Stronghold technique came anywhere near, he was running along the edge of death.

Krikree ran alongside him, viciously striking at anyone who could get through his gravity. She seemed to be enjoying herself, antennae twitching wildly as she fought. Often when an opponent dropped she would look back toward him for approval, and though he couldn't focus much on her in the middle of a battle, brief eye contact seemed to be enough.

By the time he got anywhere near the Blacksilver circle, he knew that he had no chance of finding the device. It was possible that the Order of the Deepest Blue had already escaped with it. But he still closed in, because if he was staying invested in Fithe, he should check on the people involved.

It didn't seem like there was much fighting around the metal circle that defended the largest farm. Parts of it had been dented, but the barrier stood firm, which just meant that none of the Strongholds had struck it directly. Fortunately, it seemed like the Asplundat Stronghold had been pressing the battle further east instead, and Wiltur didn't seem to have any reason to kill off the local Fithans. They were reasonably safe, he just needed to locate House Blacksilver.

Then an enormous golem made its way onto the plateaus, erasing all other concerns. He'd never imagined that the Asplundat Movement could have smuggled in so much bloodcrete, or that it could be controlled by one person. As it began to fight Wiltur, he thought that it was being controlled by an Authority, spending their life to briefly fight on the level of a Stronghold.

Combined, the Asplundat forces were driving Wiltur further back. Theo monitored them via his gravity senses and just focused on reaching the defensive ring. He didn't see any of the Blacksilver soulcrafters who had once been there, though given the chaos of the battle, he shouldn't have been surprised.

No, he did see one... on the other side of the barrier, Karchibol lay surrounded by local Fithans. His robes all across his torso were wet with blood, but it seemed like the local healers had stabilized him. A young woman, maybe even one of those whose farm he had defended long ago, stepped up to the edge of the barrier.

"Are you here to help him?" she asked. "He won't die, but we can't fully heal him."

"There's still too much going on out here." Theo glanced around the evacuee area again, as something was troubling his senses. Nothing that he could see. "What happened to House Blacksilver?"

"All your friends? They tried to fight for us, but they got pushed out when the new armies showed up."

"Hold for now. I'll try to..." Again a flicker. Theo threw himself back before the air split in half where he had been standing.

When he traced the cantae technique back to the source, Theo saw a haze of air that slowly resolved into a form. It was one of the Deuxan fleshmaskers... no, it was the Authority who had begun their attack with a decapitation. The man walked around the edge of the defensive barrier, scraping the tip of his sword against it. Sparks flew up from where the two touched, and it wasn't the sword being damaged.

"There's what I actually want." The fleshmasker smiled unusually widely, as if Theo was seeing teeth behind a skin suit. "Half-breed? Outsider? It doesn't matter, you'll be much more interesting than this barbarian flesh."

"So you can talk." Theo turned toward him as if he wasn't concerned to be facing an Authority. "I wondered if you were all monsters."

"Oh, not at all. We simply have... highly-refined tastes."

While the fleshmasker walked closer, Theo heard an [Ambush!] pheromone from Krikree. He resisted the urge to look at her, but emitted [Not] in response. His senses weren't polished enough to be sure, but she seemed to be creeping up on their opponent from behind.

"Nothing to say?" Another too-broad grin. "Well, don't struggle too much. Wouldn't want to mar all that nice skin."

Theo cast a cantae bolt at his opponent's face, but the fleshmasker cut it out of the air with a contemptuous swing of his sword. He was definitely fast, and his soulhome operated on a principle that Theo had never seen before. If not for Krikree and the local Fithans, he would have already fled instead of taking on such a risky fight.

Shards of the bloodcrete golem scattered over the battlefield, interrupting their face-off. The fleshmasker knocked them out of the air with his sword, while Theo simply reversed the gravity of the shards approaching him. He saw Krikree moving and his spirit screamed [No!], but she was already attacking.

To Krikree's credit, she struck in vicious silence. Her pickaxe struck the Authority in the back and actually penetrated some distance despite his cantae, it just wasn't enough to disable him. His upper body swiveled entirely around and he slashed out at her, yet she managed to dodge the cut, and even a second, her spear stabbing into his chest repeatedly.

Then the fleshmasker grabbed her arm. Theo cried out and cast a full spread of bolts, but could only watch them be knocked aside as the Authority smashed Krikree to the ground. The impact stunned her and her weapons went flying in all directions... then he stepped on her back and used the pressure to tear off her arm.

Krikree screeched and emitted an incoherent pheromone of pain. Theo automatically stepped toward her, only to barely dodge away from another air-sundering slice.

"Did you need this for something?" The fleshmasker tossed the limb onto Krikree contemptuously. "Slescan bodies are so boring."

"Get away from her!" Theo put as much anger into his voice as he could, and it didn't take much faking. He wanted to throw himself at his opponent and rescue Krikree, but that would be falling directly into the trap. Worse, he had felt a strange surge of cantae within the fleshmasker's body and the injuries Krikree dealt seemed to be healing. If so...

Theo cast an inverted gravitational field directly above Krikree. Not a neutralizing field, or a simple doubling to pin weak opponents: he used the full extent of his power to create a single field that multiplied gravity many times. The fleshmasker actually looked shocked for a moment as he fell into the sky.

But he didn't fall so far before his Authority instincts took over and he surrounded himself with cantae. It took more energy to hover within Theo's field, but not as much as Theo exerted casting it. Concerned that his opponent would drop down onto Krikree, Theo rose into the air opposite him.

"Shielding wall?" The fleshmasker tilted his head to the side and frowned. "No, you're no Authority. You have an interesting trick, but you're a fool if you think you can stop me."

"Do I have a choice?" Theo built up cantae in both hands, mainly trying to draw his opponent's attention. Below, he could feel the young healer darting out of the barrier - brave, but stupid. In the time it took her to pull Krikree into the barrier, the fight would have already begun.

The fleshmasker flew directly toward him, as if to test his aerial ability. Theo knew he shouldn't compete there, so he remained in place and hurled several more torsion bolts from his right hand. Most were deflected, but one got past the flashing sword, nearly clipping his opponent's shoulder. His opponent only grinned and kept charging in.

Theo had his left hand at his side, working on a small singularity. He thrust it forward, directly into his opponent's chest. It caught the fleshmasker and tore into him... but Theo dropped his gravity and plummeted anyway.

An instant later, the air where he'd floated exploded in an enormous cutting technique. The fleshmasker finally stopped smiling, instead staring down at him. Though he had a significant chunk torn from his chest, the wound was already healing. That meant it was just as Theo had feared: his opponent's body was unnatural and couldn't be killed so easily.

His only hope was to drain his opponent's cantae. Fighting an Authority like that was a bad bet in the best of times. Fleeing would be the best choice, but he couldn't: the local healer had only just pulled Krikree into the barrier and begun healing her. Theo needed to keep the fleshmasker out long enough for backup to arrive.

"It's just a matter of timing." The fleshmasker grinned and raised his sword. "I'll kill you first, then wear your skin while I kill everyone inside."

There was no point answering. Theo only took a deep breath and prepared for the fight to begin in earnest.

~ ~ ~

Cloaked within her stealth technique, and agile enough to avoid most attacks, Fiyu was one of the most secure people on the battlefield. This was its own torture. As she moved around the edge of the fighting, she saw scene after scene that she was unable to change.

It wasn't simply the Strongholds fighting one another overhead. She saw a Fithan man who could have been from any House desperately crawling away from the fleshmasker and Slescan who were fighting over who would kill him. Associate Janne fought a defensive action against an Authority and multiple Rulers, trying to defend retreating Blacksilver forces. An Asplundat woman missing a leg sat clutching it and staring at the chaos of the battle.

Fiyu could have entered any of those situations and done some good. She very nearly did assist Associate Janne. But the unfortunate truth was that she only had enough strength to impact the battlefield one or two more times. Saving a few people was less important than potentially finding the demonic artifact and ending the battle early.

For most of her life, Fiyu had soulcrafted for the joy of it, because it was the path she wanted to walk. Since meeting her new companions, she had realized that she needed power to make a difference.

So far there had been no sign of the artifact or suspicious activity within the dust storms. A few fights had spilled below, but Fiyu could easily make out all those involved. But the Order of the Deepest Blue, when trying to steal the artifact, had fled straight northwest, so Fiyu was hopeful that her searches in that direction would prove more fruitful.

She needed to stop and take cover as cantae exploded from overhead and arcs of power seared across the battlefield. It seemed that Adversary Wiltur had overplayed his hand, and he struggled against the Asplundat Stronghold and their new golem. Deep within the heart of the bloodcrete, Fiyu could sense a soulcrafter writhing in agony, yet choosing to continue attacking with each moment.

What troubled her was that she had no sign of Relative Guchiro. She would not believe that he could possibly have been killed, even by the twisted Deuxan Stronghold. Now that the opponent had gone, why wasn't he able to find her?

Adversary Wiltur erupted in a globe of crimson cantae that sent his opponents falling back, but only briefly. She could feel his diaphragm struggling to draw enough breath as his body was pushed too far. A shard of stone pierced his leg and pinned him in place, and the golem charged to strike him.

Too late, Fiyu realized that it would charge through the Blacksilver defensive circle. All of the innocent Fithans who had wanted none of this war would be crushed under its enormous foot. Her senses could just identify Friend Theo as well, struggling against a fleshmasker opponent.

She automatically started to move in that direction, even though she was much too far away. And then a column of light burned inside the defensive circle.

An Authority rose from within it: not a member of any House, but one of the independent Fithans. He burned not just with his own power, but with the cantae of hundreds of others around him. Farmers and guards and other local soulcrafters, completely ignored up to that point, all gathered together their strength into a single storm that erupted from their position.

It tore through the golem's leg so violently that it threw the stone in the opposite direction. The bloodcrete mass tipped, too heavy to flail for momentum, and crashed in the opposite direction. Part of the battlefield was flattened... and Wiltur recovered, bombarding his fallen opponent with renewed strength.

Then the battle would last a little longer. It seemed that the local Authority was exhausted, but they had Friend Theo to protect them. Fiyu hurried onward to assist where she could.

Finally her senses slid over something unusual: a group of soulcrafters in the dust that appeared to be Deepest Blue soulcrafters. Fiyu flipped from her plateau to approach, making sure that her sphere didn't create a disturbance in the storm that might reveal her. It seemed that the group was arguing with itself, so she crept closer to their position.

"Where is it?" A large man entirely wrapped in some sort of sublime cloth was gesturing to the others demandingly.

"We were split up... the Asplundats knew exactly where we were, somehow."

"I'll track them down. Bombard the others."

At the wrapped figure's command, the others scurried to withdraw objects from their soulhomes. Fiyu tested the figure gingerly, wondering if it could be the leader of the Order, but her senses couldn't pierce the cloth. Well, her new senses were powerful enough to do so, but pressing any further might reveal her presence to them.

Meanwhile, the others had assembled a weapon of some sort. It appeared to be centered around a cylinder of glass, very similar to the demonic artifact. This one started empty, but the others began to feed glowing blue rocks into the cylinder. Judging from the cantae, Fiyu suspected that they intended to fire a weapon into the main battlefield.

Based on their conversation, they had lost track of the demonic artifact, so she should move on. Yet... whatever their target, the Order of the Deepest Blue did not mean well. Fiyu drew her stealth technique tight to her body and crept closer, careful to avoid their movements.

When they started to move away from the cylinder, Fiyu took the final steps with a dark blade of cantae around her hand. She cut through the glass in a clean sweep and leapt away, just before the sublime materials within exploded. Many of the Order members were sent tumbling and they began running and shouting, looking straight past her for their attackers.

Fiyu was about to make her escape when she ran into an invisible barrier. She spotted a ring of blue metal on the ground, emanating a field, and attempted to step around it. But her impact had generated attention, and suddenly the wrapped figure was lunging in her direction. He couldn't see her, but he attacked the air wildly in the region where she'd touched the barrier.

"Close the area!"

All around her, Fiyu felt the other Deepest Blue soulcrafters raise similar barriers. She tried to slip through, but they formed a complete circle before she could escape. So far none of them showed any signs of being able to see her, but some of them were throwing sublime materials onto the ground, trying to trap her. How had they deduced her form of attack so quickly?

Then the heavily wrapped soulcrafter tore away the cloth surrounding him, and Fiyu realized that she had been mistaken. It was the Authority wrapped in blue bands, his presence cloaked by the sublime cloth. Though he still bore a few minor injuries, the cloth seemed to have mostly rejuvenated him, and he unleashed a wave of cantae over the canyon floor.

Fiyu jumped over that one, but she held her breath for the next.

-

Chapter 26

All of his torsion bolts were deflected. His opponent burned enough cantae to completely resist all gravitational fields. His disorientation technique had no visible effect, perhaps because the fleshmasker's strange body was immune.

Just evading his opponent was wearing Theo down. If he hadn't spent so much time refining all of his enhancement chambers, he would have become physically exhausted and probably died. His opponent primarily used his sword, so he was constantly closing the distance and forcing Theo to dodge and retreat.

When he got far enough away, the fleshmasker Authority would swing his sword through the air and deliver another slicing technique. It definitely cost him more of his cantae, so Theo tried to incite it as much as possible, but that could easily be the end of him. One dislocated cut had caught the tip of his coat and cut off so much that it still hadn't repaired itself.

Theo retreated to a safer distance. Instead of following, the fleshmasker raised his sword toward the barrier and all of its inhabitants. A useful threat if Theo had been trying to flee, but he just needed a good vantage point.

In the distance the Strongholds were still fighting along with the bloodcrete golem, trading blows that would have killed Theo or his opponent. Though the golem still fought ferociously, much of its body had broken apart. The blood-like liquid oozed out to cover the holes, but Theo didn't care about that: what mattered was that the impacts had knocked fragments of bloodcrete all over the battlefield.

He raised both hands, more to distract his opponent than because he needed the gesture to cast more fields. Theo used a single field to lift all of the bloodcrete fragments into the air... and then cast mass and anti-mass points simultaneously. Their combined force sent one shard of bloodcrete directly into his opponent's shoulder.

The fleshmasker snarled and tore out the fragment: not just the stone, but part of his body as well. Theo thought he saw a glimpse of Deuxan clothes underneath the flesh, only for the hole to heal a moment later. Before his opponent could recover, Theo began doing the same to more shards.

Of course, the fleshmasker easily deflected the second and dodged aside from the third. But Theo was using fields and points of mass recklessly now, not aiming so much as creating a storm of bloodcrete. The overall system produced such chaotic results that even the Authority began to struggle to deflect all the pieces. As he kept casting, Theo dropped to one knee, then to his hands and knees, as if struggling to maintain all of the effects simultaneously.

Seeing it, the fleshmasker thrust his sword directly into the ground. A shockwave of cantae exploded from him, not only sweeping away all of the bloodcrete fragments but also rushing toward Theo.

Who promptly dropped his pretense and shot into the sky. His opponent glowered at him, but it was too late: the fleshmasker had used up a significant portion of his cantae healing from the bloodcrete and then eliminating all the rest with the shockwave. The Deuxan man still looked contemptuous, but his amusement had turned to irritation.

"No more weapons for you to use, and no allies in sight." The fleshmasker swept his sword over the empty field. "What do you have left?"

Theo cast two cantae bolts: one at his opponent's face and one at the plateau in front of him. The first was effortlessly deflected, but the second dug into the stone, throwing up rocks as it spun.

A quick application of mass and anti-mass sent several of those fragments directly into his opponent's eyes.

The fleshmasker roared in pain... and his sword swung up. Before Theo could dodge, a line of agonizing pain shot across his chest and he fell backward, trailing his own blood. Taking a blow from an Authority had nearly destroyed his defenses, and he was completely disoriented, but Theo cast gravitational fields blind to change the direction of his fall.

When he could see again, his opponent hovered in the sky, stabbing where he had been. He turned and swung again, but this time Theo was able to duck aside. The fleshmasker's eyes were bloody when he turned, yet by the time he had finished, the rock fragments fell away and the fleshmasker's eyes regenerated.

All of Theo's chest ached. If his coat hadn't borne the brunt of the impact, he might have been cut in half, and he still felt himself bleeding into his clothes. Another blow like that would finish him, so Theo retreated into the dust clouds. He was prepared to dodge while he generated his next technique, but his opponent didn't follow.

"Are you forgetting?" The fleshmasker gestured toward the Blacksilver barrier with his sword. "Do you have some advantage in there, and think you can lure me in?"

Theo didn't answer. Letting the dust cloud close around him, he gathered all his cantae between his hands.

"Or are you running away? I want your skin, but you don't think that will save them, do you? If you don't come out soon..." The sword slowly pulled back, cantae gathering along its edge. Soon another cut would slash across the barrier, and it couldn't resist for long.

So Theo pressed his hands together and tunneled his singularity directly into his opponent's body.

In the moment between his cantae appearing and the singularity truly moving, the fleshmasker leapt to the side - an Authority was simply too fast for a Ruler's cantae. But the singularity still caught his arm, brushing against part of his outer flesh. It tore away like a bloodless shroud, but the fleshmasker cried out in pain.

The next swing of the sword carried his full power behind it. An equal force would have been consumed, and Theo's singularity managed to resist for almost a second, but its cantae was simply less real than his opponent's. The Authority cut his technique in half and then turned for him, arm already regrowing.

"Fine then. I can hunt you down."

Theo slipped further into the dust storm and hoped that Fiyu or Nauda could arrive soon.

~ ~ ~

Nauda had thrown herself into chasing the fleshmasker who had stolen the artifact - it had caused too much suffering and it couldn't be allowed to escape. When she had pinned his corpse to the wall with her staff, she had been relieved. She had thought it was over.

Then she saw the demonic artifact lying between her and Homez, and she realized that it wasn't anything close.

"Surely we can negotiate this?" she said. When she stepped away from the body, Homez shifted his armor closer.

"I'm not sure we can. Not after the schemes of your tyrants have caused the loss of so many lives."

She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then leapt for the artifact. It should have worked, but Homez lurched forward faster than armor so heavy should have been able to move. He wasn't attempting to reach it - he ran at full speed and his rocky arm slammed into her face.

The impact flipped Nauda onto her back painfully, and if her bondsfungi hadn't defended her, she might have been unconscious. Homez had moved so fast he was actually further away from the artifact now... but the ground rumbled as he began to use another one of his techniques.

A shift in the earth knocked the artifact into the air, flipping back toward him. Nauda managed to jerk her staff arm up, just enough to pin it in place with her binding technique. Homez immediately reached to grasp the artifact, giving her no choice but to throw it to the side, toward the canyon wall.

If only that had destroyed it. But the artifact appeared undamaged, so Nauda struggled to pull herself back to her feet.

"I didn't know about that army," she said. "None of us did. Wiltur is a monster manipulating this for his own gain."

"I believe you, but does it matter?" Homez spoke sadly, but his armor revealed no emotion whatsoever. "That is the problem with the Ruling Cities: the choices of a few tyrants can lead to so much suffering, and they are accountable to no one. Let me take the artifact back. I promise you that we only want to discover the truth about it."

Nauda grimaced and raised her staff. "I don't think I can believe that. The Asplundat Movement is willing to use bloodcrete... or do you manufacture it? Your leaders might claim to be humble, but they can make all the same mistakes."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Homez leapt at her, and she realized too late that it wasn't really an attack. One stone foot slammed into the ground, creating an explosion of stone that scattered over her, and then he reversed direction toward the artifact. This time he shielded it with his body, so Nauda had no choice but to leap after him.

She tried to hook the artifact with her staff as she passed, but Homez reached out and grasped the end. Nauda grunted as she tumbled down and her weapon was wrenched from her hands. Instead of trying to recover it, she grasped the artifact with one hand and grabbed Homez's arm with the other, attempting to throw him off balance.

He held. Not just because of his armor, but because he was stronger than her in every respect. Nauda realized the difference between them: she might have redesigned an excellent blueprint, but it hadn't been bathed in the cantae of two ascensions. She could never be as strong as a Ruler who had been pursuing an effective design from the beginning.

Stone armor headbutted her in the face the next moment, and even her bondsfungi couldn't protect her from that impact. Nauda lost her grip on the artifact as she tumbled to the ground, and when she could see again Homez stood at a distance with the artifact firmly under one arm, receding into his armor.

"I wish we could have found this together," Homez said slowly. "If we had, I truly believe that all of this could have been avoided."

"Wait." Nauda drew herself up to her knees. There was blood trickling down her face and she wasn't sure how quickly she could stand, but she might not need to. "Destroy it. That's what I was trying to do."

Homez paused and his armor stared emotionlessly toward her.

"You saw how many demons it summoned. All the Strongholds, on all sides, fought one another while it nearly caused untold damage. Do you really believe that your superiors will resist using it against their enemies?"

"I need to take it back to be examined," Homez said.

"Isn't there proof enough? Everyone saw what it did, and that proves that the Order of the Deepest Blue was wrong. This was the source of the demons. And when they had a chance to destroy it, they tried to capture it instead. So did this new army pretending to be Fithans. Games are being played with lives on both sides, and we have to stop those games."

The armor stared at her for many long heartbeats, then Homez leapt away.

Nauda knew that there was no way she could follow him. She painfully pulled herself to her feet and went to retrieve her staff. The heart throbbing within her heartoak was beginning to restore her, but it probably wouldn't matter. All she could do was limp back toward the battle and do what little she could.

~ ~ ~

A defensive column glowed within the dust storms, not to keep opponents out but to contain a battle within. Fiyu desperately flitted from one wall to another, evading the attacks flooding the air from all sides. The Order of the Deepest Blue was well-coordinated, never striking one another and slowly closing their net. One of their strongest Authorities stalked within, ready for the slightest resonance. Surrounded by so many, Fiyu could not even attempt to strike one of them.

His ward was making the correct decisions.

The circular barrier shattered as Guchiro plunged through the wall. Cantae blades took two of the Order members in the back, killing them before they were even aware he had arrived. Guchiro raised his hands and released a storm of light, knowing that his ward would leap above it.

Those who leapt with her survived. A few who stood on the other side of the barrier and thought it would protect them were torn apart. All that remained were two Rulers who had raised defensive techniques, five Archcrafters who had been swift or lucky, and the Authority. The bands around his body glowed a hot blue, but they absorbed the burst of light.

"Step away from my ward," Guchiro said as he straightened.

"Ichili." The Authority sneered at him. "This is not your fight. You should leave before you get involved with something you don't understand."

Ward Fiyu dropped her stealth technique and thrust a dark blade in his direction. "You have said untrue things about my companions," she said. "You must apologize."

Guchiro would have suppressed his smile, had it not been beneath his mask. He was proud of all the progress his ward had made, but perhaps he could have spent more time explaining communication on other worlds. Even her strange words made the Order hesitate, given the context.

Then the Authority struck. He pretended to punch for Guchiro's chest, but though it was a real attack, his true aim was to throw a fragment of blue metal to the ground. Guchiro dodged aside from both and struck out with a lance of darkness that splintered off his opponent's defenses. Another punch, another metal fragment.

Finally his opponent laid his trap: the fragments generated another field, this one binding Guchiro in place. His next punch was surrounded by an aura of cantae, aiming to take off his head. Guchiro could have broken through the bindings, but instead he reached up and caught his opponent's arm with both hands.

The Deepest Blue Authority tried to pull back, only to realize that Guchiro was at least as strong as him. Instead he pressed forward, trying to drive the cantae around his fist into his face. Guchiro held firm and met his gaze.

"Target him!" the Authority commanded. Around the battlefield, the remaining survivors forced themselves into action to bombard him with cantae and assist their leader.

Ward Fiyu moved between them like a wraith, cutting down each before they could release their techniques. They realized that she was among them and began firing, and she wove between them so that some even fired upon one another. She moved so subtly that even Guchiro's senses could only identify her in the brief moments when she connected with an opponent. All he could see of his ward were glimpses, and he was deeply proud of those glimpses.

"Fine, she's stronger than I thought." The Authority opposite him took another step, driving his fist closer and redoubling the cantae around it. "But you can't resist me for much longer."

"I wasn't trying to." Ordinarily Guchiro would not have spoken, but he knew Ward Fiyu would be listening.

While they strained against one another, he had been sliding thin tendrils of darkness along his opponent's arm. Now he made them burst outward, shattering the bands around his bicep. Guchiro stepped around his fist and struck for his throat, but the Authority leapt away with fear in his eyes.

As soon as he landed, Ward Fiyu struck him with a storm of light. Wise, since she could test his defenses without risking herself. Her attacks began heating up the band around his stomach, much more than a Ruler would ordinarily be able to affect such a refined technique.

While the Authority looked on in shock, Guchiro reached out and pinned the surviving opponents with bands of darkness. He disliked everything about this Order, so they would need to be questioned later. Then he joined in the battle alongside his ward.

When the enemy unleashed a spinning ring of metal that tore through the ground, Ward Fiyu wisely evaded entirely and disappeared within her stealth technique again. That delayed the enemy Authority long enough for Guchiro to envelop him in another lightburst.

The leader of the enemy grimaced, but turned toward him, letting his bands absorb the cantae. He took a deep breath and began gathering everything that had been stored in the metal bands for a final blow. That could be a truly formidable technique.

Guchiro tightened his lightburst into a single stream focused on his opponent's stomach. The bands had already been hot blue, and now they exploded. Before the Authority had even stumbled two steps, Guchiro's blade thrust through his chest.

As the sounds of battle faded, the whistling winds again gained dominance. The fragments of the barrier had held back the dust storm for a time, and their rapid movements for a little longer, but now the dust closed around them. It impeded neither of them, and Ward Fiyu came to stand beside him, not quite able to contain the happiness in her steps.

"Oh..." Her senses picked up the change, not too long after it happened. "The Order members you captured... you didn't kill them, did you?"

"They appear to have directed their cantae inward." Guchiro bent down to examine one of the bodies. The woman's soulhome had been entirely devastated in her violent death, but most likely it had contained a self-termination room that had caused the damage he felt in her brain.

"Why would they enact suicide? Did they fear us that much?"

"They did fear us, but that wasn't the reason. These are zealots: they truly believe that they are saving the Nine Worlds from the threat of outsiders."

"It isn't true, is it? Everything they say..."

Guchiro didn't answer his ward's question as he felt the battle shift atop the plateaus. The bloodcrete golem fell like an avalanche and lay still. The soulcrafter who had controlled it lay dead within the stone, but the armor remained as a lethal threat. Either because of that defeat or another factor, the Asplundat Movement was retreating from the battlefield.

That left Wiltur alone, and Guchiro did not like what that meant for the outcomes. His ward appeared to have gained real affection for this Fithan city, but perhaps it was time to take her away for her own safety.