Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Yuriko felt the Arclight Crescent stop midway into the golem's body. Since it was infused with Intent, Radiance, and Bladeless Sword, she was well and truly connected with the attack. So she felt exactly what happened.

First, the crescent hit the outer shell. It carved through it easily enough, and she saw the ice melt around the edges from the contained heat. The Bladeless Sword had increased the crescent's cutting power that even the hardened ice carapace was sliced through as if it were nothing but air. The heat from Radiance followed just after the peerless cut and propagated into the surrounding material, and prevented it from just sticking back together to heal. She did learn from her mistakes, especially when it came to fighting. Unless, of course, the new moves would be too overpowered and disallow her from enjoying the fight. There was only so much enjoyment she could derive from one-shotting her foes.

There were lives at stake, however, and she was sure, just from the feedback of her initial attack, that these things were close to Heron and Gwendith's level of strength. She felt her Radiance enter the body and start to consume it, only for something else to push against it, and inexplicably, cancel it out. A corona of blue light emerged from around the thing's body. Whirling snow wrapped around it, drove into the wound and filled it up. The loosely packed snow melted into crystalline ice.

The golem's eyes blazed with rage, If it had a mouth, she knew it would be roaring fit to cause thunder. Yuriko couldn't help but grin. Her Arclight Sword would do nothing against this thing so she sheathed it and tossed it back into her backpack. Golden light burst from her palm and formed a sunblade even as a dozen more materialised behind her, albeit several times slower. She lunged at the golem, ducked under its telegraphed swing, stabbed the blade into its forearm and latched her Animakinesis into the canvas of reality, anchoring her in place. The glowing blade carved a deep furrow into the arm, infused more Radiance into its body and nearly overwhelmed the blue corona.

She recognised Ennoia energies when she saw them, and if she had to guess, it was the Ennoia of Cold, Ice, or Snow, or some long-winded derivative. The fact that a monster, no doubt something conjured out of nothing, could wield Ennoia energies gave her a thrill. Then, she thought of the fact that it was only from the third layer, and her smirk widened.

A challenge!

And not just one challenge, but possibly as many as she could take, as many as she could fight! And all she needed to do was delve as deeply as she could into Shangria.

The sunblade in her hand had faded. About half of the Radiant energy she invested into it had gone into the golem's arm. At the moment, the monster's corona fought her incursion, and in the process, more than half of its forearm had melted off. The corona didn't fight directly, but jettisoned the infected part. The creature didn't falter and continued to press the attack, but it was so slow that Yuriko could easily duck and weave around its attacks. That little fact made her excitement wane, but then again, the sheer amount of Ennoia energies it could command was interesting.

The hand fell off, but snow converged upon the stump. Cold Ennoia energy coalesced around it, and a new arm appeared, good as new.

In the meantime, the Ultramuscle…group? Alliance? Team? She forgot what Carina called them, but anyway, they noticed her help and focused on the monster in front of them, as well as the other one. But only for a few moments.

Fluffington attacked. He circled around the golem and used his Animakinesis to poke and prod at the thing as a distraction. The golem shrugged off the pokes and tried to swipe at the giant wolf, only for Fluffers to dance back. As soon as he was clear, he darted towards the golem's leg and bit down on a hamstring. His jaws were strong enough to gouge the ice, and when he stalled out, Elemental energies mixed with Anima and empowered his attack. He wound up tearing a chunk out of the leg before he retreated. The blue corona appeared and healed over the damage, though Fluffington attacked again before the damage was negated. He struck at the same spot and tore out the healing limb.

The golem spun around, but Fluffers circled around it faster than it could turn. He struck at the same spot and kept going the limb until it was less than a third of its size.

The golem didn't collapse, however, and the continued healing left the wolf at an impasse, at least until a plasma bolt struck the golem's torso. It did little more than chip away a bit of the ice, but it distracted the monster long enough for Fluffers to tear another sizable chunk off its leg, more than enough to unbalance the thing. It fell to a knee, and Fluffers went for the throat. A mistake, as it turned out, but the pupper was able to rectify it before the golem could catch him. Well, if the thing's arms were slower than normal, it definitely wasn't because there was a bit of a drag, or a push towards the opposite direction…

The Ultramuscle Alliance focused on their own golem. The three vanguards didn't all rush in, even though the golem was big enough so that they all had space to fight it. Instead, one of them drew it out, while the other two flanked and struck when they had an opening. Wolf pack tactics, actually, even though baiting the golem wasn't that simple. The brute went for one of the muscle guys to the exclusion of everyone else, and only switched targets when the other melee combatants dealt heavier damage than it expected.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The other two behind struck continuously with their ranged weapons, but to little avail. The poleaxe at least smashed the ice, even if the substance was far more resilient than one would expect. The longspear wielder abandoned using the point and was using his weapon as a long cudgel instead. The thrower had no such luck, but every bit of damage was crucial. It was the plasma cannoner that was doing the most. Every hit blasted huge chunks out of the golem, and it was by that measure that they slowly overcame the thing's regeneration speed.

On the other hand, Yuriko's fight was going swimmingly. Dozens of sunblades orbited behind her like halos, and she was already up to fifty. She wasn't in a hurry to manifest the blades any faster since she was also incorporating the Bladeless Sword into the Radiant Flying Sword. It was a crude addition, however: just a bit of Edge at the tips. They should help get through barriers that her sunblades wouldn't be able to, however. Her current weapon shattered as the Radiant energy depleted. She'd stabbed it into the golem's torso and injected all of the remaining Radiant energy into the golem. She was of the mind to continue using the thing as a target dummy, but she detected dozens more of the things two hundred paces away. They were closing in slowly but steadily. So she had to finish her foe now.

She gestured casually and sent five sunblades stabbing into the golem. They struck each limb and the head, and coupled with the one embedded at the torso, a total of six sunblades' worth of Radiant energy was injected into the thing.

The overcast skies deprived her of an easy source of replenishment, but her true body produced Radiant energy at a prodigious rate. Creating sunblades, ones more potent than what she could create Seasons ago, consumed a lot of Radiance, and her body, having been drained of its reserves, ramped up production.

Golden light flared from every pore, and her hood was thrown back and off her head. Her hair, which had been braided carefully so that it could be hidden underneath the hood, unravelled and flared out. A cloak of golden light spread out behind her, surrounded by her halo of swords.

Another casual gesture sent all of her sunblades careening towards the incoming group. They were not visible to the others due to the obscuring blizzard, but the passage of sunblades, flying at faster than the speed of sound, created shockwaves that blasted the wind and snow away. A clear path towards the golems became visible, and she could help but note the awed look on Carina's face.

The dozen golems were each impaled by six blades. Each one shattered as they injected Radiance, and it overwhelmed whatever Ennoia energies they had before they could replenish. The golems shattered and melted. Turned to steam, or fragments of ice.

Yuriko hummed and sighed. A good fight, one that allowed her to practice with her sunblades again. No foe before this one needed the flying swords and…

Hmmm. It seemed it wasn't over yet.

She glanced at the other two golems that the Ultramuscle Alliance and her companions were fighting. She'd spared them deliberately since those weren't hers for the killing. Besides, they were making steady progress.

No, it wasn't the remaining two that remained a threat. The dozen she shattered in the distance—something round popped out of their torsos before they were overwhelmed and the snowstorm intensified around them. The orbs slammed together into a misshapen mass and the eye of the blizzard appeared around it. The winds howled, snow covered the ice golems and supercharged their regeneration. It upped their speed and power too, and almost punted Fluffers with a snap kick. The wolf managed to twist away, but a toe tagged his side and shattered his aura.

"Awww…" he whined at Yuriko as she sent a dozen newly formed sunblades to kill the golem. The Ultramuscle group floundered against the sudden darkness, but the vanguard retreated in time to avoid getting disemboweled. They got right back into the fray as soon as the backline produced flares and flashlights. She kept a sliver around them so she could step in if she needed to.

The slivers she had around the misshapen mass were pushed away by an intense blast of multifarious Ennoia energies. It wasn't just one flavour, she realised, but dozens of variations in a striated shroud. She watched the display curiously and wondered if it was a way to merge Ennoias.

Probably not, considering each was still a different colour. She probably needed to blend everything so it was one homogenous shade. Mayne.

She shot a single sunblade towards the Ennoia barrier but her Radiance burned away without making much of a dent. There was too much Ennoia energy and the storm was refilling the thing's reserves faster than she could deplete them. Well, one sunblade's worth.

She hadn't stopped creating blades when she saw that it wasn't over, though she had only a couple of dozen ready at the moment. But since the combined monster wasn't done with its transformation, she might as well build up a bigger stockpile.

She folded her arms under her bosom while sunblades were created behind her. They spun around her brightly glowing hair, which floated behind her like a banner. Two dozen. Three. Four. Five. Six.

One hundred. Two.

"Oh, divines…" Carina gasped. The greenette had made her way towards Yuriko and goggled at the display. Yuriko spared the smaller woman a smirk, but returned her focus on the consolidating monster.

Five minutes after the thing started, it finally finished manifesting. The Ultramuscle Alliance finished off their monster, too, and Yuriko hadn't been focused enough to catch how they did it. The five muscular men walked towards her, their eyes wary at the golden swords spread all over.

Before they could say anything, however, the massive golem roared and sent hurricane-force winds down the wind tunnel that was the valley.

"Oh, now they can yell," Yuriko grumbled as she positioned her swords to act as a windbreak.

The golem was now thirty paces tall, and almost as wide. Bigger than a Colossus, but it would fall just the same.