Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

The giant golem was suddenly visible in the distance. The storm pulled back the snow just enough that there was a clear corridor between Yuriko and the monster, and the aftereffect of its prodigious roar cleared the rest. Carina huddled behind the wall of swords Yuriko used to block, but the Ultramuscle Alliance…

They stood their ground.

Furrows on the ground spoke of how they were pushed back, but fought to stay upright. Their expressions were those of defiance, and…glee. Yuriko hummed in appreciation. They were like her, in a way. They enjoyed a good fight, though she could sense that they were still somewhat frightened at the edge of their awareness and emotions.

Understandable and natural.

Fear was a part of being alive, and she's had years to learn how to push past it. Well, being confident of her strength did that too, and from the looks of it, it was that confidence, training, and whatnot, that gave the Ultramuscle Alliance the power to resist.

The colossal golem continued to roar, but with most of the snow in the intervening distance already swept clear, only the sound waves were troublesome. Yuriko's Anima armour took care of it easily, but she didn't protect Carina, Fluffington, Sir Blue, or the muscle men. The roar didn't do anything more serious than a little kinetic push anyway.

"A Grand spell?" one of the muscle men muttered as they looked at her sword halos.

"I thought you were a mystic?" Carina asked softly.

"Well, I can Arcana Weave, too," Yuriko admitted. "But this isn't a spell, but an application of my Truth."

"Spells do that, too," Carina pointed out.

"Hmmm, true." She didn't say anything else, though. The giant golem didn't approach them, which didn't bode well. It wasn't a dumb brute like the ones that made it up.

Instead of approaching, it formed giant boulders of ice, then simply flung them at the group. The thing threw the boulders so hard that they formed vapour cones behind them, and probably a sonic boom, but being the target, by the time she intercepted the projectile with a sunblade, she hadn't heard the explosive sounds yet. She didn't stop the attack directly either, but diverted it from its original trajectory by pushing it up and sideways. It missed her barrier by several paces, though the muscle men had to jump behind her to save themselves from a fatal smackdown.

The giant golem continued throwing boulders. Yuriko deflected them easily, this time dedicating three swords per projectile. The others didn't remain idle. Carina took aim and shot plasma bolts. The thrower and the cannoneer both attacked. The golem was so big that it was practically impossible to miss it…well, the thrower had to lob twice, since the first throw fell short due to the winds.

A casual flick of her wrist sent a dozen sunblades on the attack. Twenty paces from the thing was the boundary of its wind barrier. The spear thrower, Mardin Olev, apparently, could barely get his attacks through. The other three muscle men were at a loss on what to do, or seemed that way to her anyway. The three of them hunkered down and had an expression as if they were trying their hardest to hold things in while ten minutes away from a toilet. Yuriko snorted a chuckle at the thought, to Carina's bemusement.

Yuriko shook her head and focused on her target.

The sunblades, tipped with Invisible Edge, cut through the colossal golem's outer shell as thought it weren't any harder than cream. The blades sank inside—all twelve of them—and almost immediately, ice-cold Ennoia energies converged upon the wounds and tried to snuff her swords. The Radiance inside burned the cold energies, but was slowly losing power. Unlike the norm, the Radiant energy couldn't grab anything to consume and propagate since everything surrounding the blades was made from energy under the golem's control. The two energies collided and combusted, depleting each other until her swords dissipated. While she was sure her Radiance burned more than an equivalent amount, the golem's body could replenish used-up energies while her blades couldn't.

The strikes didn't slow down the monster since comparatively, the wounds were more akin to needle pricks than anything else. The area around the blades melted and gouged a chunk out of the golem's body, but the storm surrounding it replenished the ice quickly.

Yuriko hummed in thought. She had more than three hundred blades hovering behind her now, and she used fifty or so to defend. They were in a standoff, nearly five hundred paces from each other. The golem took some distance, and since it remained within her range, she didn't move either. She could create Edge-tipped sunblades at a rate of about one every ten or so seconds, and while she could have sped it up, the consumption of Intent wouldn't let her keep it up. But then again, she only needed one sunblade per cluster to pierce the shell. The others could follow inside. What she needed to do was to overwhelm the golem's ability to regenerate. She had no idea how many sunblades she'd have to expend to do that, and since she already had three hundred Edge-tipped ones, she hastily made the normal variant of the Flying Sword. Three normal to one Edge-tipped was a good ratio, she supposed.

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It didn't take more than a minute to create another nine hundred sunblades.

"Divine mercies…" Carina muttered, and the Ultramuscle Alliance looked impressed.

Still, the vanguard trio finished whatever they were preparing, but instead of launching it willy-nilly, their leader, the poleaxe guy named Orlov Ilyetch, asked, "Whenever you are ready, Your Grace."

Curious that they would address her like that. Did they know how the Ancients fought?

Yuriko nodded. "Launch your attacks at your discretion. I will match your timing."

"As you wish," Orlov said with a short bow. "On three! Two! One! Attack!"

Not as one, but in a sequence, the vanguard trio slashed with their weapons, or thrust, in the case of spearguy. A shadow of their bodies and weapons shot out and sped towards the monster, and each one looked like they sprinted until they collapsed. The three shadows and the two attacks from the supporter duo crossed the distance, slipped through the golem's hurricane barrier, and slammed into the shell. It did little more than crack the outer layer, but it was enough for a momentary distraction. A thousand sunblades followed the attack.

A single, Edge-tipped sword sliced the shell, and three other blades followed behind it. The swords all embedded into the torso, and for a moment, the golem looked like a porcupine. The next moment, all of the quills sank into the body, and the ice blue outer shell turned gold from the heat.

Yuriko didn't stop producing sunblades, though now, she stuck with regular ones instead of the combined Sword. She could churn those out relatively quickly, and if she didn't care about stability, she could pop out a hundred every second. Of course, those things wouldn't last a minute with the shaky formulation, but as missiles, that was more than enough. The golem's torso started to melt, even as the blizzard around it tried to stem the tide. The follow-up blades, even if they couldn't easily penetrate the shell, struck with deadly force. After the first wave, the shell was practically nonexistent anyway, and the bombardment didn't just spray Radiance all over. She had more than enough control over her Colligia to force the energy into the beast rather than spray towards the path of least resistance.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The bombardment continued, and her body heated up, then glowed with blinding light as every particle of hers produced Radiance in the amounts needed to synthesise the swords. Her clothes would have burned had she not had better control over her Anima. As it was, even her aura was turning too hot for the environment. Carina, the familiars, and the Ultramuscle Alliance had to run away from her vicinity. Fifty paces was barely enough to keep out of the superheated air. All the snow around her turned to steam, then to superheated plasma. Her hair was as bright as the Sun's reflection, and the sunblades were lost in the brilliance.

The blades flew from her to the colossal golem at such speeds that they looked like a golden line in the air rather than separate projectiles. The colossal golem flailed its limbs in an attempt to defend itself, but her sunblades flew around its weak defenses and struck its core. The thing was nearly twenty paces thick, but every sunblade tore away a chunk of its defense. Slowly but surely, it was turning into a giant puddle.

She could still feel the golem struggling against her assault. The ice-cold Ennoia energies continued to battle her Radiance. Where were they coming from? Its head was already gone, melted into an icicle hanging from its torso. But then again, it was a creature made out of glacial ice, so why would it care if it didn't have a head? No, the one weakness was probably its Ennoia core, which was hidden within its body. Maybe it was even capable of moving it. The limbs hung from barrow threads of ice, barely kept coherent by force. Everything else was water and steam. She couldn't determine if the core was in one of the limbs so she moved her attacks towards its left limb.

That created a complication, however. The parts that were farther away from the impact point had their regeneration rally. The parts of the torso, the hips and waist in particular, started reforming faster than she could melt them. The legs, having a fulcrum again, moved. Not towards her, but in retreat. That cannot be allowed.

Yuriko hovered and moved closer. Her production rate of sunblades was falling short. She didn't need the things to last a minute. They only needed them to hold until they hit. It took less than a second to reach the end of her range.

Also, did she need to make a full blade? Did the sunblade need a handle? A crossguard? If it was going to be a receptacle for Radiant energy, as long as it was still technically a sword…? Should it work?

She focused on speed, less on stability. She was able to increase her conjuration rate to two hundred a second, and the blades… the flying swords wouldn't last more than six seconds from the way their structure wobbled. As long as it was accurate… well, it didn't even need that. Her target was well within reach. She didn't need the Invisible Edge either, so there was no drain on her Intent. But letting that resource stay unused was also a waste of potential.

Her accuracy was suffering, and she wasn't hitting where she wanted to. Well, it missed by a fraction of an inch, but that fraction could spell the difference in high-speed fighting. She used her Intent now to set one guide blade and hooked the others to it. The lesser swords would follow the guide exactly, striking the same spot even if the target moved in the interim.

More and more sunblades. The heat her body radiated spread out over a hundred paces. The air around her was filled with steam, but even that didn't last long. The air around her caught on fire and she was within a ball of Radiant flame. The sunblades continued the barrage, and it was slowly chipping away at the golem, but the heat around her was starting to warp the very fabric of creation.

And when the canvas started to warp, Chaos seeped in.

Chaos that was suddenly shackled by her Will and Intent.

The flames rushed to her hand and condensed into a spear.

She grinned, then pointed it at the golem's remaining body. It was still struggling. The Radiant Lance flew from her fingertips and slammed into the golem. Everything was swept up into a tornado of golden flame that rose to the heavens.