Shackled Exalted

Emil

The screams spread in waves. Panic rippled through the crowd up the block. Nervous gazes turned into terror. In the midst of the encroaching chaos, a terrible cry shook the air. Like the screech of a banshee, it overpowered all the cacophony in the area. The nearby residents froze under the shrill noise. Emil glanced up. The source of the unhuman cry soon revealed itself.

Insects, larger than the size of a human child, rose into the airspace above the Commerce District. Their wings buzzed with a high-pitched dissonance. The insectoid heads bulged outwards like a cancerous lump—the flesh enhanced by mana grown too large for their exoskeletons to contain. The red bulbous chunks sticking out on the side of their head were its eyes. Innumerable panes of organic lens flickered under the sun. Their antennas had largened to long rope-like tendrils, straying back and forth with a hypnotic cadence.

Monsters. These insects have been morphed by mana. Emil quickly made the connection. Likely these abominations emerged from the Canticle—a continuation of whatever produced the Gutter Slime that he uncovered the night before when searching for the missing Courier. Steiger under Graf's orders should have been containing the outbreak, and yet here the monsters were, out in the open before all the residents and tourists.

The monstrous abominations would have been terrifying alone with their size, but mana had also enhanced their natural weapons. Mandibles extended from their mouths like the broad blades of a scimitar. Their appendages had been sharpened into scythes. Their shells had fortified, shining with a metallic glint as sunlight bounced off its surface.

For a moment, the horde of monsters remained still in the air. Everyone was staring at them with mouths agape, unsure of what to do. Meanwhile, the monstrosities' antennas darted back and forth like sensory organs trying to get a read of their surroundings. Emil felt a primal revulsion bubble in his guts. These horrible beings shouldn't have existed. Their grotesque appearance and the sheer alienness of their movements stirred his destructive urges.

Finally, someone within the crowd began to cry. It was an instinctual garble. Unable to comprehend the insanity before his eyes, his sob quickly turned into a full-on scream. Everything happened in an instant. The insects, hearing the craven sound, immediately directed their attention towards the man. Bearing the attention of innumerable monsters, everyone else nearby broke into panic.

Like a taut string cut loose, chaos unfolded. The insects came down in swarms—their mandibles and scythe-like claws bared at anything that moved. The man that caved first found a scythe dug into his back. Another bug flew by, biting a chunk off his shoulders. The other civilians beside him didn't fare much better. In seconds, the streets of the Commerce District were bathed in blood and terror.

Emil finally snapped out of his daze. There were no Belle and Lionhearts in the area yet. Someone had to keep the monsters at bay until reinforcements arrive.

"Anna! Find a—"

"You better not be telling me to hide!" she yelled, storming onto her feet. Electricity snapped around her violently. "I'm a semi-finalist of the Clash of Dawn! You dare treat me like a useless damsel?!"

The anger in her voice stunned him. Right, I almost forgot what type of person she was. Anna was someone with a strong sense of justice. The sight of innocents being tore apart by monsters wasn't something she can turn away from.

"Sorry! Force of habit!" Emil apologized, "We'll keep the monsters away and buy time for help to arrive! You're on offense while I defend the civilians!"

"Already on it!"

Static surged from her hands as she flicked her thumb. A metal coin, magnetized by the raging electricity, flew at a distant insect. Emil could barely follow the trail of sparks before the coin exited the insect and penetrated another. Ionize—Anna's personal weapon using her Gift, Volt, turned small metal objects into deadly projectiles.

The two insects that she struck were killed on impact. Their bodies fell. Emil raised a stone wall to protect the civilians below from being crushed by the descending monsters. After confirming their safety, he turned to his left.

"Fragment!"

He launched a barrage of stone missiles at a couple of insects about to swarm a couple. The projectile slammed into the bug's thorax before splintering into shrapnel. The insects shrieked in pain as they were stunned by the concussive blow.

"Get off the street!" Emil waved the couple off. The bugs that he struck had already recovered from the hit. Aside from minor bits of shrapnel stuck in their shell, they appeared undamaged.

Their exoskeletons are that strong?

He clicked his tongue as the insects directed their attention towards him. The height of the airborne monster was too high for him to reliably hit them with stone protrusions. Missiles were also ineffective against the protective exoskeletons. Anna seemed to have better luck with high penetrative prowess of Ionize and the inherent advantage that Volt had against organic life.

I really wish I can use Blaze right now.

While Anna knew his secret, he couldn't just expose his nature so openly in public. Rumors of an Exalted with two Gifts would spread like wildfire in a city like Isarelle, especially just before the Aurous Festival. Emil hated that he was prioritizing his own secrecy over other people's lives. He grinded his teeth, agonized by guilt. A reckless plan began to form in his head as he watched the insectoid monsters continue to rain terror upon the civilians.

"Anna, I'm drawing them towards me! Get ready!"

"What are you—"

Emil grabbed onto his Azurite pendant and raised his left arm skyward. Raw, unvarnished mana stormed out of the pendant. The turbulent energy crackled like a desperate wail as though it was urging him to weave it into a more stable phenomenon. Instead, Emil rejected it, forcing the raw mana to climb the length of his left arm. His head trembled at the flood of energy. Burn marks lashed onto his arm like whips.

Mana shot out of his left arm, blooming into the skies with a dense azure hue. A thunderous sound accompanied its exit. What Emil had unleashed was a twisted version of Mana Arts. Instead of controlling the circulation of mana, he purposefully intensified the frequency to force the technique to go out of control. The result was an explosion that created a dense cloud of mana lingering in the airspace above him.

The effect was instant.

Shrill cries pierced the air. Drawn by the sudden influx of mana, the insects all directed their attention towards Emil. Monsters, by nature, were creatures warped by mana. The existence of the ephemeral energy within them powered their new bodies. Driven by their instincts for self-preservation, they were compelled to maintain these twisted forms.

"Emil! What the hell?!"

The insects were everywhere. The cacophony of their cries and the buzz of their wings drowned out all sounds in the vicinity. Emil could barely hear himself think. Darkness suddenly overshadowed him. The swarm that had gathered to feast on the concentrated mana was large enough to blot out the sun.

I might have fucked this up.

"What the hell is your plan?!" Anna screamed, desperate. Electricity pulsated off her body with a nervous tremble. She wasn't sure what to do. Against this many monsters, she had to go all out, but there were still civilians nearby.

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Emil conjured a layer of stone armor over his body as he moved near Anna. "Just go wild! I'll keep your attack contained!" he said, erecting a circular wall of stone in a twenty-meter radius around them.

"This is stupid!"

The swarm gave them no more room to argue. With an uproar of wings, the monsters descended upon them.

"Anna! Now!"

"Goddammit!"

He saw white. The skies flashed. For a brief moment, everything was still. Emil felt an oppressive feeling against his eardrums until a high-pitch ring blared in his head. A faint tingle crawled along his skin. Shocks burned sporadically around his body—the static somehow bypassing the layer of protection that he had conjured.

When he could see again, pandemonium was before his eyes.

Blinding sparks filled the air like webs, bouncing between the densely crowded monsters. The terrible creatures convulsed—blood bursting from the cancerous bulbs that made up their eyes. Gore rained down accompanied by insect corpses. Emil immediately erected a protective barrier to shield them against the bombardment of organic mass.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He reformed his armor as the intensity of the shocks grew. Electricity continued to pour out of Anna. Her body was engulfed in a storm of static charges. After what felt like an eternity, she finally stopped.

It was suddenly quiet. The eerie silence had the street in a chokehold. Emil released the stone armor. His muscles convulsed slightly from the ambient charges in the air. He ignored the buzzing pains and glanced around. The smoky stench of charred flesh permeated the area. Most of the insects on this street of the Commerce District had been electrocuted to death, but he could hear similar sounds of fighting from nearby blocks.

Hopefully that's the Lionhearts and Belle taking care of things.

Not that he and Anna would be much help with a quagmire of insect corpses in their way.

Emil turned to his side. Anna was on her knees, a hand on her chest, heaving for air. Before he could take a step towards her, she raised a hand in his direction.

"…I'm fine," she muttered weakly, "Just tired." With a bit of difficulty, she pulled herself back up on her feet. Her stance wavered with slight instability until she forced herself to remain steady. Emil couldn't help but smile. He wasn't the only one who improved over the past month. Anna had been sparring against Liesel and working on her Gift nonstop since Vigil's takeover of the Clash of Dawn banquet. Her power output was better. Her mana capacity and tolerance had increased significantly. If she had unleashed an attack of this calibre a month ago, she would have already descended into early stages of Overclock. The fact that she was still standing with energy to spare was a testament of her hard work.

"What now?" she asked.

"Looks like there's still fighting going on in the other blocks. But let's leave that to the Belle and Lionhearts for now. I'm more concerned about where all these insects came from."

They stumbled out of the wreckage of Emil's stone walls. Electrocuted corpses of the insectoid monsters filled the streets. Most of them were near the spot where Emil had drawn them in. Thanks to their efforts, the damage to the structures along the street were fairly minimal. There were still a few bugs that crashed into the residential buildings and shops, smearing charred insect guts on the walls and damaging windows and storefronts. Nothing could be done about that.

Emil dismantled his stone walls cautiously, making sure that none of the dead insects splattered or rolled when hitting the ground. People were slowly poking their heads out of hiding since the sounds of combat had ceased. They all had a disturbed look on their face as they examined the carnage of insects on the streets. Emil couldn't imagine what they were thinking. For him, this swarm of insect was simply a threat that need to be eliminated. But what about the Ordinaries who had no Gifts to defend themselves with? It must have been terrifying, watching their lives be uprooted by the sudden emergence of monsters. And yet, they were helpless. They could do nothing but hide and hope that someone would come to their aid. The lack of agency must have been immensely frustrating.

Emil moved aside the insect corpses with Bulwark as he and Anna trudged through the quagmire.

Anna clicked her tongue. She had a fierce scowl on her face as her head turned to examine the aftermath of their fight.

"We did the best we could," he said, reading her thoughts. True, they did save a bunch of people's lives and prevented the worst-case scenario given the suddenness of the situation. But it was hard to look for silver linings when eyeing the death and destruction left behind by the swarm's incursion.

"I know," she hissed back. But her hands remained balled up. It was obvious that she was frustrated for not being able to do more. For not saving more people. For not being strong enough to eliminate the swarm while keeping the destruction to a minimum. It might have been arrogant of her to expect so much of herself, but Emil liked her earnestness. Ardair, with all its greed and corruption, needed more people like her.

"Young man! Young lady!"

A hoarse voice shouted at them from the side of the road. It was a middle-aged man who stumbled out of the wreckage. His eyes were still wide with fear and his body was trembling with adrenaline. Is there someone over there who needs help? Emil and Anna both turned instantly, ready to head over.

"Thank you! Thank you for fighting back against those monsters!"

The middle-aged man's voice was shaking with relief. As if drawn by his actions, more and more people emerged from their hiding spots.

"Thank you!"

"You saved us!"

"You two are amazing!"

Emil and Anna stood there in disbelief as praise and appreciation showered from every direction. It was overwhelming to say the least. It was a different kind of attention compared to the cheers during the Clash of Dawn. Instead of expectation and desire, these cheers were filled with gratitude.

"I guess we did better than we thought."

Anna was silent. Her head was lowered, her gaze trailed the floor, and her expression unreadable.

"Come on, you should at least take a look at the people you've saved. We don't do this because we expect to be rewarded, but we should be entitled to this much at least."

"Oh, shut up. Stop acting like you're not as flustered as I am by all this," she mumbled before reluctantly looking up. Her eyes were shimmering with tears. Her face was squished as though fighting a futile battle to hold back her emotions.

"You got me there."

"Honestly though! Why are you being acknowledged first?" Anna complained while wiping her eyes with her sleeves, "I'm the one who did most of the work!"

Emil could only smile at her attempt to distract him from seeing her teary face.

***

"Ladies and gentlemen, abnormal sightings have appeared in the southeastern sections of the Commerce District. Please heed the orders of any Belle and Lionhearts on duty."

The static of the public broadcast dissipated.

After the fanfare, Emil and Anna continued their investigations into source of the monstrous swarm. They followed the trail of insect corpses up the block while asking the people nearby when they had first witnessed the monsters. The eye-witness accounts were all over the place as expected—after all, it was hard for people to recall memories during moments of sheer panic. Still, it was enough for them to narrow down the insect's origin to a passage branching off from the main road.

If I remembered correctly—

He moved aside the wreckage blocking the path with Bulwark. A cavernous doorway was at the end of the passage.

"Is that an entrance to the Canticle?" Anna asked.

Emil nodded silently. Given how accessible it is, this entrance is probably not one of Steiger's. Likely it's used by the city to maintain the sewers.

He frowned. His suspicions that the swarm emerged from the Canticle was effectively confirmed. But the implications were troubling. Graf had sent Steiger agents down last night to search for more monsters. Despite that, an entire swarm of monsters had appeared in the Commerce District today. The situation in the Canticle might have been more urgent than they initially realized.

Lost in his thoughts, Emil was late to catch a sudden presence.

"Watch out!"

Anna dragged him to the side just as another insectoid monster shot out of the entrance of the Canticle. A stray. The creature paid them no attention, instead choosing to ascend to the skies before making a beeline towards the street.

"No!"

Emil and Anna chased after it in full sprint. The streets were being crowded with civilians climbing out of their hiding spots. There were plenty of the people for the frenzied monster to target.

The bug screeched. It suddenly began its descent from the skies. Emil looked ahead. A couple was in the middle of the street beside a toppled caravan, preoccupied with assessing the damage of the crates and barrels that had spilled during the swarm outbreak.

Dammit, I can't make it in time!

"Emil! Clean up after me!" Anna yelled.

Her body was suddenly engulfed in a flash of electricity. With a single step, she launched herself forward at an unfathomable speed. Enhanced by Volt, she sped through the passage and onto the main street. The insect was mid-skydive, scythe extended and mandibles open, ready to hunt down the hapless couple. A bolt of lightning suddenly cut through the air with dissonant whine. The monster cried with a vicious anger until its body separated in half.

"Bastion!"

Emil dove, extending his hand. He barely made it into his interference range as he raised a platform of stone to kill the fall of descending bug.

He let out a sigh of relief after finding the couple unscathed. His heart was pounding. Compared to the actual insect swarm, this was just a mere blip. But the thought of having a casualty right after they had been celebrated left a bitter taste in his mouth. Maybe it was overly sentimental of him, but he didn't want to taint the beautiful memory with deaths that could have been prevented.

Emil picked himself up, groaning from the fall. He didn't have time to fortify his body with armor to cushion his landing. Still, it was a small price to pay given his Exalted constitution. He glanced up. Anna was in front of the couple. Sparks still buzzed around her body. From the side, she had a strange look on her face as she stared at the two that they had just saved.

"…Mom? Dad?"