“We got her,” Wyllan murmured, though his tone was a bit tentative.

The combination attack went off flawlessly, and there was no angle of escape that Lady Yuriko could take. Ember Cloud, Molten Arrows, Seer Bullets, and Mountain Cleaving Blade. Each one was a finishing blow that the Circle used to win tournaments back during the Convocation, and while they didn’t win the bracket they’d been in, they still placed well on the lists. 

He tempered his expectations, however, since they were fighting someone at least a level above them. There were thousands of Actualised Ancients compared to those in the Transformation Stage, and hundreds of them compared to those in Manifestation. The lopsided ratios were a result of the prevalence of Anaflexio—Anima Ignition—as a method of training and awakening. It was a theory proven over the long centuries with clear downsides, but the advantages were too good to be passed up. 

Ancients after the Shattering were few, and given the hostile world after it came to light that the reason the cataclysm happened in the first place was due to some of their number…well, changes had to be made. 

So what if it took much longer to advance beyond Actualisation? Ancients at that level had an unlimited amount of time to progress, and it didn’t matter in the long run how long it took. That was the argument presented back then, and it was the logic recorded in the annals of history. 

So anyone who managed to ascend past Actualisation was deserving of respect. He couldn’t help but wonder how wide the gap was though. So far, they matched Lady Yuriko’s pace. Anya was enjoying herself given what she’d been spouting while on the comms channel, though the last few seconds, the woman had gone oddly silent. 

His Ennoia was the supportive kind and enhanced the attacks of his allies, and he was the glue that made their attacks so potent. He only hoped it would be enough to satisfy the powerful Ancient. 

He gasped in surprise and fear as the golden weapon she’d flung at Glenn pierced through the hasty barriers they put up. He directed a dozen orbs towards the sword, hoping to melt or at least, divert it. The golden weapon spun and cut his orbs in twain, and even though they exploded into fiery clouds, the sword just ate it all up. Then, it careened towards Glenn, who yelped and tried to fend it off. 

Thankfully, the Molten Arrows were already on their way and weren’t linked to the huge man’s control. As the last counterattack nearly dismembered Glenn, Wyllan couldn’t help but stare. Lady Yuriko froze on the battlefield, and stood up casually, abandoning her martial stance. Her weapons were held casually at her side. Her lips were curled into a sardonic smile. 

For a moment, the air around her flashed golden, and he realised that it was her perception aura. Her Anima flared for a moment, covering the entirety of the battlefield and giving him an inkling of how far she reached. He couldn’t help but shiver as his own Anima reacted to the powerful, yet quite thin, presence. Then, it converged around her and created a corona of flames. 

Then, all their attacks struck at once. Superheated plasma combined with condensed water, obsidian shards infused with enough heat to turn it back to lava, bullets empowered with Anima and aimed at clear weak points, and Anya’s devastating cut that would have cloven a castle wall in twain, along with the keep behind it. 

All of them slammed into her and stopped cold. 

The molten arrows simply turned back into broken obsidian. The superheated clouds burst and wafted around her figure. The bullets squashed themselves on her armour, and Anya’s devastating blow slammed into the aura a few inches from Lady Yuriko’s head and slid off. 

Immediately, Wyllan released all of the energy he controlled. It would be foolish to seem hostile when the lady clearly was done playing. Everyone else had similarly frozen, except for Anya, whose attack had a second component to it. She used the rebound, gathered all the shed momentum through some weird interaction with Swordlight, redoubled the force, and attacked. This time, Lady Yuriko caught the blade with her hand and stopped it cold. 

“Ruler’s Grace…” Wyllan muttered. Lady Yuriko’s arm didn’t even waver as she caught the full-powered blow. Boosting the physique with Animakinesis was possible, of course, but it wasn’t a skill he knew well. Glenn and Anya were the ones who specialised in it, and from the look on their faces, they couldn’t believe how easy she made it look either. 

“Stand down…” he said and heard muttered acknowledgements. Lady Yuriko released the massive sword and raised her hand close to her face, examining the aura. She abruptly smiled. 

“You managed a crack. Congratulations.” She tilted her head to the side once she saw that none of them were moving. “Did you surrender?” 

“Yes, Your Eminence,” Wyllan said cautiously. 

“I see. Hmm, I suppose I should correct you now.”

Eh?

“Hmmm, I’ve yet to reach Manifestation,” Lady Yuriko smiled. “I don’t think I’m even halfway there yet.” 

“Oh.”

Ruler’s mercy. She was that powerful at Transformation? Who was the crazy fool who trained her? How long must she have lingered at that level to achieve that kind of power? Or was she aiming to be a Paragon? He shook his head slightly enough that his helm didn’t quiver. It was none of his business. And while his Anima didn’t suffer much damage… 

A slight stinging pain caught his attention. There were micro-fractures across his Anima, most close to his body. He…didn’t even notice. Her Anima had encompassed all of them and she’d applied pressure enough to promote Anima growth and all without them noticing…?

“Hmmm, well then, since you’ve surrendered, the win is mine.” 

“Of course, Your Emi…er, Your Excellency.” 

“Come, let us discuss what you owe me.”

Lady Yuriko flexed her Animakinesis and flattened the earthen protrusions the battle raised. She floated over and beckoned. Wyllan chuckled to himself even as he transmitted orders to the fleet and the raiding group. Whatever they managed to salvage would be it. They might have short rations on their way to base camp, but at least he was bringing everyone home. 

____________

The audition lasted longer than the battle and the talks both. Yuriko sighed as she exited the panel’s room. The auditioners consisted of five men and women, none of them younger than middle-aged. The producer and director were two men who had grey on their heads, and while the director was pretty professional, the chubby producer practically leered at her for the entire time. 

There was a delightful woman who was a history researcher, and she kept exclaiming that Yuriko was perfect for the role, if not for the fact that she was a tad bit too tall. The other two were a husband and wife pair who were the costume and casting assitant directors, Yuriko thought. They’d introduced themselves when she entered the room, but with the preoccupation with the battle and the aftermath, she’d elided through what they said and who they were. 

The actual audition process was simple enough. They asked her to read the lines, then to perform a few stunts involving an axe, a dummy rifle, and a hunting knife. 

“We could use stunt doubles, of course, but, uhm…with your stature, it would be a bit difficult to match,” the director, Chadwin Summers, said. “ I saw footage of you duelling in your school, if you can perform the fight scene choreography, it would make shooting easier and the scenes more authentic.” 

Yuriko nodded and said, “Well, I’ll give it a go. None of these are swords though.”

She took the axe and practised Jade Mountain with it, but found the movements too forceful so she shifted to Flowing Water. She added the hunting knife into the dance and experimented with the dual weapon style. Familiarity with the weapon aside, her Ennoia of the Sword twinged in protest to her use of the axe, so much so that halfway through the dance, she hesitated and broke the flow. 

The panellists had been in a daze, but once she faltered, they woke up. Still, her performance was good enough, and probably because they weren’t well-versed in swordplay, they seemed to like it. Coupled with her passable reading, they all but approved her casting. No contract was given though, but a promise to send an email with details through her agency. 

It was mid-afternoon by the time they finished. Yuriko and Scarlett drove back to Neo Prism City. The drive was relatively quick, with smooth traffic flows. Yuriko enjoyed watching the scenery, but the vistas weren’t quite as spectacular as those on the resource planet. 

The Ancient Circle had already retreated and Yuriko returned to the spaceport, bringing her lovers and her handmaiden along. The captive pilot had been ransomed back with a small bar of gold, roughly twenty HiJin worth. She wasn’t sure how it matched up to Imperial Sovereigns or Bresian coins, but she was glad to hold physical money again. The loss of their gold to Dragon Fall City had been annoying, and she resolved never to give up money like that again. Or rather, she would only exchange as much as she needed. She still had a couple of hundred gold marks sequestered in her hip satchel but that was a small fraction of their team’s funds. 

She let Heron and Gwendith report to the port commander and Ilvarra while she headed to her room to clean up and wind down. The small fissure the battle gave her had already healed over and she suspected that it wouldn’t impact her growth all that much. She averaged a pace a day for the past year, though she expected the rate to go down once she closed on the limit. That was what the Ambrosia was for, really. She had about fifty droplets now, hopefully, it wouldn’t take more than a year to get what she needed to convert Saki or Ryoko to the Ancient’s Way. 

Her thoughts lingered on the information Wyllan gave her, and she had a few decisions to make. The contract with Milstate would expire soon since they saw combat, and they effectively defended the planet against an enemy fleet. There were still a few more weeks until it was done, however, so she had little else to do but ponder and plan. 

“Anaflexio…” Yuriko muttered.

Who would have thought that it was possible to burn Anima in order to empower itself? It sounded ludicrous, especially since there was nothing in Damien’s memories that indicated its existence, but Wyllan and the others had demonstrated the process to her. 

“It will take a while for the Anima to recover, several hours or days depending on how much is burned.”

Doing that repeatedly apparently increased Anima density, but it shouldn’t be done if the Anima was still expanding naturally. Also, Anaflexio could be used to awaken a mortal. That was the most interesting about it, but Wyllan warned her that while true, mortals whose Anima were ignited took longer to train and grow stronger. 

In the end, she decided that it wasn’t something she wanted to dabble with yet. Also, dense Anima naturally thinned once someone ascended, so Yuriko thought the process was only done when one couldn’t progress normally anymore. 

‘A loser’s stratagem,’ she thought to herself, then after a moment, chastised herself for her arrogance. The conclaves were apparently a bigger thing than she thought, but then, one other piece of information was well worth the trouble she took not to squash the Hartdel Defiant. 

“The way to delve farther into the tower,” she murmured. In less than a couple of years, she and the others needed to reach Shangria Station and either participate in their tournament or if not, just take the key to enter the Bore. 

She wasn’t quite sure which path to take just yet, but she also worried how long the remnant connection with Kato would last. If it came to it, she would probably choose her brother over everything else. 

She just hoped that it didn’t come to that.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep