Chapter Twenty-Six

Lusya held her ground, neither retreating nor attacking. She could not afford to be rash when she did not know what Kadel’s Full Release did. To think he had achieved the Full Release of his Sacred Blade. She had not predicted that. If she had, she would have finished him off without hesitation and worried about Ariya afterward. He would not have had a chance to think about starting his invocation.

If what most people thought of as a Blade, known more properly as its First Release, was a crystallization of one’s soul as a weapon, a Full Release could be thought of as forcing a part of the world itself to assume the form of a larger scale crystallization. It was said a Full Release could be achieved only when one achieved a deeper level of understanding and acceptance of themselves, casting off all doubt and self-deception. It was a little more complicated than that in practice, but the core idea was true enough.

Full Releases were the absolute pinnacle of strength for motomancy users, demon, Sacred Knight, or otherwise. Only a small handful of mortals had them. There was no comprehensive list or count, but most estimates she had seen placed the number at less than one thousand in all of Ysuge. Not many demons had them either, for that matter. Lusya had known perhaps a couple dozen and known of a couple dozen more, most of whom had likely perished in the war.

There was a higher level still, the Final Release. However, only Miudofay was known to have one. Even the Hero of Balance did not possess a counterpart. That made sense, seeing as the Hero’s Blade was ultimately an ordinary one, different for each Hero. Miudofay, by contrast, was an exceptional Demon Blade, wielded by every Demon King. It was said that, if ever used, the Final Release, Miudofay Enfern Ifi, would engulf the entire world in flame, razing the planet’s surface.

Lusya spared a glance back. It had been obvious already, but she confirmed that Ariya had been inside its range. She stood inside the dome, trembling as she cast frightened glances all around. She caught Lusya’s eyes, took a deep breath, and seemed to steel herself. Her tremors stilled and she forced her wide-eyed expression into a scowl, though her pallid face still betrayed her fear. The best way to address that was to defeat the enemy.

Lusya turned her attention back to Kadel. Within most Full Releases, an attack could come from any direction with little physical input from the user required, but observing one’s opponent could still provide valuable information. At the moment, he wasn’t doing much of anything, however. He stood rooted to the spot, back straight as a rod, perhaps using that posture and discipline to fight through his pain. Nevertheless, his shoulders and chest heaved with every heavy breath he took, and he still held the charred remains of his left arm as though that would somehow heal it.

The size of a Full Release varied with its strength. At the peak of Father’s strength, Miudofay’s Full Release, Miudofay Enfern, had been the size of a large city. That was an exceptional case, of course, but this one—Envili Uvgra, Kadel had called it—was small even by more conventional standards. It seemed to have a radius of roughly one hundred feet. He must have achieved it recently. It was even possible this was his first time using it in a real fight.

None of that changed the simple fact that Lusya was now at a disadvantage. Encountering anyone with a Full Release was a momentous stroke of misfortune. Under the right circumstances or matchups, a First Release could overpower a Full Release, but that was not common, and it was too early to say if Lunera or her Miudofay were up to the task. She had never had to defeat a user of a Full Release on her own before. It was doubtful that Lunera would be a match in a straight fight, and in the past, she had observed that, while Lunera functioned fine within a Full Release, it could not be used to escape.

Lusya had no access to any Full Release. She could never have Miudofay’s. While it was possible in theory for her to achieve Lunera’s, she had not and had reason to doubt she ever would.

“It’s over now,” Kadel said, his voice still strained and raspy. “I’ll admit that I underestimated you. But no more. I’m going to finish this. But first, I’ll secure the girl.”

Lusya whirled as vines branched off and reached down from the ceiling. They moved with incredible speed, several times that the First Release’s tendrils had. They wrapped around Ariya’s limbs and waist to restrain her.

“Lusya, they’ve got me!” Ariya shouted. “Help! Get them off!”

Lusya moved forward. She needed to burn away those vines. No, she didn’t know enough about how their speed or other properties differed from the First Release. Something as simple as misjudging the timing could end with her killing Ariya instead. Lusya would need to get in close and cut the vines away. She ran toward Ariya in order to get in sword-striking range.

Vines sprouted from the sides and formed two walls, separating Lusya from Ariya. Lusya slashed at the walls and sent out a short-range arc of fire. However, the flames only burned through the first and a small bit of the second wall before petering out. That level of fire had been more than sufficient to tear through the entire First Release.

The vines holding Ariya started to retract. She let out a high-pitched, wordless scream as they yanked her into the air and kept going. Before Lusya could give chase, her senses and peripheral vision informed her of danger. Vines closing in from the sides and behind. She twirled and sent out a broad crescent of more powerful flames, incinerating the vines.

From observing the way the vines binding Ariya had behaved, Lusya had inferred that the vines grew incredibly quick during an initial, straight-line growth period, then slowed to speeds comparable to the First Release when further control was demanded. It was possible that had been out of concern for Ariya’s safety, but Lusya doubted it. Binding her high in the air with vines did not seem the restraint of choice for someone who was conscious of her well-being.

Indeed, the vines that had been closing in continued to do so, but at a slower rate, though still quick enough to be dangerous. However, Lusya did not take that for the main attack. Vines surged out of the wall behind her at their top speed. She leaped into the air and spun, throwing flames around to burn away as many vines as possible. She took out a good chunk of the wall and the vines closing in on her, then used an air jump to get herself out of the tangle of destroyed tendrils surrounding her.

She landed in a clearer area, with a good view of Kadel, though she doubted it would stay that way for long. He glowered at her in silence. He still had yet to move so much as a step since summoning his Full Release. That was not uncommon for a Full Release user holding the advantage, though this one may have benefited from supplemental attacks. Considering the state he was in, however, it may well have taken all his strength to stand there and direct his vines.

“Lusy—!” Ariya screamed, before additional vines sprouted from her restraint to wrap tight around her mouth. She thrashed and writhed against her bindings as they retracted toward the ceiling but made no headway in escaping. Which was perhaps for the best, considering she was already close to a hundred feet above the ground.

Once again, this Knight had made the situation more difficult. Now Lusya needed to figure out a way to free Ariya and keep the child from falling to her death in the process.

Lusya swung her blade toward Kadel and released a wave of fire. Several layers of vines surged forth to shield him. All but one burned away, but the last held firm. Miudofay could burn through the vines easily enough, but it did consume some of the destructive force of an attack. When enough vines were piled together, they became an effective defense. Even if a full-power strike could have burned through all of them, she could not use them constantly for fear of exhaustion.

Seeing as he had tried to use his First Release as a shield, she assumed it had a similar property. It had just been too weak to matter. Father’s Miudofay would have destroyed these vines just as easily, but it seemed hers was not up to the task.

“Stop this unsightly resistance against the inevitable,” Kadel said. “It’s evident that you can’t defeat Envili Uvgra.”

“That remains to be seen,” Lusya said.

He clicked his tongue. “Stubborn, aren’t you?”

“Surrender offers no chance at a favorable outcome,” Lusya said. “Therefore, even if the chance it offers is minuscule, fighting remains my best option. I must protect Ariya. And I do not want to lose to you.”

He scoffed. “Revenge, is it?”

“I do not know,” Lusya said. She did resent the Sacred Knights, but was vengeance in her nature? Even if it was, she did not think that was what this was. “And it does not matter. I will defeat you.”

“Saying it won’t make it true,” he replied. He let out a smug chuckle. “But I do admire your persistence.”

“The feeling is not mutual.”

Vines dived down at Lusya from above. She dodged them, but another mass came from ahead to intercept her. She jumped over it, then air jumped to the side to avoid the vines that came out of that second mass from below. She burned away most of the third set before more could sprout.

Then another set sprouted from the second. Rather than rush right at her, it shot up under and behind her, missing her. She reoriented herself, but it was already whipping itself at her. It struck hard, launching her backward and landing a few small scratches with its thorns. She air jumped at the last second to avoid another vine seizing her from behind.

She launched an arc of flames at Kadel, but another layered shield of vines thwarted it. She was forced to move again to avoid another vine that was almost upon her. Its thorns grazed against, but did not pierce, her skin as she just barely dodged it.

If she did not think of a way to win soon, she would be in trouble. Consecutive air jumps were taxing, even more so than they logically should have been for reasons that remained unclear. She would need to touch the ground soon. That would refresh her stamina for air jumps, to some degree. Movement caught her eye. It was not another vine, but Ariya, held against the ceiling. She squirmed in vain against the vines holding her and released quiet, muffled screams into her gag.

Lusya had been approaching this situation from the wrong angle. She had focused on defeating the enemy as the means to resolution. That needed to be done, but it was neither her priority nor her goal. Her oath was not to kill Sacred Knights. It was to keep Ariya safe from all harm. That may well have been as impossible as finding a pure mortal but, just as she had with that task, Lusya would get as close as she could.

She jumped over the next tangle of vines to try to crush her, avoiding it by mere inches. Then she let herself fall onto it. Kadel had been supplying her footholds all this time, and she had been too busy trying to kill him to notice. She jumped off the mass with all her strength. More vines sprouted chase after her, but she sent down a wave of fire to ward them off and jumped again off the air.

Ariya was to the side, not directly above, but Lusya could still reach with the next jump. Countless vines surged in from all directions. There was no technique or finesse to their movements. He meant to overwhelm and crush her with so many simultaneous attacks.

Lusya created a foothold. The greatest motomancy users could stand or even walk upon theirs for extended periods. Lusya had never been able to do so for longer than she needed to jump, but it would suffice. It had to. She created a large, spherical barrier around herself to slow the vines, if by very little, then spun to throw flames out around her. When the foothold was about to fail, she jumped into a flip to send another circle of flames out vertically. She allowed herself to fall onto the burnt vines below and jumped off, through the gap she had created above, whirling to cut away more of the vines.

At the apex of her jump, she sent out a wave of fire to destroy the vines that had obstructed her view and path to Ariya. Lusya air jumped to get just beneath Ariya. With a swing of Miudofay overhead as she neared the peak of this jump, Lusya sent out a surge of violet flame that engulfed the vines around and binding Ariya, as well as the child herself. A risk there was little choice but to take if Lusya were to free and protect the child.

Ariya fell out of the flames unharmed and dropped onto Lusya as she used a foothold to stay at the height of her leap for a split-second. Lusya took her left hand off Miudofay and used it to catch Ariya and prop the child up against her. Ariya wrapped her arms around Lusya’s neck to secure herself and clung to Lusya with all the force a tree used to root itself to into the soil.

“Close your eyes and hold on,” Lusya said.

“I will,” Ariya replied as she buried her face into Lusya’s shoulder.

Lusya swung and incinerated the vines that tried to sprout from the ceiling at her. She made another foothold to hop off of, then flipped and made another above to push off and propel herself down. She had never done such a maneuver before, but she could not afford simply to fall. She destroyed the vines below that moved to catch her, then righted herself to dodge another barrage. A tangle came at her from the side, so she jumped onto, then off of it, burning it as she left it behind.

Countless more vines tried to crush or trap her, but she evaded or destroyed them all. Still, that was all she could do and it was getting her nowhere. She needed to go on the offensive or her efforts would be for naught.

“No matter how much you struggle, it’s pointless!” Kadel shouted. “If that’s the best you can do, those flames will never reach me again!”

Lusya oriented herself to face him as she dodged another attack. With all the power she could muster from Miudofay, she slashed and sent out a roaring crescent of flame, annihilating most of the vines closing in on her and continuing toward him unimpeded. Walls of vines surged to protect their master.

Miudofay’s flames blazed on, burning through layer after layer until the tendrils struggling to snuff them out were all gone. But the fire had exhausted all its energy destroying those defenses and dissipated into a flurry of violet sparks, leaving Kadel standing with his protection gone but untouched by the attack below. Lusya jumped over the remaining vines attacking her and banished Miudofay.

“Lunera,” she said, her hand outstretched. Her Blade materialized in her hand.

Perhaps fearing the new sword’s power, Kadel grew new vines from his ruined ones in an effort to repair his walls. The opening she had created had all but closed before she could so much as move Lunera, but she could see through just enough to know that he had not fortified the area directly around him.

“Just hurry up…” she slashed Lunera through the air before her, creating a rift to connect to that space that engulfed her and Ariya immediately. Lusya appeared in front of him, less than an inch off the ground, and landed.

He flinched at her appearance. “What the—?”

“…and die!” she shouted as she struck with Lunera, cleaving clear through the captain in a single blow.

All the vines froze. Some had just sprung from the wall behind to defend their master, but they too stopped. The two halves of Kadel’s body fell apart as they toppled, his face frozen in wide-eyed shock and terror. The dome of vines and those within dissolved as quickly as they had formed, returning Lusya and Ariya to the sunny road they had walked upon before. Almost where they had been when the fight had started, in fact.

Lusya dismissed Lunera and took a moment to catch her breath. She had to resist the urge to give into desperate panting and keep herself breathing properly. Her heart pounded and her legs felt like jelly. It had been several months since anyone had challenged her so. She hoped she would not have the displeasure again before her task was completed.

Though her eyes were still closed, Ariya began to sob. Her entire body shook against Lusya’s. Tears leaked from her eyelids and ran down her face onto Lusya’s cloak. After the first few sobs, Ariya let out a deafening wail and descended into hysterical weeping.

“That was so scary!” she wailed. “I thought I was gonna die!”

Lusya raised her free hand and gave Ariya’s head a pat. “It is okay now. You are safe.”

Ariya’s crying quieted to a sniffle and a sob long enough for her to nod before she returned to her weeping.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Lusya said. “I will move us away from this area.”

“O-okay.”

With that, Lusya retrieved her pack and walked onward down the road.