Chương 45: Chapter 144: Pyrinn's Shadow

It was with a thunderous, aetheric boom that Amelia and her titanic ocean of aether burst into the Shimmer, announcing to the world that one plane of reality was no longer enough to restrain her demigod-levels of cuteness. It was a very strange thing indeed, to experience the bizarre sensation of falling into herself, falling into her shadow, and then being exactly where she just was, but also somewhere completely different.

"Whoa," Amelia said—her first word in this new reality. In the next moment, Amelia became aware of the sudden, omnipresent pressure bearing down on all of her spellwork. It was one thing to see into the aetherphobic Shimmer, to watch aether dissipate back into the normal world, but to feel it? It wasn't a small sensation, either. Her delicate Kanaxai glamours were stripped away, the pressure too great to keep them stable. The aetherphobic force is proportional, Amelia realised.

She'd seen Noburu in the Shimmer, witnessed the tiny amount of aether he naturally took in leaking from his body and returning to the material world. In his case, the aetheric differential was small, but even that was difficult for the magically untrained demon to resist. There was no way he would survive if he were subjected to the same level of stress her aether was under right now. And what aether she had!

The reserves she'd brought with her into the Shimmer were a second, vibrant sun, bursting with ochure and mesmerising kaleidoscopic colours that almost covered the ethereal shine of her own soul. Her formations and the rivers of aether that supplied them meant she was a localised spot of extreme aetheric density, creating an almost maximally strong differential with the surrounding aether vacuum.

It was a differential that meant she had to fight to keep her formations under control, and impose her willpower on her magic more than usual, lest it all explode from her in a tidal wave of colour.

"It's manageable," Amelia said out loud, taking a moment to steel her aetheric control. Satisfied she wasn't going to explode anytime soon and give the Ishaqian aetherscopes a frightful experience, she looked around and took in her surroundings. The world looked strange. She'd thought her previous peeking into the Shimmer would prepare her for when she stood in the sepia-coloured, everlit world. Now that she was finally here, she realised there was a strangeness to everything that was difficult to articulate.

On one hand, the sepia was warm and cosy, but on the other, unnatural and alien. She was no longer visible to anyone else, but her entry into the Shimmer wasn't subtle. In all directions around her, the previously smooth stone had shattered like tempered glass, a spiderweb of cracks expanding outwards towards everyone and everything. Those who had been deep in focus were now wide-eyed, gawking in her general direction.

Finella's mouth was wide open, a stark contrast to Serena, who was nodding slowly at the cracked floor as if she'd been expecting something like it all along.

"Hello!" Amelia chirped, waving at her friends who couldn't see her.

"I did it!" Mel took a step forward first, her movement sluggish. True to the explanation Amelia had heard from Noburu and the Lord Guardian, time outside the Shimmer ran at half the speed of time inside. If Mel could see into the Shimmer now, she'd see Amelia wave twice as quickly as normal.

"I heard her," Mel said, her voice slow, muffled, and deep.

"She sounds faint, like she's a klick away."

"I can hear you," Amelia called.

"Your voice sounds strange!"

"Your voice sounds strange," Mel replied.

"It's higher-pitched."

"It's because of the time difference," Serena explained. While her girlfriend reminded everyone of Shimmer time, Amelia couldn't help but smile. She didn't know how it was possible, but Serena somehow sounded even cooler and more suave with a deeper voice. Not only was her girlfriend's voice honey for her ears, but Serena's soul was a feast for her eyes. It shone vibrantly in the Shimmer, pure and perfect. Amelia really was the luckiest human alive, wasn't she?

After all, she had a girlfriend who looked beautiful in every layer of reality! Serena instructed Finella and Daichi to monitor the perimeter in case Amelia's first bout of mistwalking triggered someone's perception. After they were gone, Serena kicked a chunk of the fractured floor to Amelia's general location. It was surreal to watch the tumbling chunk of rock bounce across the ground, slower than it should have been.

The disconnect between Amelia's sensation of her body moving and the slowed-down movement of non-Shimmer material felt so wrong. Her brain kept trying to tell her that something wasn't adding up, no matter how much she rationally knew it was authentic.

"Try and pick it up," Serena said. Amelia gave her affirmation and bent down, gripping the rock. She paused, looking up and glancing at everyone. They were all fixed on the rock, with expressions that ranged from expectation to apprehension. Taking a breath, she gripped the rock, engaged her muscles, and stood up, prompting a symphony of muted and faint gasps.

"It's like it's floating," Ido muttered.

"Empress…" Arin murmured.

"How eerie," Seonmi mused.

"Preternatural," Mel said, shaking her head.

"It feels wrong, somehow." Noburu stepped forward with a deep frown.

"I wouldn't be able to lift it," he said, looking around.

"Not something this big. That rock would feel like a hundred pounds."

"It's heavy!" Amelia called out.

"It's harder to move it, but it's easier to hold it in place once I stop lifting it." The rock was fifty, perhaps a hundred times heavier than it was outside the Shimmer. Such weight wasn't much for Amelia and her enhanced strength, but it was so surreal to feel such weight from an object her brain knew was only about a pound. It was as if the Shimmer was punishing her for trying to move something outside of its domain. Serena asked her to kick the rock.

Amelia obliged, putting in an amount of force that should have sent the rock sailing to the other side of the area. Instead, her well-timed kick caused it to bob upwards about half a foot before falling to the ground as if it were under half-gravity. Feeling a little embarrassed, Amelia picked up the rock and tried again, this time putting in the same amount of force that she would normally use to conduct one of her I'm-here-to-save-the-day kicks through a wall.

The results were better, sending the rock in a clean arc where it collided against Daichi's earthen backstop. Serena watched the rock settle for a moment before turning and asking Amelia, "How much force did you use?"

"Enough to shatter it normally," Amelia answered.

"Mmm," Serena hummed. Her girlfriend adjusted her stance, falling into Shimokan's zenkutsu-dachi. With her front knee deeply bent and her centre of gravity low, Serena made a perfect rendition of the martial stance she'd first taught Amelia so many months ago on the deck of the Vengeance.

"Push against my hand," Serena said, stretching her arm out.

"I want to feel the force."

"Got it," Amelia said, positioning herself in front of Serena. She fell into a mirroring stance and placed her palm against Serena's and slowly began to apply force. After a dozen seconds of gradually increasing pressure, Serena frowned.

"Are you trying?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm trying!" Amelia exclaimed.

"I'm pushing hard enough that anyone else would collapse!" It was honestly a weird experience. She could feel her wards and muscles straining like they'd done many times before, but the effect she was having on the physical world around her wasn't congruent with any of her previous experiences. Whatever she pushed with, it felt like Serena would only feel a hundredth of what she should have. Where was the extra energy going, if not into Serena?

"There are signs," Hinako said, pointing at the floor.

"You can see where her feet are, and the subtle pressure they exert on the ground. Look, you can see where her back foot slid backwards here. It barely disturbed the dirt, but you can see it." Just as Amelia looked down, she felt a sudden pressure on her outstretched hand that caused her to stumble back.

"Now that's interesting," Serena said, standing up.

"I can push you back. It's one way." The demon gestured in Amelia's direction.

"Put your arm out. Let's conduct some more tests." Over the next few minutes, they began testing the idiosyncrasies of the Shimmer and its unnatural physics quirks. They discovered that, while someone in the Shimmer could only exert a hundredth of their power against a non-Shimmer object, that rule didn't apply in the reverse. If Amelia were restrained, she would have to counter with a hundred times the force that restrained her, or exit the Shimmer to deal with the physical threat directly.

"It's quite dangerous for the mistwalker," Serena concluded, a finger on her chin.

"The time difference gives them quite an advantage, but if they're caught, especially by someone who can move and react more than twice the speed that they can, then they lose." She turned to Noburu, asking, "Did you know this?"

"No, Captain," the demon answered. He rubbed the back of his neck, saying with a touch of awkwardness, "I was more focused on how I could use it to, uh, avoid things. It's so taxing on me; I didn't have the luxury of being able to test it thoroughly." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"About a hundred times difference in force," Serena continued.

"No wonder Lords are encouraged to maintain an aura or ward at all times. It's an effective defence. A mistwalker would have to be as powerful as a capable Speaker to break through the most basic defence. Only, if they were that powerful…" Serena trailed off, looking in Amelia's direction. She gestured to a spot a few metres away and said, "Move over there for a moment." Amelia did, and was then directed to move somewhere else.

Then she was asked to move somewhere random, and as she did so, Serena and the aether users on the squad followed her general location. Finella returned with Daichi, and they too quickly identified Amelia's location.

"She's trackable," Finella said. Serena nodded.

"The more aether you have, the faster it leaks through to this plane of reality, creating a local bubble of dense atmospheric aether. I suspect with practice Miss Liona will be able to hide even that. Before we embarked from Asamaywa, as part of my briefing, I encountered a mistwalker who was both powerful and undetectable," Serena said, talking of the Lord Guardian.

"Look…" Serena pointed at the route Amelia had travelled.

"If you focus, you can even follow her trail."

"Like some kind of aetheric slug," Hinako said. Amelia blew up her cheeks, pouting at the demon, only to remember she couldn't be seen.

"Hey!" she protested. Her complaints were ignored, but she was able to get some revenge as Serena had her launch a few spells at Hinako. Their testing confirmed what they'd suspected. Attacks launched from within the Shimmer that should have shattered Hinako's first-circle wards like they were paper were completely ineffective. Of course, Amelia was using a tiny fraction of her power.

A hundred-fold difference in application was a catastrophic disadvantage for most mages, but if Amelia really wanted to get serious, she felt that she could overpower even a third-circle defensive ward from within the Shimmer. A First-Word Speaker outside the Shimmer versus me inside, Amelia thought. Who would win? Was she a hundred times stronger than a normal Speaker? Especially after communing with both Asclepius and Suijin?

It was hard to tell, but she suspected that if she got an encouraging kiss from Serena, she could do it.

"It's been a few minutes," Serena said.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel fine," Amelia said, shrugging.

"I guess it feels kind of lonely? I'm here, able to talk to you, but it's like there's distance between us." Unable to stop herself, she stepped up to Serena.

"I wonder…" she muttered, a brilliant idea sparking into her mind. Before any silly notions of common sense could tell her brain otherwise, Amelia pushed herself up and gave Serena the most forceful kiss she'd ever given her girlfriend. In full view of everyone! Well, sort of. To Serena's credit, her initial reaction was only detected by the slight widening of her pupils. Her girlfriend's enhanced senses would surely have picked up on the feeling of Amelia's lips. Perhaps she should do it again?

Perhaps—"Take a minute!" Serena exclaimed quickly.

"Get something to drink, let the atmospheric aether dissipate." Without hesitating for a moment, Serena strode off and wetted a towel before dabbing her suspiciously reddened cheeks.

"Ah, this damn heat," she said loudly, before adding in a much quieter voice, "Damn idiot incorrigible unbelievable insane—""Something wrong, Captain?" Finella asked.

"Nothing at all, Captain Bright!"

"Captain Bright?" Finella echoed, tilting her head.

"I mean, Officer Bright, Officer Bright. Just…" Serena waved a hand.

"Let me organise my thoughts. This achievement by Miss Liona opens up a range of possibilities, and the information will be invaluable to…" While Serena rattled on, pretending not to be flustered one bit, Amelia had to do her very best to resist the urge to see how her girlfriend would react if she was given a light tap on her backside. After all, opportunities like this didn't come by any day, did they? Amelia stepped up to Serena, her girlfriend stiffening as she sensed the approaching aether signature.

The scandalous tap never arrived, as Amelia noticed something that stopped her in her tracks. Inside the Shimmer, there was a continuous flow of magical colour snaking its way from Amelia to Serena. It was the aetherflow that maintained Serena's layered wards. Before Amelia had learned to step into the Shimmer, before she'd learned to look into it, she'd learned to send her aether through it.

It was an instinctive solution she'd manifested out of sheer willpower to hide her aetherflow and stop Chesterfield from complaining about the interference it was causing Cascadia's strategic aetherscope network. At the time, Amelia hadn't realised exactly what she had done, putting it down to magical stuff being magical. Only later, with Lunaria, had she connected the dots. But that wasn't what caught her eye.

What saved Serena from another satisfying cheek-reddening experience was the thin, almost translucent sliver of pinkish light that connected them. It was tiny, perhaps a few millimetres in diameter. It pulsed rhythmically, as if echoing her own heartbeat, or perhaps one of its own. Whatever it was, it wasn't Amelia's aether; the pinkish line was distinctively different to the surrounding aetherflow. It was something deeper, something more. And it wasn't bad. Of that, Amelia was sure.

It gave a feeling of comfort, of warmth, of rightness. In this unnatural, alien world, the pinkish line between her and her demon girlfriend was a sliver of normality. Its colour, of the deepest, most vibrant pink Amelia had ever seen, invoked in her a sensation of overwhelming connection and, above all, love. Is that what this is? Amelia thought idly, passing her hand through the sliver to no effect. Is this our love for each other? If so, then it needed… it needed… It needed to be much bigger!

It was inappropriately small! Amelia's love for her girlfriend was titanic! Giganormous! It was Amelianormous! She would have to work much harder in the future, that was for sure. She would start tonight, where she'd already booked the most expensive private hot spring that money could buy. Once there, she would— A clap from Serena's hands snapped Amelia out of her thoughts. With a half-nervous and half-threatening look in her general location, Serena instructed Noburu to enter the Shimmer.

This time, when the demon mistwalked, there was more than just a snapping sound and the smell of burned toast. The aetherfield in the Shimmer rippled outwards from the location of Noburu's entrance. No, not the aetherfield. Something more fundamental. Perhaps it was the mists themselves rippling. A pulse was emitted that tickled Amelia's perception. She instinctively knew the direction and distance of Noburu's appearance. It was as if she were a submarine receiving a sonar ping.

"That's interesting," Amelia mused.

"What is?" Noburu asked, speaking quickly as if he were trying to conserve his air.

"There's a reaction when you appear. But I can only sense it in here. When I'm outside the Shimmer, I can't pick up on anything definite." Amelia realised the maid who had almost captured Noburu in the academy must have picked up on his arrival the moment he appeared. Poor Noburu. He never stood a chance.

"You look, umm"—Noburu gestured at her—"colourful."

"That's my aether," Amelia replied, throwing him a thumbs-up.

"My magic. I think you should start training, Noburu. Learn to cycle aether. I don't think you'll need that long before you can stop trying to hold your breath in here."

"I will," he said seriously.

"I'll ask Officer Aikawa."

"How much longer can you stay?" she asked.

"Another minute at most," he answered.

"Depends on how much I talk." Amelia hummed. For a moment, she rotated slowly on the spot, taking in the sepia world. Their activities had burned away most of the ghostly plant life in the area, but she could see lush vines snaking their way up the walls. Beyond that, the rest of Ishaq and the backing mountain range looked largely the same, except for the ever-present orange tint. Beyond those mountains would be the Red Sands, and lingering above the desert, hanging low in the sky…

Amelia raised her head and looked at the Red Moon. She was silent for a dozen seconds before pointing at it.

"Noburu," she said.

"What does the moon look like to you?" The demon frowned and followed her finger.

"Different," he said.

"Different, how?"

"Perfectly round," the demon answered.

"Smooth. You can see variation in the surface in the real world, but in here, you can't."

"Can you see anything else?"

"Sometimes I think I see movement, or a shadow. But I think it's an illusion, like when you look at the sun for too long and get weird spots in your eyes." Noburu took a deep breath and said quickly, "I have to go, Miss Liona. It's getting difficult."

"I'll follow in a moment," Amelia said quietly.

"Let them know."

"Yes." A second later, there was a snap, another ripple, and Noburu returned to the material world. While Serena asked him for a report, Amelia kept her eyes on the moon. She'd seen its Shimmer form in Asamaywa when she'd been outside with Mel. Back then, she'd been looking at the Blue Moon of the East, and her ability to see into the Shimmer hadn't lent itself as much clarity as she had access to now. Back then, she'd thought they were eggs.

It was a half-serious thought, on account of the subtle, blurred outline she'd seen inside the Blue Moon. It had reminded her of how a chicken egg looked when a bright light was shone through it. Now she was here, in the Shimmer, her magically enhanced senses could see—even if they didn't fully understand—what the moons were. Without a doubt, they were a formation. A spell. Of what exact nature or origin Amelia could not know, but there was no mistaking the incomprehensible magnitude of the magic beyond her.

It wasn't a modern spell either; it was something older. Something more advanced. It felt like something closer to the runic Writing of the old ways, a lost elegance that remained steadfast as a relic of an ancient event and people. Who, or what, created them? For what purpose? How could such a powerful piece of magic keep going for thousands of years? What could provide enough power to such a thing? Were the gods involved? There was no sign of an aetherflow coming to or from the moon. There was only…

Amelia pushed her senses further. The blurred outline she'd seen in the Blue Moon became visible in the Red Moon above. She felt herself frown as her brain tried to recognise what she was seeing. It was difficult. There was something there, placed within the Moon. Something with distinct curves. Something organic. She pushed her aether further, feeling an overwhelming sense of curiosity, alongside a touch of dread that she ignored.

A few exclamations sounded from nearby as the squad noted the acceleration of aether leaking back into the material world, but Amelia didn't respond. She enhanced her senses as far as she could without Speaking, until the outline solidified enough that her brain could form a tentative conclusion of what she was looking at. At what was inside the Cascadian Moons. There are old, and I mean old, stories in the North, Lunaria had said, which whisper that the moons are prisons.

Back then, Lunaria had lowered her voice, as if she were frightened that someone might overhear the next word that came from her mouth. As the memory played out in Amelia's mind, she couldn't help but whisper the same word the Aether Addict had said all those months ago." Dragons."