Date: Unspecified
Ti: Unspecified
Location: Zhongguo (China), Liaodong Province, Shuntian Prefecture, Shenyang City
Without another word, the princesses leaped out of the window. Instead of falling, their feet t empty air as though it were solid ground. They stepped forward and began walking across the sky, moving from rooftop to rooftop as they made their way toward the Imperial Palace, using the buildings below as cover.
Using their ntal field, the princesses compressed and conjoined the surrounding similar air molecules beneath their feet, generating just enough repulsive force to create stable footholds. To any observer, it appeared as though they were walking on air. In truth, they were continuously adjusting pressure and density, maintaining equilibrium with precise control.
If not for their decision to prioritize stealth, rembering Martha’s warning about avoiding unnecessary bloodshed, they could have amplified the sa principle to generate overwhelming speed.
By drastically increasing the repulsion, they would have been able to propel themselves forward at explosive speeds and crash directly into the Imperial Palace without regard for the aftermath, as the voice was coming from the palace. But they restrained themselves as they intended to reach it without turning the city into collateral damage.
Yes, the thought of being abandoned by the Imperial family and the truth of their mother’s sacrifice filled them with a rage so intense that, for a mont, they wanted to destroy the entire Empire. But if they did that, they would be no different from the people who had taken their mother from them. They did not want to beco tyrants fueled by vengeance. They wanted to be more like their mother than like her oppressors and killers.
As they neared the outer walls of the Imperial Palace, they quickly realized the periter was heavily guarded. Knights and martial artists stood at intervals along the wall, their ntal fields extended and linked in a continuous chain. The arrangent ford a seamless detection network. Anyone attempting to approach or cross the palace walls would be sensed imdiately.
Seeing this, the princesses were not deterred. As they drew closer to the palace, the voice calling to them grew stronger, more insistent. With each step, their resolve only hardened. Whatever awaited them beyond those walls, they were certain they were ant to reunite with it.
The princesses withdrew briefly into a shadowed valley beyond the palace’s sightline. There, they compressed and conjoined layers of dense air beneath their feet, steadily increasing the repulsive force until it trembled on the edge of release. Then, without a word, they launched.
Their bodies vanished into the clouds in near silence. A heartbeat later, the valley answered.
The delayed boom rolled outward in a deep, resonant thrum, like a massive temple bell struck within a cavern. The sound lingered, heavy and hollow, long after they had already disappeared into the sky.
Alerted by the delayed boom, the guards imdiately began swarming toward the valley where the sound had originated, assuming an intruder had revealed their position or just creating a distraction. Regardless, it was their duty to attend to it.
anwhile, the princesses were already descending from above.
High above the palace, they reduced their output and began generating controlled micro-compressions of air beneath their feet. By rapidly conjoining dense clusters of air molecules in small intervals, they created precise bursts of repulsive force, allowing them to step downward through the sky as if descending an invisible staircase.
Each step was calculated and silent as they slowly descended toward the inner court of the Imperial Palace, from where the source of the voice called to them.
At the sa ti, the guards surrounded the alley where the sound had originated, only to find a deep crater at its center. While they focused on the impact site, the true intrusion was unfolding high above, directly over the palace’s inner grounds.
However, unknown to the princesses, who were descending from eight hundred ters above the palace’s inner court, they had already been detected. The royal guards had identified the anomaly in the sky and had begun mobilizing to neutralize the threat.
Six thousand two hundred ters above the palace, a formation of massive falcons banked in tight synchrony. Their beaks, crowns, and talons were sheathed in a dark, unfamiliar tal that caught the sunlight without reflecting it. Even their wing joints bore narrow reinforcent bands, suggesting deliberate augntation rather than re ornantation.
Then they folded their wings. What followed was not a simple dive. The flock entered a coordinated stoop, the most violent maneuver in the avian world. Their bodies streamlined, feathers compressed, and the armored edges along their fras aligned for penetration. Gravity seized them, and they surrendered to it completely, converting altitude into speed with ruthless efficiency.
They did not rely descend. They beca biological projectiles.
Air scread around them as shock cones began to form along their leading edges. By the ti they breached the lower cloud layer, they were no longer birds in flight, but living missiles aid directly at the anomaly descending steadily from above the Imperial Palace.
A rushing wind tore through the sky as the falcons carved downward. The friction of air against reinforced feathers and tal-plated edges produced a sharp, sustained hiss that grew into a piercing whine as they accelerated.
The princesses heard it before they saw it.
A floating head extended out of their back, only to find a descending formation of projectiles dropping toward them at lethal velocity. For a fraction of a second, even they were taken aback, unable to understand when they had been detected or how high above them the enemy had been positioned.
Coryn reacted first, turning around and forming A miniature Mortal Star began to condense in her palm, its unstable core forming, ready to be deployed.
"Wait," Reven said sharply, as her floating head blocked Corey. She had already sensed it through her ntal field that the projectiles were falcons and were not acting on instinct alone. Their movents were too synchronized, too precise. They were being directed by a knight/ martial artist whose chivalry/ martial spirit granted them dominion over beasts, allowing them to control and empower them.
The realization changed everything.
The princesses had always loved animals. During their four-week journey, they had grown accustod to observing them closely, learning their rhythms and temperants. They could not bring themselves to deliberately harm creatures that were little more than extensions of another’s will, even if those creatures were about to harm them.
Instead of unleashing the miniature Mortal Star as an attack, they redirected its energy sideways. The condensed force detonated adjacent to them in a controlled burst, generating a powerful repulsive wave that propelled them sideways. The acceleration hurled them clear of the falcons’ descent path just as the living missiles tore through the space they had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
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