Chapter 64: Chapter 64: The Second Wave, The Angry Deity, and The Frozen Tuna

The outer courtyard was a steaming, hissing mess of melting black ice and dissolved purple mana. The green recruits were cheering, leaning over the defensive alcoves to look at the puddle of slush that used to be a terrifying splinter group.

I didn’t cheer. I kept my grip tight on the wooden railing of the battlements, my eyes scanning the dark, howling blizzard beyond the broken outer gates.

"Ginji," I said quietly, the cold wind whipping my hair. "Foxes have better hearing than humans. Is it over?"

Ginji didn’t sheath his uchigatana. His russet ears were pinned flat against his head, twitching erratically.

"No, My Lady," Ginji whispered, his amber eyes wide. "The footsteps... they didn’t stop. They went underneath."

Before I could even process what he meant, the thick stone flagstones of the inner courtyard—directly in front of the main kitchen doors—violently exploded upward.

The splinter group hadn’t just been thirty beasts. The first wave was just the vanguard. The rest of the pack, led by a massive, towering Alpha beast the size of a small watchtower, had literally burrowed through the frozen earth, bypassing the salt traps at the main gate entirely.

The Alpha dragged itself out of the massive sinkhole. It was a terrifying nightmare of jagged black ice, glowing with sick, pulsing purple mana. It opened its massive jaws and let out a roar that physically shook the dust from the iron walls.

Behind it, two dozen more corrupted beasts scrambled out of the tunnel, shaking the dirt from their frozen armor.

They were completely past the kill zone. They were standing directly in front of the kitchens, and right above the underground vault where I had hidden Rin and Yua.

"They breached the inner ward!" Koji yelled, drawing his heavy broadsword. The recruits on the walls completely froze in terror. They were out of salt barrels, and the swing-traps were all facing the outer gate.

"Spears!" I screamed down to the men, sprinting along the walkway toward the inner keep. "Form a phalanx! Do not let them touch the kitchen doors!"

Ginji vaulted entirely over the railing, dropping thirty feet into the courtyard and rolling perfectly to absorb the impact. He drew his blade, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Quartermaster Koji to block the path to the heavy oak doors.

But it was two men against a horde.

The Alpha beast locked its glowing purple eyes on the kitchen. It could smell the heat. It could smell the fresh meat inside. It lowered its massive, horned head and charged, the ground quaking under its immense weight.

Ginji braced himself, his blade catching the moonlight. Koji raised his broadsword, ready to die defending the keep.

CREAAAK.

The heavy oak doors of the kitchen slowly pushed open.

The Alpha beast didn’t even slow down. It lunged forward, jaws snapping, ready to devour whoever was standing in the doorway.

It hit an invisible, solid wall of pure, blinding turquoise light.

The impact was so violent that the massive ice beast was literally thrown backward, its heavy claws tearing up the stone courtyard as it skidded to a halt.

Standing in the doorway was Yuki.

He wasn’t in his twelve-year-old boy form anymore. He wasn’t the lazy, fluffy white cat who complained about his toe beans.

He was suspended three feet in the air, radiating an overwhelming, suffocating divine pressure that made the hair on my arms stand straight up. His eyes were glowing like twin turquoise suns. Behind him, the spectral, sweeping illusions of nine massive, ethereal tails fanned out, completely covering the entrance to the kitchens and the vault below.

"You filthy, corrupted mongrels," Yuki’s voice didn’t echo. It reverberated directly inside everyone’s skulls, booming with the terrifying weight of a nine-hundred-year-old nature deity.

The Alpha beast snarled, the purple mana flaring as it tried to push against the divine barrier.

Yuki slowly raised a single, glowing hand.

"I am a god of the eastern rivers," Yuki commanded, his voice dripping with pure, unadulterated wrath. "And you have dared to track dirt into my dining room. You have threatened the child who feeds me. And worst of all..."

The air in the courtyard plummeted to a temperature so cold that the falling snow literally froze mid-air, hanging suspended like diamonds.

"...you interrupted the thawing of my premium coastal tuna."

Yuki snapped his fingers.

A shockwave of absolute, absolute zero divine magic violently erupted from his hand. It didn’t melt the ice beasts. It was far more brutal than that.

The blast wave hit the Alpha beast first. The corrupted purple mana inside the monster’s chest instantly crystallized, turning brittle and fragile. The beast opened its mouth to roar, but the sound died in its throat as the divine frost completely consumed it.

The shockwave rolled over the entire inner courtyard.

In less than three seconds, the twenty-four charging beasts were completely flash-frozen. They were locked in place, their claws raised, their jaws open, turned into perfectly still statues of cloudy white ice. The corrupted mana was completely extinguished.

The courtyard was dead silent.

Yuki lowered his hand. He floated forward, drifting right up to the frozen, towering Alpha beast.

He gently tapped the beast’s massive snout with his index finger.

CRACK.

The sound was like a falling glass chandelier. The Alpha beast shattered into millions of tiny, harmless white snowflakes. A chain reaction followed instantly. One by one, the other frozen beasts collapsed into massive piles of fine, powdery snow.

There was no blood. There was no slush. Just pristine, white powder covering the ruined flagstones.

Ginji and Koji stood completely frozen, staring at the empty courtyard in sheer disbelief. Up on the walls, the recruits had dropped their spears, entirely awestruck by the sheer magnitude of power they had just witnessed.

I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, leaning heavily against the stone railing.

Down below, the blinding turquoise light faded. The terrifying, nine-tailed spectral illusion vanished.

Yuki dropped back to the ground. In a puff of white mist, the glowing deity was gone, replaced by a fluffy, regular-sized white cat.

He immediately let out a loud, miserable yowl.

"My paws are freezing!" Yuki complained, his voice back to the familiar, whiny telepathic echo in my head. He started dramatically shaking the snow off his fur. "That took entirely too much energy! I am exhausted! I am depleted! I require immediate pampering and a bowl of warm milk!"

I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. The adrenaline crash hit me so hard I had to grip the railing to keep my knees from buckling, but I couldn’t stop the relieved, breathless laughter echoing across the courtyard.

I hurried down the stone steps, practically sliding on the ice, and ran across the courtyard.

Ginji quickly sheathed his blade and stepped aside as I approached the kitchen doors. I scooped the shivering white cat up into my arms, wrapping my heavy wool cloak around him.

"You did good, Yuki," I whispered, burying my face in his cold fur. "You saved the vault."

"Obviously," Yuki purred, instantly relaxing against my chest. "I am a benevolent and merciful god. Also, the chef was cowering under the table and he still hasn’t glazed the fish. Please yell at him for me."

"I’ll yell at him right now," I promised, scratching him behind the ears.

Quartermaster Koji walked over, his boots crunching in the thick layer of snow that used to be the Alpha beast. He looked at me, then at the cat in my arms, and then up at the broken flagstones.

"Lady Kitsune," Koji breathed, his scarred face looking ten years older. "The inner keep is secure. The beasts are dead."

"We held the line, Koji," I smiled, though my hands were still shaking slightly. I looked out over the ruined courtyard. We had survived the splinter group. The fortress was safe.

But as the wind howled through the broken outer gates, my smile faded.

I looked toward the dark, jagged mountain peaks in the distance. The soul-tether resting against my collarbone was pulsing with a steady, distant heat, but it felt incredibly far away.

We survived our fight, I thought, pulling my cloak tighter around Yuki. Please, Akira. Survive yours.