“I am. I’m called Ein in this life.” The girl spoke and carried herself with pleasant spiritedness. “What do they call you?”
Shanti immediately liked her.
Xueli let out a long and shrill kiai shout as she loosed a flurry of kick attacks in midair. Jakarta stretched out far below the Mark V as it floated roughly one hundred meters above with the flight-inducing abilities of the antigravity lifters.
Varuna bombarded the ifrit’s chest with what must have been dozens upon dozens of front kicks, each Shroud-swaddled leg landing with a satisfying thud. The intensity was like a firework, and the ferocity like a deluge of raindrops chiseling the earth. Had she displayed such an attack on the ground, her legs would have been moving too fast to leave shadows—the famous shadowless kick given genuine form. And the enemy was already injured by a blow from the same Doomsday Book torrent that she had also used that afternoon.
But just when Xueli had the Anomaly on the ropes and was about to finally finish off one of the four devils, a second appeared, and it spat out a surge of fire.
“Varuna! Keep that shell online!” she ordered.
While the Devicer continued to kick and thrash as the temperature inside the suit skyrocketed, the third ifrit emerged and cast the Major Explosion spell. The air boomed, and the force of the devastating blast sent the Mark V flying. The anti-magic shell had failed to nullify the damage in time. Xueli and the Asura of the sea fell, their target saved from peril.
They landed hard against the roof of a tall building, though it was hardly enough to damage the Frame. Xueli stood right back up and glared angrily up at the sky. She’d been one tantalizing second away from finishing the job.
The four ifrits flew down to her, stopping a distance away. They were avoiding her close-ranged attacks now, and they began to chant a spell together.
Xueli growled. “Shroud! Protect us!”
She tore a piece of the cloth around her legs and threw it upwards. The Holy Shroud unraveled at once, spreading into thousands of long, thin threads that drifted around her. Each and every one was an anti-magic shield, but would it be enough against the combined spellcraft of four ifrits?
The sweat on Xueli’s back was cold. She wasn’t optimistic. There had to be another way.
“Requesting commlink connection.”
All of a sudden, a message window appeared in her visor. Someone augmented was trying to access her nanofactors.
“Now is not the best time,” Xueli hissed. She glanced at the “confirm” button sourly to input her command. “Who is it?!”
“A friend,” someone replied. The voice was androgynous. Not quite male, not quite female. “I want to help you and the Mark V. All you have to do is use the opening.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Things weren’t looking good when I got here, so I already have a plan. Ein, the Gospel Code.”
“Understood,” said a new voice. This one was undoubtedly female. “The beast of wind is hungry.”
This voice must have been with this new, genderless teammate, otherwise she couldn’t have connected to Xueli. She began to recite a somber poem, her face invisible but her voice emphatic and free.
—The sinners of the trailokya know not their sin.
—Such as the fools of the four wombs know not their folly.
—In darkness we are born, to darkness we return, and to darkness we are born anew.
Xueli recognized the menacing and powerful words. “You’re using the Doomsday Book. You’re a Devicer!”
“That is what they call me,” said the androgynous voice. They certainly had a flair for the dramatic. “In the name of Rudra, the King of the Storm—attack!”
Rudra. That was the Mark III, and that made this person Japan’s Devicer Three. But he was supposed to be dead. The Chinese military had been informed that he’d been killed in action.
Xueli put the pieces together. “You’re the successor. The new Devicer Three,” she deduced. “Well, you certainly put your predecessor to shame!”
The last Three from Japan’s Defense Force had failed to so much as earn the Holy Shroud. Xueli had always resented that man for his incompetence, but she resented the Japanese government for choosing him even more.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
The wind started to pick up, cycloning into a tempestuous hell, whirling into a twister. As the gales buffeted the hovering fire devils, the flames engulfing their bodies were whipped away. And amidst the storm, white and airy enough to be mistaken for the typhoon itself, there was a four-legged beast in the shape of a panther.
It pounced at the first ifrit and promptly tore out its throat. The second ifrit was carried up into the heavens by the magical winds, where it exploded into cinders, wiped from existence.
“Aha! I see now!” said Xueli. “This is my opening!”
Despite the destruction raging around her, the most the Mark V felt was a comfortable breeze. The King of the Storm had favored her with protection.
Xueli took flight with renewed vigor and delivered a swift spin kick to the third ifrit as it struggled against the winds. Equipped with the shining blade of Excalibur swathed around her legs, the fire devil was thus decapitated.
Someone else beat her to the fourth. A high-speed bullet flying beyond Mach 5. Fast approaching the final ifrit was an Asura of black and gold.
“This is it.”
Devicer Three collided with the Anomaly, emitting ripples of supersonic shock waves like an iron missile. The ifrit didn’t stand a chance.
“Another Replicant,” Xueli murmured. “And she’s with Three’s successor!”
She gazed at the stream of footage being played in her visor. The King of the Storm, Rudra, was there in the sky. Xueli’s Holy Shroud was red and apparently Klan’s was purple, but this one was yellow.
The Devicer had called the girl “Ein.” She was the third Replicant.
Beneath her azure mask, Devicer Zhou Xueli’s face broke into a fiery grin, burning with newfound spirit. “It looks like my luck’s finally turning around.”