Chapter 130
Smoke trailed steadily from beneath her shoes, leaving white streaks in the air like rapidly pulled cotton, and within seconds she was already soaring as high as an eagle—hovering with full control above a battlefield that was beginning to quiet.
She glanced downward, spotting the orange dot of Ashita still gliding with her glider, and for a brief moment the corner of her lips lifted into a faint smile—one that vanished instantly, swept away by the wind.
From this height, Nirma could see everything.
She could see the Crusader forces scattering in disarray, knights clad in armor stained with blood and dust, horses that had lost their riders.
She could see the Seljuk Dynasty soldiers beginning to celebrate their victory—their cheers inaudible from here, yet easy to imagine in their thunderous intensity.
But what drew her attention most was how those soldiers moved—how they reacted to everything happening around them.
Not a single one of them looked up to the sky to see two women flying with impossible technology.
Not one screamed in hysteria at the multicolored flashes that had struck the Mudlands moments ago.
They remained absorbed in their own world—immersed in the simplicity of a 12th-century war—unaware that above their heads, history was being manipulated by hands from the future.
Nirma activated the communicator at her temple, her voice reaching Arya clearly, who was still atop the hill, likely observing her movements through a scope.
"Your illusion device works perfectly," she said flatly, though a faint note of satisfaction lingered beneath her tone.
"The soldiers below only see a normal battle. No strange phenomena, no foreign technology. To them, that earlier flash was merely lightning. Tegar's holographic missiles are just demonic illusions—believed or dismissed depending on their faith. We're safe, at least for the next few minutes."
Arya did not reply, but Nirma knew he heard—knew he was exhaling in relief, knew his efforts had not been in vain.
Now, only one task remained.
To capture the Abnormal hiding among thousands of soldiers locked in mutual slaughter.
From the same height, Nirma spotted Ashita.
Above the Mudlands, now losing its roar, Ashita did not descend.
She continued gliding, slicing through chaotic air currents swirling between smoke and fading dust.
From above, her eyes swept across the battlefield—sharp, measured—searching for a single point invisible to anyone but herself.
The glider on her back tilted slightly—just enough to alter direction without sacrificing speed.
Her body followed the flow of the wind, steady like an arrow not yet released.
Then, without slowing, her left hand slipped beneath the folds of her kemben.
From afar, Nirma narrowed her eyes, trying to discern what Ashita was doing.
From her perspective, Ashita was merely a fast-moving silhouette against a dust-filled sky—yet she still caught a small glint in her left hand.
A tiny object.
White.
At a glance, it resembled a simple generic capsule—insignificant amidst chaos of this scale.
Ashita held it briefly, her fingers adjusting its position as if weighing time and distance within a single breath.
The wind struck harder as she slightly lowered her glide angle—just enough to bring her closer to the chosen point.
Then, without warning, without any change in expression, her hand moved.
She threw it.
Not merely dropping it—but releasing it with precision calculated to the millisecond, using her glide speed and wind direction as part of its trajectory.
The capsule shot downward, slicing through the air like a silent projectile.
There was no explosion, no sound—only a sudden burst of gas expanding at incredible speed, spreading in all directions like a fog born from nothingness.
The gas moved too fast to evade, sweeping across the entire Mudlands within seconds, slipping through the gaps of armor, entering the nostrils of soldiers still consumed by victory and defeat.
From above, Nirma watched the effect unfold.
A Crusader knight running suddenly halted, his knees buckling as he collapsed mid-step with no one there to catch him.
A Seljuk soldier raising his sword in triumph suddenly fell face-first beside the enemy he had just slain, his breath turning into soft snores within seconds.
Horses still standing began to collapse one by one, their eyes closing, their bodies slack as though drifting into pleasant dreams amidst a field of slaughter.
In less than a minute, the entire region of Heraclea Cybistra transformed into a sea of sleeping humans and animals.
Thousands of soldiers from opposing sides—who moments ago had been killing each other—now lay side by side in a forced peace imposed by chemical agents from the future.
Some remained in unnatural positions—piled atop one another, lying with swords still gripped in their hands, sprawled beside unconscious horses.
The Mudlands stretched below like a carpet of death, soaked in blood and morning dew that, strangely, still fell despite the sky above being streaked with smoke trails from Nirma's flying shoes.
Ashita was the first to touch the ground—her body, moments ago gliding gracefully, now forced to adapt to the harshness of reality.
With swift, practiced motion, she pressed a release button at her waist, and the artificial wings instantly vanished—shrinking to the size of a clenched fist before disappearing into an unknown dimension.
Gravity, momentarily deceived by technology, now reclaimed its promise, and Ashita fell freely from a height still sufficient to break an ordinary person's bones.
But she was no ordinary person.
As her feet neared the ground, she allowed her body to roll—once, twice, three times, four full rotations across dry grass and scattered stones—distributing the impact through every fiber of her body until she came to a stop and rose without a trace of pain.
Dust clung to her cheeks and forehead, strands of orange hair slipping free from their tie—but her eyes were already working, scanning the surroundings with heightened vigilance.
Nirma arrived seconds later—but with an entirely different style.
She did not roll like Ashita, nor perform a conventional landing.
When she was only inches above the Mudlands, she cut off the flames from her shoes, and for a fraction of a second she hovered in an eerie stillness—her body suspended like a puppet without strings.
Then, with a movement so fluid it resembled a dance, she flipped backward in a perfect somersault, her ponytail slicing through the air—and when her feet finally touched the ground, there was no dust, no impact—only silence and the certainty of complete control.
In the midst of that somersault, precisely when her body was inverted with her face toward the sky, her left arm rose—moving with precision only achievable by someone who had repeated the same motion thousands of times.
To be continued…