by Will Wight
Yerin tumbled forward, sliding her sword through the gap in the woman’s helmet as she passed.
She ended in a heap on the other side of the hallway, out of strength, as Meira screamed and clapped a hand to her eye. Yerin wanted to follow up with another attack, but this time something caught her attention: a shimmering silver display that she hadn’t seen before. It looked like a blacksmith’s shop, packed full of spears, axes, knives, and blades of every description.
Natural treasures of sword aura.
Using her master’s sword like a cane, Yerin pushed herself to her feet. She shoved her way over, inching forward one step at a time.
Life madra erupted from Meira. It formed a pillar connecting her to the ceiling, and then the top of that pillar bloomed. Spreading outward into leaves and branches.
Meira stood in the center of a towering tree of life madra, her scythe dangling from one hand. She hovered a few inches off the ground, more fragments of her armor plinking to the floor.
The ruin of her eye healed in an instant, flesh knitting itself together, and she wiped the blood away with her hand. She was the image of a furious Underlady, and without a word, she raised her hand.
Yerin scooted closer to her Blood Shadow, which was growling in defiance. She had only seconds left to live—she didn’t know how many, but it wouldn’t be long. She was almost out of madra and options.
But she stirred the last of her spirit and held on.
~~~
From a crouched position, Lindon triggered the emergency wind barrier in his Skysworn armor. Kiro staggered backwards, crossing over into the dream display, and then went limp. His mind was out of his control.
[I envy him,] Dross sighed. [Now, you should hurry. Dragon's breath would drill through that armor eventually, but it’s not like murdering him will help you beat the other two. You should advance.]
Dross' combat report had been harder to follow this time. It had involved more steps, and each one could have gone wrong in a dozen ways, but it had worked. Lindon had survived, and Kiro was trapped in a display.
The effort had left him strained and exhausted. His madra channels had been in better condition, his body trembled with effort, and his Remnant arm was a mangled, useless mess that bled white sparks of color into the air. But all of those problems could be solved.
Then he heard a wordless shout from down the hall.
A helmeted Seishen Daji sprinted at him, his armor dimly glowing gold at the joints, a sword in each hand.
Bloody swords.
At the sight of him, Lindon felt an instant of fear. Not for himself.
The second prince had been fighting Mercy.
The fear turned to anger, and he used his void key. The cannons were not the only weapons he'd prepared for today. He would see if the younger brother could stand up to the same punishment as the older.
Daji pointed his swords, and then Strings of Shadow grabbed him around the arms and shoulders, pulling him around the corner.
Lindon stared, blinking at nothing, for a frozen moment.
[Looks like she's fine,] Dross said. [Onward, to Underlord!]
Lindon reached into the void space, seizing the bundle of natural treasures he'd arranged for his advancement, spilling them out onto the ground. Hastily, he sat down, calming his spirit and reaching out.
The unity of aura came easily now. He felt connected to the displays around him, like deep pools out of reach, and the soulfire inside him trembled. He spent a moment breathing, cycling, steadying the connection.
From his soulspace, he pulled the Archstone, placing it on the ground in front of him. His Remnant arm dangled from his elbow, twitching occasionally, growing weaker by the second. He had to grab it with his left hand, placing the right palm on top of the Archstone.
The arm’s binding was unstable. He could use it maybe one more time, and the longer he waited, the less likely he would be to succeed.
The time had come.
“I follow my Path,” Lindon said, “so I won't be worthless anymore.”
For an instant, his perception expanded, so that he touched all the aura in the vault. Just for a moment.
The transformation began.
Soulfire flooded out of him, passing through his clothes and armor without harming them, consuming the natural treasures piled around him. The gray fire swelled until he blazed with it. Then it focused in on him.
Everywhere the soulfire passed, he was reborn. Remade. His madra channels were rebuilt even as they burned away, his bones strengthened and reinforced, impurities in his spirit cleansed. It wasn't painful; it felt like being scrubbed clean for the first time in his life.
He couldn't move his body well, but he could still control his spirit.
He triggered the hunger binding in his arm, then thanked the heavens when it worked.
The power in the Archstone churned like water swirling down an unplugged drain, funneling down into his arm. The limb flooded with power, far more than it could normally hold, but Lindon kept the binding going. Only an instant later, the stone cracked, shattering into pieces.
And Lindon took control.
He had practiced this next part with Dross. He touched the fragments with his pure madra, binding them to his Remnant arm. He focused his will on Forging them together, holding the image of his new arm in his mind. The power of ghostwater made it easy to keep the images in his mind, and the simulated practice gave him perfect timing.
Shredded pieces of white madra melded together, fusing to the limb and repairing it, chunks of madra filling in as he watched. The jagged edges of the skeletal Remnant arm smoothed out according to his mental vision, forming into a rough model of a human hand.
The true transformation began as the soulfire passed through the arm. It burned away the weakest elements in the madra, strengthening what remained, restructuring it to better conduct power. If he hadn't reinforced it with Lord-level madra, the limb wouldn't have had enough material left to stay intact, and would have fallen apart. Now, when the soulfire passed, he was left with a perfect human arm, a match for his left, only pure white.
At least he didn't have a monstrous arm anymore.
The soulfire passed over Dross...and left him untouched.
[Ah. That's disappointing. I was hoping to get double-soulfired. That's not how it works, I know, you don't have to say anything.] A moment later, he added, [Have you, perhaps…checked on Yerin recently?]
Now that Dross mentioned it, Lindon could feel an overwhelming sensation of life madra coming from near Yerin. He practically couldn’t feel her at all.
Alarm shot through the pleasure of advancement, and Lindon urged the soulfire to hurry, but he could no more speed up the transformation than he could speed up the tides. He cycled his madra, bolstering his spirit, but there was little he could do.
Life madra raged, and Yerin was certainly fighting for her life. And here he was, with no option but to wait.
Though the change was not physically painful, every wasted second was agony. The soulfire gradually continued its transformation, changing him from the soles of his feet to the tips of his hair. Slowly, the soulfire died out, and his eyes opened.
With no time to waste, Lindon expanded his spiritual sense. It unfolded stronger than ever before. He could feel everyone so much more clearly. Mercy seemed...better than ever, actually.
Then he found Yerin.
Ignoring Kiro, Lindon ran back to the crossroads.
Kiro finally staggered out of the dream display behind him, and Lindon could feel the prince’s spirit. It was unsteady, but getting steadier. He had to save Yerin before Kiro caught up.
Running normally now felt as smooth and powerful as using the Soul Cloak had when he was a Gold. His body responded instantly, and he marveled at its power as he reached the central spire, opening his void key and withdrawing the axe.
He ran to Yerin’s hall. Meira was covered in overwhelming life madra, which had bloomed into the form of a tree that stretche
d from the ground to the ceiling. The power was astonishing; he couldn't imagine anything killing her with that much life energy running through her.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.
He raised the axe, running his Underlord madra through the binding. The red light running down the savage blade strengthened, rolling like crimson waves, and spectral hands of madra began to reach out of the weapon as the binding activated.
Yerin and her Blood Shadow were together, defending themselves from whips of green madra. Yerin’s presence felt shaky, like she was a flame that could go out at any moment.
As he was about to release the Striker technique in the axe, his spirit flared a warning, and he spun back.
Kiro had fired the technique in his sword, blue lightning piercing the air. At the same time, he'd released his own Striker technique from his left hand, pouring soulfire into it.
Lindon swung the axe.
He hadn’t been able to test the weapon before. Harmony’s spirit hadn’t been strong enough to activate the binding inside it, and until now, neither had Lindon’s. But he and Dross had spent some time examining the axe, and they thought they had an idea of what it could do.
The reality was so much greater than he had imagined.
Blood and destruction madra erupted from the axe, forming into a wave of red, spectral hands. Thousands of spindly arms stretched out from the blade, reaching for Kiro. His Striker techniques punched through the cloud of madra, destroying a few hands, but there were many more to replace them. His attacks were swallowed up as though they had landed in the sea.
Scarlet fingertips clawed forward in a flood, wailing loud enough to hurt Lindon’s ears. They swept down the hallway without slowing, but all Lindon could see was a wall of red.
What had it done to Kiro?
When the red light started to fade, Lindon strained himself, looking quickly for Kiro. If the Underlord had survived…
A hulking figure like an armored giant stumbled up to Lindon.
He almost panicked, but this was bigger than Kiro had ever been. The Remnant had a smooth boulder for a face, with twisting ribbons of metallic madra for flesh.
It looked at Lindon, who lowered his axe and kindled dragon's breath in his free hand.
After inspecting him for a moment, the spirit wandered away.
Chapter 20
Mercy felt Lindon advancing to Underlord, and she let out a breath of relief. From everything she’d seen, these Seishen Underlords would stand no chance against him. Eithan Arelius had done a strangely excellent job of building his foundation, though Lindon wasn’t as well-trained as she would have expected in someone of his power.
Lindon would be fine, but Yerin was still in danger.
Mercy formed an arrow from all three of her techniques and the full force of her spirit. It formed so quickly, she almost wept; she was going to love having her full power back.
She faced the wall standing between her and Seishen Daji. She couldn’t break it all at once, but she had to stop him from joining his teammates.
So she took aim through the wall.
The arrow blasted through, leaving a finger-thick hole in the gray madra. The effort of penetrating the wall had caused it to lose some of its power, so it only splashed against the back of Daji’s armor, causing him to lose focus. She had accounted for that.
In a breath, she unleashed three more arrows through the hole the first had left.
They pierced his back, spreading venom and webs of force madra all over him. The Nightworm Venom technique would eat into his armor, corrupting it, leaving him stripped of its power. He would have to tangle with that while she waited for the wall to fall.
But she couldn’t afford to wait around. Yerin was in danger.
She slipped into one of the many shadow displays, grabbing a stone covered in a shroud of darkness. Then into the treasures of light, selecting a crystal that shone brightly. From a display like an overgrown jungle, she took a flower that teemed with life, and from a crimson display she took a shard of bloodstained steel.
Spreading them on the ground before her, she stretched out her spiritual perception. The unity of aura was so blessedly clear, as it had been before.
The vault roared and there was another flash of light through the hole in Daji’s wall. That worried her for a moment, but the blast had felt like Blackflame. Among other things.
She closed her eyes and spoke. The Underlord’s revelation should always be spoken, she’d been taught.
Even if one was ashamed of it.
“I walk my Path,” she said, “so my mother will be proud of me.”
The soulfire sparked, consuming the treasures in an instant, and passed through her body in a single breath.
It was as much of a change as when she’d shed her curses and returned to her power as a Truegold after most of a year as Lowgold. She gasped, feeling the new power in her spirit and body.
She was Underlady now, and it had only taken a second. She wanted to cheer.
But now wasn’t the time. She had a job to do.
“Chapter two,” she said, and the power of the Book of Eternal Night surrounded her. Its pages began to shift.
“Page four.”
An instant later, her new arrow shattered the wall.
She walked up to Daji, who had struggled his way free of her webs. She placed a hand on his head, and he looked up, rage and terror warring in his eyes.
“Learn from this,” she said.
Then she unleashed the Strings of Shadow technique. The first technique she had ever mastered.
Leaving him wrapped in a dark cocoon, she hurried forward, only to run into Lindon running from the other side. He looked so different that it startled her, but now wasn’t the time to gape.
Yerin needed their help.
~~~
Pulling back the rushing vines of green life madra, Meira glared at Yerin. “If Kiro is dead, I will kill your friends. I will kill your family. I will kill everyone you’ve ever loved, you’ve ever known. I will kill, and kill, and kill, and kill, until you wade through a river of blood with every step.”
Lindon was already an Underlord, and he was moving closer. She could feel him.
Red light flashed, and screams echoed through the halls. Yerin had never sensed that technique before, but from the feel of it, she could guess what it was: Lindon’s axe.
“He’s dead,” Yerin said.
Meira screamed, and vines shot from the tree again. Yerin’s Blood Shadow leaped, stopping them with its Goldsigns and rasping out a whispery laugh.
It could laugh now. That was…horrifying.
Yerin needed the distraction. She hobbled over to the sword display, which she could only sense once she got close enough. Its power pushed against the script like the weight of a river against a dam.
The Blood Shadow was overwhelmed in an instant, slammed against the wall. Yerin felt a distant pain as Meira’s tree tore the spirit-parasite limb from limb. It made a wet tearing sound every time, and there was something especially disturbing about seeing something like that happen to your own body. Especially when the Shadow’s hungry grin never faded, even as it broke down to essence and flowed back to Yerin’s spirit.
Yerin’s body and spirit shook. Her sword trembled as she held it down and to the side, but she forced one more technique through it. The Flowing Sword. Her blade began to glow.
“Don’t you look all…” Her voice failed her for a moment, but she pushed on. “…all bright and shiny new,” Yerin called. “How many pieces am I going to have to cut you into?”
Meira didn’t answer, shouting again and launching more vines at Yerin.
“Let’s find out,” Yerin said. And with the Sage’s white sword, she scratched the scripted stone around the sword display.
Sword aura gushed out. If she moved an inch, it would slice open her skin. With the last of her madra, she seized that power. Controlled it.
Ruled it.
The Endless S
word gathered around her six Goldsigns, around the sword left by the Sword Sage, and aura blasted out from Yerin in a storm. Far more than she could ever hope to gather or control; she only activated it.
And Meira was overwhelmed.
If the Underlady had been able to move, she could have broken Yerin’s control, or dodged, or set up a defense. But Yerin had already seen that this tree required Meira to stay in one place.
The rest of the Underlady’s armor shredded away as she screamed, followed by her clothes and her hair. In only an instant, she collapsed onto the floor, a bloody mess.
Her scythe fell after her, plinking to the stone, its haft notched and pitted.
Yerin stood watching her, unable to move. With her madra exhausted, she couldn’t move the sword aura out of the way, so she was frozen. And her legs were already trembling with weakness. If she fell to her knees again, she would end up like a butchered pig.
When her Remnant shows up, I’m in a pile of trouble.
Lindon and Mercy ran into view, and both of them had obviously changed. Mercy looked an inch taller, her hair longer, her eyes brighter. She moved with an unfamiliar speed and grace, though maybe she would pitch onto her face in a moment and spoil that impression. Her armor was broken, the inner robe pierced on the left and right sides of her ribs, but unharmed skin showed underneath.
She had advanced. Probably to Underlord, given what Yerin had sensed earlier, unless Lindon had somehow managed to advance twice. How had she gone from Highgold to Underlord? With her spirit as weakened as it was, Yerin’s spiritual perception was too weak to figure it out.
Yerin felt a spark of jealousy, but there was no point in thinking about it too hard. It had never made sense that Mercy was so weak to begin with, so this was the restoration of the natural order.
But Lindon looked like an entirely different person.
His right arm looked like a human’s arm now, only chalk-white, and she was surprised at how much better it suited him than the monster limb. His Skysworn armor was cracked all over the place, but he carried it lightly. It was the smallest details that showed the largest change.