by Will Wight
But Orthos roared in response. A red-and-black corona flared around him, and suddenly the leg was pressed back down like a mountain collapsing, claws digging into Lindon’s chest.
Lindon built up power in his hands, pushing rivers of Blackflame out through both of his palms. The Burning Cloak raged, and he could feel red and black aura flaring all around him.
The power was too much for him, he could feel it; his channels and his core were stretched to the point of bursting. He hadn’t reached the end of Jade—his spirit wasn’t mature yet.
So he clawed at his pack, searching for the one thing that might help him: the Sylvan Riverseed.
He tore at his pile of belongings like a man on fire looking for a bucket of water. Tongues of Blackflame licked at the fabric of his pack, scorching away chunks, but he couldn’t care.
The glass case tumbled out and the Riverseed rubbed her head, as though she’d knocked a skull she didn’t have. Lindon didn’t wait to get her attention and draw her in; he felt as though his spirit was shriveling and blackening.
Instead, Blackflame burned through the side of the glass. It didn’t melt; it hissed and blew away in a cloud of grit like fine dust.
Lindon stretched out trembling fingers, and the Sylvan Riverseed cocked her head to look at him. For a second, she seemed uncertain, like she didn’t recognize him.
Then, firmly, she seized his middle finger in both hands.
A surge of liquid blue flowed through his madra channels, quieting the flow of dark madra and soothing his channels like cool water on a burn. Blackflame madra kept coming, and Lindon kept cycling, but the Riverseed poured all she had into him.
Finally, the flow of fire slackened. Orthos pulled his paw from Lindon’s core and staggered away, unspeakably weary.
The Sylvan Riverseed sprawled on her back, chittering like a frustrated wind chime. She had lightened to the blue of a robin’s egg, and after a moment she squirmed back into his pack and started digging around for scales.
And Lindon lay there panting, spirit and body aching. Much of Orthos’ madra had been diverted into his Bloodforged Iron body, so Lindon’s smallest wounds had closed and the venom in his veins had been burned away, but he still hurt like he’d been beaten all over with hammers.
Then Gokren stumbled back through the exit, hair wild and furs burned off. He stared wildly around, fixing his gaze on Orthos, and leveled his spear.
Four Sandvipers entered behind him, moving to flank the turtle.
Lindon’s spirits fell like a sack of bricks. It just wasn’t fair. Suriel was playing a trick on him—surely every mortal’s trials had to end sometime.
“The dragon advances,” Orthos declared, eyeing Gokren. Lindon could feel the turtle’s spirit, strained to its limits, but he still roared and lumbered toward the Sandviper.
Lindon started to gather Blackflame madra between his palms, but he froze. His pure core was still empty.
He couldn’t make a shell around the Striker technique.
Orthos took a hit from the side and screamed, while Lindon hunkered behind the stone tablet explaining the Ruler technique, trying to condense Blackflame madra.
The Riverseed whined, shaking his knee with both her hands and pointing to Orthos, trying to get him to help.
Lindon tuned out Orthos’ screams and the Riverseed’s pleas, focused on the black fire flickering between his hands. This was a dragon’s technique. He needed to think about it like a dragon.
He poured more power into the ball, and when he felt himself about to lose control, he forced it into place. A dragon wouldn’t try to bend or shape its power; a dragon would make the power submit.
The dragon conquers.
When he finally succeeded, he almost didn’t realize it, dripping sweat over a fireball twice as big as his fist. He stumbled out from the shelter of the stone tablet, watching Orthos withdrawing all his limbs into his shell.
Sandviper madra crashed on the outside without leaving a mark, but Lindon knew the fight was over. Orthos would never have hidden unless he was prepared to die. His spirit was a mournful song, an aching wound of injured pride.
There was nothing in Lindon’s mind except his desire to push the enemy away from his partner. He shoved both hands forward, releasing the madra he’d stored up into a Striker technique.
If he could knock Gokren off-balance, even a weakened Orthos might be able to kill him. Maybe they could escape. But that assumed that Lindon’s pitiful Jade technique could even wound a Truegold.
An arm-thick bar of Blackflame madra streamed toward Sandviper Gokren, the technique dense and liquid smooth. The Truegold condensed a green spear out of madra, slamming his Forged weapon against the spike. Truegold Sandviper madra met Lindon’s Blackflame.
The dark fire washed over Gokren’s defense, taking his hand off at the wrist.
He stumbled back, eyes wide as he stared at the place where his hand used to be. Lindon stared, just as stunned. He had put everything he had into that Striker technique, to the degree that he was feeling dizzy from the strain on his spirit, but he had only hoped to take some pressure from Orthos. Even the Lowgold Sandvipers stepped back, turning their focus from the turtle to Lindon.
Orthos poked his head out of his shell. In the stunned, frozen moment after Lindon’s Striker technique, he extended the remainder of his madra. Lindon sensed what he was doing through their contract, but he didn’t comprehend it until he opened his Copper sight.
The red-and-black aura was rising like a tide, spreading to encompass all the Sandvipers.
The Sandvipers came to their senses, running from Orthos’ ruler technique, but Gokren bared his teeth and swung the spear in his remaining hand down. It glowed green, shining with toxic madra.
Lindon shouted, spraying Blackflame madra in his direction. It didn’t even come close to reaching—he hadn’t taken the time to concentrate the technique and keep it under control. But Gokren, who had just lost a hand to Lindon’s deadly Path, flinched. His spear wavered.
And Orthos activated his Ruler technique.
Five roses of fire bloomed out of nowhere, centered on each of the remaining Sandvipers. The golden-orange flames flared, spotted with inky black and bloody red, devouring five bodies in an instant.
Not one of them managed to scream as the Void Dragon’s Dance consumed them.
The fight was over almost too quickly.
Five minutes later, Lindon still didn’t believe his own memories. First, the madra had obeyed him more easily than it ever had before. Then, his technique had worked on someone at the peak of Gold. Based on everything Lindon knew, the force of Gokren’s madra alone should have been enough to block anything a Jade could do.
Orthos dragged his massive body over to Lindon, chewing on a mouthful of bones as he went. “You’re not a Jade,” he announced. “I gave you more of my power than a Jade could handle.”
Lindon looked at the turtle, then down at his jade badge, then scanned his own spirit. “I’m stronger, certainly, but I don’t feel so different. Nothing like when I advanced to Iron or Jade.” The stone wheel at the center of his Blackflame core might have spun a little faster, and his spirit cycled with the force of a raging river instead of a trickling stream.
But Iron had come with a new body, and Jade with a new soul. Compared to those changes, this felt too simple. Maybe if he had adopted a Remnant, instead of taking in power through a contract, he would have seen a real difference.
Orthos gingerly stretched out a leg, wincing at the pain. “Humans make every stage into a legend. A Lowgold is just a Jade with teeth. The only difference between Jade and Gold is a mountain of power.” He gave Lindon a look that radiated smug pride. “Now you see the real glory of Blackflame.”
Lindon was still dazed, but he couldn’t argue with reality. Sandviper Gokren’s legs—the largest remaining parts of him—lay a few dozen yards away. His skull was sliding down Orthos’ gullet.
Lindon was Lowgold now. A real Gold.
This was the power of Gold.
But Orthos’ soul still pained him—if his condition went untended, he would lose himself again. That was a problem Lindon thought he could solve.
He placed the Riverseed on Orthos’ head and, after a moment of panic, the spirit placed both hands on the turtle’s skin. Blue light flowed into a Blackflame spirit, smoothing and calming as it went.
Orthos shouted like a man doused in icy water. The Riverseed gave a terrified peep, scuttling back up Lindon’s arm. She stumbled at his shoulder, her skin pale, and collapsed on his head to curl up in his hair. “Forgiveness,” Lindon said, bobbing a bow. “I didn’t think to warn you.”
“The insect stung me!” Orthos said, gnashing his jaws. The Sylvan trembled against Lindon’s scalp. He swept his perception through her and confirmed what he’d suspected: the tiny spirit was exhausted.
Orthos’ madra already flowed more smoothly, even weak as it was, and his madra channels didn’t pain him as badly as before. It looked as though it had calmed his soul without diluting his madra, and allowed his channels to repair themselves.
The damage would have returned in days, if he hadn’t shared his power with Lindon. Combined with their contract, the Sylvan’s attention might be able to—over time—make some real improvement in the turtle’s soul.
“You should feel a little better at least,” Lindon said, knowing he did.
“I have survived three hundred winters and the fall of the Blackflames,” Orthos grumbled. “I would have survived this.”
On his behalf, Lindon patted the Sylvan on the head with one finger.
Lindon extended his perception, and it unspooled much more easily than before, his perception floating over the mountain. He caught a trail of sensations that felt like Yerin, as though her voice still echoed behind her, but not her.
“While you were out there…”
Orthos finished the thought. “I felt her in battle on the main peak. Not now, but her spirit is likely weak.” Laughter rumbled out of his chest like aftershocks. “There is another familiar soul in that direction as well.”
Lindon let his perception float, and he sensed exactly what the turtle meant: Eithan was no longer bothering to veil his power, and the full force of an Underlord shone like a signal-fire only a short distance away.
As Orthos insisted he could walk, Lindon slid his pack on and headed in that direction. Where Eithan was, and where they’d last seen Yerin.
The Sylvan Riverseed rode on his head.
Chapter 20
Jai Daishou was living a nightmare.
He and his Truegold elders launched their Striker attacks together, streams of white light that should have pierced the enemy from seven different angles.
Then, to his eyes and senses both, Eithan vanished.
One moment he was standing there on the other side of a distorted aura barrier, holding a broom in his hands, and the next…
…the next an elder’s skull was crushed like an eggshell outside the boundary formation. His body toppled as Eithan stood over him, broom bloodstained. Jai Daishou reacted before any of the elders could, blasting a Star Lance in Eithan’s direction, but he slipped back into the formation like a fish into water.
That was impossible. The boundary stopped everything physical from passing. Pushing through it like that was like pushing through a burning wall. Even if his body was so monstrously strong that he could do it, the formation should have crumbled. Only madra could pass.
Eithan’s upper body popped out of a different side of the bubble, seizing another elder and dragging him back inside. There came a crunch and a scream, and a spray of blood was stopped by the aura.
Only one possibility made sense: he could be covering his body in a shell of madra to pass through the formation. But it would be easier to Forge a human-sized ball and roll through: the amount of power it would take to slip in and out while covering every inch of his body would beggar even an Underlord. Jai Daishou himself might have been able to do it once, if he could control his madra precisely enough, but he wouldn’t be fit to fight on the other end.
Either this was a trick, or an illusion, or Eithan had madra reserves that the Jai Patriarch could only describe as monstrous. Maybe he had stolen a ward key, somehow.
Jai Daishou ordered his remaining four men back, adjusting his tactics. If Eithan was using speed and mobility against them, he could compete with raw power.
He had no use for this mountainside anyway.
His spear thrummed with power, a fan of Forged spears hovering in the air above him. Each weapon held the full power of his madra and blazed with sword aura; they would hit like bombs, and even if they missed by three feet, the aura alone could peel meat from bone.
But that wasn’t enough. He tapped into the soulfire he’d stockpiled over the past decades, channeling the faded flames into each spear. The power sunk into them until the air around them shook.
These were seven deadly attacks capable of drilling through steel plate, spread out to cover every angle of escape. Each technique launched with a split-second difference in timing, to cover any openings and preventing the enemy from grasping the timing.
Eithan would meet a wall of unstoppable spears, burning heat, and slashing blades. He may as well have been nailed to a board.
The cliff shone with white light like a dawning star, invisible gouges appeared in the dirt from the force of his sword aura, and his spiritual sense trembled with the power of his seven spears. Jai Daishou used this technique to level fortress walls, not to kill individual enemies.
This was the culmination of all the individual spear arts passed down among the Jai for generations. Jai Daishou called it the Fall of Seven Stars.
He thrust his spear forward, unleashing a stream of deadly white madra and six Forged missiles that screamed as they blasted through the air. The pale, deadly lights washed over the cliffside like a shining wave, the air between each light churning with sword aura that chewed up pebbles and spat dust.
Utter devastation scoured the cliff, shredding the boundary flags and dispersing the formation, churning the fallen bodies of the two elders into bloody mist. The technique plowed through stone and soil, and when the cloud of dust cleared, the entire half of the outcropping where Eithan once stood was completely gone. A chunk had been gouged out of the mountain, and a chunk of night sky replaced what had been rock a moment before.
Jai Daishou took a deep breath of satisfaction and let his madra begin to cycle. He had strained his spirit too much for this, but at least—
His spirit shouted at him, and he spun, leaping in the air and readying the Ancestor’s Spear in both hands.
With his broom, Eithan had swept a Truegold’s ankles out from under him. While the old man was still in the air, the broom’s handle crashed down on his back.
There was a crack as the man’s spine snapped.
The wooden broom stayed intact.
Eithan hadn’t escaped the Fall of Seven Stars unscathed: blood trickled down into one eye, which was stuck closed, there was a bloody slash across his left shoulder, and his fine blue robe was half-shredded. But he had escaped, and that was frightening enough.
Jai Daishou shouted to draw Eithan’s attention, and to give his three remaining elders time to run. He whipped Stellar Spear madra in a line—the Star Lance was the simplest Striker technique possible, but also the fastest. No matter how quickly Eithan could move, he couldn’t dodge this. It was practically instantaneous.
A technique of this degree couldn’t kill an Underlord, but it could pin him down, keep him from chasing the remaining Truegolds and butchering them one by one.
Eithan raised his hand like a man blocking out the light of the sun.
And when the Stellar Spear madra came within a foot of his hand, the madra dispersed. It dissolved. It vanished, as though the Underlord were simply wiping out his technique.
Jai Daishou landed, his metal hair flogging his back like chains, and began channeling Flo
wing Starlight. He needed to devote everything he had to speed if he wanted to keep up.
Though if he couldn’t figure out Eithan’s Path, speed might not matter. The man could eat his techniques.
Eithan blurred and moved again, but with the Flowing Starlight running through him, Jai Daishou tracked his movements. He kicked madra behind him and launched, intercepting Eithan’s broom with his spear before the man could crush a fourth elder’s ribs.
They strained against each other for an instant that lasted three full breaths, the world around them crawling. Even the fastest Truegold elder seemed as though he was moving through water as he dashed madly away, the white lines of Flowing Starlight sliding over his limbs.
Jai Daishou had the full force of his body and his Enforcer technique pushing Eithan’s broomstick back, but the blond Underlord pushed against him just as heavily.
Eithan’s jaw was set, his one open eye blazing with fury, sweat trickling down his jaw. He trembled with the effort.
But Jai Daishou was using a legendary weapon forged by his ancestor. Eithan was using a broom.
He may have imbued it with soulfire, but every significant artifact had that treatment. The Ancestor’s Spear would have been tempered in soulfire many times.
Despite the difference in their weapons, Eithan was still holding him off.
His body is younger, but my spirit is stronger. He channeled a Forger technique, and a fan of needles longer than his forearm condensed over his head. One by one, they launched themselves at Eithan to break the deadlock.
A pulse of madra flooded out of the Arelius Patriarch’s entire body. Jai Daishou felt nothing on his skin, but his Forged needles melted like ice in the summer sun.
Finally, he got a good sense of Eithan’s power.
Jai Daishou shoved, pushing his opponent away, and spoke in confusion. “Pure madra? Who uses pure madra?”
“It has…its uses,” Eithan panted, leaning heavily on his broom and flashing a smile.