by Will Wight
He had to make it count.
In a breath, he reeled his pure madra back to one of his cores. The one that, in his spiritual vision, shone a soft blue-white.
On his next breath, he drew from his other core.
Black fire ran along his madra channels. His eyes warmed as they changed color, and Lindon focused. He couldn't have put much distance between himself and Jai Long, but the Truegold must be still off-balance from the spiritual disruption. Otherwise, the fight would have ended already.
Under Lindon's direction, Blackflame madra slithered like roots to every corner of his body. According to the ancient Enforcer technique, it ran into his skin, penetrated his muscles, and burned his bones. It felt like his body had begun to dissolve from the inside-out, and the heat was uncomfortable.
He ignited the madra, activating the technique.
The Burning Cloak sprung to life around him, the air blazing with a hazy, translucent shell of black-and-red fire.
His madra would run out quickly, with the Cloak active. The Enforcer technique burned his muscles, and his Bloodforged Iron body activated to restore him. The combined effect felt as though his limbs were constantly sizzling, and both the technique and the Iron body required madra.
He couldn't keep this up for long, but he didn't need to. He had an Enforcer technique, and for the moment Jai Long didn't.
Under the power of the Burning Cloak, Lindon kicked off the stone. He exploded with motion, covering the distance between himself and Jai Long in an instant.
There was a long, frozen moment where Lindon's eyes and his opponent's met.
Then Lindon stabbed him.
This was the fourth and final construct he’d been allowed to keep. Made from only a Remnant's claw, with no binding involved, it was what she called a “dead construct.” It had no abilities apart from the properties of the madra it was made of and any script you carved into it.
In the case of this dagger, there was no script. Its structure wasn't solid enough to be carved, and even if it were, the pressure of a script would have torn it apart immediately.
It was black as ink, the length of one of Lindon's hands, and shaped like a long fang. It felt like a waterskin full of worms, stretching in Lindon's fingers, as everything except the tip was soft and pliant. The point was sharp as a spearhead, and it pierced Jai Long's robes at the chest.
With no Enforcer technique to protect him, the Truegold couldn't resist. Blood sprayed from him as his skin broke.
The dagger wasn't strong enough to penetrate any deeper, but that was enough. As it tasted Jai Long's blood, the dagger squirmed eagerly in Lindon's grip, worming its way into the wound and slithering into Jai Long's bloodstream.
Lindon leaped away, then let the Burning Cloak die.
Jai Long grunted, but he didn't scream as Lindon had expected. Instead he stood, gripping his spear, as he fought the foreign madra inside of him.
If Lindon hadn't broken his defense with the Empty Palm first, this would never have worked. The sheer power of Jai Long's spirit wouldn't have allowed the dagger inside.
Now, the Path of Twisted Blood went to work.
Fisher Gesha had determined that the madra was harvested primarily from life, shadow, and blood aura, but it had been twisted even further by the Path's practitioner. The Remnant from which she took the claw had been sliding inside animals' veins and twisting them from the inside out, breaking every bone in their body at once.
She hadn't been able to determine why it did so. Remnants didn't feed on blood or flesh, but on madra, so killing would only be an expenditure of its energy. Nonetheless, that was what every part of its body did, even when separated from the others. This Remnant's guiding purpose was to kill.
The same was true of its claw.
After a moment, Jai Long's arms both twisted backwards. It looked like he was a toy a child had decided to break. His neck slid to the right, despite his obvious effort to fight. His legs were still snared by the grasping brown hands emerging from the swamp, but the rest of his body had begun to contort.
“You…fight…like…a coward…” Jai Long’s words were choked out one at a time, but they emerged tinged with rage from a tightening jaw.
Lindon didn't expect this weapon to actually kill Jai Long. The Remnant had been at the Highgold level, so Jai Long's madra would eventually exert control again.
But he had planned for one of two things to happen: either rendering the opponent helpless would count as a win, or it would give him an opportunity.
Lindon looked to Naru Gwei, but the Skysworn Captain was still watching through the filthy curtain of his matted gray hair, the burn scar around his left eye giving him a sinister cast. He chewed on a leaf and looked completely unconcerned. Not at all as though he were about to stop the match.
Reluctantly, Lindon gathered black fire into a ball between his hands.
The red-streaked black flame built, wild and difficult to control. It stressed his concentration and his spirit to gather, and only a few months ago he would have had to use some pure madra props to execute this technique at all. After practicing during his enforced isolation, he had improved...though a technique that required several seconds to gather would be of limited use in a fight.
“Surrender,” Lindon said, voice strained with the effort of controlling the dragon's breath.
A white light flashed beneath Jai Long's clothes. It was fitful and weak, struggling against the intrusion of the Path of Twisted Blood, but Jai Long's head snapped straight again. He dropped his spear, but pulled both his arms back under control. The brown hands holding his ankles started to dissolve, the Nether-drain Swamp dissolving under white light.
Lindon released the dragon's breath.
He had no grudge against Jai Long. The man was an obstacle, and one he had to pass to continue, but not quite a true enemy. And he would hate to think that he had healed Jai Chen only to kill her brother.
He hadn't asked for this duel. But over the intervening year, one thing had become clear: he was the weaker party. He didn't have the luxury of pulling his punches.
If he didn't come at Jai Long intending to kill, he couldn't win.
The dragon's fire blasted toward Jai Long, not soft and billowing like a cloud, but a tight bar of almost liquid-looking red-and-black flame. It skewed right, and Lindon had an instant to hope that perhaps it would only take off Jai Long's arm, but leave him alive.
Then there came a blinding flash of white.
Jai Long blocked the bar of red and black with a shaft of pure white madra. The spear was almost seven feet long, smooth, and etched with a web of scripts that Lindon could only see because of their bright glow. The spearhead accounted for a foot of its length, flat and white.
The Ancestor's Spear. He'd taken it from nowhere.
Lindon's heart dropped.
How had he gotten it back? Where had he gotten it? Lindon thought Eithan had taken it. Had his own Underlord returned it?
“I think you have a decent chance of winning,” Eithan had told him. “As long as Jai Long is only a Truegold.”
“If he's an Underlord, then surely they won't continue with the duel,” Lindon had said. “It's only remotely fair in the first place because we're both technically Gold.”
“It's true; if Jai Long has truly reached Underlord, he will become my problem. But there is a...third option.”
Jai Long swept his spear through the dragon's breath, splashing tongues of Blackflame onto the stone floor and ceiling. They hissed when the stone dissolved as though under acid.
“Reaching Underlord requires a Truegold to clear three distinct stages. If he has cleared the second, weaving soulfire from aura, then he will defeat you instantly. The first stage, however, is opening a space in your soul.”
In the same motion as he disrupted Lindon's technique, Jai Long retaliated. An arm-long snake of white madra was born, its jaws agape as it flew toward Lindon. He reactivated the Burning Cloak, cycling madra to his limbs.
“If he pulls a weapon out of nowhere, he's cleared the first stage. That means he has taken half a step into the Lord realm..”
Lindon pivoted into a punch, spraying Blackflame out of the punch in a half-formed Striker technique. The force of the flame met the serpent, and the two clashed in a burst of light. But it wasn't enough to stop the Truegold attack.
From the cloud of Blackflame, the serpent emerged, avoiding Lindon's fist and sliding over his hand.
It burned.
Lindon screamed as the snake slid over the back of his hand and up his forearm, scoring the skin and burning, slicing him like a red-hot knife. The technique's madra dissipated in a blink and the snake disappeared, but it had already traveled up to his elbow, leaving a twisting trail of blood all the way up his arm.
He held up his other hand in defense, though he had no technique gathered. It was just the instinctive panic of a wounded animal. It was hard to see through the pain, and the rising tide of fear that threatened to choke him.
All of his preparation had come to nothing. His weapons were gone. His plans had failed.
He was at Jai Long's mercy.
Chapter 5
Jai Long moved in a flash. His red-wrapped face was only two feet from Lindon's own, his pale spear raised, poised to plunge down. Lindon scrambled backward, but the weapon wasn't pointed at his head or chest. Jai Long paused a moment to take aim at...his leg.
He was trying to spear Lindon through the leg. That was probably a mercy, but Lindon certainly didn't feel like it at the moment. His arm already felt like it had been chewed up and spat out, and now his enemy was trying to cut off his leg. He almost fell as he scrambled to escape.
“Enough,” Eithan said. His voice wasn't stern, but it echoed through the room like the command of an emperor.
Jai Long's spear froze. Lindon backed up another few steps, keeping a wary eye on the spear, but he still turned slightly to see Eithan.
The Arelius Underlord was standing now, hands in his pockets, a slightly pained smile on his face. “It's clear the Arelius family has lost this duel. Congratulations, Jai Daishou. You have found a worthy replacement...though I'm sorry you had to use such a tight leash.”
Lindon didn't understand that, but Jai Long tensed. Jai Daishou's wrinkled face twisted with disgust, and he barked at his champion: “It isn't over yet. Kill him.”
Jai Long tightened his grip on the spear as though straining against something. “I carried out your command,” he said, through gritted teeth. “He surrendered; we're done.” Jai Chen let out a breath of relief at almost the same time Lindon did.
“It's not a duel to surrender,” came an aged, lazy voice from the cliff overlooking the drop. Naru Gwei's dirty gray hair drifted in the wind as he rested against the column, arms still crossed. He chewed on his leaf as though unconcerned.
Jai Long stopped. He turned slowly, lifting the Ancestor's Spear.
Behind him, Jai Daishou looked as though the heavens had opened and given him a gift.
Lindon clenched his jaw at the pain in his arm, but his Bloodforged Iron body had already started pulling madra to heal it. He cycled the Path of Black Flame, preparing the Burning Cloak.
Eithan raised both hands from his pockets. “Hey now, let's not go too far. I've admitted my loss, Captain, openly and without reservation. I will accept the cost of losing.”
“Not how it works, Arelius,” Naru Gwei said, spitting out his leaf and replacing it with another. “I'm the adjudicator. Surrender all you want, but the boy isn't killed or crippled.”
Lindon could feel the world tightening around him. Jai Long gathered his madra, white light spreading from beneath his robes.
He wasn't going to get out of this. He couldn't cheat. He wouldn't catch Jai Long off guard again. Eithan couldn't save him.
Lindon was on his own. He was walking out of this killed...or crippled.
His Burning Cloak ignited.
“We've had our differences,” Eithan said, his voice becoming more serious. “Don't make this about me.”
The Skysworn Captain turned back to the two champions.
“Fight,” he said.
Jai Long blurred as he moved, and Lindon struck to the side with his good arm. It was a bad punch—he was off-balance, and his stance was sloppy; Yerin would have mocked him for it—but his knuckles met the edge of the Ancestor's Spear.
It sliced his skin.
The force of his punch knocked Jai Long's blow aside, so the spear swept harmlessly by his shoulder, but Lindon hardly noticed. The pain from this tiny cut was almost as overwhelming as the agony from his shredded arm.
This spear cut not just the flesh, but the spirit. Spiritual damage, as he had experienced several times before, was deeper and harder to ignore than physical pain. It cut him to his core, and his Blackflame core shivered.
Black-and-red light slithered down the spear, and Jai Long took a step back. He jabbed the spear backwards, thrusting the butt into the floor behind him. The Blackflame madra spurted out with the motion, venting into the floor, scorching a pothole into the stone.
So that was how it worked.
Fisher Gesha still hadn't given him back the Soulsmith papers he'd taken from the Transcendent Ruins, but he'd been allowed to study them for the purpose of preparing for the upcoming match. Just in case Jai Long were to use the Ancestor's Spear.
He hadn't known how the weapon would work—if the spear took in madra that was incompatible with the user's Path, would it absorb the madra anyway? Thus perhaps ruining the user's core? That would have been a double-edged sword, and one Lindon could exploit. He had considered intentionally allowing himself to be cut, so that Jai Long would corrupt his own core.
But there was a safety valve built into the script of the spear. Fisher Gesha had theorized there would be, otherwise it wouldn't be a useful weapon in battle.
That was one more hope struck dead. His Blackflame core had dimmed slightly with that cut, and his Iron body was still trying to heal his right arm. He would run out of madra very quickly at this rate, even with both his cores raised according to months of the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel.
Without that cycling technique, perhaps his Blackflame core would already be dangerously low. He had expanded the capacity of both his cores to the point that he had almost made up for the weakness of splitting his cores in the first place: each core held almost as much madra as any Lowgold sacred artist's core should.
But he didn't have vast reserves to draw on, especially with his Bloodforged Iron body draining madra with every injury and every second he used the Burning Cloak.
That spear would be his downfall...and Jai Long could probably beat him without it.
Jai Long moved with such speed that Lindon couldn't track his movements. Only the explosive speed provided by the Burning Cloak let him keep up, and each of his dodges was a guess. He leaped to the left, hoping to avoid a thrust from the right, and the Ancestor's Spear sliced across his ribs. It took another chunk from his spirit at the same time.
A stab above, a sweep from the left, and a probing attack at his legs. He guessed the first one was coming and ducked, accidentally hit the second with a blind punch, and missed the third completely. The white spearhead buried itself in his calf, and he screamed as he jerked his leg away.
Jai Long vented enough Blackflame from the butt of his spear to gouge a ditch in the rock, Lindon swaying with exhaustion on a body of pure pain. His Blackflame madra was about to run out, though his pure core was still fat and bright, and there was something wrong with his wounds.
His Bloodforged Iron body was still working on his right arm, but it hadn't sent any madra to the other wounds. Why not? Was it working on the worst injury first? No, the stab to his calf was deep enough that his shoes were already soaked in blood. Then...
His heart clenched as he realized the truth. The Ancestor's Spear was blocking his Iron body from healing him.
When it drained madra away from the affected
areas, some property he didn't understand prevented his Iron body from sending power back into the flesh. He could still cycle madra through those areas, but he couldn't use it to affect the wounds at all. Maybe bits of the spear's substance, left behind after each thrust?
Even when it looked like he was about to lose one of his limbs, he was trying to understand. Some part of his mind was still trying to capture details about the spear; any information he gained would help him understand the binding he'd taken from that ancient Soulsmith foundry.
That was one year ago today.
Jai Long had finished venting his madra, but something caught his eye. Lindon stumbled to the side so he could see too.
Eithan was on his feet, frozen mid-step by chains of green wind aura that were only visible in spiritual sight. To the mundane eye, he was as still as though he'd been locked in glass.
It was a Ruler technique. The Skysworn Captain had controlled the wind to lock him in place.
“We didn't pick this place on accident, Underlord,” Naru Gwei said, chewing on his leaf. “Continue, boys.”
Jai Long stood with the Ancestor's Spear held loose in one hand, the Blackflame gone from its shaft. He didn't attack immediately. “You're a coward, and you have no shame. I've killed people who deserved it less than you, and slept soundly afterwards.” Coming from a red-masked monster, the icy words were even more chilling.
Then he glanced back at his sister. “...but I still don't want to kill you. Give up the arm.”
If nothing else, Lindon thought, helping Jai Chen paid off. He had wanted to try and help her because he knew what it was like to have no control over your own soul, but he had almost ignored that feeling when he realized she was Jai Long's sister.
He had continued in order to build up some goodwill with Jai Long, hoping to cancel the duel entirely.
That hadn't worked quite as well as he'd hoped, but without Jai Long's mercy, he would have died already. Now...
He shivered as he extended his shredded right arm. It hurt so badly that raising it every inch was a new stab of agony, but the fact that he could move it at all was testament to the power of his Iron body.