by Will Wight
This page was choked with more incomprehensible script-circles instead of plain writing. Not that Yerin would have been able to get anything from it either way.
“It's the central technique from the Path of the Chainkeeper,” Mercy said. “Strings of Shadow. There are seven techniques in this book, one for each page. The Path of Seven Pages unites seven techniques from seven different shadow Paths into one.”
She let it fade away, and this time Yerin traced it with her perception. “You stock that thing in your spirit?”
Mercy patted her stomach like she'd just had a full meal. “When I bonded with this book, they opened up my soulspace early. It's one of the requirements of my Path.”
A screech echoed through the woods. Either another dragon had caught up, or the first had gotten free.
“All right, that's enough friendly time,” Yerin said, drawing her sword. “We've been too soft on these things. Now, we punch through. I'm getting through that portal before the sun sets, or I'm bleeding out.”
Mercy's eyes sparkled, and she hopped out in front of Yerin. “Did you say we're friends now?”
Yerin stared at her.
Another Highgold dragon waited for them ahead, and spots of heat in her perception told her there were more Lowgolds and Highgolds ringing them. They were getting sewed in.
But they were making progress. After an hour of running and dodging through the trees, Yerin spotted something that brightened her heart: the sparkle of light on the ocean.
According to the map, the portal was at the very edge of the island. They were close.
The Highgold dragon roared at them, spraying fire.
A Rippling Sword technique split the fire down the middle. Strings of Shadow dragged its claws to the ground, and Yerin's sword plunged into the back of its neck.
Its scales actually managed to deflect most of the blow, but blood gushed up, and it shrieked.
Mercy bound it to the ground a few more times as they kept running. She frowned at Yerin. “It wasn't going to hurt us.”
“It was trying,” Yerin said.
Mercy continued to argue, but Yerin looked ahead. This side of the island ended, not in a sandy beach, but in a strip of dirt overlooking a cliff that dropped to the ocean. She pulled out the map, examining it and pointing.
“Farther north,” she said.
She had to guess the jade doorway would be in the same place as the first one had been. If it was, that meant it would be at the edge of the treeline.
They were getting close to Redmoon Hall territory, but that couldn't dim her spirits. According to the map, they were within minutes of the Ghostwater entrance. At last, they could leave this boring rotten island behind and join Lindon in the Monarch's pocket world. It was about time.
A golden shadow passed in front of the sun.
Yerin knew what it was even before she stretched her perception up and felt the presence of the Thousand-Mile Cloud. She knew before the pressure of an Underlord pushed down on her spirit, before dragons roared in triumph and a woman jumped down from the golden cloud, landing easily a hundred feet down.
This was where the Highgold dragons had been meant to lead them. Right into the claws of their leader.
The woman wore a sparkling sacred artist's robe of intricate red, gold, and purple. Her eyes were golden and vertically slitted, and patches of gold scales remained on the pale skin of her cheeks. Her nails looked like claws, and there were patches of scales on the backs of her hands as well. A thin, gold-scaled tail lashed behind her.
She was doing nothing to restrain her spirit, or the rage that was obvious on her face. The Underlady's fury hit Yerin only a few steps from the trees, and she fell to her knees, gasping for breath. It was like a bear sitting on her chest.
Mercy fell flat to the ground, in even worse shape than Yerin. She looked like she'd been pinned in place like a corpse prepared for study.
The Underlady was flanked by Truegolds who looked like a cross between humans and dragons. They were scaled, their face reptilian, but they stood upright and wore clothes just like humans would. They spoke to the Lady from behind, but she had furious eyes only for the humans.
“...then they can give me back my sister!” It sounded like she was responding to one of the dragons, but her voice raised to an angry roar in mid-sentence.
Sunset-colored light gathered around one clawed hand, and that technique gave off heat like a scorching bonfire.
Yerin used her sword to push herself up a hair, straightening her back a little bit. “Don't know...your sister...” she pushed out.
The dragon tossed her head, and Yerin realized she didn't have hair, but rather a veil of loose scales hanging down from her head so that it looked like hair. “You will meet her now.”
Mercy struggled on the ground. Yerin braced herself.
One of the Truegold dragons lunged at the Lady's arm, holding her back for just a moment. Madra shone in her hand.
Yerin forced her own sluggish madra to move, lifting her sword in arms that felt a hundred times heavier than usual. She gathered power, Enforcing her weapon, holding it against the Striker technique that was about to come. It wouldn't be enough, but she had to try something.
“Second page,” Mercy whispered, through gritted teeth.
A phantom image flickered behind Mercy for a second, so quick that Yerin thought she might have imagined it. The violet book, turning from the first page to the second.
Light dimmed about ten feet around Mercy, as though she'd cast a bigger shadow than normal, and suddenly she was giving off the aura of a Highgold. It was the quickest, most casual advancement Yerin had ever heard of.
Not that it would save them. The Lady shook off the Truegold, hurling her Striker technique at the two humans. The liquid madra surged like a river after a storm, carrying the raging heat of a wildfire.
The full-power strike of an Underlord.
Mercy shoved herself in front of Yerin, holding up an arm as though she carried a shield. Another time, Yerin might have been impressed with the spine that took, but in that instant, she was horrified. Was she cracked in the head? Yerin had a better chance of weakening the technique by facing it with her own madra head-on; all Mercy could do was get herself burned to ash a little early.
Violet crystals started to form all over Mercy's arm, and then the madra washed over them.
It detonated as it hit, scorching every inch of Yerin's exposed skin. She couldn't tell how much of it had been pushed away by her Enforced sword, but it hit her weapon like a hammer, slamming it back into her, driving her back into the trees.
Yerin lost herself for a second. She saw only light and motion, heard only a formless roar.
When she came back, she was looking at the sky. Her face, her arms, her head—in so much pain she could barely breathe. She pushed herself up to sit, her Steelborn Iron body draining madra, and the flash of pain was so intense she almost passed out.
Pieces of her robe crumbled away as she moved. The skin of her right arm was red-and-black, twisted, almost melted. Her master's sword lay not far away. It was unharmed, and she crawled for it.
Then she saw Mercy.
The girl's left arm was covered in a violet crystalline armor the same color as her book had been. Slowly, the armor faded to essence, revealing an arm that looked totally untouched.
It was the only part of her body that looked that way.
Most of her hair was scorched off. Her robes were half-melted to her body, and all her skin was red and burned. She cradled Suu in her arms.
At first sight, Yerin was sure she was dead. Only her spiritual perception said otherwise.
Another sunset-colored light bloomed, and Yerin turned slowly to face it.
If anything, the Underlady looked even more furious now. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she gathered this Striker technique in both hands.
A Truegold dragon leaped in front of her.
The man fell to his knees and spread his arms, clearly
pleading with her.
Yerin understood. She wasn't the only Underlord on this island. The dragons knew they had come from the Blackflame Empire with the Skysworn, but they also must see the two of them as members of Redmoon Hall and the Akura family.
If she, a Lady, struck down two Golds, the other Lords would do likewise. It would be an invitation to tear the dragons apart.
But Yerin wasn't going to stick around and see where the dice fell.
Her Steelborn Iron body was drawing on her spirit to keep her limbs moving, and she positively flooded it with madra. She hauled Mercy onto her shoulder, skin screaming and tears flooding her own eyes in the pain.
She gathered her master's sword and the ancient bow under one arm. Then she started jogging into the woods.
If they got far enough away, she could pull the tent from Mercy's void key and hide in its veiling script. That was their only hope.
For now, though every step was agony, she had to run.
Chapter 14
At the end of the second week after reaching the Spirit Well, Lindon advanced to Highgold in his pure core.
It struck him again how much longer it took to raise the Path of Twin Stars. If he had focused on only one Path, he would surely be Truegold by now, thanks to the miraculous properties of the Well water.
Even with the distractions of raising Dross and his pure core, his Path of Black Flame had advanced significantly into Highgold. He wasn't knocking on the door of Truegold yet, but he could at least see it in the distance.
This was the easiest his advancement would ever be, and he relished it. Every sip of the Spirit Well water felt like a victory.
Orthos' spirit burned brighter than Lindon had ever felt it. If the Dream Well water had helped him to stay focused, his newly cleansed spirit meant that Lindon no longer had to feed him pure scales or keep him calm. He spent his days cycling with Lindon, drinking from the Spirit Well, or swimming around the habitat. Lindon was fairly certain he'd been fighting with Sea Drakes, because sometimes he returned from his swims with an exultant look in his eye and scratches all over his skin.
Little Blue was once again a deep ocean blue, and she scampered around like a child in a field. She played with some of the more advanced Dreamseeds, the ones who had taken a more solid form. The less-advanced spirits were hazy and ever-shifting, and they didn't seem to have minds at all.
Though it still knocked Lindon sideways when Dross said he wanted to eat some of them.
“It's not eating as you do it,” Dross said from within Lindon's core. “No, thank you—that's disgusting. It's more like a...merge. A merge in which I take in everything and they cease to exist.”
Lindon supposed there was nothing different about that than using Remnant parts, but he couldn't help but think of some construct devouring Little Blue.
“The little ones don't have minds. They're like plants. If you wanted to feed them and raise them for a few years, sure, then they'd be all cute. And then you'd feel like a monster. But you haven't done that, so we're all clear!”
Lindon gave in. Dross was confident that this would be the last stage of his growth, and that after this, he would qualify as a living spirit rather than a construct. Lindon was curious to see that, and just as importantly, he wanted the construct out of his spirit. Dross was taking up far too much of his time and water each day.
Unfortunately, that meant he had to do the job of consuming the Dreamseed himself.
“You’ve got an arm for it!” Dross said. “Just walk over there and slurp it up.”
“it won’t work. My arm can’t draw anything into my core.”
“Get it into your madra channels and I’ll do the rest.”
When Lindon tried to consume the first Dreamseed, which clung to one of the nearby walls in a translucent purple blob, his arm of hunger madra drained something out of it and left it a lifeless husk of dissolving dream essence.
The next time, he restrained the limb, pulling the Dreamseed into his core as delicately as he could. It swirled into his spirit, a mass of impressions that felt surprisingly compatible with his pure madra. Dross had been right; these spirits were less like real dream madra and more like pure madra pretending.
That was interesting, but not as interesting as what happened to Dross when he absorbed the Sylvan.
He shivered inside Lindon’s core, his essence shifting, and some of the sparks inside him gathered together. It looked like he was forming a core of his own.
“Oh yeah, that’s it. That’s the right stuff. Now grab the one that looks like a flower.”
It took six Dreamseeds before Dross stopped talking. Inside Lindon’s spirit, the construct spun, turning in faster and faster loops.
Lindon funneled as much power from the Spirit Well to Dross as he could. He didn’t know if it was helping, but he reasoned that it couldn’t hurt.
Dross started pushing at Lindon’s core. It was only a little pressure at first, but it grew stronger and stronger, until Lindon had to extend his left hand and push the construct out like he was releasing a Striker technique.
The ball of purple light spun into the air, wobbling. He was more solid now, a more clearly defined orb. Now, twisting lines of light formed a web through the mechanical spokes at his center, all leading back to a single spot of bright light.
A madra system. He had grown madra channels and a core.
“Oh, this is brilliant! Brilliant stuff! It’s like all my thoughts and memories are crawling together and breeding new ones! I’m having ideas now!” Dross spun excitedly around Lindon’s head. “We don’t have to go to the portal at all, do we? We could harness fish and ride our way up! No, wait, we’re in a pocket world. We could harness fish and ride our way through space.”
He stopped in front of Lindon’s face. “I can activate the tablets myself now! Don’t be surprised if I return as a master of the sacred arts.”
He whizzed off, out of the Spirit Well room and down the hallway.
Ziel watched the whole exchange with a complete lack of interest, sitting against the corner and staring at him from beneath emerald horns.
“Forgiveness,” Lindon said. “I did not mean to disturb you.”
Dead eyes drifted over to the Spirit Well.
“If you don’t mind, how long until I reach Truegold? In your estimation.”
“Two more weeks,” Ziel said without looking over.
“And we have that long, don’t we? You said a month…”
“You don’t want to stay here.”
Lindon wasn’t sure if that was a warning or not. “This is my new favorite place in existence. I want to stay here forever.”
“And you want to leave.” Slowly, Ziel’s eyes returned to Lindon. “Don’t you?”
Lindon stood there for a long moment before he moved and took a seat beside Ziel. “Well, I have this friend. She—”
Ziel held up a hand. “No. Stop. We don’t know each other well enough for this.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.”
“You’ll reach Truegold. Whether you do it in two weeks or two years, it won’t make much of a difference in the end.”
“Actually—”
“Stop. It’s my turn. I have nothing against easy advancement, but don’t let it blind you.” He raised a finger, pointing to the ceiling. It took Lindon a moment to see what he was pointing to: a long cobweb stretching from one corner to another.
“The decay has already begun. That is a naturally forming spatial crack. You still have three weeks or so before this world collapses, so long as nothing accelerates it. By the time they form fast enough that you can see space cracking, you should have left already.”
He pulled his worn cloak around him. “If you’re going to a deeper habitat, you’ll have plenty of time if you leave now. You don’t want to be racing the hourglass with a collapsing world.”
Lindon thanked him, though he was part relieved and part disappointed. He had already been apart from Yerin for so long; he found h
imself wondering more and more what she was doing on the outside. He had expected that to fade with time, but it had only grown worse.
On the other hand, he felt like a fool for leaving the Spirit Well without milking every second.
He filled every spare container he could find with the blue water: all of the vials he’d emptied so far and everything he could scavenge from the junk rooms in this facility.
He’d opened his void key and prepared to leave, Little Blue on his shoulder, Orthos at his side, and Dross in the Eye of the Deep. Still, he looked over the pool of blue water like he was abandoning a fortune.
Ziel waited for them at the entrance to the room, leaning on his hammer like an old man on a cane. He hefted a bag in one hand and tossed it to Lindon. It clinked as he caught it.
“Six bottles,” Ziel said. “Should be enough to get you to Truegold in at least one core.”
Lindon held the bottles for a moment before placing them into his void key. He actually teared up.
Ziel ignored him.
When they were ready to leave, they stood lined up in front of the wall of black water. Dross assured them that this was the way to the final habitat, the one containing the entrance to Northstrider’s quarters.
It was filled with the swirling blue lights of Diamondscale Sea Drakes.
Orthos chewed a mouthful of stone to gravel and swallowed it. “Hmmm…I left too many alive.”
He and Ziel had consumed far more of the original Drake’s corpse than Lindon thought should be possible, but when it started to decay, they had tossed it into the ocean. Had that attracted the others?
Little Blue chimed like a bell from his shoulder, and he patted her tiny shoulder with one finger. Together, they stared down a wall of flashing silver scales and blue lights.
“Do we have time to swim around?” Lindon asked.
“That depends,” Dross said. “Do you still need air?”
A loud scraping grew closer and closer, and they all turned to see Ziel dragging his hammer two-handed over the tile. “They focus on the biggest threat in their territory. I will punch through, and you head to the habitat. This is no task for a Gold.”