No one needed a reminder.
Lindon raised both his hands and filled the space with black dragon’s breath. Eithan launched a Hollow Spear, Yerin slashed with Netherclaw, and Ziel accelerated his hammer through several rings of script so that it cracked like thunder as it plunged into the shadows.
[Danger!] Dross called to everyone, and Lindon switched back to his pure core. The Hollow Domain erupted from him just in time.
A slash of orange light split the room in half like a sunrise, dissipating the Dream of Darkness. Reigan Shen hovered in midair despite the lack of aura in the room, a misshapen orange sword blazing in his hand. It gave off an overwhelming pressure no less than Shen’s own.
A chill ran down Lindon’s spine as he felt Dross’ alarm focus on spider-thin cracks that slowly vanished in front of Reigan Shen. He had, however temporarily, cut through the world itself.
“I’ve kept you company long enough,” the Monarch said. “I don’t like to work so hard.”
A green feather emerged from a case at his side, and suddenly the room was filled with wind aura.
None of them waited for him to do as he wished. Striker techniques speared toward him, but slashes of orange light flickered out and struck them down, though his sword didn’t seem to move.
A moment later, nine tridents appeared, shining green with death madra that reminded Lindon of the Tomb Hydras. They hovered in the wind aura, and Lindon’s heart sank. The Soul Cloak bloomed around him.
Even by a Monarch’s standards, these were no ordinary weapons. They had a powerful will to destroy that resonated with the aura all throughout the labyrinth.
These tridents were hungry.
And one flashed at each of Shen’s enemies. Dross slowed the world down, and Lindon extended his left hand to the trident spearing toward Mercy.
He could feel the will compelling the trident to seek life, and rather than oppose it, he redirected it.
“To me,” Lindon ordered.
The trident swerved and headed to Lindon, but it wasn’t as fast as the one that was already about to reach him.
This one, Lindon reached up and caught with his right hand.
Ordinarily, that would have been a fool’s move. The Soul Cloak gave him the speed and precision to catch it, but he shouldn’t be strong enough to hold back such a weapon.
The strength he’d gained from draining Crusher stayed with him, and now he was strong enough. Physically. But death madra seeped into him, eroding his life from the inside. It was trying to consume him.
So Lindon Consumed it right back.
The power of the trident soaked into Lindon, and he saw a few flickering images, pieces of the weapon’s will. It didn’t have memories, exactly; not like a living being did. But he pieced together something of an understanding.
These weren’t nine weapons made to work together. This was one weapon, and it had one intention. Nine fangs flashing together.
And it wasn’t happy about having its energy stolen.
The second trident arrived as the first started struggling to pull back. But Lindon had a firm grip on it.
He swung the first trident into the second.
[It will try to dodge, but it is not a true intelligence. Just a naturally formed will. But it is a very good thing that all nine are not focused on you.]
Sure enough, the trident tried to dodge, but it couldn’t keep up with Lindon enhanced by the Soul Cloak. He knocked the second trident out of the air and vented the death madra into the air.
All the while, he watched and thought.
Mercy had used her freedom from the trident to focus attacks on Reigan Shen. Ziel had matched against his trident, Eithan had blasted it from the air and kept his attention focused on the enemy, and Yerin hadn’t even been slowed down by hers.
Why hadn’t Reigan Shen focused all the tridents?
He had kept four back to defend himself, which was certainly more than he needed. If he had sent them all at one person, he would have been able to keep them out of the fight.
[It looks as though he’s trying to preserve your lives,] Dross suggested.
Or the tridents, Lindon responded.
And that hunch felt right. Reigan Shen would not waste his prized collection.
With renewed vigor, Lindon adjusted his grip on the death trident and Consumed again. The madra channels running into his arm strained, and he could feel the binding warping under the flow of powerful energy, but he kept it up.
The trident he’d knocked away turned back to him, and Reigan Shen shot him a look of annoyance.
One of the tridents defending him from Yerin’s attacks peeled away and shot toward Lindon, leaving Lindon fighting three.
Lindon’s thrill at having his theory proved right was accompanied by an equal sense of crisis. If Reigan Shen was fighting them while trying to avoid damaging his weapons, that meant he wasn’t taking them seriously.
And the moment he did, they were going to die.
Lindon was overwhelmed for a moment, and only with Dross’ help did he manage to keep the three tridents off him. Even Mercy shot one down as it was about to hit him, and he focused soulfire and Blackflame madra into the most condensed black dragon’s breath he could make.
With that, he sliced a trident in half.
Yerin and Reigan Shen were clashing in the middle of a visible thunderclap that distorted space, but Lindon still caught the Monarch’s grimace. All eight of the remaining tridents flew back to Reigan Shen, almost impaling Yerin until she dodged.
“Enough of this,” Reigan Shen said. The tridents vanished. “Engrave this memory into your Remnants. For you are privileged to witness the Path of the King’s Key.”
Gold-edged portals swirled open behind him. Five of them; one for each opponent.
Techniques emerged from the portals like serpents leaping from the ocean, and these were not the limited techniques that had been eroded by hunger aura. These were true Monarch techniques, and they blinded Lindon’s senses.
[Processing!] Dross cried.
The scene seemed to freeze, as it often had before. That gave Lindon plenty of time to see what effects Reigan Shen had summoned from the weapons hidden in his void space.
One was a Forged hand, seemingly made of jade streaked with gold. The madra was so dense that it seemed physical, but Lindon could feel that it was dense energy of life and earth. The hand was reaching out for Ziel, and it was going to flatten him.
An orange-white line blasted out of another portal; this was red dragon’s breath, focused to such a degree that Lindon could scarcely believe it. It must have been a launcher construct made from a red dragon Herald, and it shot for Eithan.
Ocean blue tides gushed out of a third portal, with enough pressure that the water itself could crush stone. Inside the depths were glowing, flickering humanoid figures. This was a mysterious water technique headed for Yerin, and it brought an energy of suppression that struck at the soul as well as the body.
A flurry of silver bat-like techniques rushed after Mercy, carrying sword energy complex enough that Lindon couldn’t quite identify its makeup. They were possessed by a furious will, like a swarm of bloodthirsty bees. And their very presence shook his senses until he felt like he was going to bleed from the ears.
This was a technique meant to shred Heralds. Mercy wouldn’t last a second.
A massive sword, so detailed that its blade gleamed in the light, speared toward Lindon, but he paid it no mind. It was made from dream madra Forged solid, and it reminded Lindon that Reigan Shen didn’t know about Dross.
Between pure madra and Dross’ support, Lindon should be able to crack that sword like it was made from cheap porcelain. But the others were in danger.
Dross, what can we do about the technique targeting Yerin?
[Inconclusive.]
Do we have enough time to block for Mercy with the Hollow Domain?