Guilt squeezed Yerin's gut. This was her fault.
But no, she had to focus. If she let the Blood Shadow take over her spirit, things would only get worse.
She tightened her grip on the parasite, both physically and spiritually. But it seemed to sense Cassias' wounds...or perhaps the blood aura.
It surged toward him, transforming into a razor-edged mace that smashed down at his back. She managed to shout a warning this time.
He turned with both his hands raised, filled with silver light, driving forward with spikes of sword madra. The technique blasted into the Blood Shadow, splattering power onto the walls, and turning its course aside. He was able to take one unsteady step to the side, avoiding its strike.
But it smashed straight into the console, blasting it to splinters.
The parasite had lost much of its strength in confronting Cassias, so Yerin was able to level herself to her feet...but all she could see was the mountain in the window. Growing closer and closer.
The Blood Shadow drew itself back in, like a pet falling asleep, twisting itself around not only her waist, but her shoulders and hips as though it would never let go.
She shuddered, but at least she was in control over herself now. She dashed forward, seizing the wounded Cassias. He struggled against her for a moment, but he was too weak.
Yerin ran out the door, dashing onto the deep blue cloud as wind tore past them. She cast a glance back at Orthos, but he was withdrawn into his shell—she hoped it would be enough to protect him from the crash. Whether it was or not, there was nothing she could do.
She leaned over the edge of the Thousand-Mile Cloud and forced herself to wait. Her every instinct told her to jump out now, abandoning the doomed house, though it would splatter her like a...well, like anything dropped from this height.
The temple loomed closer, and she refused to blink, staring straight into the wind as they approached.
When the edge of the mountain was finally beneath her, she jumped.
With Cassias over her left shoulder, she drew her master's sword, slashing at the air in the only Forger technique she knew. She Forged a blade beneath them—it would be thin enough to see through if viewed edge-on, but of course she didn't want to fall on the edge of the blade. They fell onto the flat side.
Her master had used a variation of this technique to fly. She only hoped she could do half as well now.
She couldn't. The sword shattered like glass and they tumbled down toward the rock, barely slowed at all.
She tried again, crashing through it once more, and then she drew her sword back to try a third time.
They hit the stone.
She couldn't feel her limbs. A disturbing sense of cold passed through her, and darkness pressed into the edges of her vision. A roar sounded nearby, and some part of her guessed that had to be the house crashing.
Before she lost consciousness, she realized there was one thing she could still feeclass="underline" the power rising from behind her, like a blood-red sun. It was getting closer.
Something was coming, and it had given her Blood Shadow its strength.
Pai Ren had joined the Skysworn to see the world look up to him.
Not only was the green armor of the Skysworn among the most respected uniforms you could wear in the Blackflame Empire, you also got the chance to fly. People watched him from below as he flew over, and they looked up at him in jealousy. Until today, he had considered it the best decision of his life so far.
Now, he thought it might be the worst—and last—decision he ever made.
Death had come to Lastleaf Fortress, where he had been stationed. He was only investigating the Empire's southern border. It was a standard inspection, and the sacred artists in Lastleaf had welcomed him like an honored guest. He had spent the last three weeks feasting on the products of the southern jungle, which he had been honored to visit.
Now, somehow, the sun had been stained red. He stood on his personal Thousand-Mile Cloud, looking out over the rest of the fort below him, horrified. Blood aura choked the air, so that he had to close his Copper sight and withdraw his spiritual sense, lest he lose his lunch.
The fortress was a vast complex, wider than it was tall, spread out beneath him in layers like the rings of a tree. Each ring was walled, and the strongest sacred artists lived in the heart of the fort.
The sacred arts of this School, the Path of the Last Leaf, turned trees into deadly weapons. Vines and trees had been planted within the fortress for the purposes of cycling aura, dotting each layer. The innermost layer was almost a forest.
Ordinarily, there was a natural flow of students and experts flowing throughout the fortress, passing between walls and going on a thousand different tasks. It had been soothing to watch.
Today, it was a horrifying scene of carnage.
Beneath him, the artists of the Lastleaf School tried to stand in desperate pockets against an army of...not Remnants, exactly, nor sacred beasts. Were they constructs? He couldn't be sure.
He'd call them monsters.
Creatures of blood, born of blood. Every wound created another one—a faceless, shambling creature that sacrificed itself in order to kill another sacred artist. They would latch on to a Lastleaf artist, split into a thousand crimson vines, and then strangle the man or woman to death.
It looked disturbingly similar to a technique from the Path of the Last Leaf, as though these blood-creatures used the sacred arts of those they killed. Or perhaps they took the sacred arts from the blood when they were born.
Ren's mind tried to unravel the puzzle even as his body stood, frozen and horrified, stuck to his Thousand-Mile Cloud. He was a Truegold, stronger than most in the Empire, but he couldn't imagine himself doing anything about the tragedy he saw unfolding beneath him.
A trio of women stood with weapons in hand, standing against a tide of crimson creatures. One slashed a green sword, and leaves were Forged from nowhere, slashing against them. Another raised a construct device, which flashed green, to no apparent effect he could see. A third swung a hammer, smashing a single monster to a splatter. A wave of creatures overwhelmed them in seconds.
He could probably have heard their screams, if they didn't blend into everyone else's.
A couple pulled their child between them, running from a line of red monsters. They wouldn't make it.
An elder directed a tree to raise its branches in a fist, smashing down on the blood-creatures and reducing them to paste. A group of disciples huddled behind him, frightened, but there seemed to be a new batch of enemies born from every human death. There was no end to them, and the elder's madra could only last so long.
Similar stories played out all over the fortress, such that he found it harder and harder to focus on any individual detail. It was just a mass of horror, like a nightmare spread out beneath him.
He could descend on that elder who was holding out. Perhaps save a disciple or two on his cloud.
But...
He glanced behind him, where the red light had condensed into a shaft of what looked like a beam of crimson sunlight. He had withdrawn his perception already, but he still felt something from back there: dread. Horror. Overwhelming power.
There was something only a mile or two south of this fortress, something ancient and powerful. It had caused this, he was sure.
And if he died here, the Skysworn would never know about it.
There was a sealed box on his thigh, scripted and reinforced so that it was almost impossible to open by accident. Among the Skysworn, it was considered shameful to open this box.
He flooded it with his madra, unlocking it. It popped open, causing a stone to fall into his gauntleted hand.