Kiro had fired the technique in his sword, blue lightning piercing the air. At the same time, he'd released his own Striker technique from his left hand, pouring soulfire into it.
Lindon swung the axe.
He hadn’t been able to test the weapon before. Harmony’s spirit hadn’t been strong enough to activate the binding inside it, and until now, neither had Lindon’s. But he and Dross had spent some time examining the axe, and they thought they had an idea of what it could do.
The reality was so much greater than he had imagined.
Blood and destruction madra erupted from the axe, forming into a wave of red, spectral hands. Thousands of spindly arms stretched out from the blade, reaching for Kiro. His Striker techniques punched through the cloud of madra, destroying a few hands, but there were many more to replace them. His attacks were swallowed up as though they had landed in the sea.
Scarlet fingertips clawed forward in a flood, wailing loud enough to hurt Lindon’s ears. They swept down the hallway without slowing, but all Lindon could see was a wall of red.
What had it done to Kiro?
When the red light started to fade, Lindon strained himself, looking quickly for Kiro. If the Underlord had survived…
A hulking figure like an armored giant stumbled up to Lindon.
He almost panicked, but this was bigger than Kiro had ever been. The Remnant had a smooth boulder for a face, with twisting ribbons of metallic madra for flesh.
It looked at Lindon, who lowered his axe and kindled dragon's breath in his free hand.
After inspecting him for a moment, the spirit wandered away.
Chapter 20
Mercy felt Lindon advancing to Underlord, and she let out a breath of relief. From everything she’d seen, these Seishen Underlords would stand no chance against him. Eithan Arelius had done a strangely excellent job of building his foundation, though Lindon wasn’t as well-trained as she would have expected in someone of his power.
Lindon would be fine, but Yerin was still in danger.
Mercy formed an arrow from all three of her techniques and the full force of her spirit. It formed so quickly, she almost wept; she was going to love having her full power back.
She faced the wall standing between her and Seishen Daji. She couldn’t break it all at once, but she had to stop him from joining his teammates.
So she took aim through the wall.
The arrow blasted through, leaving a finger-thick hole in the gray madra. The effort of penetrating the wall had caused it to lose some of its power, so it only splashed against the back of Daji’s armor, causing him to lose focus. She had accounted for that.
In a breath, she unleashed three more arrows through the hole the first had left.
They pierced his back, spreading venom and webs of force madra all over him. The Nightworm Venom technique would eat into his armor, corrupting it, leaving him stripped of its power. He would have to tangle with that while she waited for the wall to fall.
But she couldn’t afford to wait around. Yerin was in danger.
She slipped into one of the many shadow displays, grabbing a stone covered in a shroud of darkness. Then into the treasures of light, selecting a crystal that shone brightly. From a display like an overgrown jungle, she took a flower that teemed with life, and from a crimson display she took a shard of bloodstained steel.
Spreading them on the ground before her, she stretched out her spiritual perception. The unity of aura was so blessedly clear, as it had been before.
The vault roared and there was another flash of light through the hole in Daji’s wall. That worried her for a moment, but the blast had felt like Blackflame. Among other things.
She closed her eyes and spoke. The Underlord’s revelation should always be spoken, she’d been taught.
Even if one was ashamed of it.
“I walk my Path,” she said, “so my mother will be proud of me.”
The soulfire sparked, consuming the treasures in an instant, and passed through her body in a single breath.
It was as much of a change as when she’d shed her curses and returned to her power as a Truegold after most of a year as Lowgold. She gasped, feeling the new power in her spirit and body.
She was Underlady now, and it had only taken a second. She wanted to cheer.
But now wasn’t the time. She had a job to do.
“Chapter two,” she said, and the power of the Book of Eternal Night surrounded her. Its pages began to shift.
“Page four.”
An instant later, her new arrow shattered the wall.
She walked up to Daji, who had struggled his way free of her webs. She placed a hand on his head, and he looked up, rage and terror warring in his eyes.
“Learn from this,” she said.
Then she unleashed the Strings of Shadow technique. The first technique she had ever mastered.
Leaving him wrapped in a dark cocoon, she hurried forward, only to run into Lindon running from the other side. He looked so different that it startled her, but now wasn’t the time to gape.
Yerin needed their help.
~~~
Pulling back the rushing vines of green life madra, Meira glared at Yerin. “If Kiro is dead, I will kill your friends. I will kill your family. I will kill everyone you’ve ever loved, you’ve ever known. I will kill, and kill, and kill, and kill, until you wade through a river of blood with every step.”
Lindon was already an Underlord, and he was moving closer. She could feel him.
Red light flashed, and screams echoed through the halls. Yerin had never sensed that technique before, but from the feel of it, she could guess what it was: Lindon’s axe.
“He’s dead,” Yerin said.
Meira screamed, and vines shot from the tree again. Yerin’s Blood Shadow leaped, stopping them with its Goldsigns and rasping out a whispery laugh.
It could laugh now. That was…horrifying.
Yerin needed the distraction. She hobbled over to the sword display, which she could only sense once she got close enough. Its power pushed against the script like the weight of a river against a dam.
The Blood Shadow was overwhelmed in an instant, slammed against the wall. Yerin felt a distant pain as Meira’s tree tore the spirit-parasite limb from limb. It made a wet tearing sound every time, and there was something especially disturbing about seeing something like that happen to your own body. Especially when the Shadow’s hungry grin never faded, even as it broke down to essence and flowed back to Yerin’s spirit.
Yerin’s body and spirit shook. Her sword trembled as she held it down and to the side, but she forced one more technique through it. The Flowing Sword. Her blade began to glow.
“Don’t you look all…” Her voice failed her for a moment, but she pushed on. “…all bright and shiny new,” Yerin called. “How many pieces am I going to have to cut you into?”
Meira didn’t answer, shouting again and launching more vines at Yerin.
“Let’s find out,” Yerin said. And with the Sage’s white sword, she scratched the scripted stone around the sword display.
Sword aura gushed out. If she moved an inch, it would slice open her skin. With the last of her madra, she seized that power. Controlled it.
Ruled it.
The Endless Sword gathered around her six Goldsigns, around the sword left by the Sword Sage, and aura blasted out from Yerin in a storm. Far more than she could ever hope to gather or control; she only activated it.
And Meira was overwhelmed.
If the Underlady had been able to move, she could have broken Yerin’s control, or dodged, or set up a defense. But Yerin had already seen that this tree required Meira to stay in one place.
The rest of the Underlady’s armor shredded away as she screamed, followed by her clothes and her hair. In only an instant, she collapsed onto the floor, a bloody mess.
Her scythe fell after her, plinking to the stone, its haft notched and pitted.