After enduring the wave of traffic, the Seishen king and his entourage continued toward the Herald.
But Fury vanished in a blur of motion.
Lindon only had time for a spike of alarm to go through his spirit before Akura Fury came to a stop in front of him, grinning, his red eyes bright.
The wind of his passage blew against Lindon in a powerful gust, carrying the stink of dreadbeasts and making the Herald’s shadowy hair whip wildly.
“Hey, Lindon! Did Charity bring you?”
Lindon pressed his fists together and bowed. “She did, and she suggested that she would be back to meet with you soon.”
“Oh, okay.” He didn’t sound like he cared whether Charity checked up on him or not. “Glad you could make it! We need to get you a team, let’s see…aha!”
There was a small cloudship nearby, designed for about ten people, with a purple cloud that was about to touch down to the ground.
Fury made a grasping motion, and a hand of shadow seized the ship and started dragging it backwards.
As it grew closer, Lindon’s heart sank.
At the control panel of the ship, with his head in his hands, was Akura Pride.
Six other Underlords rode the ship with him, and Lindon recognized them all. Akura Grace, like a younger version of Malice herself, stood behind Pride and held a hand on her curving single-edged sword. Two of her relatives waited in the back, the other members of the Akura backup team, as did the two women from the Frozen Blade School.
They both had tan skin, white-streaked black hair, and blue-and-white robes, and he couldn’t tell them apart. Their names were Maten Teia and Maten Kei, though Lindon had never really had a conversation with either of them, and he didn’t know if they were sisters or distant relatives that happened to look alike.
The final passenger was Naru Saeya, who would have been able to see over the heads of everyone else if she hadn’t sat herself on a bench at the very back of the deck. Her wings were retracted, she kept her eyes on the ground, and the peacock feathers over her ear drooped.
These were the participants from the Uncrowned King tournament.
“This is our best Underlord team!” Fury said proudly. “You guys are better than everybody else, but we need you for harder assignments, so it evens out. Lindon, you made it the farthest in the tournament, so you’re in charge now. Pride, you’re number two. Everybody else, just figure it out.”
Pride looked like he was trying to launch a Striker technique with his eyes.
Grace frowned slightly, the other two Akura family members seemed uncomfortable, the Frozen Blades muttered to one another, and Naru Saeya looked up from the deck.
All of them watched him.
[Would you like a reminder of how many times you’ve fought each person on that ship?] Dross asked.
I haven’t fought the Matens or Naru Saeya at all, Lindon responded. He was resolved to look on the positive side.
“Good luck, kids!” Fury said cheerfully. “Work hard!”
He left a miniature hurricane behind him as he leaped away again.
“Apologies,” Lindon said as soon as the Herald was gone.
“Get on the ship,” Pride snapped. “We’re wasting time.”
Lindon hopped on, and Pride immediately started piloting away. Lindon didn’t even know where they were going. “Pardon, everyone. I would never wish to contradict a Herald, but I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to be in charge. I don’t even know what’s going on.”
Though he was very interested in the idea of bounties.
Pride looked to him in disgust. “What attitude is that? Raise your chin. Leading this team is an honor, and you should work to be worthy of it.”
He tossed something to Lindon. A viewing tablet with text written on it in light projected by internal constructs.
Lindon’s eyes widened when he read the words “Bounty Board.”
“Uncle Fury likes to make it a game,” Pride said. “Teams get contribution points for contributing to our cause here. There are no individual points. The team’s score is pooled together and the distribution of prizes is decided by the team’s leader.”
The stares from the rest of the team prickled him, but he didn’t look up.
The tablet recorded a list of bounties that could be claimed by each team.
Dreadbeast binding below Lord: 1 point
Dreadbeast binding, Lord-rank: 5 points
Assignment completion: 20 points
Natural treasures: 5 points minimum, subject to appraisal
Spoils of war: 10 points minimum, subject to appraisal
That explained the teams all around him, who were already flying around and hunting dreadbeasts. Lindon was even more pleased by the collection of hunger bindings he’d earned over the last day.
Then he saw the list of rewards.
Natural treasures ranged from four points to sixteen, depending on strength, and you could use points to purchase materials like scales, dead matter, simple constructs, and weapons. So far, so expected.
When he reached the end of the list, his heart started to pound.
Limited Stock:
Tears of the Mother Tree: 1500 points
Interior Command elixir: 1000
Gold Lion’s Heart pilclass="underline" 1400
Low-grade void key (two available): 1250
High-grade void key: 1750
Diamond Veins: 2000
Divine Treasure – Thousand Swords of Binding Light: 2250
“…spent the last two weeks training together,” Pride was saying. “We saw your performance in the tournament, but whatever my uncle says, that’s no basis for command.”
Striker techniques were lighting up the rocky ground around Lindon. Every second, dreadbeasts died.
Points were being taken from his pocket. He had dreadbeast bindings in his void key, but not enough.
If he played this right, he could get these prizes.
He could get them all.
“Pride. One moment.”
The short Akura Underlord bristled, then took a step closer to Lindon. “You seem to have forgotten that I’m the one who—”
Lindon seized him, terror filling his words. “Every second we waste is another point gone. You understand? We’re losing points.”
This could be the greatest harvest he’d ever reaped in his life, and he had started late.
Pride tried to respond, but Lindon released him. “How many of you have Thousand-Mile Clouds?” They didn’t respond immediately, and desperate impatience clawed at his chest. “Your hands! Raise them!”
[I wish you could see how crazy you look right now,] Dross said. [I wish I could see it.]
Hesitantly, everyone but Naru Saeya and the two Frozen Blade women raised their hands.
Naru Saeya didn’t need one, but the other two would need to be able to fly to keep up. Lindon opened his void key, used wind aura to grab the bag of dreadbeast bindings, and tossed the sack to one of the Frozen Blades.
“Turn those in for points. There should be forty-six in there, and the lowest level clouds are twenty. Buy yourselves one each, then go hunting dreadbeasts with everyone else.”
Grace spoke up. “We need everyone for our current assignment.”
“No, we don’t.” There had been a memory embedded in the tablet explaining the details of their mission; Lindon was viewing it already. “Separate into teams of two, and…you two, please leave. Please. I’m begging you.”
The Frozen Blades looked at each other, shrugged, and hopped off the cloudship. Not nearly fast enough for Lindon’s taste. He wished he could loan them madra.
“Teams of two,” Lindon continued. “Pride, take Courage. Grace, take Douji. Go get another assignment each.” Akura Courage controlled a formation of six flying swords, so he should cover for Pride, who used only Enforcer techniques. Akura Douji was a lightning artist who had practiced extensively with Grace.