The danger was minimal, and time was short. So Lindon had finally decided to try completing an assignment using the people on his team least likely to be killed in action: Pride and himself.
They set down the cloudship well beyond the reach of anyone’s spiritual sense in the canyon, hiking over the land overhead. They walked through clouds of dust, as this stretch of terrain was almost a desert.
Lindon wasn’t sure why Abyssal Palace even wanted an intersection of two crossed canyons, besides the heavy earth aura here, but Fury paid in points for destroyed towers and stolen masks.
There was one other reason why he and Pride were perfect for this assignment: their veils were hard to penetrate. Shadow and pure madra were both difficult to detect, so they had the best chance of reaching the tower undetected.
Still, they would have been caught if not for Dross. Lindon’s perception was restricted under a veil, but Dross used the little information they had more efficiently.
He spotted a line of script covered by dust, allowing Lindon and Pride to quietly disable it and move on. They dodged a flying construct, and before long they were lying at the edge of a canyon, looking down.
Sure enough, at the crossroads of two ravines was a classic Abyssal Palace tower: a squat brown cylinder of packed dirt and stone, ringed with scripts that blocked intrusion and hid them from spiritual perception. Three acolytes in their simple masks huddled outside, hunched up against the cold wind.
Lindon told Dross to relay the plan to Pride.
[Here’s what we—oh look, he knows the plan already!]
Pride had leaped down into the canyon.
Two Gold acolytes went flying into the distance before the third reacted, swinging a massive club into Pride’s side.
Pride, of course, caught the weapon easily in one hand, then flipped it around and knocked the cultist onto the roof of the tower.
Lindon jumped down after him, irritated. There was an alarm blaring now, which meant they were on a time limit.
Sure, this group wasn’t a threat. But they could summon more.
Lindon landed next to Pride as three more Abyssal Palace members emerged from the short, scripted tower. Two acolytes stood on the roof with madra gathering in their hands, and a priestess came out of the doorway. One of the eyes in her mask blazed yellow.
“Your masks or your lives,” Lindon said. At first, he had included a short speech about sparing their lives and being unwilling to shed blood, because he felt like a bandit extorting them for their masks.
Now, he just cut to the chase. There was no point in drawing it out. They had never run into an enemy that was a match for him or Pride.
The priestess surveyed them, and Lindon scanned her spirit. She wasn’t even an Underlady. Most priests were, so the Truegolds that made it to that rank were considered real monsters, but Lindon wasn’t too concerned.
“You’re the Monarch’s son,” she said quietly, and Lindon felt the first tingle of alarm.
Pride drew himself up to his full unimpressive height. “I am Akura Pride.”
“Use your gatestone. We would rather not hurt you.”
He barked a humorless laugh. “It would be to your credit if you could.”
The priestess stepped aside, revealing someone standing in the tower behind her. Both of his eyes glowed yellow.
A high priest.
Lindon’s gatestone, like a lump of sparkling blue chalk, was already in his hand, but Pride was too slow.
He shouldn’t have been. He was a master of Enforcer techniques; he should have been faster than Lindon.
But he had hesitated to retreat in front of the enemy, so the high priest was already out of the doorway and holding a dagger to his throat.
The two yellow eyes turned to Lindon. “Not you. Drop it, or we will kill him.”
[Perfect!] Dross said. [Let’s leave him.]
It was Pride’s own fault that he was in this situation, and Abyssal Palace likely wouldn’t kill him. Both sides of this conflict had been tiptoeing around each other, afraid of drawing too much blood, and knowingly killing the son of a Monarch would surely count as “too much.” If Malice intervened, the entire balance would tip.
But leaving would mean abandoning a member of his team to the mercy of Dreadgod cultists.
He extended his spiritual sense delicately, trying to avoid upsetting anyone, and he got a sense of the pressure emanating from the high priest’s spirit. When he did, the knot in his stomach loosened slightly.
He wasn’t an Overlord. Like the priestess with him, he had earned his rank earlier than his advancement, which spoke greatly to his achievements.
But that meant Lindon faced one experienced Underlord and three Golds.
It wasn’t impossible.
Slowly, the Soul Cloak built around him. The dagger pushed into Pride’s neck, drawing a trickle of blood.
“Drop the technique!” the high priest snapped. “Gatestone down!”
Dross couldn’t give Lindon an accurate prediction of the enemy’s movements without a model, but he fueled Lindon’s senses so that the world appeared to slow down.
Lindon whipped the blue ball at Pride.
He had hoped the cultist would stay close enough that he would be included in the transportation, but he had no such luck. The high priest pushed his way apart as blue light surrounded Pride and space crackled.
He disappeared, leaving behind a spray of blood.
The cultist had drawn his dagger across Pride’s throat on the way out.
Everything had happened suddenly, but Lindon took a moment to think. He could fight to escape, or he could try to truly defeat his opponents.
He was in real danger here…but nothing he hadn’t seen before. There were points to be earned. He didn’t have Little Blue out to power his new techniques, but he had fought this far without them.
He may not have been one of the Uncrowned, but that didn’t mean he was helpless.
Earth aura and madra gathered at his feet, loose stones rising from the earth and sharpening into blades. It was the chaotic field that he’d seen Abyssal Palace cultists use before; a combination Ruler and Striker technique that created a ball of physical and spiritual destruction.
It was too slow.
Let’s go, Dross, Lindon thought. We’re playing to win.
[Were…were you playing to lose before?]
Blackflame gushed through him, and he tore away from the Ruler technique with the explosive strength of the Burning Cloak.
Stone exploded behind him as a strange field of light covered the high priest. It resembled a golden Remnant of the Wandering Titan that covered the enemy Underlord’s body like armor. Lindon’s spiritual sense was overwhelmed by a sense of solidity and furious, ancient hunger.
The dagger in the high priest’s hand swept toward Lindon, and Lindon pulled a shield from his soulspace.
This was his sixth version of the impact shield he’d used in the tournament, and while it was a typical round shield with a force binding in it, he’d made some improvements.
Inspired by the Seishen armor, he’d given it several layers, including a layer of water madra and a layer of wind. It could take quite a blow without buckling, now, and the binding was an Enforcer technique that made it all but indestructible to Underlord attacks.
The dagger slammed into it, chipping the material of the shield and sending Lindon flying backwards.
Dross, how does that Enforcer technique work? Lindon demanded. The members of Abyssal Palace he’d seen had full-body Enforcer techniques, but it hadn’t covered them in transparent madra that looked like a Dreadgod.
[I don’t know, but run! Run from it! And while you’re running, try to observe it more, because I’m very curious myself!]
The two Gold acolytes on the roof had formed more Chaos Fields the size of their heads, which they threw at Lindon.
Balls of yellow, filled with writhing storms of razor-sharp stones and crushing earth aura, flew toward him.