That was easily dealt with, but the high priest was dashing at him like a bull, his eyes glowing. At least his overwhelming Enforcer technique didn’t help his mobility much.
[Above you!] Dross shouted, and Lindon returned his attention to the Truegold priestess.
She hovered above him, standing on the flat of a flying sword, and the palm of her hand faced downward.
One eye of her mask flashed yellow.
Lindon opened his void key.
It didn’t open fast enough to help him, because a rush of earth and force madra slammed him down, shoving him out of the air and into the ground. The two Chaos Fields arrived a second later, crashing into his hastily upraised shield.
Little Blue screamed at him like breaking glass, but he wasn’t opening the key for her.
Wavedancer flew out, and Dross took over its control.
The Archlord weapon rushed up at the priestess, entangling her while Lindon focused dragon’s breath on the Underlord rushing him.
The high priest had already pulled out a shield of his own. His was smaller, tipped with spikes, and it gave off a venomous aura. Blackflame splashed into him and the shield began to smolder, making the other Underlord falter.
Meanwhile, the Golds on the roof had pulled out bows. A pair of arrows arced through the air. Rather than simple Forger techniques, these arrows were constructs made from Underlord parts.
If this had been a fight in the Uncrowned King tournament, Lindon would have had to run.
But it wasn’t a tournament, and it wasn’t a game, no matter how it had felt.
There were no rules here.
He pushed Little Blue back when she tried to leave, and he willed his armor to him.
The breastplate rushed into his hand, and he raised it into the air like a second shield, activating the emergency binding within.
The armor wasn’t complete. He’d cobbled it together from his Skysworn armor and the scavenged plates he’d taken from the Seishen Kingdom. He didn’t even want to call it a first attempt; this was more of a functional prototype.
His Skysworn armor had once contained an emergency binding of Grasping Sky madra that pushed everything back. He had installed that again, but he’d made some upgrades.
A pulse of wind, force, and destruction madra tore out from the breastplate, pushing away everyone but Lindon.
The damage was too much for the high priest’s shield, and he tossed it aside, coming to a complete halt. The priestess above Lindon lost control of the technique she was going to use, and the two arrows from the acolytes exploded in midair.
There was venom madra in those too, so Lindon was doubly glad he hadn’t been hit. He shoved his head through the breastplate, tucking it onto him in the lull in the battle. The binding was expended for now, but its scripts and layers of madra would still protect him.
Then he let the void key close and dashed away as more techniques tore up the space where he had been standing.
He slashed dragon’s breath behind him, leaping up the canyon wall from one outcropping to the next until he reached the top. He reached back into the void key, once again keeping Little Blue inside, and touched the rest of his armor.
But he wasn’t far ahead of the priestess. Under Dross’ control, Wavedancer kept her occupied, but she managed to follow him on a flying sword of her own. It took three weapons of hers to counter his one, but she was gathering a ball of golden earth-aspect chaos between her palms.
While plates flew onto his body, guided by madra and the aura controlled by his soulfire, Lindon spoke to Dross. Give me control.
[Oh good, I was getting tired anyway.]
Lindon let Blackflame drop, taking control over his flying sword with a thread of pure madra.
Then he poured power into it.
The three Gold swords shattered before Wavedancer, and the priestess had to drop her half-formed Striker technique and switch to Enforcing herself. Even so, she was thrown to the ground.
He drove Wavedancer down on her, but he couldn’t finish her, having to spin and focus on the Underlord coming up behind him.
The high priest used the last of his dissolving shield to block the attack, and from somewhere—Lindon couldn’t tell if it was from the man’s soulspace or not—he pulled a long stone staff.
It didn’t look like anything special, but the pressure it emanated was beyond normal. It was more than an Underlord weapon.
He swung it down with the force of that Dreadgod Enforcer technique, and Lindon brought up his shield on an armored forearm, with the Soul Cloak running through him. He even activated the Enforcer binding in the shield itself.
The blow from the staff landed like a collapsing castle. The Enforced shield cracked, as did the outer shell of Lindon’s armor. Pain flooded through his body, he was forced to one knee, and dust blasted away from him as the ground around his feet splintered.
More than anything else, it reminded him of taking a direct hit from Yerin at her full power. He shouldn’t have blocked it.
But finally, his helmet settled around him, and his prototype armor came to life.
[Do you want me on the armor or the sword?] Dross asked. [I would suggest the armor, since it’s more complicated, but if you wanted to--]
The sword!
[Right then!]
Lindon’s pure core started to drain rapidly. More quickly even than when he used the Hollow Domain. He couldn’t use either of his new pure techniques while wearing the armor, as the pure madra empowered by Little Blue would interfere with the armor.
It was that interference that had almost made him discard the idea of the armor entirely, but after a number of experiments, Lindon had finally had an epiphany.
He’d been thinking about the suit of armor all wrong. Like it was a system that unified many constructs with different functions.
That was a dead end. There was a reason why not every sacred artist fought with fifteen constructs at all times, beyond the obvious difficulty and expense. A weapon with the full force of the spirit behind it was always more powerful than one operating independently or with just a trickle of madra.
Lindon’s armor wasn’t a collection of weapons.
It was one weapon.
Madra flowed through every piece of the armor in an uninterrupted network, and when it completed its circuit, six full-body Enforcer techniques activated at once. All compatible with one another. All resonating.
He and Dross had tested hundreds of defensive Enforcer techniques before coming up with this combination.
It would put great strain on his body and spirit, and it would drain his madra dry. But for a few minutes, Lindon would be invincible.
Gold light poured from black armored plates, and Lindon leaped forward.
13
Maraan, High Priest of Abyssal Palace, was approaching one hundred years old. He had given up all hope of reaching Overlord decades earlier, thanks to a spiritual injury when he was a young man, and had dedicated his life to training future generations.
Even so, it was a point of pride that he hadn’t lost a duel against anyone else at his own stage in twenty years.
When he’d landed a clean blow with his staff on Lindon Arelius, he had enough experience to know it was over. He wouldn’t need a second strike. His Staff of Condemnation added great weight to his attacks, and he had complete mastery over his Embrace of the Titan Enforcer technique. New Overlords were often surprised that they couldn’t endure one of his swings.
Until the young man had blocked it.
Then a black helmet covered his face, and Maraan felt something he never felt from an Underlord: danger.
Maraan had seen to the early parts of Brother Aekin’s training. He kept up with news from the Uncrowned King tournament, so he knew who Lindon was. He just hadn’t paid the boy any special attention.