Even if it meant giving up this chance to get closer to her master’s power.
She lifted her sword, reversing the white blade and gripping the hilt in both hands. Then she bent all her madra and soulfire to the binding within.
With great effort, she could activate the Archlord binding, but there wasn’t enough madra in her entire core to fuel it. The technique drew its power from the sword itself, which was dangerous and unstable.
It could damage the blade if she used it too much, although it was safer with the Winter Sage around to do maintenance. But it was doubly dangerous for her. Without Northstrider’s protection, she wouldn’t have been willing to risk it.
Archlord madra exploded from her blade, filling most of the arena.
Raindrops froze to ice…and stopped in midair, hanging in place.
A lightning bolt in the clouds overhead stopped, glowing in a cloud like a light trapped in smoky glass. Calan and his blades froze too, but he could fight back against the technique. He could move, if he pushed through.
But there was more to this technique than locking the subject in place. Tiny shards of Frozen Blade madra hung in midair, ready to cut. The solid raindrops gleamed silver with sword aura.
Lines of red had already appeared on Calan’s skin where the madra and aura had sliced him.
Yerin’s spirit trembled and her core drained noticeably. She couldn’t move while controlling this technique; without the Diamond Veins, her madra channels would have torn apart, but now they were the most stable part of her.
One of the most difficult parts of the technique was keeping the Blood Shadow as an exception. The spirit could still hurt itself on the floating Frozen Blade madra, but Yerin could keep the aura from restricting it. But doing so took even more concentration and control, and she was strained to her limit already.
The Shadow wove easily through the specks of white power hanging in the air, getting closer to Calan. Yerin hated that she was reliant on the Blood Shadow to win the fight while she was locked in place, but she had to admit it was an effective combination.
Suddenly the aura rushed away from Calan. He must have used all of his soulfire to push away an Archlord’s Ruler technique, but he didn’t waste the opportunity, shoving his hands up and blasting a thick lightning dragon through the Blood Shadow’s middle.
Rather than defending itself, the spirit snarled and swept its blade at Calan’s legs.
Half of the Shadow was torn away, and Yerin felt its pain. It was enough of a shock to her mind to shake her concentration, and she lost the Winter Sage’s technique.
All around the battlefield, frozen raindrops crashed to the ground.
Calan didn’t come off any better than the Shadow. He fell off his cloud, blood spraying into the air.
He landed in one place, his legs in two others. The Shadow had sliced through his knees.
The lightning dragon looped around and returned to him, and from what Yerin knew about the Stormcallers, it would be carrying some of the Blood Shadow’s madra back to Calan.
She whipped a Rippling Sword at him. Finishing him off was no more than mercy.
But a brief shower of bright lines fell from overhead. A Striker technique he must have already prepared. The blue-gold madra pierced through her own Rippling Sword, destroying her technique.
The Blood Shadow hadn’t re-formed, and the dragon sank into Calan’s body as it returned. He clenched his jaw, red madra blasting out behind him as he vented blood madra. Yerin was surprised to see that his technique was so similar to Lindon’s arm.
Then his seven jade rings gathered, his Thousand-Mile Cloud swooping down. He hauled himself up with his arms, levering his body onto the cloud. The bleeding from his severed legs had already stopped; either his Iron body healed injuries, or he’d controlled the blood aura in his own body to seal the wounds.
His eyes turned to her, and his gaze was firm as stone. The pain of losing his limbs hadn’t shaken him at all.
Yerin couldn’t help but be impressed.
Out of respect, she had to match that determination. She drew her sword back, cycling her madra.
Then he vanished as the Blood Shadow re-formed and slashed a sword through the space where he’d been.
He reappeared closer to Yerin, but had to turn to face the spirit, and Yerin used the Endless Sword.
She felt dirty for doing so.
When his Jadeclaw Rings went out of his control, the Blood Shadow dealt with his Striker techniques, and Yerin’s follow-up Rippling Sword cut him in the back.
It didn’t sever him in two, which was a testament to the power of his spirit. He didn’t scream, either.
Until the Blood Shadow pounced on him.
When it gleefully leaped on him, he shouted. Then it began to draw blood aura from his wounds as though inhaling…and the longer it inhaled, the more of his power escaped. And the louder his scream grew.
The entire purpose of the Blood Shadow was to steal power by killing or possessing others and bring that power back to the Bleeding Phoenix, but Yerin hadn’t allowed hers to escape.
Not since it had killed her parents.
Yerin launched another Striker technique as fast as she could. Not at Calan. At the Shadow.
The smartest thing would have been to kill him and end the match, but she had reacted out of pure guttural disgust.
No Blood Shadow would have a meal where she could see it.
The Shadow sliced her technique in half with its black blade and winked at her. Uninterrupted.
This time, Yerin used the Endless Sword. The Shadow’s black blade was close enough to Calan; she could cut his throat from here and end the duel.
Yerin’s sword rang…and so did the Shadow’s.
Sword aura was agitated for a moment, but then it died out. The spirit had canceled her technique.
But Yerin had reached the limit of her patience.
She kicked off with all the power of her Steelborn Iron body, a dune’s worth of sand spraying up behind her. Bright specks of blood essence were flowing into the Shadow, and it was cycling its own madra to fight Yerin.
Yerin began cycling the Final Sword.
So did the Shadow.
In a frontal contest, Yerin would win. She was still stronger than the Shadow, and sword madra operated on a more spiritual level than blood madra did. But that was only in terms of whose technique would destroy whose.
The Shadow had a strong element of blood madra, which would tear flesh apart. What would happen if Yerin died while it survived? Would the match end? Or would the presence of Yerin’s Shadow be enough for Northstrider to continue the fight?
Yerin’s sword shone bright silver-white, and the Shadow’s was silver tinged with bright red. When Yerin landed, they were both a hair’s breadth away from completing the technique.
But Yerin didn’t finish it. She swung at Calan.
The Shadow read her intentions and stretched out to defend her meal, but there was one area in which Yerin clearly outmatched her copy: physical strength.
The Blood Shadow gained a measure of the Steelborn Iron body thanks to Yerin’s blood essence, but it was nothing compared to having the real thing and a corporeal body to back it up.
Yerin’s blow slammed the Shadow’s sword aside and split Calan into two pieces.
Instantly, his body blurred into white light. His legs shone as they were taken away as well.
In the moments after the Ninecloud Soul announced Yerin’s victory, Yerin stared into her Shadow’s eyes.
The Blood Shadow licked its lips and patted its belly.
She didn’t need the bond between their spirits to understand its intentions.
It was full.
17
How would I do against Calan Archer? Lindon asked Dross.
[He couldn’t even handle Yerin’s Blood Shadow. Do you think you can handle Yerin’s Blood Shadow? You can.]
Lindon sat in Yerin’s waiting room, watching the fight conclude on a projection construct. That made two members of the Uncrowned he was certain he could beat.