Every one of the Underlords on Lindon’s team was beaten and bloody. Grace had a cloth wrapped around a missing eye that became harder to heal with every passing second, Courage was unconscious with a mangled lower half of his body, and one of the Maten twins was covered in burns.
Pride had just been forced to fight, even with his core almost empty and his flesh battered, and he thought he’d made a good accounting of himself. One of the green dragons, in a humanoid form, was now missing a tail.
She’d have it reattached, but it had felt good to tear it off with his bare hands.
Naru Saeya was fighting now, hammering away at an Abyssal Palace priest with a chipped and broken rainbow sword that was slowly losing light.
The priest weathered the blows, but they were beginning to draw blood. Saeya was spattered in more blood than anyone, most of it belonging to others, but she was running more on anger than on madra by this point. She used no techniques, screaming as she hacked at her opponent.
The enemy Lords and Ladies laughed and shouted bets.
Pride was certain he would already be dead if not for his name. While the enemy at large was hesitant to end too many lives before the tournament concluded, there had been a handful of deaths among their Golds. Courage and the Frozen Blade woman would die if they weren’t healed.
This was a game for them. The Akura sacred artists would be humiliated and eventually released.
Pride would have greatly preferred a straightforward fight to the death.
Their side was surrounded, their retreat cut off, and the dragons controlled the air. Archlords were rare, so there were none close, but enough Overlords were here to make reinforcements almost impossible.
Pride had to hope that Uncle Fury would conclude his fight and come to save them. Without teaching the other side a lesson and wiping them all out.
As cathartic as that would be for Pride, it would ensure that an enemy Herald would kill an equal group of Lords in retaliation.
Saeya’s scream cut off, and Pride’s gut tightened as he thought she’d been hit by some weapon he hadn’t seen.
She sagged to the ground with an expression of great relief, panting, letting her sword hand drop. “Sure took their time,” she muttered.
A few of the Overlords launched Striker techniques into the distance, and Pride followed them.
A gold speck in the distance resolved into a small cloudship speeding toward them. The dragons that filled the skies struck at the ship, but they were mostly Truegolds; they were driven away by dark arrows and beams of black dragon’s breath.
Instead of relief, Pride filled with anger and despair.
What were they doing here? The second they dropped off Fury, they should have turned and run away!
The first Overlord technique—a crimson bird launched by a member of Redmoon Hall—landed on the cloudship and burst harmlessly against the hull. Pride couldn’t tell if the ship itself was protected or if Eithan had extended his pure madra to cover the entire vessel.
A ghostly rain of swords struck next, but they were overwhelmed by a wave of pure madra. That was certainly Eithan, unless Lindon had added a new Striker technique to his arsenal.
Then an arrow of light shot toward them, fired by an archer among the Silent Servants.
An Overlord presence bloomed on the deck of the ship, and the shining arrow was overwhelmed by a volley of hundreds of violet arrows heading the other direction.
Mercy’s bow.
A dozen other Gold-level techniques crashed against the ship and did nothing, but none of the Archlords made a move. Either they were still strictly adhering to the unspoken rules of honorable combat, as Pride hoped, or they didn’t think the passengers of this ship posed a significant threat.
Probably both.
The Overlords all defended their side from Mercy’s volley easily enough, but the cloudship made it over Pride’s head.
As soon as it did, it vanished in a flash of gold light and the three passengers fell from the sky.
Pure ego and foolishness. The fall would be no threat to any Underlord, but they had made themselves easy targets for every sacred artist on the enemy side.
Sure enough, all the Lords and most of the Truegolds launched attacks at the falling trio. The air shook with the power of so many techniques at once, and the glow actually outshone the Herald battle in the distance.
Mercy would be fine—her armor was perfect for this—and Pride had no idea what the limits were to Eithan’s defensive technique. But if Lindon was counting on the healing from his Iron body…
Well, he might survive, but he’d be a useless pile of meat. Maybe one of the others would cover for him.
A blue sphere of pure madra surrounded Lindon, fifteen feet in every direction, covering all three of them. It was deeper blue than the madra Pride had seen from him before, and it carried a different impression. Like it would scrub everything clean.
And while the ball of light surrounded him, his eyes turned solid, oceanic blue, as though they were made from sapphires.
The strongest attacks hit first, and they crossed the bubble and weakened visibly, but they did penetrate. Eithan blasted a few apart and Lindon absorbed one into his hunger arm, but two or three landed.
Pride expected to see wounds.
But it didn’t look like they suffered anything worse than ruffled clothes.
Maybe not even that.
Some Underlord techniques were wiped out a few feet into the blue sphere, but the others were destroyed by Eithan or Lindon with little effort. The Truegold attacks vanished the instant they touched the bubble.
Mercy seemed to simply be enjoying the ride down.
The blue field of madra vanished before it touched the ground.
Lindon landed with the subtlety of an ape.
Eithan drifted down next to Naru Saeya on a flow of wind aura so tightly controlled that he kicked up no dust. “Were you winning?” he asked cheerfully.
“I heard you advanced,” Saeya said from the ground. “Huan is going to put you to work.”
Mercy rode Suu down toward Pride, concern filling her eyes, and she was already rummaging in her pocket for some healing salve or pill.
He stopped her with a raised hand. “Fools. You’ve trapped yourselves.”
She removed the stopper to a white bottle. “This will make you feel better. I’ve got plenty to go around.”
“Take care of them first, if you want to do some good.” He knew what his sister was like, but he still couldn’t believe they’d come without help. “You should have brought reinforcements.”
She looked confused. “We did.”
Lindon walked into the open space where Naru Saeya had been fighting. His eyes had faded back to normal. “Pardon, but is this a game?”
Pride would have shouted at him not to be an idiot if he thought that would help. But then, Lindon gave off a different impression than he had before.
Normally, he felt domineering and aggressive when he held Blackflame, but now he gave off a similar impression with pure madra.
Pride doubted his own spiritual sense.
Some of the enemy camp laughed, but many didn’t. A few of the Overlords muttered to one another.
If they hadn’t seen the recordings of the Uncrowned King tournament, they had at least heard the reports. Some of them had undoubtedly watched the fights live.
They knew who Lindon was.
An Overlady from Redmoon Hall called out, “A bit of sport to liven things up. Would you like to play?”
“What are the prizes?” Lindon asked.
This time, there was more laughter, and even the Redmoon Hall Lady’s lips moved up. “You fight as long as you can. While you’re fighting, the rest of your team gets to rest.”
“Apologies, but that isn’t a prize.” Lindon reached around his neck, pulling up a chain that hung inside his robes. The chain was usually hidden beneath the shadesilk ribbon that held his halfsilver hammer badge, but Pride knew what it was even before Lindon held up the bronze key for inspection.