“I can’t believe this is how we’re spending our time,” Min Shuei muttered.
“Names are important,” Charity said. “But we need a new strategy. Yerin, the binding of your sword should trap even a Blood Shadow as developed as Crusher.”
“It will,” the Winter Sage confirmed. “If the Shadow can cover you while you activate the field.”
“Ruby,” the Blood Shadow corrected.
“Can you?” Yerin demanded.
Ruby gave her a disturbingly familiar grin. “We can take turns.”
21
As they’d learned in the last fight, Yerin could stop the first of Crusher’s strikes.
During their training inside Northstrider’s pocket world, Ruby had absorbed enough blood aura from the Heart’s Gem and enough essence from Yerin that it had developed a copy of her Steelborn Iron body.
It wasn’t as perfect as Yerin’s, because the Blood Shadow hadn’t evolved enough to have earned a true human body, but it was more than good enough for their purpose.
So even before the fight began, Yerin started channeling madra to her sword. It struck her how ridiculous it was that she was betting not just her own success, but Lindon’s and Mercy’s lives, on her Blood Shadow.
But she continued when the wall dropped and the hideous beast leaped at her. Her decision had been made, and there was no time to question it.
Ruby’s dark blade crashed into Crusher’s claws, and the air exploded again. Yan Shoumei fired a huge red needle—a Striker technique—and Crusher landed to swing at Ruby one more time.
But the Shadow had done her job. Yerin had needed only moments.
Frozen Blade madra and icy aura erupted from her sword.
White blades hung in the air like snowflakes as restrictive force enveloped them all. Yerin had an easier time controlling the madra than she had before, but it was still like wrapping her arms around the neck of a mad bull and trying to steer.
Ruby dashed through the aura as Yerin forcibly kept the technique away from her. She still had to dodge the madra crystals in the air, but that wasn’t too difficult.
Yan Shoumei had pushed the technique away, surrounding herself with that gem-like barrier of blood madra, but Ruby crashed through it. Her dark blade swung for Shoumei’s throat when the Redmoon artist’s hand came up in a claw.
Blood aura seized Ruby, and she froze.
Yerin gritted her teeth at the effort of maintaining the Winter Sage’s technique, and her core drained quickly. The Madra Engine would restore her when she had a moment to breathe, but it hadn’t done anything for her total capacity. She wasn’t Lindon.
Meanwhile, Crusher’s arms were starting to move. The monster growled and snarled as it shoved against the restriction of the technique with brute force. When its fur came in contact with the floating razors of ice, blood sprayed, but the creature kept pushing.
Yerin didn’t know if Crusher would break the technique or shred itself to pieces first, but she didn’t intend to maintain the stalemate. Shoumei was preparing another technique against the frozen Ruby.
Yerin prepared to drop the boundary field…and then a surge of madra from Ruby caught her attention. The Blood Shadow was speeding up their plan.
After the second round, Yerin had chosen the black sword from the Archlord vaults on Charity’s advice.
Honestly, she hadn’t been happy about it.
There had been swords of every description, and Yerin could have wandered through the vaults for hours in awe, but Charity had restricted her to the most boring option. A sword that could fit in her soulspace and could be used by her Blood Shadow.
It was like showing her a beautiful steak and then feeding it to a hungry dog right in front of her.
The black sword was called Netherclaw, named for the beast that guarded the Netherworld in the mythology of some culture Yerin didn’t care about.
It was used by a slaughter artist centuries ago, an Archlord on a Path of blood and sword madra that had murdered anyone he came across to harvest their aura. He had eventually been stopped by a Sage…the Sage of Red Faith, in fact, though Yerin had a hard time imagining him saving anyone’s life, even by accident.
Its binding was an advanced Forger technique, filled with the will of the murderer who had left it behind. Yerin had tried to activate it herself, but her compatibility with the sword was pitiful. The only reason she was able to use her master’s sword was her long history with it, and her familiarity with its power.
Ruby could use the technique just fine, but she couldn’t survive doing it.
Until now.
Her copy of Yerin’s Diamond Veins had finally progressed far enough, her body was solid, and the spirit well had strengthened her madra.
Scarlet madra Forged in lines over Ruby’s sword, weaving itself strand by strand, growing in power and intensity.
A Striker technique from Yan Shoumei pierced Ruby’s chest, but she didn’t falter.
Yerin, however, was starting to shake. As Crusher pushed against the technique in her sword, it put more and more pressure on her spirit. Any second, she would lose control of the field.
Ruby’s technique finished Forging.
The lines snapped into the shape of a clawed hand bigger than Yan Shoumei’s entire body, and the claw swept down with an Archlord’s power.
As with all the bindings in these weapons, Netherclaw’s technique would be more powerful when Yerin was an actual Archlady, but it was still a devastating blow. The claw hit Yan Shoumei like one of Crusher’s own strikes, crashing through her diamond-shaped madra shield and landing on her skin.
Her resistance to madra was enough to prevent the strike from shredding her to ribbons.
But blood still sprayed from her body in three lines as the claws sliced through her skin. Her body tumbled back, and her Ruler technique broke.
Ruby dashed after her in an instant, and though Shoumei reacted quickly, she was pinned to the ground with Netherclaw.
Before her Remnant could rise, she dissolved into white light and vanished.
Just as Yerin gave out. She released the Frozen Blade technique, heaving for breath, holding her sword out in case Crusher could still resist.
But to her relief, the monstrous Blood Shadow disappeared at the same instant.
The Sages had speculated that the match would be over when the sacred artist was defeated, but ultimately it was up to Northstrider to determine what counted as defeat. Yerin sagged with relief as the Ninecloud Soul declared her victory.
That made one fight each. One to go.
Yerin knew better than to rely on the same opening tactic again, but now that they were certain Ruby wouldn’t be able to keep fighting after Yerin’s defeat, the Blood Shadow had to take on the riskier role.
They started in similar positions, with Ruby in front and Yerin behind, but this time Ruby attacked.
As expected, Crusher defended.
They didn’t know what Yan Shoumei’s Archlord weapon was, nor all her prizes from the previous round, but they knew she had more in store. She had played carefully the entire tournament, keeping her cards secret, but now she had no choice.
So no one was surprised when she took a weapon from her soulspace, but Yerin was somewhat surprised to see it was a bow.
Archers weren’t exactly rare, but they weren’t common either. You could use a Striker technique with any weapon, and a sword was still useful up close.
But Yerin knew better than to underestimate any Archlord weapon, especially when sword and blood aura began flowing to the bow from all over in the arena, condensing into a red-white light.
It was more complex than a simple arrow, reminding Yerin of Mercy’s bow when she layered many techniques into one, but Yerin didn’t care to find out what it did.
Ruby had already clashed with Crusher, but instead of using the time to activate her own Archlord binding, Yerin took the opening to dash right by.
Crusher tossed Ruby aside, but not quickly enough to stop Yerin from closing the gap with Yan Shoumei.