Chapter 5

Jai Long moved in a flash. His red-wrapped face was only two feet from Lindon's own, his pale spear raised, poised to plunge down. Lindon scrambled backward, but the weapon wasn't pointed at his head or chest. Jai Long paused a moment to take aim at...his leg.

He was trying to spear Lindon through the leg. That was probably a mercy, but Lindon certainly didn't feel like it at the moment. His arm already felt like it had been chewed up and spat out, and now his enemy was trying to cut off his leg. He almost fell as he scrambled to escape.

“Enough,” Eithan said. His voice wasn't stern, but it echoed through the room like the command of an emperor.

Jai Long's spear froze. Lindon backed up another few steps, keeping a wary eye on the spear, but he still turned slightly to see Eithan.

The Arelius Underlord was standing now, hands in his pockets, a slightly pained smile on his face. “It's clear the Arelius family has lost this duel. Congratulations, Jai Daishou. You have found a worthy replacement...though I'm sorry you had to use such a tight leash.”

Lindon didn't understand that, but Jai Long tensed. Jai Daishou's wrinkled face twisted with disgust, and he barked at his champion: “It isn't over yet. Kill him.”

Jai Long tightened his grip on the spear as though straining against something. “I carried out your command,” he said, through gritted teeth. “He surrendered; we're done.” Jai Chen let out a breath of relief at almost the same time Lindon did.

“It's not a duel to surrender,” came an aged, lazy voice from the cliff overlooking the drop. Naru Gwei's dirty gray hair drifted in the wind as he rested against the column, arms still crossed. He chewed on his leaf as though unconcerned.

Jai Long stopped. He turned slowly, lifting the Ancestor's Spear.

Behind him, Jai Daishou looked as though the heavens had opened and given him a gift.

Lindon clenched his jaw at the pain in his arm, but his Bloodforged Iron body had already started pulling madra to heal it. He cycled the Path of Black Flame, preparing the Burning Cloak.

Eithan raised both hands from his pockets. “Hey now, let's not go too far. I've admitted my loss, Captain, openly and without reservation. I will accept the cost of losing.”

“Not how it works, Arelius,” Naru Gwei said, spitting out his leaf and replacing it with another. “I'm the adjudicator. Surrender all you want, but the boy isn't killed or crippled.”

Lindon could feel the world tightening around him. Jai Long gathered his madra, white light spreading from beneath his robes.

He wasn't going to get out of this. He couldn't cheat. He wouldn't catch Jai Long off guard again. Eithan couldn't save him.

Lindon was on his own. He was walking out of this killed...or crippled.

His Burning Cloak ignited.

“We've had our differences,” Eithan said, his voice becoming more serious. “Don't make this about me.”

The Skysworn Captain turned back to the two champions.

“Fight,” he said.

Jai Long blurred as he moved, and Lindon struck to the side with his good arm. It was a bad punch—he was off-balance, and his stance was sloppy; Yerin would have mocked him for it—but his knuckles met the edge of the Ancestor's Spear.

It sliced his skin.

The force of his punch knocked Jai Long's blow aside, so the spear swept harmlessly by his shoulder, but Lindon hardly noticed. The pain from this tiny cut was almost as overwhelming as the agony from his shredded arm.

This spear cut not just the flesh, but the spirit. Spiritual damage, as he had experienced several times before, was deeper and harder to ignore than physical pain. It cut him to his core, and his Blackflame core shivered.

Black-and-red light slithered down the spear, and Jai Long took a step back. He jabbed the spear backwards, thrusting the butt into the floor behind him. The Blackflame madra spurted out with the motion, venting into the floor, scorching a pothole into the stone.

So that was how it worked.

Fisher Gesha still hadn't given him back the Soulsmith papers he'd taken from the Transcendent Ruins, but he'd been allowed to study them for the purpose of preparing for the upcoming match. Just in case Jai Long were to use the Ancestor's Spear.

He hadn't known how the weapon would work—if the spear took in madra that was incompatible with the user's Path, would it absorb the madra anyway? Thus perhaps ruining the user's core? That would have been a double-edged sword, and one Lindon could exploit. He had considered intentionally allowing himself to be cut, so that Jai Long would corrupt his own core.

But there was a safety valve built into the script of the spear. Fisher Gesha had theorized there would be, otherwise it wouldn't be a useful weapon in battle.

That was one more hope struck dead. His Blackflame core had dimmed slightly with that cut, and his Iron body was still trying to heal his right arm. He would run out of madra very quickly at this rate, even with both his cores raised according to months of the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel.

Without that cycling technique, perhaps his Blackflame core would already be dangerously low. He had expanded the capacity of both his cores to the point that he had almost made up for the weakness of splitting his cores in the first place: each core held almost as much madra as any Lowgold sacred artist's core should.

But he didn't have vast reserves to draw on, especially with his Bloodforged Iron body draining madra with every injury and every second he used the Burning Cloak.

That spear would be his downfall...and Jai Long could probably beat him without it.

Jai Long moved with such speed that Lindon couldn't track his movements. Only the explosive speed provided by the Burning Cloak let him keep up, and each of his dodges was a guess. He leaped to the left, hoping to avoid a thrust from the right, and the Ancestor's Spear sliced across his ribs. It took another chunk from his spirit at the same time.

A stab above, a sweep from the left, and a probing attack at his legs. He guessed the first one was coming and ducked, accidentally hit the second with a blind punch, and missed the third completely. The white spearhead buried itself in his calf, and he screamed as he jerked his leg away.

Jai Long vented enough Blackflame from the butt of his spear to gouge a ditch in the rock, Lindon swaying with exhaustion on a body of pure pain. His Blackflame madra was about to run out, though his pure core was still fat and bright, and there was something wrong with his wounds.

His Bloodforged Iron body was still working on his right arm, but it hadn't sent any madra to the other wounds. Why not? Was it working on the worst injury first? No, the stab to his calf was deep enough that his shoes were already soaked in blood. Then...

His heart clenched as he realized the truth. The Ancestor's Spear was blocking his Iron body from healing him.

When it drained madra away from the affected areas, some property he didn't understand prevented his Iron body from sending power back into the flesh. He could still cycle madra through those areas, but he couldn't use it to affect the wounds at all. Maybe bits of the spear's substance, left behind after each thrust?

Even when it looked like he was about to lose one of his limbs, he was trying to understand. Some part of his mind was still trying to capture details about the spear; any information he gained would help him understand the binding he'd taken from that ancient Soulsmith foundry.

That was one year ago today.

Jai Long had finished venting his madra, but something caught his eye. Lindon stumbled to the side so he could see too.

Eithan was on his feet, frozen mid-step by chains of green wind aura that were only visible in spiritual sight. To the mundane eye, he was as still as though he'd been locked in glass.

It was a Ruler technique. The Skysworn Captain had controlled the wind to lock him in place.

“We didn't pick this place on accident, Underlord,” Naru Gwei said, chewing on his leaf. “Continue, boys.”

Jai Long stood with the Ancestor's Spear held loose in one hand, the Blackflame gone from its shaft. He didn't attack immediately. “You're a coward, and you have no shame. I've killed people who deserved it less than you, and slept soundly afterwards.” Coming from a red-masked monster, the icy words were even more chilling.

Then he glanced back at his sister. “...but I still don't want to kill you. Give up the arm.”

If nothing else, Lindon thought, helping Jai Chen paid off. He had wanted to try and help her because he knew what it was like to have no control over your own soul, but he had almost ignored that feeling when he realized she was Jai Long's sister.

He had continued in order to build up some goodwill with Jai Long, hoping to cancel the duel entirely.

That hadn't worked quite as well as he'd hoped, but without Jai Long's mercy, he would have died already. Now...

He shivered as he extended his shredded right arm. It hurt so badly that raising it every inch was a new stab of agony, but the fact that he could move it at all was testament to the power of his Iron body.

Jai Long nodded, a businesslike acknowledgement, and moved his spear in a smooth blur.

Lindon projected Blackflame out of his hand, pulling it away from the weapon.

It wasn't a proper Striker technique, and projecting madra outside of his body without a real technique was always both difficult and inefficient. This time, a puff of madra burst from his fist in all directions, dying almost immediately like a bubble popping.

So instead of his hand, the spear swept through a cloud of Blackflame madra.

It was much easier to cope with Jai Long's superior speed when he knew exactly where the next strike would land.

The spearhead flashed as it absorbed the cloud of madra...but as Lindon had hoped, a lick of the diffusing flame landed on the spear's haft. And a small puff of essence burned upward.

Not much. Just a spark like one would see from a campfire, instead of the dust-sized motes that usually drifted from decomposing madra. But it taught Lindon one thing: the spear could be destroyed. And the Path of Black Flame could do it.

He gathered Blackflame into his cupped hand as Jai Long thrust his own hand forward. Another white snake bloomed out of nothing, lunging for Lindon.

A wave of madra tore through the entire building.

It passed Lindon like a curtain of cool water, rippling smoothly through his spirit. Not a single hair was affected, nor a pebble disturbed; only the spirit trembled at the touch of this power.

Pure madra. That one pulse was more than Lindon could contain in his entire body.

Jai Long's serpent dispersed into a cloud of harmless white motes and vanished. The fistful of Blackflame guttered and went out like a candle, and even his Burning Cloak was blown away like dust in a strong wind.

And Eithan was free.

His pulse of pure madra had disrupted the madra Naru Gwei had used to control the wind aura, and as soon as he lost that control, the wind was once again nothing more than air. Eithan covered another ten feet of ground in a blink, black scissors flashing in the sun.

Then he froze again. His face was grim, all smile gone. His yellow hair streamed behind him—each strand undulating slowly, as though underwater. He had both hands on his scissors, held in front as though he were about to drive them into flesh, and his body was low as he'd been caught in the middle of a dash.

The green-armored man's leaf had fallen from his lips, and now he was giving Eithan his full attention.

The blond Underlord's jaw worked, and he forced words out. “I will not allow this,” Eithan said, his voice cold as the grave.

“Not yours to allow,” Naru Gwei said, but he seemed to be waking up. “I follow the rules, Arelius. Our laws are etched in steel.”

The chains of aura binding Eithan were much brighter in Lindon's spiritual sight now, like thick bands of green steel wrapping the Underlord. It was clear that the Skysworn Captain was putting everything he could into it.

Another sacred artist could respond with a Ruler technique of their own, but there was no such thing as pure aura. Eithan would have to break free physically...or disrupt the Skysworn's control again, as he had done before.

But even if he arrived at Naru Gwei, would he be in time to help Lindon?

Lindon returned his full attention to Jai Long, gathering Blackflame in his palm once again. He had to fight as though he were all on his own.

Jai Long seemed distracted. Behind him, the Jai Underlord walked forward steadily, spear gripped in both hands. He seemed to regain ten years at the sight of a helpless Eithan. “Please, Captain, allow me to assist you.”

“Get back, Jai,” Naru Gwei barked. Jai Daishou stopped, confused.

“Do not mistake this as a favor to you. The Arelius Underlord thinks he is the exception to all rules. He trespasses on the Imperial Palace and escapes without punishment. He moves behind the scenes of the empire, pulling strings, violating the laws of the realm without fear. He raised a Blackflame and expected to get away with it. Because he always does.”

He thrust two green-armored hands forward, and a green gust of madra visible to the naked eye blew toward Eithan. It looked like wind dyed green, and it wrapped in a circle around Eithan's shoulders, pulling his arms into his sides.

Now Eithan was trapped by both madra and natural wind, but the Skysworn stayed focused on him.

“I will uphold the laws of this empire,” Naru Gwei said. “If you violate them as well, you will join him.”

Jai Daishou looked as though he'd swallowed a lemon, but his expression brightened when he looked back at Jai Long. His champion had been barely scratched, while Lindon looked like he shouldn't be able to stand up.

Lindon himself was surprised that he could still stand. His calf had started to slowly heal, but the pain infected every thought, affecting his concentration. It was twice as hard to gather madra in his palm as it should have been.

Without a word, the Underlord strode back to his place next to Jai Chen. The girl had gone pale, but she was no longer concentrating on the fight. She held her palms a few inches apart and was focusing between them, as though she were struggling to use a technique.

Before Jai Daishou had returned to his seat, Lindon threw his hand forward as though hurling a fistful of water. The Blackflame madra wasn't concentrated enough to hurt Jai Long—it burned a few holes in his clothes, but it vanished as soon as it touched the Truegold madra flowing through his skin.

But the sloppy technique did its job. More sparks sprayed up from the haft of the Ancestor's Spear, though the spearhead absorbed part of the power safely. That madra spiraled down the weapon's script, gathering at the butt until Jai Long vented it.

Jai Long continued with his attack, stepping into the thrust, but Lindon stepped back with surprising ease. That had been the easiest move so far to dodge. Maybe Jai Long was getting tired, just as he was.

Lindon should have seen it coming.

In the same motion as his 'failed' attack, Jai Long swept the spear up and back until the butt was pointed at Lindon.

Then he expelled Blackflame into Lindon's face.

Lindon crossed his arms in front of his head, cycling the Path of Black Flame. He'd spent enough time fighting Orthos to know what to expect; as a Blackflame artist, he could resist the madra with his own, but it still burned. Such a small amount of madra, released with no technique, couldn't kill him.

But it put another burden on his core. The madra he used to resist came from his Blackflame core, and his Bloodforged Iron body activated at the burns...draining yet more power.

As the dark fire washed over him, his core sputtered. He only had a spark of Blackflame left.

A fist-sized hole had been burned in Jai Long's mask, exposing one corner of his mouth. His lips stretched inhumanly wide in a smile that stretched all the way back to his ears...but it wasn't a real smile. Not a human one.

It was a crocodile's smile. The baring of fangs. And those were actual fangs showing in his mouth, blue and sharp as a shark's. Yerin had described what she'd seen beneath his mask before, but Lindon found that seeing with his own eyes was different.

Patches of skin were showing through the small, burned holes in Jai Long's robes, and lines of white snaked over his skin as he advanced. “That is the way my ancestor used this spear,” he said, calmly walking forward. “I'll show you the proper—”

Another wave of pure madra lashed the room.

This time, Lindon was ready. He switched to his pure core immediately. Jai Long wasn't disabled by the pulse, but his Enforcer technique had been banished, so he'd lost his advantage in speed.

Lindon lunged forward, driving the Empty Palm into Jai Long's core.

For a second time, it connected.

There was a loud explosion from somewhere out of sight, and something pushed him from behind like a pillow hitting him in the back, but that only thrust his body into Jai Long's.

Jai Long grabbed him to push him off, one hand still holding the Ancestor's Spear.

And Lindon switched to Blackflame.

He was close enough that he might have been able to kill his opponent, but in the moment, he didn't even consider it. He had already set his target.

With both hands, Lindon grabbed the white shaft of the Ancestor's Spear and let Blackflame flow.

The fire spread through the weapon as though through a dry log, sending sparks spraying into the air like blood from a severed artery. Jai Long cast the red-hot weapon aside, shouting in horror.

Lindon stood panting, his pain turning his emotions numb. He watched with a sort of dull fascination as the white spear melted like ice, its light dulling steadily as scripts broke and died.

In mere moments, the Ancestor's Spear was a pile of white dust, and even that was disintegrating by the second. Only the spearhead remained, white and glinting, a single script on its surface shining.

Lindon noted its position. If there was any way for him to get out of here with that, he should try—it would be an invaluable material for Soulsmithing.

Not that it seemed like he was getting out of here at all.

Jai Daishou roared, his face actually turning red, and his lips were speckled with...was that blood? He drew up his spear, and white light shone from his skin. Jai Chen glanced at him nervously, but she was still concentrating on a space between her hands. Something swirled there, like one of Jai Long's snakes, but smaller and so faded it was barely visible.

Her Patriarch didn't spare her a glance. He cocked his spear back over his shoulder, preparing to throw at Lindon.

Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

At first, Lindon thought it was fear and blood loss. He had been on the brink of death often enough to know that his body could betray him in unexpected ways.

But it wasn't just his breath. There was pressure on every inch of his skin, as though someone had wrapped him in a sheet and pulled it tight. Each movement was difficult, like he was pushing his way through mud.

Judging from Jai Long's stiff position, Lindon wasn't the only one affected. Jai Daishou seemed even worse, as his spear dropped from a suddenly slack grip—and drifted through midair, falling like a feather. Jai Chen seemed like she had been touched the least, her hair lifting but her posture changing not at all.

Lindon looked to the Skysworn Underlord.

Sure enough, he had thrust both his hands out to the sides, and green madra spilled from them like gas. The power faded into invisibility, affecting the wind aura and commanding the air to obey him.

This was a Ruler technique. He had locked everyone in place, though it didn't seem as thorough as what he'd used on Eithan earlier. Lindon could still move, if with difficulty, and he saw the others shifting position slightly as well.

He must be concentrating it differently on each of us, he thought. If he was binding them according to their relative threat level, that explained why Lindon and Jai Chen were least disrupted.

Of course, the primary target was Eithan.

In Lindon's spiritual sight, Eithan glowed in a sun of green wind aura. The wind howled in from all the open sides of the building, pushing against him, building a prison of air.

He was only a step from the Skysworn Captain, his scissors poised.

Naru Gwei's filthy gray locks were whipped in the wind, his eyes savage, the burn scars on his face crinkled and red. He shouted, and from his back spread two enormous, emerald wings.

They glistened like jewels, bright as the most stable Remnants, but each feather had as much detail as a real bird's wings. His Goldsign.

“Interfering with a Skysworn in the course of his duties!” Naru Gwei announced. “No matter your background, even you can't—”

A pulse of madra blasted out of Eithan.

Lindon could see it, twisting the air like a heat haze. It burst from Eithan's chest, the size of a galloping horse, sweeping through Naru Gwei in an instant. The cage around Eithan vanished, as the technique passed through Gwei's body.

It did not, however, pass through his wings.

The spread Goldsign caught the blast of pure madra like a sail catching the full force of a hurricane's wind. The Underlord was ripped back by his own wings, hurtling out over the abyss.

And dropping.

Where he had stood a moment before, the majestic range of snowy peaks now reigned. Everyone in the room stared.

Lindon wanted to say something, but it was a struggle to stay conscious. He began shuffling toward the head of the Ancestor's Spear—now that the Skysworn's restriction had vanished, he could move under his own power again, but he barely had the strength to do it.

Before anyone had a chance to react, there came a sound like a flag snapping in the wind and the huge emerald wings reappeared. The green-armored Skysworn rose up to the building's height, bobbing up and down with every flap of his wings.

There was a dark gray sword in his hand, its blade long and thick. Its surface was notched and dull, just like the Underlord's armor, but its edge was clean and sharp.

Eithan's smile was back, and he regarded Naru Gwei with arms folded. He looked like his normal, cheerful self, as though the icy demeanor from before was only a lie. “You really want to use your Goldsign to fly? If I take them away, you'll fall three hundred feet.”

The Skysworn's face hardened. “Do you really want to make an enemy of the entire empire by fighting me? I'm the second-ranked Underlord on these shores, Arelius. You'll be lucky to escape the Emperor's wrath already.”

“You...almost made me lose my temper, I'll admit,” Eithan said. “But no harm done. No, I'm not here to fight you. I just want to delay you.” A little of that ice returned to his voice. “I have a different target.”

One step, a swirl of his wrist, and a punch.

Pure madra rippled out of his fist, so dense as to be visible. It caught Naru Gwei in the center of his chest, and he plummeted like a brick.

Jai Daishou scrambled on the ground, pulling up his spear as though his life depended on it. His white metal hair fell around his face in disarray, and he watched Eithan in panic. White light began to glow from the tip of his spear...but the light was fitful and weak.

Eithan turned to him. Not quickly or slowly—he was the picture of a man in control. “I rarely have to kill someone twice,” he said. “A third time? Never.”

Jai Long shoved Lindon away and ran over toward the Patriarch...then he scooped up his sister and backed away.

He was leaving Jai Daishou on his own.