“Maybe the greatest challenge I could give you is to keep your feet still for a month.” Orthos snorted out great plumes of smoke. “At least take us with you.”
“I’m not sure you’ll fit.”
“Then you’ll have to wait for me, won’t you?”
“Not just you. I don’t plan on going alone.”
Orthos grunted. “You should check the condition of the others, then.”
Lindon felt the turtle’s concern in his spirit. “Mercy?”
“She still hasn’t woken up.”
Mercy had suffered significant spiritual injuries after the Wandering Titan had shattered her bloodline armor, but even the attention of Little Blue hadn’t been enough to restore her. Her madra channels were connected to her Book of Eternal Night in a unique way that Lindon still didn’t understand.
If her life had been in danger, he would have contacted the Akura clan already. Even as it was, every hour that passed threatened the appearance of Akura Charity.
Now, the time had come for a more thorough inspection.
“I’ll take a deeper look,” Lindon said. “Heal well, Orthos. Don’t scare the Golds.”
Lindon flew off.
Left behind, Orthos twisted in the air. He reached out and munched into a pile of boulders the humans had piled up for him nearby. To his current size, they were little more than a handful of nuts.
As he crunched, he murmured aloud.
“Too big…”
The tears had long dried on Mercy’s cheeks. She shivered as she pressed her body against the cold stone wall, trying to build up the courage to peek around the corner.
In fact, the wall wasn’t stone. It was more like condensed madra with properties like stone. Nothing in this spiritual space was real, physically speaking.
But it was real enough to make her fingers tremble against her bow. She hadn’t come here consciously, so she hadn’t been able to bring Suu with her. Instead, she had Forged her own bow and arrows out of Strings of Shadow.
It was the only thing that protected her here, deep inside her own soul.
In the fifth page of the Book of Eternal Night.
This whole place was built from shadow and nightmares, and the Dream of Darkness technique hung like mist in the air. Every time she let her guard down for an instant, her spirit was flogged with terror.
And she wasn’t alone.
One by one, pale fingers slithered out of the darkness to grip the edge of the corner in front of her.
She raised her bow instantly, but something cold brushed the back of her neck at the same time. Mercy screamed and turned, coming face-to-face with one of the pale demons that haunted this nightmare world.
Its face was made of white clay, except for its teeth, which gleamed like sharpened and yellowed bone. Its milky eyes bulged.
“Ours now,” it whispered.
Her arrow took it in the chest, and it didn’t notice.
“Ours now,” came a whisper from the other side.
Mercy bolted, but she’d been caught before. They weren’t here to tear her to pieces, but to feed on her fear and her fading will. That should have relieved her, but it didn’t. Not at all.
Their touch, and the very air of this place, struck her deepest horror and trauma. They could inject pure fear into her.
So when she fled, she trembled until fingers grabbed her. Then she screamed.
“Oh! Apologies,” Lindon said.
She whipped her head around to stare at him in shock.
He was glancing around with open curiosity. “This is fascinating. I’d heard of spiritual spaces, and of course we’re here only in spirit, but it seems like it should be possible to enter this place in a body. Have you ever come here physically?”
“Lindon! Are you…real?”
The Dream of Darkness couldn’t be used to manually create illusions, but she had found that she had a hard time separating imagination from reality here. She’d hallucinated rescue before.
But this felt very different.
“It’s just my soul, but I’m interested that we don’t look like Remnants. I wonder if this is an effect of our perception, or if the Book itself makes us look like we do on the outside.” He took a deep breath, as though savoring the scent of the cavern. “Dross would love it here.”
Out of habit, Mercy looked over her shoulder for her stalkers. She saw none, but she felt eyes on her from the shadows. Or at least she imagined she did.
“How did you get here?”
Lindon rubbed the back of his neck, and between the gesture and his size, he reminded her of her Uncle Fury. “I do apologize; I was reluctant to interfere with the mechanism of a Divine Treasure created by a Monarch without Dross’ guidance, but you weren’t waking up.”
“How long has it been?” Mercy asked, a lump in her throat. If he had gotten worried, then she had to have been gone more than just a night.
“Three days.”
Mercy sagged in relief. “Oh, good. It only felt like a few hours to me.” If it had really felt like three days, she might have gone insane.
Lindon was about to respond, but the aura pressed in on Mercy again, forcing her to push against it. Pale fingers reached out to Lindon, and she raised her bow to defend him.
Lindon’s eyes turned to blue crystal with circles of white where his irises had been. Blue-white pure madra pushed out from him.
The creatures hissed as his Hollow Domain pushed against them, and they fled like rats from a fire.
As the Domain passed over Mercy, she felt a burden lift from her. Her knees went weak, and she collapsed, but Lindon caught her and steadied her before she hit the floor.
“There’s not much spirits can do to me in a spiritual realm,” Lindon assured her. “But, if you don’t mind me asking, where exactly are we?”
“Inside my Book, but you knew that. This is the fifth page. The home of the Dream of Darkness technique.”
He nodded as he looked around. “Ah, so that’s why there’s Overlord-level madra here. So why did you end up here when your armor broke?”
“I had it open too long.”
This was embarrassing to admit, but he was standing literally inside her soul at the moment, so it was only fair that she open up a bit.
“After the tournament, you and Yerin advanced. I had to lean on the book to fight Sophara, and the more practiced I got, the easier it was to keep the page open. That’s how it works when you’re close to advancing. So I just…kept it open.”
She shifted, not meeting his eyes. The unnatural fear that had gripped her had faded, and now she was just tired. And a bit ashamed.
As expected, Lindon caught her meaning immediately. “Your advancement wasn’t stable.”
Mercy nodded. When she had faced down the Titan—and that was a memory fresh enough to send another tremble of fear through her—it had crushed her armor quickly. Too quickly.
Her unstable spirit had collapsed, and the Book had filled in the gaps. Unfortunately, the imbalance resulted in her consciousness being tied more to the fifth page than to her own body.
“Apologies. I should have left this conversation for later.” He extended a hand to her. “Let’s leave.”
“I’m not sure you can just—”