As they rose, the ghouls shredded the Hydra. They opened their wide mouths and took chunks out of its meat, devouring madra, aura, and flesh alike.
“I saw some sword-fish feed in a river once,” Orthos said in solemn tones. “They stripped a bird the size of a house down to its bones in seconds.”
“Do swordfish live in rivers?” Mercy asked.
“Not swordfish. Sword-fish. Their teeth are swords.”
“We should back up,” Ziel pointed out.
The hunger techniques did their work in seconds, and they did more than just strip the corpse down to bones. Even the bones were devoured, reduced to nothing. Leaving a swarm of pale ghouls made of madra scurrying over the spot where the beast had been, like ants after a feast.
The others retreated, but Yerin didn’t. She stood only a few strides from the hunger techniques.
She was feeling weak after that Final Sword, and even the Endless Sword had stretched her since she was using it in such an aura-dry environment. She knew exactly what it meant to spend more power here.
But something was watching her.
A silver-red glow shone around her blade as she activated the Flowing Sword. She only had traces of aura to complement the madra, so the technique wasn’t stable. But it was stable enough.
She struck each ghoul with her madra-clad sword, dispersing them to clouds of madra. It took her less than a second.
Puffs of death madra, and aura of every kind, leaked into the air as the ghouls died. They had fed, but hadn’t had the chance to return to their source yet. In that way, they were like the bloodspawn of the Bleeding Phoenix.
She didn’t like that comparison.
Yerin glared down at the floor. “We’re not backing down.”
She doubted it could hear her, but it was her actions that should send the message. When she didn’t get a response, she turned back to the others. “Huddle up and get our backs to a wall. If we don’t get hit again soon, I’ll dance a little jig.”
“I would be interested to see that,” Orthos said.
Ziel frowned into the distance. “You think it will keep sending the spirits after us?”
“No, but if there’s no way for a giant dreadbeast to stay alive down here, that means it came from somewhere else. They’ll make another one.”
“There’s no telling how long that will take,” Mercy pointed out. “Maybe it takes days! And this could be the last one; they can’t have bred too many.”
“If that’s true, you’ll get to see my jig. But…”
The walls blurred right on cue, once again making Yerin wonder what the controller of the labyrinth could see.
Now, only one opening remained. On the ceiling.
And another Tomb Hydra dropped from the ceiling.
“…I’m not much of a dancer.”
By the time Eithan shouted for Lindon to stop, Lindon had already slammed to a halt. His instincts had warned him just in time, even before Eithan’s superior detection could keep up.
But it had been close. A script activated right in front of Lindon’s eyes, sending a line of what looked like black glass sliding up ahead of his nose.
Destruction madra.
Eithan gave an exaggerated sigh when he caught up. “I’m not sure that would have been tough enough to break you, but I don’t want to be performing emergency medical aid here in an ancient tomb at the heart of the world.”
Lindon caught his breath and stilled his beating heart as he examined the script. “Dross, what do you think about this?”
[I think it’s a good thing you weren’t a little faster. Ha ha.]
Lindon winced.
[…this is a security measure against intruders. I find it strange that we have not seen more such scripts thus far.]
“We’ll have to slow down,” Lindon said, but he was excited by the trap’s presence. Eithan noticed.
“I see you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“The other intruder would have broken this. If we’re the first people here in centuries, there might be something left.”
And any hint left behind by Ozriel could be a treasure.
“We don’t want to make our friends wait too long.”
“Oh, of course not.”
“But where there’s one trap, there could be others. We should move cautiously.”
“It’s only wise.”
Little Blue’s voice rang with her impatience.
Passing the scripted trap was easy once they knew it was there, and there were indeed more traps afterwards. They were all lethal; Lindon had expected more illusions or clouds, but he was met entirely with razor-sharp blades or focused beams of heat.
In other words, Lindon and Eithan strolled through.
“How do constructs stay powered around so much hunger?” Lindon asked. The aura here should feed on anything indiscriminately, not even counting the living hunger techniques that traveled around consuming whatever they found.
“They’re protected,” Eithan said. “Which is fascinating, since anything from the Arelius founder should predate the introduction of hunger madra to this labyrinth. Did he anticipate this, or was he protecting against other threats? A puzzle for you!”
“Pardon, but surely your guess would be better than mine.”
Eithan was quiet for a moment as they both dodged a spray of venomous darts. “Making my own guess would be less than productive. Why don’t you see if you can guess the thoughts of a genius Soulsmith? Might be good for you.”
That didn’t make much sense to Lindon, but if Eithan wasn’t willing to speculate, Lindon wasn’t going to make him.
Especially since they’d made it to the end of the hallway.
The room was less than Lindon had expected from a secret chamber hidden by a powerful expert at the heart of a deadly labyrinth. It was more like a cramped bedroom than a huge Soulsmith foundry, though there was no bed. There were instead wooden tables crammed against the walls, each carrying piles of…
Lindon didn’t want to call the objects “random junk,” because there had to be more to them than met the eye. But he saw a pearl necklace tossed carelessly on top of a pile of mismatched silk scarves. A quiver full of arrows leaned against a set of fifteen books with titles Lindon couldn’t read.
There were eight tables in the room, each with a similar pile. And not one of the objects held any obvious spiritual power…at least, none that remained.
But there were a few spots of dream madra here and there, and the sources were obvious. Tiny crystals had been tied to each object, and Lindon ran his spiritual sense into one such dream tablet.
A stately woman wears the necklace of pearls as she addresses her army. She raises a hand to direct them, and the scene shifts.
She comes onto the deck of a cloudship, and rays of golden light form around her hands. The scene shifts again.
With an icy look on her face, she orders the execution of a sobbing woman who looks just like her. Grief hangs over the scene like a cloud.
Abruptly, the memory cut off.
Lindon was shaken. Compared to most of the other tablets he’d viewed, this one was more chaotic and less complete. And it wasn’t entirely clear whose memory it was; it felt almost like a composite of memories from someone else with the noblewoman’s emotions layered over them.