Now fear crept up on her. Not for herself, but for the others. If only one person made it out of here, it was likely to be her.
Three mouths opened, shining with death madra, and Yerin stopped holding back.
Her Moonlight Bridge wrapped her in white light, carrying her to her destination: on top of the Tomb Hydra.
Madra awakened Netherclaw, and it summoned the Forger technique for which it had been named. A massive beast claw formed over her head, constructed strand by strand from bloody madra. It carried her power alongside its own, and the Archlord technique cut down at the Tomb Hydra.
It twisted in place, clashing with its power against her sword, but Yerin wasn’t waiting around. As soon as she’d used the binding in the sword, she spun and slammed her fist down on the Hydra’s scales with all her strength.
All her strength.
The chamber rang louder than it had when the monster hit the ground. The force of her punch pulverized bones and twisted space. Air tore away from her like a hurricane, and tiny cracks crawled out across the ground in a web.
The snake spasmed, its midsection crushed, and the Netherclaw slashed without resistance.
All three heads were torn off in one swipe.
Yerin leaped off the body, sword in hand. The other snake was still alive, and she had to protect the others.
From midair, she saw the others finish off the first Hydra. The head of Ziel’s hammer, powered by a circle of green runes, slammed it into the floor.
Yerin let herself land gently. She burned the gore from her sword with blood madra, and nodded in respect to Ziel. “Nice hit.”
He looked as though he didn’t believe her. At first, she thought that was just him being unfriendly, but Mercy was staring at her too.
“Yerin,” Mercy said hesitantly, “I think I might head back once we meet up with the others.”
Yerin forced open her own void key, which seemed to want to stick, and rummaged around until she found one of her few elixirs. This one had been made just for her, as the bottle contained a medicine that specialized in restoring blood and sword madra, but she grimaced as she drank it. It was gritty and tasted like steel and charcoal.
Yerin wiped her mouth, mostly to buy time to think about her response. “Not a bad idea. It’d be safer inside a dragon’s mouth than down here. But you knew that when you came down.”
Orthos snorted smoke and nibbled at the dreadbeast’s body. “We thought there would be something we could do.”
Mercy fiddled with black-gloved fingers. “Dreadbeasts like this…to us, one would be a deadly fight. But for you, they’re not worth mentioning. I’m not sure what we can do other than get in the way.”
Yerin felt hunger spirits rising around the corpse, and she saw the chance to make a point. She hopped up on top of the dead Hydra and looked down on the others.
Then she cycled a little madra to her eyes so they would glow red. For effect.
“We’ve been friends for a long stretch now,” Yerin said. “You think I’d rather be down here alone?” White ghouls began crawling up from the ground, and she released her spiritual pressure.
Yerin glared at the nearest ghoul. “Mine,” she said. She was no Sage, but she suspected it would get the point.
Now, there were two possibilities, and either would suit her purpose. Either these mindless techniques would ignore her warning and head for her, in which case she would crush them and show off a bit.
Or they would go for easier prey.
The hollow-eyed ghouls slid away from Yerin even as they bubbled up from below, lurching after the others with surprising speed. Yerin cycled her madra to her Steelborn Iron body and braced herself.
Then she dashed all over the room in a blur of speed. It cost her very little madra; even here, with the hunger aura grinding away her spirit a little at a time, she could keep this up all day.
She sheathed her sword, and severed limbs of animated hunger madra dissolved to essence.
“You’ll catch up,” Yerin said confidently. “And until you do…what’s so bad about letting me carry you?”
Orthos burned so clearly with the resolve to improve himself that Yerin could practically see it. Mercy’s eyes welled up, and even Ziel gripped his hammer a little harder.
Yerin felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Not only did she have friends along, but she was in a position where she could protect them.
Ruby would be just as happy as Yerin was.
Lindon paced outside the chamber, waiting as the storm of deadly blades raged. Eithan had clearly indicated this was the way through, but it seemed this room was designed solely to slow them down.
When they approached, they had triggered a script that activated constructs all throughout the room. Swords of madra, clouds of corrosive aura, and needles of blood rampaged through the room in a deadly storm.
Eithan and Lindon could wade through the room untouched, and Lindon had wanted to do that, but Eithan had stopped him.
They’d already wasted quite a bit of madra, and the only way to get through was for them to spend more. Instead, Eithan suggested they simply wait. The room’s constructs would run out of power before they ran out of time.
Lindon was impatient. Who knew when the route back would shift?
“We need to get back,” he insisted. “As far as we know, there might never be a way back again.”
[That would be unlikely,] Dross said, and Eithan nodded in agreement.
“There’s obviously some kind of intelligence running this place,” Eithan said, “but it can’t keep us separated forever. There must be certain patterns, or it could lock all intruders in a room and remove the exits.”
“Apologies, but that’s weak logic to hang all of our lives on.”
Eithan shrugged. “If I’m wrong, then you burn through the walls. With the Void Icon and Blackflame, it should be possible.”
Lindon nodded. He wanted to do it now, but that would exhaust him, and he’d be useless for the rest of the trip. Or at least for a while.
Little Blue whispered comfort to him, and Lindon decided to distract himself with another project.
“Dross, can you simulate a Soulsmithing project?”
[Somewhat. My capabilities are not what they were, but as long as we can rely on known information, I should be able to replicate a simple project successfully.]
Once again, Lindon missed the real Dross.
At his request, the binding from the Tomb Hydra appeared in front of him, floating in the air. It shone with the pale, spectral green of death madra, and looked roughly like a human heart the size of a head.
There were several entrances, which resembled broken arteries. Lindon ran pure madra through one, and a weak beam of death emanated from the other end of the binding.
Curious, he moved his pure madra through the other one. This time, a haze of death madra appeared around the heart. A lethal field that, if it were real, would have eaten away at his lifeline and begun corroding his flesh.
“Is this accurate?” Lindon asked.
[As much as it can be without testing. The intensity of the effect, its response to pure madra, and its activation time are all suppositions on my part.]
“But this is really several techniques?”
[Yes.]
That was intriguing. Potentially revolutionary.
Bindings were crystallized techniques, meaning they were each one technique. Sometimes Soulsmiths could blend one into the other, but it always created a hybrid technique. It never layered the two techniques on top of one another. If you wanted the techniques to be used together, or in sequence, you had to design your construct to allow it. Usually, that was done with scripts.