The Hollow Domain flickered. Dross pitted himself against the technique, but he was weaker than he had calculated. It took too long.
In the absence of the Domain, the remaining bladed bats flew around Lindon toward their intended target. Mercy called up her bloodline armor as she fell, and it formed before the Domain returned.
Even so, they cut straight through her armor.
Mercy’s blood sprayed the floor from a dozen wounds, and she screamed.
Dross finally broke the sword, and instead of rushing toward Yerin, Lindon had to fall toward Mercy. Concentrated pure madra broke the technique, but Mercy’s bloodline armor had already shattered. She bled from too many wounds, including one to the neck.
Lindon pressed down on it, pulling out the healing construct he’d withdrawn earlier. A pulsing sac of blood and life madra attached to her wound, feeding her healing energy, and her breathing steadied.
With dread in his heart, Lindon looked up to Yerin.
She was pinned to the wall by a rush of dense water madra, and he saw flickers of red as she battled with the glowing white silhouettes in the depths. He felt her holding her own, and he was encouraged.
Then Reigan Shen lazily raised his sword in her direction.
Lindon’s world focused to a single point.
“Stop!”
Reigan Shen froze. He snorted and tugged his arm against Lindon’s will as though pulling against stubborn cobwebs.
Pain stabbed through Lindon’s head, and his working broke. But he blinked past tears in his eyes to see that it did have some effect.
Reigan Shen had turned his sword toward Lindon instead.
[I cannot go further,] Dross said, but there was a little more emotion in his words now. He sounded ashamed. [I am…too weak.]
Me too, Lindon thought.
But Lindon raised his arm and gathered his madra. He would try to Consume some of the power in the attack Reigan Shen was about to use. If it had worked to weaken the Titan’s attack, maybe it would work here.
As he activated the technique in his arm, he felt a soul-piercing snap. The binding fell apart.
And his arm fell to his side, inert.
The glowing sword cracked the void as Reigan Shen swung it down, sending spatial cracks to every side like a spiderweb. A slash of orange light rushed for Lindon, and when he felt it, he realized his Consume technique would have done nothing anyway.
Lindon still didn’t give up.
He stood over Mercy’s body and radiated the Hollow Domain. If he weakened it enough, then maybe—
Eithan appeared in front of them.
Ghostly blue-white armor shimmered over every inch of his body, as though he wore a Remnant over his skin. Archlord soulfire rippled through him for a second, like quicksilver.
Then he was striking forward with a Forged spear.
His will and technique crashed against Reigan Shen’s. Deep, black cracks spiraled through the air as the world began to break.
Orange madra dispersed into essence, Eithan’s spear broke, and the cracks healed.
A smile tugged at one side of Reigan Shen’s mouth. “You’ve worked so hard to stand before me. I’m almost proud.”
“That’s not what I was working for,” Eithan said. “But I admit…it is a perk.”
Lindon felt something. Eithan had reached beyond himself for that attack. His will was dense, and far-reaching. He had tapped into something bigger than himself.
An image began to form at the ceiling, something more real than a working of dream and light. Lindon began to see a shaft of polished wood, projected from beyond reality.
Then Eithan gestured, and the image cut off.
Reigan Shen’s head jerked back, and he looked truly shocked. “What are you thinking?”
Eithan pointed another spear of pure madra. “You are not my goal. You’re just in my way.”
“Very well.” The Monarch lightly twirled the sword in his hand and another golden portal appeared behind him. “Die, then.”
And the battle between Eithan and Reigan Shen began.
16
Eithan’s spear grew as it flashed across the room, and Lindon saw that he had projected the Hollow Spear technique from his scissors. It was a perfect blend of sacred instrument and Striker technique, carrying the power of both.
But it was only enough to match the orange energy that Shen projected from his own sword. The entire room shook, spiritually and physically, and Lindon was painfully aware of how little madra he had remaining.
Compared to his normal state, at least. Compared to the others, he was in great shape.
Ziel moved weakly against the wall, half his body burned. His clothes had been singed away. Lindon hadn’t seen what had happened to him, but obviously Eithan hadn’t been able to save him completely.
Lindon carried the still-healing Mercy away. She mumbled at him that she would be fine—and she would, thanks to the healing construct on her neck—but he needed to move her away from the battle.
Eithan called a rain of stars down on Reigan Shen, and Shen responded by swallowing them all into a portal he opened over his own head.
This time, Lindon noticed that the portals were actually sticking just like the void keys had been. Shen had to spare the willpower to force open his own void space. That had to be a weakness they could exploit.
But another worry overcame him first: Yerin.
She was still inside the water technique.
Every clash between Eithan and Shen shook the surging mass of water that imprisoned Yerin, and every now and again her madra speared out, but her spirit was still flashing inside. She was battling against the spirits inside the technique, and she was weakening.
Lindon sprinted around the wall of the chamber. His pure core had less than a third remaining, and his soulfire was a dim candle, but he had to help.
Dross, what do you have left?
[Not what I should, and that disturbs me. Northstrider once used me to develop a combat report against Reigan Shen.]
Lindon’s hopes soared.
[But I am too fractured,] Dross continued. [I can piece together so little of it. Too little.]
Lindon’s heart crashed back down. Let me know if you remember anything. In the meantime, tell Yerin I’m on my way.
As Reigan Shen hurled Eithan across the chamber and Eithan retaliated with a slash of suddenly-huge scissors, Lindon dove into the side of a raging river like a waterfall suspended in midair.
Suddenly he could feel the pressure of the technique firsthand. He’d been able to sense it from across the chamber, but this was like the weight of the ocean crushing him from every direction. It was a churning maelstrom of water madra on at least the Herald-level, and every drop bore the will to destroy him.
A ghost of soft white light drifted up to him, extending hands out to him as though in peace. The spirit’s smile was a black crescent in its face.
Lindon met it with the Empty Palm.
On a human being, the Empty Palm washed their madra channels clean, temporarily robbing them of control over their own spirit. On a spirit, it blasted away the very material of their body.
The spirit dissolved, but its smile only widened.
From the darkness of the chaotic water, two more spirits came for him. They darted in when he wasn’t looking, then flitted away when he turned toward them. They were afraid of his pure madra, and Lindon couldn’t tell if it was an instinctive aversion or if they’d learned from what happened to the first.