This time, Lindon could feel an easy resonance with the Void Icon. There was hunger in the binding, and a hunger in the trident too; a hunger to destroy the enemy. To bring death.
Lindon spun Genesis in one hand, and he didn’t need anyone to tell him to use the red side.
Blackflame focused his will as he slammed it down on the two ghostly images.
You bring destruction, Lindon thought.
The heart squeezed halfway into the trident, and the weapon’s physical metal began to shift. The two halves slid closer together.
You bring ruin.
The metal came together, and the binding disappeared into the weapon. Now loose strands of death madra flailed around, and even the steel of the trident glowed an eerie spectral green.
But Lindon wasn’t watching its physical shell; he could feel the essence of the weapon in the Void Icon. Having used the Soulforge once before, he could more clearly feel how this process was similar to the Soulsmithing he’d always known.
Normally, he balanced different aspects of madra with his own, while making sure to manually mold its physical shape. Now, he was holding the clashing wills in the weapon, molding and steering them into one purpose.
You bring death, Lindon said.
Dross cackled in his head.
The hammer came down again, and this time Lindon saw—and felt—a clash of red against green, fire against death.
The trident shone, and blue soulfire erupted upward in a roar. It surrounded the weapon so that he couldn’t see it, and instead of passing over it, it twisted and disappeared as though it had been inhaled into the trident.
An entirely new weapon hung in the air. A spear. Its shaft was dark, with a green tint to it, and the steel of its blade was a death-green chrome. Spectral green sparks came off the weapon here and there, as though it were still hot.
And its presence…
In Lindon’s senses, it pushed against the world so that the air seemed to bend around the spear. It pushed against the spirits of everyone present, eager to be used. Even its spiritual might wasn’t at all inferior to the attack of the sword Reigan Shen had used to crack space.
“I don’t know that you could quite call it a Monarch weapon,” Eithan said, “but a Monarch wouldn’t be ashamed to use it.”
Lindon wasn’t at all embarrassed by the evaluation. He agreed; this could be considered a Herald weapon with added significance. Perhaps one day it would evolve into a Monarch weapon, if someone used it to accomplish great deeds, but even at the moment he would pit it against almost any other weapon he’d ever encountered.
He sent a glance at Mercy’s bow, Suu, which was currently in its staff form. Without knowing exactly what the spear’s binding did, he couldn’t be certain how it stacked up, but in terms of its overwhelming aura, the spear definitely won.
Mercy was looking at the hovering weapon in excitement. “Name!”
“We don’t have time,” Lindon said, but the others overrode him.
“Lindon already had a turn!” Eithan shouted. “Who’s next?”
After a moment of deliberation, Lindon was left with Midnight, Cursed Spear of the Destroyer. Dross and Mercy had combined forces and dominated the discussion.
He was almost afraid to grab the weapon, even as its creator. If his hunger arm was functional, he would have had more faith in that, but he ended up gingerly retrieving the spear.
Its will to destroy was almost a voice in his mind, and he found himself wishing he could keep it in his void key. But he wouldn’t risk opening the key again in the labyrinth unless he had to.
“Good timing,” Eithan said, looking out of the portal. “It seems we’re due for another shuffle.”
Sure enough, as Lindon closed the Soulforge—and slipped its key around his neck—they saw the walls of the labyrinth blurring. The lights flickered as the entrances changed.
New doorways opened up all around the room, but one caught everyone’s attention in the first moment. Instead of a gaping cave mouth onto a hallway of stone, this one was a small wooden door leading off of the platform with the Dreadgod tanks. It simply hadn’t been there before.
And instead of a symbol over it, there was a handprint. It was thin and skeletal, sunk into the stone, and it had stained the rock white.
Eithan strode forward. “Well this seems like the obvious choice, doesn’t it?”
He threw open the door. It was a narrow closet, but there was only one object inside: a tank, just like those that had once given birth to the first generation of dreadbeasts. But none of them wondered why it had been separated from the others.
This one was corrupted and half-melted, turned gray-white. It gave off waves of hunger aura, and a level of significance that at least matched the other Dreadgod pods.
The birthplace of Subject One.
Lindon could sense the Void Icon clearly here, and he longed to stay in the room and meditate on the nature of his Icon.
Instead, he rapped to open up the drawer. This time, instead of a twisted bone, there was…dust. Fine gray sand, or perhaps fine ash.
As with the others, the power had been leeched out of this natural treasure long ago. Lindon swept it into a bag that came with his Soulsmithing supplies, afraid to miss even a grain. As he did, he opened himself up to the Void Icon.
There were reflections on the concept of nothingness everywhere. What was hunger if not a desire to devour, a will to allow the stranger in and kill me, borrow my powers, start the chain of events that would finally END IT ALL.
Lindon staggered back. The sudden intrusion of thoughts that weren’t his own had disrupted his concentration.
Did you hear that? Lindon asked.
[Clear, firm resolve. You should learn from him.]
That was…
[Subject One, I’m sure. The thought clearly came from below us, which you would notice if you had paid attention. Let’s see if we can hear more.]
Lindon reached out again, and the sensation was instant.
He waits in the darkness. He had waited for time beyond counting, hungry for freedom, for power…for everything. He only knew hunger, and the connection to the others of his kind that remained on the surface. Those who had followed him. The Dreadgods.
Finally, a Monarch had come to him. Finally. Finally, one of those who had cursed the world had come to end what they had created.
Subject One welcomed Reigan Shen with open arms. The Monarch was close, and would be here soon. He would close off the labyrinth from the pursuers, so they could not interfere.
For the Slumbering Wraith hungered for all things. Even death.
“Out!” Lindon shouted. He tried to shove everyone out the door, but it had already blurred closed.
They were surrounded by nothing but featureless stone. Eithan had theorized earlier that the labyrinth couldn’t lock them in; it had to move on set paths in certain patterns. Ozriel’s remaining dream tablet had suggested the same.
But now, the labyrinth had broken its own rules to turn against them.
And they were trapped.
19
“There’s no way this can stay locked for long,” Lindon said, as he scanned the sealed room they were crammed into.
If Orthos had been his normal size, they wouldn’t have all been able to fit into this room at all. Now, they were packed around Subject One’s birth pod, and Lindon had Ziel’s hammer jammed up against his jaw and Yerin’s back pushing into his.