Cradle ascension box set, p.45
Cradle: Ascension: Box Set, page 45
Yerin gathered all that before her unstable raft slid down the first wave.
Then she acted.
The black blade of her sword, Netherclaw, rang like a bell. The island was probably a mile away, but that was easy for her to reach now.
Plenty of bloodspawn carried weapons or shaped themselves into sharp edges, and some of them had sword madra of their own. Her Endless Sword technique also carried a touch of blood aura since her merge with Ruby, so it affected the Phoenix’s spawn better than it would have before.
Crimson madra and essence sprayed up from all over the mountain.
That would do for many of the bloodspawn, and would lessen the pressure on the town’s defenders, but it wouldn’t be enough to wipe the army out. Before the echo of the Endless Sword had faded, Yerin whipped her blade horizontally and sent out a Striker technique.
The Rippling Sword was a silver-and-red wave of madra that expanded as it flew, scraping the entire island clean between the mountain and the town.
In fact, it sliced a few hills and carved a gash into the base of the mountain. A small one. Yerin doubted the townsfolk would mind.
That swept the bloodspawn away from the island like a broom catching dust, but Yerin’s madra had attracted attention.
A red light grew beneath her, and scarlet jaws opened wide to swallow her and the remains of the ship whole. Rather than a Blood Shadow that had taken over a leviathan, this Shadow had taken on the form of a leviathan, but she couldn’t spot a hair’s difference between them in power.
Yerin leaped, and the force of her jump shoved the wreckage of the boat down the monster’s throat.
She activated the binding in Netherclaw, and a huge, clawed hand Forged itself in midair from blood and sword madra.
The hand struck the inside of the leviathan’s jaws, and her technique wrestled with the monster among the sloshing waves as she called a Thousand-Mile Cloud from her void key.
Then she turned, locking her perception on the other leviathan. The one taken over by its parasite.
It was clashing with its golden opponent, freezing water into waves of ice even as it cast nets of liquid blood.
Yerin gathered her madra, the aura along the edge of her sword, and her soulfire. As the red leviathan beneath her crushed the Netherclaw technique, she launched her Final Sword.
A silver-red sword of light streaked through the darkness.
The blue leviathan sensed it and raised a wall of ice, but the Herald from the Eight-Man Empire was a step ahead. He blew the ice away with a slash of his over-sized cleaver.
Without resistance, the technique landed on corrupted sapphire scales.
The leviathan had still managed to twist, so Yerin’s Final Sword didn’t land directly. The technique carved a chunk out of the serpent the long way, slicing a line down its body.
Which gave the man in gold an opening.
He Forged force madra into a huge, ghostly cleaver, which plunged down like the weapon of a heavenly executioner. It severed the leviathan in half.
Yerin didn’t get a chance to see the Remnant rise, because her own crimson leviathan had latched onto her spirit. Flows of blood madra speared toward her like striking snakes themselves, and she couldn’t move her cloud fast enough to evade them. She sliced through each one with the Flowing Sword Enforcer technique, making her sword shine brighter every second.
She wasn’t fast enough.
One red tendril pierced through her shoulder like a harpoon, but instead of feeling the pain in her shoulder, she felt it in her head.
Her headache magnified a hundredfold in an instant as the Phoenix’s song filled her, grating on her soul. She screamed as she was dragged back, hurled into the depths.
Into the open mouth of the waiting serpent.
Even distracted by the pain, she plunged her sword into the side of the Shadow’s mouth. The entire leviathan’s shape deformed as it started to collapse its own body, ready to crush her and dissolve her at once. It didn’t react to the pain—in fact, she thought it might not feel anything from her sword.
See if it feels this, Yerin thought.
She’d absorbed the Diamond Veins that she’d won in the Uncrowned King tournament, and after that, her merge with Ruby had improved her madra channels even further. Her body and spirit were no longer separate, and her will infused them both.
In other words, she could use a lot of techniques at once without her spirit exploding.
Now seemed like a good time to see how far she could push it.
Yerin activated the Netherclaw binding, and another clawed hand appeared over her head, braced against the walls of the leviathan’s mouth. As the Endless Sword echoed around her, Yerin swept her sword in every direction, launching Striker techniques with every motion.
The Blood Shadow of the leviathan exploded.
She emerged from the center of a wet detonation, and she found herself glad that this wasn’t the physical leviathan, or she would have been soaked in gore.
The gold-armored man with the cleaver hovered over her, a Forged green-and-gray blade over his head. He blinked as he looked down at her, then let his Forger technique dissipate.
Yerin gave him a quick wave before she realized she was below sea level.
Her battle with the Blood Shadow had pushed the water away for hundreds of yards, but now the sea came crashing back. She sloshed around like a crab in a pot, idly wishing the pain in her head would go away.
When she could tell which way was up, she controlled water aura to throw her body into the air. Her Thousand-Mile Cloud caught her.
Now the two members of the Eight-Man Empire had only one enemy left—the monstrous blob-like Blood Shadow in the sky—and they made short work of it. In the first few instants, one blasted the clouds away while the other hauled the bulbous spirit out of hiding and split it into a thousand hideous pieces.
It shrieked as it died, which did nothing to help Yerin’s headache.
She drifted over to the two of them while she held wet hair out of her eyes. Eventually she could pull the moisture out with aura, but that still took time.
The closest Herald of the Eight-Man Empire saw her and put his fists on his hips. He threw his head back and laughed loudly. “A fine showing, young Herald! I see your grudge against the Phoenix has lent you power!”
Yerin controlled aura to pull water out of her ear. “Seems to me the two of you walked the longest stretch of the way without me.”
“The people of Sirifel will be grateful, I assure you,” the second Herald said. He seemed calmer than his partner.
“We have long sought an opportunity to fight at your side, young Herald,” the first pronounced. “Your spirit and your values are a fine fit with ours.”
The second man looked off into the distance. “We’re not being observed by the Monarchs. You can speak freely.”
“Feeling free as a fox in spring,” Yerin said. “There’s something you want me to say, true?”
“We saw your master reveal himself and ascend to the heavens. You do not have to share his wisdom with us, but as his disciples, you understand how this world works.” He saw her blank look and raised a hand. “If you wish to ascend, we would understand. But if not…I say that the two of you would fit our armor well.”
“One Sage, one Herald.” The other laced his fingers together. “A perfect match. I don’t even think our squires would object, would they?”
“If they did, a duel or two with the Uncrowned Queen and the Master of the Labyrinth would quiet them down.”
The two seemed like they were in a good mood, but her headache was distracting.
She pointed in the direction of the largest spiritual disturbance. “Call me a liar if I’m wrong, but don’t we have more work to do?”
“Ah, I almost forgot! Your Moonlight Bridge has a restoration period, doesn’t it? What luck for us! We can fight at your side for another…what was it, three days?”
Yerin had traveled most of the way through the labyrinth, so she wouldn’t need to wait quite so long for the Bridge to come back, but there was no reason to share that knowledge.
“You want to use it up just floating here?” Yerin asked.
He gave a savage grin and hefted a cleaver. “The Ghost-Blades seek nothing more than battle! Onward!”
Yerin was looking forward to fighting at the side of the Eight-Man Empire—she could learn a lot from their sacred arts, even if she wasn’t much interested in their armor.
But she’d feel better when she could return at a moment’s notice. Lindon would be in Everwood by now with his own battle to fight. He wasn’t supposed to come anywhere near the Dreadgod itself, but she had heard horror stories about the Silent King.
Then again, she’d heard horror stories about the Bleeding Phoenix too. She’d lived some of them.
If she did her job here, she could stop those nightmares before they got to someone else.
The earth artist covered in blue crystal used a Forger technique, and thousands of razor-edged sapphires appeared in the sky behind Lindon.
Each gemstone carried an Archlord’s focused will and practiced madra control. The crystals were an armory that stretched behind him in an endless flock, a barrage that could wipe out cities.
Worse, he wasn’t alone. His partner, a woman sheathed in a clawed Remnant of mirror-bright sword-madra, filled herself with an Enforcer technique. She blazed with light and power, coiling against an invisible platform she made with her aura control, and prepared to leap forward. The edges of her claws gleamed.
The storm artist shaped like an eagle of lightning gathered her own madra. This technique was stranger, twisting Lindon’s perception of reality. She may have been on the verge of advancing to Sage. The storm she gathered between her wings gave off arcs of lightning that tore up ancient paving-stones hundreds of feet below.
In the skies above Dreadnought City, Lindon faced down three Archlords. He let his Hollow Domain fade, switching back to Blackflame.
How’s the evacuation? Lindon asked Dross.
An eerie chuckle filled his mind. [The King himself is our aid. He has removed his drones from the city to bombard you from the outskirts.]
Good. If Lindon could stop protecting the city, he would be free to move as he wished.
The instant his field of pure madra died, the three enemies released their attacks.
Blue crystals blasted forward, slicing through the air in an instant, and Lindon propelled himself downward with soulfire-controlled wind aura. The Forged crystals smashed craters into the street and leveled houses, a deadly rain that blanketed the city.
Lindon dodged what he could, blasted those he couldn’t dodge with dragon’s breath, and slapped some away.
Dross showed him a warning light, and he twisted back to avoid the sword artist’s claw.
Her strike missed him, but the madra carried behind him in a silver wave that sliced a hundred-story building in two. Its top began to crumble, but Lindon called the Burning Cloak.
He landed on the ground and leaped away, leaving behind a crater of his own. Crystals still fell from the sky, seeking him, but he hurled himself after the lightning artist. The clawed sword-artist followed him in another silver blur of speed.
The lightning eagle had gathered up a powerful Striker technique, but she was vulnerable while using it. Then again, she would know that and account for it.
Dross had given Lindon a deeper understanding of these three. The Chief Guardians of Dreadnought City were ancient Archlords, each with a rich history of battles won and lost.
In experience, he couldn’t compare. They would be far more skilled than he was. Even if he could outmatch them in raw power, he would be hard-pressed to defeat any one of them in a fair fight.
But he had unfair advantages.
[She will have Forged spirits to defend her while she is vulnerable. They are only a distraction. The Remnant covering her conceals armor that makes her as tough as a Herald. But it has a flaw.]
Dross knew very little about these Chief Guardians from his own experience, but Emriss knew everything about them. And she shared.
When dozens of crackling lightning-sparrows spread out from the Archlady, Lindon drilled a bar of Blackflame through her stomach.
Her Striker technique dispersed, as did the Remnant covering her. The woman beneath was revealed, an older dark-skinned woman wearing a surprised expression. Her breastplate joined to her armored belt, but there was a weakness at the joint, and he had struck it dead-on.
She was only visible for a moment. She restored her Remnant a moment later and flew away on lightning wings, greatly weakened.
Lindon was relieved. He had been worried, coming here, that the Silent King would throw his drones away in waves to strike a single blow on Lindon. A rain of harmless Striker techniques from mind-controlled citizens still landed on Lindon or burst in the air, but Lindon wasn’t bothered.
As long as the Silent King didn’t put him in a position where he had to kill people who were being moved like helpless puppets, Lindon was happy.
[It’s enough to make one wonder,] Dross whispered, [why isn’t he doing that?]
Lindon supposed that the Dreadgod wanted slaves more than victory, but he didn’t have long to think. The sword-artist was next, and Lindon acted on Dross’ instruction.
He moved so that the Forged sapphire crystals were blasting toward the silver Archlady instead of him. The blue-crystal Archlord unraveled the technique before his ally was harmed, which lessened the pressure on Lindon.
Allowing him to send Wavedancer against the sword-artist. The sword clashed against one claw, then the other claw tore apart his dragon’s breath and the Archlady leaped at him. He dashed backwards.
They exchanged dozens of techniques in a second, flashing lines of madra slicing through buildings or lancing into the sky. Lindon crashed through a stone wall to dodge, hurled a metal carriage one-handed into the sky to intercept an exploding crystal, and burned a hole through the street to attack the sword-artist, who was trying to reach him from underground.
Dross couldn’t project an illusion into their minds while the Silent King controlled them. The Dreadgod of dreams would squash him like a wagon wheel rolling over a snake. But without that distraction, any Sage working that Lindon tried would be broken by the force of their combined willpower.
[Transfer construct,] Dross whispered. [Fifteen feet above us. The time has come to unleash ourselves.]
Lindon sent Wavedancer blasting through a Forged crystal overhead, spun around, and raised both hands. He sent Blackflame pouring through his palms. The madra obeyed him with only a thought, erupting into dark liquid flame that blasted into empty air.
But it wasn’t empty for long.
An instant later, the sword-artist appeared in the path of his Striker technique. Just as predicted.
Her silver Remnant carapace was struck full-force, and she shot backwards, blasting through another tall building.
She flew like a shooting star trailing black fire, propelled by dragon’s breath to smash through several walls. When she was out of the city limits, Lindon could see through a hole in three buildings that stared up at the corrupted white sky.
[He has prepared his next technique,] Dross reported. The stones of the street surged upwards like a sudden, razor-sharp wave. Lindon had already leaped onto a Thousand-Mile Cloud, flying toward the earth artist with the crystalline techniques.
Real stones flew at him from below as Forged ones crashed down from above, but Dross showed him the shifting path he could follow to his opponent. The Archlord covered in angular blue crystal, like a variant of the Akura armor with a pyramid over his head, shifted to face Lindon.
Nine flying swords appeared behind the man, each radiating threatening pressure.
“Release,” Lindon commanded the Remnant covering the man’s body.
Reality twisted to enforce Lindon’s order, but the Archlord’s will clashed against his. He could oppose any working Lindon made.
But doing so would cost him attention.
Wavedancer, controlled by Dross, plunged down like a silver meteor into the man’s back. The blade emerged from his chest, and he stumbled forward in the air.
He would survive. Archlords were resilient. But more importantly, Lindon’s sword pierced the man’s spirit-tank.
The Remnant of blue crystal peeled away, partially dissolved to essence. It flailed its limbs in high-pitched agony.
The Everwood Archlord retreated just as his companion had, leaving Lindon floating in the air over a ruined city.
[Only one to go,] Dross noted.
The sword-artist had returned to the city in a flash, keeping her presence concealed so she could sneak up on Lindon. But she couldn’t hide from Dross.
Lindon drifted to the ground, and a razor-sharp silver claw erupted out of a wall for his back.
He spun and caught it in his white hand. The hand of Subject One.
Then he began to Consume.
He devoured the Archlord-level sword Remnant in an instant, sorting its powers with the Heart of Twin Stars. The portion of its madra he could purify went to his core, its soulfire went to his own stores, its blood essence went to his body, and its dream aura went to Dross.
Ordinarily, he would have vented the remaining sword-madra he couldn’t use, or potentially Forged it into scales or dead matter. But his new arm of pale flesh was hungry. And it ate anything.
The Remnant vanished into his arm, leaving a struggling Archlady with a white crown behind her head.
“Are you ready?” Lindon asked Dross.
[Ravenous.] Dross licked his lips.
Lindon began to Consume the Silent King’s crown.
The white halo, the mark of the Dreadgod’s control, was a technique that worked like a parasite. Not only did it keep the host vulnerable to the Silent King’s commands, but it siphoned off their excess dream aura and transmitted it directly back to the Dreadgod. A combination of dream and hunger madra.
