Power gathered in his limbs along with the lines, and when two knots of madra curled up and ended at his eyes, the world around him slowed.
This technique was a way to gradually prepare the body for handling intense speed. It reinforced and fueled him, finally sparking his senses so that they could keep up with his newly empowered limbs.
Six pairs of eyes narrowed as they realized what he was doing, six spirits revolving just like his, lines of white light spilling out of their robes and flowing onto their limbs as they engaged their own Enforcer techniques to catch up with him. The marks on their skin were a matrix of straight lines, not a nest of twisting serpents as on his, but there would be no functional difference in the technique.
Except that he was a Highgold. They were too slow.
He had been reluctant to test out his spear in battle, but now it seemed he had no choice. Whether he liked it or not, he was about to have his questions answered.
Jai Long closed the thirty-foot gap in a blink, coming in low next to the first enemy. The man had started his own Flowing Starlight technique, so he was fast enough to get the butt of his spear between him and Jai Long. But that was all he could do.
The white spear swerved around his, stabbing him in the lower abdomen. Into his core.
Most sacred artists Jai Long knew would have hesitated to fight someone a stage lower than they were, and even if they were forced into that undesirable position, they would avoid killing their opponent. It was shameful and embarrassing to lower yourself to that level, especially in public.
But Jai Long had no pride he didn’t mind losing.
Jai Long’s spiritual perception confirmed he'd struck the right target, and he withdrew his spearhead in an instant. The man's madra leaked out visibly, spilling starlight and blood in equal measure, but his spear should have stolen some of that power. Had it worked at all? He didn't feel any—
A rush of force slammed into his hand from the spear, flooding his madra channels with white light, and he stumbled in his steps.
This was only a fraction of the victim's full power, but it was enough to make Jai Long feel like his channels were about to burst. The next Lowgold thrust at him even as a second swept at his legs, and off-balance, there wasn't much Jai Long could do to stop them. A spearhead sliced his shoulder, and a shaft of solid wood hammered his shin.
He fell onto the grass, pain flaring, but he still gripped his weapon in one hand. Half a breath of hesitation meant death.
Jai Long flooded his madra into the Serpent's Shadow, sweeping his spear in an arc. He left a burning rainbow of white light between him and his opponents, which came to life as a snake thick as his arm. The living technique slithered to face his opponents, hissing.
The snake seized a spear in its jaws, shearing the weapon in half. The head tumbled away, wooden shaft smoking. A Jai woman brushed her arm against the body of the Serpent’s Shadow, and she cried out, blood spraying from the cut—the light was sharper than the edge of a razor.
The other enemies ran to surround him, encircling him and preparing their attacks. They had caught up to him in speed by now, as skilled in the Flowing Starlight technique as he was.
Four spread out to cover him, his Serpent’s Shadow fading even as it hissed and lunged and tried to protect him. He watched them through watery eyes, his breath uneven, spirit straining to contain the energy he’d swallowed. The glowing lines on his skin pulsed unsteadily, flickering between too much energy and too little.
Any moment now, the four enemies would coordinate, and he would die. He had to break their cooperation somehow, try to get one of them between him and the other three, to throw off their cooperation. He watched for the slightest opening even as madra thundered through him, burning his thoughts at the edges, distracting him with every breath.
Then the heavens intervened on his behalf.
A Sandviper stumbled away from the bats, blood streaming over her face, but there were four acid-green javelins Forging over her head. Before anyone reacted to her presence, she gestured to one of the Jai clan, and her technique blasted forward.
The Jai fighter saw it, bringing his shining spearhead around, but he was a beat too slow, his attention fixed too fully on Jai Long.
Four green lances pinned the young man to the ground.
Jai Long didn't waste the instant the Sandviper had bought him. He swept his spear in a whirlwind around himself, drawing twisting lines of Serpent's Shadow in the air until he was surrounded by a nest of seething white snakes. The effort of Forging such a huge defense would have usually drained his core, but now it just relieved some of the pressure.
Star Lances cracked on the outside, burning holes in his protection, but none were strong enough to completely break through.
He focused on controlling the storm of madra inside of him, funneling it into his spear, piling the energy into the pale spearhead until it glowed.
This was the second Enforcer technique in the Path of the Stellar Spear: the Star’s Edge. It reinforced his weapon rather than his own body. Madra surged according to a rough pattern, fueling the deadly star at the end of his spear. By the time it was so bright he couldn’t look directly at the weapon any longer, he could breathe again.
Now, his core was merely full.
Jai Long released his Forger technique, and the cage of white snakes dispersed into essence. Thousands of white pinpricks rose into the sky like a bucketful of glimmering dust falling the wrong way.
With his Flowing Starlight twisting around his skin and the Star's Edge on his spear, Jai Long glowed like the moon fallen to earth. Two of them were pulling bloody spears out of the Sandviper who had distracted them, and the other two were desperately trying to put some distance between them and Jai Long.
Finally in control of himself, Jai Long faced four off-balance enemies.
He finished them all in a second.
The first woman he stabbed in the chest, to see if he had to strike the core dead-on to absorb its powers. Another rush of madra filled him, though not as fully as the first kill had. The second man he sliced in the arm, and if he gained any madra from that, he didn't feel it. He finished him off with a stab straight through the skull. The third took a spearhead to the throat, and the fourth through the belly.
All before the first of the four bodies hit the ground.
Leaving him to deal with his own exploding soul.
White light stormed through his channels, tearing him apart as though he'd swallowed a razor-sharp flame. He tried to vent it from his skin where he could, white light spearing through him and leaving tiny, bleeding cuts with every ray.
It was like getting stabbed by a dozen nails at once, from the inside. He screamed.
Through a haze of pain and tears, he saw the Remnant rise.
Only one. The bodies he'd cut with the Ancestor's Spear remained still and quiet, but the single individual the Sandviper had killed vented its Remnant into the air.
Even through his mind-numbing agony, Jai Long glared at the spirit. His thoughts were strained, fogged, but he still recognized the classic Stellar Spear Remnant. The Remnant he was supposed to have bonded.
He could barely see it, half-blind as he was at the moment, but they always looked the same.
It looked like a constellation. Points of bright light formed joints, hands, eyes, and a heart, like stars floating in the air. Thin, faded lines connected those points until the spirit looked like a bent, hulking skeleton torn from the night sky.
The Remnant's roar sounded like the rush of a bonfire.
Jai Long staggered forward, leaving bleeding footprints in the grass behind him. More shards of madra cut through his skin, but he could no longer feel them.