“I need an opponent,” he said softly. “Not a victim.”
Madra flooded through her flesh and into her skin, fueling her Steelborn Iron body, sinking into her muscles like water into thirsty soil.
She kicked off, and the leap took her over Jai Long’s head. He lashed out with a hand glowing like a star, but her Goldsign blurred and met his technique. They clashed with a sound like steel on steel.
Her second Goldsign whipped out, and he had to turn it with his other hand. When she followed up with a hit from her white sword, he took a step back.
Aura flashed out from her sword, slashing one of the strips of cloth from around his face, and he backed up again.
This time, he thrust a palm forward, and a Forged snake flashed through the air to bare fangs of light in her face.
He was following up with more snakes, defense and offense in one, and his spirit still hummed against her senses. She was far from being able to compete with him in raw power.
At least, as far as madra went.
While she was suffering through the birth of her Steelborn Iron body, her master had painted a rosy picture of its future. ‘It grows with you,’ he’d said. ‘Our body Enforcement techniques aren’t worth a chip of rust, see. So you need a body that Enforces itself.’ She’d seen him bend a steel door in half and crush a rock to powder. ‘You won’t notice at first, but it’ll be sharper every stage.’
For the first time, Yerin could feel the gift her master had left for her.
Something had changed for Yerin at Highgold, and it wasn’t her spirit. Jai Long had fought dozens if not hundreds of Highgolds, and it wasn’t that her spirit was so much stronger than usual.
Her techniques became sharper, like she’d spent a month practicing, but Jai Long could understand that. Highgold was a journey through the skills and experiences embedded in the Gold Remnant, so she’d have inherited some insight from her master.
It was her sheer physical strength that baffled him as she crushed his serpents, shoved his attacks aside, and matched his movements even through Flowing Starlight.
She drove his Enforced punches apart with her twin Goldsigns, which now moved as quick as her hands. He ducked her sword stroke, which she’d telegraphed by shifting her weight…but then she caught him in the side with a kick.
The force of it strained his Iron body and sent him rolling; he gathered himself and vaulted over from one peak to another. Now he was on the slopes of Shiryu Mountain’s main peak, beneath the Jai family palaces.
When she saw how far she’d kicked him, she looked more stunned than he was.
Jai Long’s whole purpose in allowing her to reach Highgold had been to measure himself against her. He was still ahead. The power of his techniques, his precision and timing, his speed: these were all beyond her.
But they should be. He was Truegold.
He shouldn’t feel any pressure from her attacks, but he did. He should be so much faster with his Flowing Starlight that she couldn’t keep up, and yet she did. She shouldn’t be able to threaten him except with her weapon, but that kick had nearly broken his ribs.
There was less of a distance between them now than there had been six months ago. He’d used the Ancestor’s Spear to gain power faster than any other sacred artist could, and she was still closing the gap.
Fear crawled up his spine, and for the first time, he focused his full power. He had to kill her now.
If he didn’t, then the next time they met, she would kill him.
He gathered points of light on the tips of his hands, forming Star’s Edge techniques. It would have been more effective with a weapon, but he worked with what he had.
Yerin leaped over to the slope with him, slashing out in a Striker technique. He broke it with one Star’s Edge, sending a Serpent’s Shadow at her to cover her movement as he leaped up the slope.
She followed, of course. Only when he reached the cliff and stood beneath the Jai clan homes did he turn and wait for her.
When she landed on the cliff, tattered black robes fluttering in the breeze, she sheathed her sword.
“You’ll need that,” he warned her.
She shrugged. “Still better armed than you are.”
A hand-sized Striker technique shot out from one of her Goldsigns, and though he crushed the madra immediately, she’d closed the gap.
He drove a Star’s Edge at her throat.
They exchanged a dozen blows in an instant, his Enforcer techniques crashing against her Goldsigns. His core had finally started to weaken, dimming from a bright moon to a fading star, and hers couldn’t have been much better. Her breaths were still in a cycling rhythm, but they were ragged.
She flicked her eyes to his hands, watching for his next attack, and he took the opening. He squeezed one last burst of speed out of Flowing Starlight, dashing behind her.
This was his chance. He didn’t have the power for a prolonged battle with her, certainly not without a weapon. She wasn’t even a priority target; if he’d known she would grow so fast, he would have taken Gokren’s suggestion and crushed her with the full power of their numbers.
He had one chance to end the threat she represented, and this was it.
Her back was open and unprotected. In one invisible motion, he slashed a razor-sharp Enforced palm at the back of her neck to sever her spine.
As he moved, his spirit cried a warning. He leaped back as the air rippled, and sword aura tore the space where he had just been standing
Yerin’s Goldsign had twisted behind her, launching a Ruler technique in her blind spot.
She spun, face red with anger—at herself for letting him get behind her or at him for trying to stab her in the back, he wasn’t sure—and sent another rippling slash at him. With his Star’s Edge, he broke that technique, and the next one, but she seemed to be trying to empty her core in one breath. The Striker techniques kept coming.
His Star’s Edge shattered too early.
There was still a rippling silver-edged distortion in the air, heading right at his face. He needed a moment to call his Enforcer technique back, but he didn’t have time.
Before he had time to think, he acted on instinct.
Jai Long used his Goldsign.
His jaw unhinged like a snake’s, tearing the red bandages away from his face. He bared a mouth full of glowing white fangs: his inheritance from the serpentine Remnant that had nearly taken his sister’s life. They twisted his face, reshaping his jaw, and anytime he opened his mouth he looked like a nightmare.
He opened his mouth wide and bit down on the rippling slash of energy, his teeth shattering the technique like glass. The shards of madra slashed at his cheeks, tearing the rest of his mask away, and he glared at Yerin with open hatred.
She kept her eyes on his, hand on her sword. Her spirit’s power was fading, but she was the picture of resolve, prepared to keep fighting.
Jai Long cast his perception back over the city. The tide was turning against them, he could feel it in the ebb of Stellar Spear madra throughout Serpent’s Grave.
Shame overcame him in a moment. The Jai clan had lost a battle in their own city.
But as much as it pained him, he was part of the clan again. His oath tugged at him, pulling him to do the responsible thing, to preserve himself for the family’s sake. He was wasting too much time on an uncertain battle, and fair fights were a fool’s game.
As soon as the clan regrouped, Jai Long intended to suggest that Jai Daishou kill Yerin personally.
Because Jai Long wasn’t sure he was up to the task.