But he’d tried to split his concentration too many ways. His Ruler technique fell apart.
Yerin dropped as the water around her rained back down. Cycling underwater was like trying to push gravel through your channels, so she hadn’t bothered using any other techniques while she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were on fire, but that wasn’t even close to the top of her mind.
And she’d never released her Flowing Sword. The blade shone like a silver star in her hand, a bonfire of madra and aura. It carried power like a Truegold’s weapon, and she was about to see how it stacked up against his armor.
She angled herself to fall next to him, raising her sword for a strike. He was just turning away from the Blood Shadow, his perception sweeping through her spirit with a shiver. She gave a cheer in her heart; he was too late. She had him.
Then a black spear pierced her through the chest.
She’d set her eyes on Bai Rou, so she had no warning until she felt the hot pain beneath her collar. A black point, thin as a finger, stretched from her robes.
Her lungs seized up. Her spirit fought against the dark madra passing through her, which was a contest her spirit easily won. The black branch dissolved within a second, but it had enough to disrupt her techniques. The power blew away from her sword like dust on the wind, and she splashed into the sea.
The pain vanished when the madra did, and she touched her skin with her fingertips. No wound. It didn’t even feel bruised.
Her fury surged again, and she twisted in the water, pushing madra back into her sword. Her core was all but empty, with only scraps left, but she’d go at Bai Rou with her teeth if she had to.
A black tendril, like a burnt tree root, wrapped around her. She slashed it away, but three more replaced it, cradling her and hauling her back through the waves. She struggled, but she wasn’t far from shore. The branches pulled her back to shore, and she rolled onto her feet, pushing her way free.
Mercy stood there panting, covered in sand, her ponytail undone. The dark madra extended from her oil-gloved hand. She had taken his side.
Yerin cycled the last of her madra through her weapon, preparing the Endless Sword, but Mercy released her own technique and collapsed back onto the sand, panting. “That’s…harder than…it looks,” she said through labored breaths.
The Blood Shadow faded to red light, which streamed out of the ocean and into Yerin’s back. It slid into her spirit, coiling around her core weakened and unsatisfied. Yerin felt about the same.
She paced to the side, keeping her sword on Mercy and her perception locked on Bai Rou. He hadn’t moved. Why?
Mercy’s staff lay next to her, the eyes of its dragon-head glowing violet, but she didn’t reach for it. “We can’t fight each other,” she said quietly.
Yerin gave a weak, angry laugh. She reversed her sword, plunging it into the beach an inch from Mercy, but the Akura girl didn’t flinch.
“We? You’ve buried me.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You think he’ll let me walk away now? That’s my one chance gone.” Yerin stood over Mercy, rage and the frustration of failure boiling inside her.
Mercy held up her hands, showing them empty. “I thought we should be more worried about them.” She pointed both hands up at the sky.
Since the portal vanished, Yerin had kept her spirit locked on Bai Rou. Now, she finally noticed the rest of the world.
A golden cloud hovered only a hundred feet over them: a Thousand-Mile Cloud big enough to hold several houses. How had they not seen that when they arrived? How had they not felt the ones riding it? In her spirit, they shone like burning lamp-oil.
One of those questions was answered as another veil dropped on another side of the island. Its presence felt wild, savage, eager for battle. A thousand beasts roared along with the rising power, shaking the forest. Winged creatures took to the sky in a cloud.
But she could understand veils. She didn’t understand how the air could part only a few yards from her, revealing a towering black castle that stretched from the beach into the forest. It cast its shadow over her and Mercy both. It looked like it had been dropped from the sky, with half-crushed trees emerging from its foundation, but she didn’t hear the crunch. Had they been like that all this time, and her eyes had been tricked?
The whole palace was surrounded by a smooth rectangular outer wall, its only visible opening a pair of tall, spiked gates. From behind those gates, Yerin sensed darkness, fear, and endless despair.
Veils continued to drop all around the forest, so powerful that she was sure some of these forces had to contain Underlords at least. From the far shore, she felt a familiar feeling of nauseating slaughter: a Blood Shadow. Maybe more than one.
Powerless, Yerin dropped to the sand next to Mercy. They had never been alone on this island. They were surrounded.
The instant the portal was destroyed, Yan Shoumei was overcome with anger. Her Blood Shadow picked up on her agitation and started to flow toward the Lowgold.
It wasn’t just her agitation. Something about his thin, white replacement arm stoked her Shadow’s appetite, which was a complication she didn’t need.
She remembered herself just in time and pulled it back. Ziel, the horned boy from the Wasteland, was nearby, and she knew him by reputation. He was known to wait on the sidelines for an advantage. The second she struck at the Lowgold, he would take advantage of her distraction and hit her while she was distracted.
There was no love lost between Redmoon Hall and the sacred artists of the Wasteland. Especially not now, after the Dreadgod’s rampage.
Instead, keeping an eye on Ziel, she drew her Shadow back into a cloak around herself and began backing away. Contrary to her expectations, he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was staring at the broken portal frame with a dead look on his face.
Maybe he didn’t have a gatestone. Shoumei had no doubt that the gold dragon and the Akura did, so if Ziel did not, he might end up as the only one trapped here in this pocket world. If so, she might owe that Lowgold thanks.
...though her anger returned when she thought of having to crack her gatestone. Each of those represented days of work from a Sage or better; they were not handed out frivolously.
It was meant to save her life from a situation of certain death. Breaking it to replace what should have been a free trip home was frustrating at best.
She backed up until she felt the cool air coming off the wall of water behind her. Ziel was staring at the portal, either lost in despair or in contact with his master. Harmony was cycling still, and thank the heavens for that. He even made her Blood Shadow shiver. Ekerinatoth and the turtle were engaged in battle, while the Lowgold scrambled around to recover something in the sand.
According to the truce, none of them were allowed to leave this habitat until all six faction representatives arrived. They were still waiting on the young prince of the Tidewalker sect and the delegate from the Ninecloud Court.
However, without the portal, there was no point in waiting. The treaty had been decided by the higher-ups in each faction, so Shoumei should never violate it on purely her own judgment, but...
She slipped into the dark water.
The Sage of Red Faith would applaud her decision. Even if some supervising Heralds could sense what was happening here, they wouldn’t blame her when she wasn’t the one to break the pact.
No one followed her, or even noticed her leave. She was free to hunt.
Ekerinatoth snapped another whip at the retreating dragon-turtle. It cut a satisfying chunk out of his shell, but her opponent didn’t turn. Instead, he used that Enforcer technique of his to dash away and follow his human through the bubble of water aura containing the vast ocean of Ghostwater.