He had barely recovered any pure madra over the last several days—he hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on Eithan’s elixirs to refill his pure core. As a result, he’d only been able to make one low-quality scale for Little Blue. She hadn’t been able to use any madra, so Orthos’ spirit was growing worse and worse.
Even if he managed to bring back this whole Carp, they couldn’t stay in the tunnels forever. Fortunately, his Blackflame core was in top condition.
He made it all the way back to the tunnel and opened the door, tossing the fish inside, before Ekeri showed herself.
His perception caught her descending like a meteor from the rock tower overhead. She blazed with power, aiming for him while he still held Dross in the keyhole.
Lindon released the Eye of the Deep and ignited the Burning Cloak.
He struck overhead, launching a punch along with a pulse of Blackflame madra above him. It wasn’t a true dragon’s breath, but it should at least singe her.
She was falling headfirst, her eyes blazing gold, her teeth bared. She slapped his punch aside with one claw, the other sweeping at his head.
Lindon caught it.
His Remnant arm seized on her wrist. His strength couldn’t compare to hers—not only was she a Truegold, she was a dragon. But he had gravity on his side. With all his strength, he hauled her down. She twisted in his grip, slamming into the ground braced on her feet and tail. Sand blasted away in a ring.
Lindon had already triggered his arm.
Intense heat flowed into his limb along with a flow of orange madra, sending spiritual pain shuddering through him. He gritted his teeth and continued even as she pulled back, trying to break his grip.
She snarled, turning, whipping her tail at him. He had to release her and jump back before her tail lashed him in the chest.
Without missing a beat, he vented the madra in his arm. Her own molten madra sprayed at her from only a few feet away, causing her to raise one gold hand to protect her face.
Seizing Dross again, Lindon dove through the gap and slammed the door shut.
Ekeri’s rage burned so hot that the nearby aura ignited. Even through the overwhelming power of water, the edges of the nearby stalks began to smolder and release smoke. The distant fish shrieked, but Ekeri wished they would close on her. She needed something to vent her frustration.
The other Truegolds would have moved on to other habitats by now, or to the wreckage of those that had collapsed. They would be reaping a rich harvest. And here she was, clawing at a treasure chest that remained stubbornly locked. No longer.
Raising her hand to her chest, she activated one of her necklaces: a chain of silver with a single thumbnail-sized bell on the end. The bell rang once. No matter how far away her attendants were, they would hear it and return.
The next time that door opened, they would kill everything inside.
Lindon leaned his head against the wall of the tunnel, his arms trembling. Blocking the Truegold’s attack directly had cracked bones in his left wrist, which his Iron body rushed to repair, and fractures had appeared in the madra of his right arm. He patched them over with pure madra, though he’d have to perform real maintenance with hunger madra when he left.
Even that brief exchange with Ekeri left him strained and bruised, but it also left him grinning like Eithan. He had traded blows with her and come out ahead.
Orthos had already torn the head off the Silverfang Carp, and was crunching happily through its skull. “I hope you’ve prepared yourself,” Orthos said through a mouthful of food.
Lindon nodded to the door. “I know. She won’t let me walk away next time.”
The turtle grunted. “No. Next time, you won’t let her walk away.”
Over the next few days, the fish became easier for Lindon to digest. It still kicked him like a horse, but it took him less time to process the energy, and he started to see a clear improvement in his body. Every time he cycled more of the sacred beast’s power was another round of tempering everything from his bones to his skin.
Orthos was clearly seeing the benefits too. He moved more easily than Lindon had ever seen him outside a fight, and even the fissure in his shell had started to close. Mentally, he reported feeling clearer than he had in years, so his mood was bright. Relatively speaking. However, his soul was still damaged and weak. He couldn’t use a single technique without treatment, which Little Blue was in no shape to give him. Lindon’s pure core recovered at a snail’s pace without help.
Every day, Lindon ate as much of the Carp as he could and trained Blackflame under Orthos’ supervision.
“You have been practicing a broken Path,” Orthos told him. “How many techniques were taught in the Blackflame Trials?”
“Three,” Lindon said. He knew where this was going, but he had no choice but to humor the sacred beast.
“And how many have you been using?”
“Two.”
“All Blackflame artists mastered those three, and incorporated them into their fighting styles. Most of them developed at least four. When you have greater insight into the use of your Path, you usually create other techniques to sharpen your strengths and cover your weaknesses. This is how you form a Path,” Orthos said, nodding at the wooden chest of Lindon’s belongings.
Lindon was surprised to see him allude to the Path of Twin Stars. He often seemed to ignore Lindon’s pure core entirely.
“You look at the purpose of your Path and you cultivate techniques to accomplish that purpose. You do not neglect one-third of your abilities because the other two-thirds seem easier to practice.”
Lindon had ignored Twin Stars for too long. The Empty Palm was the only real technique in his Path; the Heart of Twin Stars had no practical use in battle. What else did he need? Some way to close the gap with his opponent in order to land an Empty Palm, certainly. He was relying on the Burning Cloak for that so far, which meant he needed to switch cores too often.
Orthos thumped on the floor, sending a slap echoing through the hall. “You’ve taken the wrong point, I can see it in your eyes. Stop thinking and listen to me: we’re going to practice the Void Dragon’s Dance.”
This wasn’t the first time Lindon had heard this argument. While preparing to fight Jai Long, Orthos had argued that Lindon needed to master the Dance. But because their practice grounds had been both small and devoid of much fire aura, and because Eithan insisted that the duel would occur in a place with very little fire aura, they had abandoned the idea. As a result, Lindon had never used it in a real battle.
And rarely in practice; in his opinion, the technique seemed too large and unwieldy to use in an actual fight. It seemed like the sort of thing you’d want if you were burning down a forest or attacking a village.
He and Orthos gathered all the flammable trash in the hallway and spread it all around the huge, empty warehouse room that Lindon had found before. They intended to train both the Dance and his other clear weakness: it took him too long to form his dragon’s breath. They had made great progress on that before Jai Long, too, but they had never reached a point that satisfied Lindon.
The fires they ignited while training served as sources of aura for Lindon to cycle. A natural fire generated more fire aura than destruction aura, so Lindon’s advancement was much slower than it had been in the Blackflame training grounds of Serpent’s Grave, but it was enough to keep his core full for training. As long as they rationed themselves; they only had a limited amount of garbage in the hall.