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“Who are you?” the horned man asked the Skysworn, wearily.

Renfei was muttering under her breath. “Bai Rou, do not follow. I repeat, maintain your position and call for reinforcements. Multiple enemies. We will try to disengage.” When the man addressed her, she drew up straight and consciously drew her hand away from her weapon. The black cloud over her head rolled and rumbled.

“We are the Skysworn of the Blackflame Empire,” Renfei announced. “We are responding to reports of a disturbance around this facility after the passage of the Bleeding Phoenix.”

Her voice was smooth and practiced, but her tension infected Lindon. He withdrew Blackflame, changing his breathing pattern and pulling power from his pure core. Blackflame would serve him better in combat, but in a fight between Truegolds, could he even make a difference? Anonymity would serve him better.

The man’s perception moved over their group, slow and careless. He dismissed Lindon in a blink, but his spirit lay heavy on Orthos and Renfei. “Who is backing you? The Winter Sage?”

Orthos snarled, smoke and red light rising from his shell. “We need not answer to you.”

The stranger stared at Orthos with absolute disinterest, as though replying was too much effort. Based on Lindon’s feeling of the horned man’s spirit, his confidence was entirely justified.

A woman’s voice piped up over his, airy and amused. “When you’re done, leave me their trinkets,” the golden dragon-girl said. “It’s so exciting to see a pack just bulging with who-knows-what treasures. And I like the look of that armor.”

The green-horned man sighed. “Not every fight needs to be to the death, dragon. What could they possibly have on them?”

“They shouldn’t be here,” came an eerie whisper from the Redmoon Hall girl. The liquid form of her Blood Shadow had almost reached the base of the portal. “They are not bound by the rules. Who can know who sent them?”

“We are here on behalf of the Blackflame Empire,” Renfei said loudly, “under the protection of the Akura family.” She shot a glance to the man cycling on the boulder. “If we have disturbed the honorable representative of Redmoon Hall, we apologize and will withdraw.”

“Back,” she said under her breath to Lindon. “Back through the portal.”

Lindon turned immediately, but a tendril of blood raised itself from the ground and poised in front of him like a snake coiling to strike.

“Hold, Lowgold,” the young woman commanded. “We wait for instructions.”

“No need to bother your Sage with this,” the golden dragon said. She was approaching by then, strolling closer to the portal, though Lindon noticed she gave the cycling man’s boulder a wide berth. “Strip them and send their bodies to the ocean. What is that behind your back, Skysworn?”

For the first time, Lindon realized that Renfei was gripping the Eye of the Deep behind her back in her left hand. Her fist tightened around the gem, but she still edged backwards.

“I salute the honored representative of the Desert Monarch and King of all Dragons, and I assure you, if we are allowed to return to our empire, we will send you a greeting-gift that far outstrips any of our meager belongings. Furthermore—”

The world went silent as the young man on the boulder opened his eyes. Like Mercy’s, they shimmered like a deep amethyst.

Shadow flashed out from the seated man as though it had been unleashed, dimming all light. His right hand drifted up, then down, like a painter leisurely adding a stroke to canvas.

“Silence,” he said, as his hand lowered.

In a blink, so that Lindon thought he’d imagined it, a thin line of shadow flickered down, passing through the middle of Renfei’s body from the top of her head down.

The Akura representative closed his eyes.

Renfei fell apart.

Her armor was still untouched, but her body collapsed in a pile of blood. Lindon stared, too stunned to be horrified, and before he could avert his eyes, the Blood Shadow covered Renfei’s corpse.

An instant later, a towering giant of black clouds slid out of the Shadow with an explosion of force that sent both Lindon and Orthos tumbling away from the portal. The Remnant punched two fists of dark fog together with explosions that cracked like thunder, launching itself forward.

The golden dragon-girl met it with a tinkling laugh, sending a wrist-thick river of golden liquid punching through the spirit, but Lindon didn’t have time to watch. The Blood Shadow was re-forming, gathering itself up to engulf him.

A massive boulder plunged from above, slamming into the sand, cutting off the Blood Shadow and shielding Lindon.

The green-horned man stood staring at a hole next to him, where that boulder had once rested. He gave no sign that he had even moved, his dirty cloak hanging dead from his shoulders.

“He is not your opponent, Yan Shoumei,” he said wearily.

“But you are,” she said, gathering her Blood Shadow around her and dashing forward.”

The young man walked to the other side of another boulder, kicking it lightly. A green ring flashed as his foot made contact, and the boulder shot forward as though launched from a catapult.

Whether by design or coincidence, it landed inches from the first boulder, between Lindon and the portal.

Lindon ducked behind the stones, leaning around them to look at the place where Renfei had fallen. He was choked by a complex mess of emotions when he saw her half a face—relief that she was gone, regret that he couldn’t bring her body back to her family, and fear now that she wasn’t around to protect him. Though he’d never trusted her, at least she’d been on his side.

But he wasn’t looking for her body. He was looking for a way out.

Her armor was still unharmed; it seemed that the shadow-sword had struck her through the green Skysworn plate without damaging the metal. He wanted to take it with him, but it was still half-engulfed in Yan Shoumei’s Blood Shadow, and Lindon wasn’t foolish enough to stick either of his hands anywhere near that. Maybe his Remnant arm could feed on it like it fed on the bloodspawn, but he wasn’t willing to bet his own safety on it.

Her hammer was nowhere to be seen, which he regretted even more than the armor. As the weapon of a Truegold from the Cloud Hammer sect, it would have been invaluable.

But most importantly…

The sapphire she’d been holding behind her back rolled free, darkened with spots of her blood.

Lindon snatched it up, stuffing it quickly into his pack. If he had the Eye of the Deep, he could deactivate the portal after leaving. Maybe he could lock these others inside to fight it out amongst themselves.

Orthos roared, launching dragon’s breath at the gold-scaled girl engaged with Renfei’s Remnant, but she ducked to one side of his Striker technique and avoided it with ease. The Cloud Hammer Remnant reared back, preparing to drive a dense fist into the girl’s head.

A sigh cut across the battle, and the Akura young man opened his eyes again. The shadow returned.

“I asked for silence.”

Flickers of black, like feathers in the night.

Renfei’s Remnant was split into two clouds, which drifted apart as it began to dissolve into essence.

The dragon-girl skidded to a halt, scattering sand into the air. The shadow-blade passed in front of her, leaving a perfect line sliced into the ground.

The horned man raised a hand, and a circle of green script flashed into existence in front of him. The edge of shadow cut into it, and the script flickered at the contact before shattering like glass.

His shield must have weakened the attack, because he didn’t fall into two pieces like Renfei had. Instead, the skin on his hand split open, leaking blood. He stared at the wound with lifeless eyes, as though watching someone else’s hand.