He pulled Little Blue out of his pack—her container had indeed cracked, but only slightly, and not enough to spill any of the water within. She saw the Blood Shadow and flinched, letting out a piping scream. Then she ran from Yerin, tucking herself back inside his backpack.
He hadn't expected her to help anyway. Her power washed madra channels clean, she didn't expel parasites, otherwise Eithan could have used Little Blue to free Yerin from the Blood Shadow months ago.
Bloodspawn slammed against the door, and the circle flared. It wouldn't hold against them for long. Every time the circle expended power, it would push against the material of the door, until eventually the wood broke and snapped, the circle deforming. Scripts engraved in metal or stone lasted longer, but they weren't appropriate for all aspects of madra. Also, they often took more power to operate.
He switched to his pure core, reluctant to touch the parasite, but he had to try.
Gathering power, he slammed an Empty Palm into Yerin's core. He felt the pure madra penetrate, disrupting the flow of power through Yerin's body. She bucked again, but the Blood Shadow didn't seem to mind.
It wasn't anchored in Yerin's core, but around it. He could feel that now, though the haze of the Bleeding Phoenix still hung in the aura around him.
He couldn't shake it loose. His Sylvan Riverseed couldn't cleanse it.
There was one more thing he could try.
The closer he got, the more the Shadow reached for his arm. His skeletal white hand, which had fed on the bloodspawn, was too frightened of this parasite to get close.
Lindon wished he had a drudge. It could help detect and measure the interactions of madra, so he wouldn't have to rely on feelings and guesswork. Instead, he had to rely on blind experimentation.
There was some relationship between the Blood Shadow and the material of his arm. It almost made sense: the Bleeding Phoenix was awakened by the power hidden in the same labyrinth where he'd found the Ancestor's Spear and the binding of hunger madra.
It seemed as though this piece of the Phoenix's power wanted to feed on his arm, rather than the other way around. But the binding in his arm was supposed to devour madra.
It was possible that he could tear it free.
There were risks. First, he didn't know what the Shadow wanted with his arm. It was possible that he was feeding it exactly what it needed to grow strong enough to consume Yerin completely.
Second, he had used the arm for less than a week. It still wasn't bound to him completely. He couldn't even control its motion all the time, and he was supposed to wait for three to five more weeks before he activated the binding.
Third, there was the danger to him. He didn't want to pull a mass of self-aware blood madra into his core...but at least he had one to spare. It was better than leaving it free to control Yerin.
But that was if it went into his core at all. It wasn't in Yerin's. If it attached itself to his spirit, or embedded itself inside his arm, he wouldn't be any better off than Yerin was. Less so, considering her years of experience.
Another bloodspawn slammed on the door, and the circle flared again. Mercy stood below the door, staff in both hands, ready to protect them.
It was time for Lindon to do his part.
He placed his palm on the bloody surface of the parasite, then triggered the binding.
Chapter 17
Deep in a trance, Yerin fought for her soul. And for the lives of the people around her.
She didn't even know where she was. Her body had been moving, she knew, but she couldn't tell where she was or what was happening. She might be all clear to stop struggling. To let go.
That thought whispered to her, and it was too sweet. Too sweet to trust. Out of sheer stubbornness, she clung to her uninvited guest. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd been fighting to keep it from taking over her body. From draining her dry and wearing her like a suit.
Now, she fought to keep it from leaving.
The Blood Shadow wanted nothing more than to tear itself away from her. It strained for freedom, pulling away from her spirit, but she poured the whole force of her spirit and mind on keeping it trapped within.
Why? That was a puzzle and a half. Maybe the Dreadgod was spraying so much power everywhere that the Blood Shadow was getting thirsty. Maybe she was about to beat it, and it was trying to run. Maybe it was finally leaving her alone.
But she didn't need to know why.
The Blood Shadow wanted it, so she was going to stop it.
She almost lost her grip on it when something drove a hole in her madra, but lucky for her, the Shadow itself took the brunt of that hit. It was stunned just as much as she was, so she kept hold. In fact, for a moment, she had the upper hand.
Then something started pulling.
Arms of blood madra wrapped around Lindon's pale right arm. They stuck as though they were covered in suckers, and the madra burned where it made contact. Being a Remnant arm, it felt more like burning his spirit than his body, but that was an ache all its own.
His madra channels, already strained by what he'd done with the Thousand-Mile Cloud, felt like tendons on the brink of tearing. The arm was already a burden on his spirit, and activating the binding was worse.
But it was working. The technique embedded in his arm had fastened itself to the heart of the Blood Shadow, and he was pulling it away from Yerin. It peeled back, inch by inch, as he stretched his spirit to its limit.
The binding had released a vortex of white light, which was meant to devour the Shadow, but the parasite fought to feed on the arm instead. They were stuck together as though nailed, but Lindon couldn't pull the Shadow the last few inches. There was still a short tether connecting the Blood Shadow to her core.
A crash came from the door as a bloodspawn exploded through and into the room. The rest of its brood followed, only to meet Mercy's vast black web.
Lindon was out of time.
With one last, wrenching effort, he pulled the Blood Shadow free.
Yerin's body shuddered and shrunk back to the ground, limp. Her chest was heaving, which led him to let out a sigh of relief. His one other concern had been that pulling the parasite free would somehow kill her.
Now, he stopped powering the binding, but the Shadow was still attached to his arm. It was a huge mass, easily half the size of Yerin's body, and most of it was a bulbous shape stuck to Lindon's palm. The rest was wrapped around his arm like the roots of a tree, and he could feel it trying to burrow inside.
It hadn't succeeded yet, but he only had a moment. Focusing the pure madra of his core, he squeezed a little more out of his exhausted spirit. His core was still half-full, but his madra channels were as ragged as old clothes.
In a focused wave, as though striking with an Empty Palm, he thrust as much pure madra as he could out of his right arm.
The Blood Shadow blasted away, losing its grip on him, and Lindon thought he could hear it hiss.
An instant later, he realized it wasn't his imagination at all.
The spiritual parasite was hissing, and snarling, and burbling like a boiling cauldron. All at the same time. It was also contorting into a roughly humanoid shape. It's becoming a bloodspawn, he thought, but he almost immediately realized that was wrong.
Or at least incomplete.
This was darker, thicker, and more real than a bloodspawn. It stood on two feet, not two oozing shapes meant to resemble legs. It had two arms and two hands, not the vague outlines of arms. It still had no face, but it looked as though it had hair. Hair cut straight across the back of her neck.
He was starting to have a bad feeling about this.