In a flash of blue light, everyone vanished.
~~~
When Lindon found himself in a dark cave, he immediately extended his spiritual perception and realized he was alone. There were powerful constructs buried beneath the ground and many scripts in operation, but no other living souls.
Why divide us into teams just to separate us? he wondered.
[False hope,] Dross said confidently. [Lift up your spirits and then just smash them to pieces.]
Lindon stood in a cavern of dark, jagged rock a few dozen feet wide and the same distance high. Lights speckled the ceiling like tiny stars. The cavern was much longer than it was wide, perhaps three hundred yards distant, and he could see no entrance or exit.
Before he could adjust to his new surroundings, the ground shook. A white dome split the rock beneath his feet, rising under him. He tried to leap off, but an invisible barrier prevented him, keeping him standing on the dome.
Dross screamed. [The earth is attacking! Kill it! Kill it!]
The dome rose up to the height of a house, giving him a look to the far end of the cavern. Against the distant wall, a black dome rose in exact parallel to the white dome on which he stood.
In front of his white dome, soldiers made of matching white rose up from the stone. The size and rough shape of men, the soldiers rose in three rows, each with about two dozen figures standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The edges of their line scraped the walls.
The ones in front carried shields and spears, the second row carried bows, and the final row were all individual sacred artists with their own Paths. Some of those had claws, some conjured flame, and some had haloes of light around their head.
The army of black figures looked exactly the same. It was like a game board, each side precisely matching the other.
In the air before Lindon, characters appeared in golden flame: “Defeat the Army.”
Then the front ranks of the armies rushed at each other.
The invisible wall containing Lindon vanished, but he didn't move away from the dome. When the golden words had appeared, a scroll had also fallen out of nowhere into his hand. He unraveled the scroll and read it.
The armies, it said, were perfectly matched. He could see as much just from observing the way the white and black soldiers would pierce each other at the same time. They replaced themselves endlessly—Lindon watched that happen too. After a pair of front-line soldiers fell, two more rose from the stone in the back, then hustled to return to the front.
However, the situation would not remain in a stalemate forever. The black soldiers would replace themselves faster and faster until eventually the white side was overwhelmed.
Lindon's objective was to lead the white army to victory by either eliminating all the black soldiers or destroying the dome representing the black base. Competitors would be ranked based on how thoroughly and how quickly they completed their tasks.
This was only the first of fifteen trials making up the first round of the competition. After that, the scroll contained no new information.
[Easy enough,] Dross said. [Just fire at the base. Give it a quick lick of dragon's breath, and we'll be on our way.]
Lindon doubted that would work, and he was too far away to hit the black dome anyway, but he needed more information.
He hopped down from the dome, dashing forward without using an Enforcer technique.
I'd like to avoid showing too much, Lindon said silently to Dross. The audience is watching us, and we want to give our opponents as little information as possible.
[Ah, I get it. A stealth mission. That's what I was born for: stealth. I'm so sneaky I hardly exist.]
Lindon ran through the back line of white soldiers—they parted to let him pass, but there was no empty space to the side for him to skirt around. He could feel now that each of these constructs had the power of an Underlord. He didn't know if they were created by powerful experts or ancient artifacts, but they would not be simple to defeat.
The battle raged around him, crushing his spiritual sense and shaking his body. Shield-bearing warriors slammed against each other, rattling Lindon's teeth, as Striker techniques scorched the air above him.
Black stone soldiers loomed over him, and though he was still a little far for his dragon's breath to be effective, he tried shooting a bar of black-and-red madra at the enemy dome.
As he'd expected, a globe of water rose from the sacred artists in the back row, swallowing up his technique. They would counter any attack he made on the enemy base.
Lindon retreated, sharing a quick discussion with Dross.
[They're using the same techniques and tactics over and over, so I could probably build a model of any one. But it'll take a little longer to hold the whole battlefield. I think the simplest solution is to eliminate one or to tilt things in our favor.]
Lindon agreed, but he'd have to show off his Blackflame Path to do so. He was feeling the pressure of time—as far as he knew, the other Underlords had all completed their task by now—but he suspected the hazards of rushing were greater than taking his time.
The purpose of the first round is to give everyone a chance to display their full power, even if they won't make it any further in the competition, Lindon said. Real victory will be if we can pass without showing all the cards in our hand.
[Oh, that’s a good plan! As long as you don’t fail. You don’t think you’ll fail, do you? That would be embarrassing, round one. Right out of the gate.]
Lindon backed up toward his dome. Two white soldiers climbed out of the stone, nodded to him, and then hurried to the battle. The gray stone of the plain healed as soon as they left.
He knelt and pressed his left hand to the rock, extending his spiritual perception. How does this work? he asked Dross.
[Hmmm...there are three different bindings down here making the soldiers, and then there are scripts that contain and control all the little fiddly pieces that make everything work.]
Could we disrupt it?
[Yes, but actually no. You feel that shield around the bindings? Right there, feel that? The second you try and send any madra down there, that’s going to get in the way. It would take you longer to blast your way down there and destroy the bindings than it would to just kill some soldiers. Which is the plan I would recommend, by the way.]
Lindon flexed the fingers of his right hand. But the shield is a madra construct? Not a script?
[Oh, I see where you’re heading with this. Yeah, that might work. It's all made of Lord-level madra, not like it was made by a Sage or a Monarch, so it's possible. Give it a try. The only thing to lose is the entire competition.]
Pressing his white Remnant arm to the ground, Lindon activated the binding. Hunger madra reached out, sticky threads of greed running down the stone toward the construct that produced the soldiers. The shield sprung to life, a spiritual dome surrounding the constructs, but the tendrils of hunger madra latched on. And began to feed.
Gray madra flooded into Lindon's arm, and he had to break off contact to vent it into the air in an explosive spray of force. Two more tries, and he'd drained the shield completely. The script surrounding it was dark and un-powered, the construct vulnerable.
Lindon stood, shaking out his aching right hand. All right, now the trick will be getting through the soldiers to the other two constructs.
[Eh, well, you don't want to show all your cards. You still have to show a few.]
Lindon ignited the Soul Cloak.
~~~
From the comfort of her mansion on the Akura floating mountain, Charity looked down onto the arena through a viewing-mirror.
The audience down below watched a handful of images at a time, each projected in crisp detail by light and dream madra into the center of the arena. The Ninecloud Court tournament staff would select the most interesting visions and share them with the audience.