[It’s rare for any sacred artist to be able to cycle with ultimate natural treasures,] Dross said. He manifested next to Lindon, looking proud. [Let’s all thank the Monarchs for financing our operation.]
Little Blue applauded.
The first chest from Orthos’ void key opened, and suddenly the temperature in the entire pocket world rose several degrees. Red-gold light spilled out, and all the fire aura Lindon could see strengthened visibly as he lifted out the Heaven’s Torch.
It looked almost like a miniature, reddish sun, and manipulating it with wind caused the aura to become infected with heat. Gusts of flame blew away, and without Lindon’s control, fires would have started all over the island.
He drifted the natural treasure into the cave and Ziel squared his shoulders. “I’ll handle the containment script,” he said, so Lindon stopped etching it into the surface.
“Oh, gratitude.”
Ziel stared at him. “You were doing it yourself, weren’t you?”
“I’d rather leave it to the expert.” In truth, Lindon was very practiced with the Blackflame containment script, but Ziel would save him some time. At least a minute or two.
Ziel trudged off, appearing even less eager than usual.
After the Heaven’s Torch came a heavily scripted tank. Lindon couldn’t manipulate this treasure directly, as even the incidental effects of aura exposure might cause a disaster. It resembled a fist-sized droplet of gray liquid, shifting under its own power.
Although gray wasn’t the perfect way to describe it. On closer inspection, neither was liquid.
It was a flickering, buzzing gray that looked like the world hadn’t made up its mind what color it should be. And it shifted and twitched in place like it was made of ten million tiny insects.
Little Blue shuddered back from it, while Orthos gave a gasp.
“Void Matter,” Lindon said. “The ultimate treasure of destruction aura.”
“I never thought I’d see it with my own eyes,” Orthos said.
“You can thank Reigan Shen.”
Lindon placed the tank containing the natural treasure inside the cave, close to the Heaven’s Torch. But not too close. He would have to rearrange them manually for perfect balance, but first he could at least get the treasures in the same room.
Lindon turned his attention to another location and began to raise a second cave entrance.
Into Yerin’s training room, Lindon placed a Blade Crystal, a paper-thin jewel that he had to hold gingerly with aura. One of the forms of ultimate sword treasure, the Crystal was so sharp that it was better used for training than actual combat.
She would balance that out with the Heart’s Gem she already possessed, so he moved on to Mercy’s training room. That he filled with a drop of Abyssal Ink, which rejected all light. He had to wait until Ziel finished the containment script for that one first, or it would have darkened the entire pocket world.
Once that cave was hidden with a darkness so impenetrable it twisted the eye, Ziel stood up from where he had been etching script into the stone.
“I know you’re about to surprise me,” he said. “I don’t even know why I’m saying anything. But if you couldn’t find a force treasure, I don’t blame—”
Lindon floated a box out of Little Blue’s void key.
This one had been relatively easy to transport, compared to the others. He opened the box and delicately lifted a head-sized ball of what seemed to be bronze. “The Sovereign Drum. As you know, force treasures rarely form naturally. This one was made by sacred artists before the Dread War.”
Ziel took it with precise care and carried it into the cycling room himself. Lindon was relieved. His own force control was rudimentary compared to Ziel’s, and an accidental strike of the Sovereign Drum could release enough power to blow the island apart.
“The Monarchs must hate you,” Ziel said.
“They do,” Lindon replied.
Most of the island was taken up by a broad stone building Lindon built for sparring. He reinforced it with rare metals and powerful scripts, and he would continue reinforcing it over the coming days. Ideally, he would have an entire separate space for that, as the hall was very small considering the scale of Monarch techniques.
But he was confident he could get it to withstand Monarch-level power.
After that, he raised up a more attractive building and separated it into rooms. Orthos and Little Blue began carrying furniture inside; he had hated to take up valuable void key space with things that had no spiritual power, but they had to rest somewhere.
Finally, Lindon only had one stretch of the marble island left to work with. He raised pale stone into a long, narrow building with eight rooms, like a stable made to hold exactly eight horses.
Ziel walked up as though to begin working on another script, but hesitated. “Who is this for?”
“All of us,” Lindon said.
[If it works,] Dross put in. [And this one really might not.] He drifted away from Lindon, carrying a simple construct carefully. The construct shone strange colors, radiating the power of corrupted dreams.
It had been made from a piece of the Silent King’s halo.
Dross placed the construct into the center of the leftmost room and fled, reappearing over Lindon’s shoulder.
“You aren’t going to activate it?” Lindon asked.
[I’m looking forward to it, I really am. Oh, I can’t wait! But maybe you do it.]
“It won’t hurt you.”
[We don’t know what it will do.]
That might be true. Lindon was painfully ignorant of the forces he was about to invoke. But he needed to learn.
With a pulse of pure madra, Lindon activated the construct.
An illusion filled the room. It was the image of another cave, one made of dark blue-black stone. A hollow that had been carved into the very foundation of the labyrinth.
It was filled with flickering images. Lindon looked into it and saw a kind of mirror; himself as an Unsouled, himself with no Dreadgod arm dying of old age, his parents as children, Yerin fighting Malice with her sword-arms black instead of red.
Past, present, and future flickered in a headache-inducing collage. A symbol over the top of the cave resembled some kind of abstract animal head surrounding what Lindon thought was an eye.
This illusionary recreation was much weaker than the real thing, but it still radiated authority that felt related to dream aura, but deeper. As though it were greater than dreams.
Ziel winced and held up a hand. Lindon was feeling the same way.
“We put together my memory, Dross’ memory, and captured images with constructs. Even so, this is a poor rendition of the original. It is too profound for us to understand.”
“Probably for the best,” Ziel said. He tried to glimpse the cavern again and had to blink back tears. “If I have to study a tiger, I’d rather have a picture than the real thing.”
Next to Lindon, Orthos and Little Blue quivered.
“What are these?” Orthos asked.
[The Paths of Heaven,] Dross responded, and for once he sounded completely serious.
Lindon deactivated the construct, and everyone gave a sigh of relief. He had similar constructs prepared for all eight, and he prepared to embed them into the floor of the chambers. As he did, he kept glancing at the eighth.
Since the illusion construct wasn’t active, the eighth opening only looked like an empty marble room, but this would be the dark one. The tunnel that had been added on later and filled with death.
Eithan’s original creation. The height of his Path.
“We’re going to join them soon,” Lindon said, and he was speaking to himself as much as anyone. In his left hand, he rolled Suriel’s marble.
“I never thought we would find ourselves fighting among Monarchs,” Orthos said. “Much less so soon. Only yesterday, you were a Jade quaking beneath my footsteps.”