Mercy’s shoulders slumped and she shot Little Blue a glance.
The Riverseed saw that and gave an indignant chime.
“For what it’s worth,” Lindon said, “I do not believe Little Blue will be the first to collapse.” Merely being connected to him had to be decent willpower training, considering what Lindon had put himself through in the last few years, and he could feel Blue’s heart through their bond. Her will was clear, strong, and well-developed.
She looked at him and raised her fists in the air with a ringing cheer.
“Also…” This was the hardest for Lindon to say, but it was the main point. “I will need to set aside my personal feelings for each of you. You may feel that I am ruthless or sense me as an enemy, but please don’t take it to heart.”
He tried not to glance at Yerin, but he failed.
A laugh burst out of her lips. “That’s what’s been hanging off you? Bring all you’ve got. If you think I want you to hold back, your ears have been shut.”
“That’s not quite my concern,” Lindon hedged. “As you know, I’ve gone through some changes recently—”
“We’ll take it,” Yerin said confidently.
“You might sense deeply that I’m trying to kill you, so please remember—”
“Let’s go!” Mercy called.
“Enough hesitation,” Orthos said.
Ziel planted his feet and nodded.
Little Blue chimed eagerly.
Lindon let out a heavy breath. “All right. Brace yourselves.” For a moment, Lindon organized his thoughts. He closed his eyes, focusing his willpower and feeling the power that ran through him. The hunger of his arm that now suffused him. The madra channels that were now melted into his flesh.
The fury of Blackflame. The emptiness of pure madra. The appetite of a Dreadgod.
He gathered it all together and prepared to remove his veil.
While Lindon stood there with eyes closed, Orthos tried not to let his amusement show through their contracted bond. The boy was so worried about what they would think of him, as though they hadn’t fought side-by-side for years.
They were all aware of how strong Lindon was now. None thought they could compare to him, but they were all eager to try.
He was either taking them too lightly or overestimating himself. Those would be unusual problems for Lindon, but this should make a good lesson for him.
Then Lindon’s eyes snapped open and his veil dropped.
Orthos shouted involuntarily. He would have staggered back several steps if he could have moved at all.
A mountain had collapsed onto his shell, and he was held in place by an invisible fist. That wasn’t Lindon, that couldn’t be Lindon. That was a Dreadgod.
The Empty Ghost.
And it was coming for him.
White circles on black orbs stared into Orthos, and Orthos knew his death had arrived. He felt the hunger of a predator trying to devour him, and it was all he could do to remain standing. Even his madra was frozen in his spirit, locked in place by sheer terror.
The pressure increased by the second, but all Orthos could see were those eyes. They were going to devour him, and the pressure was squeezing him from every angle. His death was everywhere.
He had felt nothing like this since the sky had turned black, and even then, at least the disaster hadn’t been focused on him. This time, Death was calling his name.
Helpless, Orthos collapsed.
Mercy had trained for months in the fifth page of the Book of Eternal Night, among the Dream of Darkness technique. She had practiced resistance against nightmares, and of course she had her experiences facing down the weakened Wandering Titan. Her own mother’s displeasure was significant willpower training.
She would be confident pitting herself against most anyone her age in a straight-up contest of will. Lindon would win, she was sure, but she would give him a good run.
Or so she thought before it came to this.
It was as though he’d punched through her rib cage and seized her core in his Dreadgod hand. She could feel his will gripping her from every angle, crushing her body and her spirit, his ravenous hunger ready to devour her whole.
The fear and guilt and anger she’d felt fighting against her mother came flooding back. Mercy had thought she had recovered enough from fighting Malice, but the force of Lindon’s spirit felt too much like her mother’s displeasure.
Mercy’s eyes crossed and she tried to summon her armor, but she couldn’t make it work. Desperate, she thought of the seventh page of her Book of Eternal Night.
That had a measure of her mother’s will inside it, so it would surely keep her on her feet. But then, what would be the purpose of this test?
Mercy stood as long as she could under the pressure of those black-and-white eyes. Eventually, she could take it no longer and dropped to her knees.
She was the second to drop, she saw, but she wasn’t too disappointed.
At least she had lost on her own.
Little Blue didn’t have any complex feelings about the test. She just tried her hardest.
Everything she could feel through their bond indicated that Lindon was really trying to kill her. He intended to crush her and eat her.
But he wouldn’t actually do that. She didn’t need to come up with any reasons to justify that, she just knew Lindon. He wouldn’t intentionally hurt her. For her, that was an ironclad fact of the universe.
No matter what her spirit was telling her, she only had to resist as long as she could. She screamed into the pressure, and though it came out more like a melodious whistle, it helped her stand up for a second longer.
When she fell, she collapsed onto her back and welcomed the relief from the pressure. When she turned and saw Mercy and Orthos already on the ground, she punched one fist into the air.
Ziel’s entire body was covered in sweat.
Pressure gripped his madra channels, threatening to twist his spirit in knots. He couldn’t hold back the memories of the Sage of Calling Storms, a grin on his face as he twisted his tools inside Ziel’s soul, subjecting him to that very fate.
But Ziel had lived with spiritual pain as a fact of his life for many years.
He shoved back out of sheer stubbornness. His fear, his discomfort, Lindon’s razor-sharp desire to kill him; what did those things matter? He would die on his feet.
Although those black-and-white eyes were relentless. They seemed to swallow the world. An endless void.
It had been hard enough to meet a weakened Wandering Titan in combat. This was like facing the Dreadgod down, alone, and engaging in a staring contest.
Now, he was preparing to fight the Weeping Dragon. To do that, he needed this training.
Ziel’s hands started to shake. The tremors traveled up his arms and all the way to his head, though he couldn’t seem to blink or pull his eyes away even if he wanted to.
Then the vibrations reached his knees, and he collapsed.
He thought he’d feel ashamed, but all he felt was relief. And then a small amount of pride.
He’d lasted as long as he realistically could. Besides Lindon, the only one still on their feet was Yerin.
Not a bad result, if he did say so himself.
Yerin had known how Lindon’s sacred arts had leaped forward after he’d Consumed the Silent King. He was somewhat outside normal advancement now, with a body and spirit more comparable to Heralds despite being a Sage. And she’d known how he struggled with the wills of those he Consumed.
Even so, she was no slouch herself. She’d faced down the Monarchs and hardly blinked, not to mention denying the will of the Bleeding Phoenix.
The others, she knew, couldn’t match Lindon. But she’d give him a race.
Or so she’d thought.