Above it all, the Herald and Sage clashed. As their techniques slammed into one another, the night sky lit scarlet.
An Emissary hurled a Forged red arrow at Yerin as she appeared, and she cut it out of the air without splitting him in half. She couldn’t tell friend from foe, after all, and she didn’t want to do Redmoon’s work for him.
Netherclaw shone red-white with the Flowing Sword Enforcer technique running through it, and Yerin bent her knees. With the full power of the Steelborn Iron body, she leaped.
The deck of the cloud fortress cracked with the force of her jump. She pushed the whole cloud base down five feet, and every Emissary on deck stumbled.
Yerin guided her flight with aura, flying toward the Herald.
He and the Sage moved faster than she could, and when he saw her coming, he waved a hand. A spear big as a lighthouse formed among the clouds, and it plunged toward her with blurring speed.
Yerin’s Bridge flashed again, and she slashed down on the Herald from behind.
He was faster than her…but not that fast.
She split him from shoulder to hip, and the wind from her strike cut a cloud in two and revealed the moon again.
In another flash of light, Yerin moved away.
She had enough experience of her own to know how fast Heralds could bring themselves back together, especially one with a blood Path. Sure enough, a spearhead passed where she’d been a moment before, and Redmoon looked more annoyed than hurt. Strands of red pulled both halves of his body back together.
But that wasn’t free.
Nine crimson daggers, guided by the Sage, collapsed on the Herald. Redmoon shot away, a blur even to Yerin’s senses, and the Sage’s voice echoed through the world.
“Be still!”
It wasn’t focused on Yerin, but even she shuddered for a second. The Blood Sage’s authority over the body was absolute.
Redmoon was a Herald whose willpower had been sharpened since before Yerin’s grandfather was born, so when he froze for long enough to allow three daggers to tear apart his rib cage, she was impressed with the Blood Sage.
For a second.
It was a fleeting thought.
She didn’t miss the same opening, though, striking out with the Endless Sword. Red Faith’s daggers echoed with both blood and sword aura, and Redmoon exploded.
Yerin whistled.
Sure, they’d ambushed the man and hit him two against one, but that still wasn’t the grand showdown she’d expected. They’d blasted him to a fine mist, with a few of his meatier bits falling to the ship below.
“Thought he was supposed to be tough,” Yerin called to Red Faith.
The Sage scowled as his nine daggers flew back to arrange themselves above and behind him. “He has crossed blows with Akura Fury and lived to tell of it. I distrust such ease. I suspect…” He gnawed on his knuckle and looked skyward.
But before he could say anything, Yerin heard a distant bird’s song.
Her head throbbed.
Time reversed, pulling the pieces of the Herald back together. That wasn’t his power, but real restoration. The authority of a Sage.
Or of a phoenix.
Yerin’s body seized up as the pain in her head returned. She lost her grip on aura and plummeted through the air, watching helplessly as the deck of Redmoon Hall approached.
It was hard to concentrate on anything at all through the pain in her head and the foreign command over the blood madra running through her body, but she prepared the Moonlight Bridge. As soon as she was released, she’d move as far away as she could. If the Bridge took three days to restore itself, so what? At least she wouldn’t be next to the Phoenix.
She hit the deck, which didn’t hurt her any more than it would hurt a rock. The wood cracked, but her Herald’s body didn’t. She could fall from the moon without a bruise.
But it wasn’t the fall she was concerned about.
All around her, the members of Redmoon Hall had collapsed just as she had. All of them; the Phoenix didn’t seem concerned about one side versus the other.
Yerin rolled her eyes up to the sky even as she searched with her spiritual sense…and she didn’t feel the Dreadgod.
Its power was all around her, but the sky hadn’t turned red, and she didn’t feel its presence. This energy was something it had loaned Redmoon, like a construct. Or maybe it was reaching out with a technique from across the ocean.
The Herald finished pulling himself together, and the white trails under his eyes stood out against his pink skin. He bowed into the distance, and Yerin was sure he was honoring the Phoenix…until he too collapsed to one knee.