Mercy had grown up with near-constant access to people who had advanced past Overlord, and in one of the richest inhabitable aura locations in the world. If it was that easy, everyone would have done it.
But she still found herself somehow believing it was possible here, now. Why not? She was a peak Underlady, and she was even acclimated to Overlord-level madra and soulfire thanks to her Book. Now that they’d prepared the environment, the only thing missing was her own revelation.
With a deep breath, Mercy slid down the slope and into the trench.
Facing the black-and-white image of her mother.
Malice spotted Mercy, and Mercy’s heart caught. Malice pulled her own bow—identical to Mercy’s—back, and Forged an arrow on it. Mercy did the same.
As they faced one another, dream aura drifted over from one of the natural treasures. It twisted and reacted to the hunger madra, guided by this place.
And Mercy felt something. A taste of her mother’s memories.
Malice was down here, in the labyrinth, because no one had fully explored it before. This was going to be fuel for her rise to Monarch.
And she would not allow anyone to get in her way.
Both Malice and Mercy released their arrows. Mercy’s passed through Malice as though the woman was made of mist, then embedded itself in the wall at the end of the trench. Malice’s struck Mercy and dissipated.
Even that image called up another instinctive half-memory. Malice was more of an archer than Mercy was. Not just a better archer. More of one.
Another memory surfaced, still not Mercy’s, but one she’d seen before in a dream tablet she’d won from the Uncrowned King tournament.
Larian, the famous archer of the Eight-Man Empire, demonstrated her form as she drew back her bow. Her voice had explained what she was doing.
“A launcher construct is by far more efficient than a stick with an elastic string. So why do sacred artists use bows?”
She released an arrow, and it streaked through the air, detonating a mountain-sized tree in the distance. The explosion from the arrow filled the sky with dust and debris.
“A woman with a bow taps into the power of all who have used bows, of what it means to wield a bow,” she continued. “You are not just an archer. You are a fragment of The Archer, the single template of all archery. The bow is one of the deepest symbols of all.”
There was a trace of that concept in her mother’s archery. The Bow Icon, The Archer, whatever you wanted to call it.
Mercy had meditated on this concept before. She had even asked her mother to demonstrate, and viewed the dream tablets that she could handle. But somehow, watching it here and now—a version of her mother who hadn’t perfected her connection to an Icon yet—caused realization to slide into place.
And slowly, subconsciously, Mercy began to adjust her stance in ways she couldn’t even name.
Ziel looked down on the trench. “We don’t have time for this.”
“In fact, we do,” Eithan said casually. “Subject One has closed the way forward for the moment, but he has to fight the nature of the labyrinth to hold it. We must wait for his grip to relax, so we might as well put the time to good use.”
“You don’t seem worried about the lost time.”
“Do you think worrying would help?” Eithan nodded to Mercy. “Besides, if we walk out of here with another young Overlady, I will consider that a substantial gain.”
“This doesn’t look like Overlord meditation,” he muttered. An arrow slammed into the wall, and this one caused the room to shake.
Eithan was leaning on the wall over him. “Even if she doesn’t technically advance, this could be a more valuable breakthrough. After all, we’re not Sages, are we?”
“Don’t blow smoke in my eyes.”
If Eithan had the resources to perform the Pure Storm Baptism and was insightful enough to give a Monarch advice while still an Underlord, he wouldn’t be stuck as a mere Archlord.
Meanwhile, Ziel was happy just having a healthy body and spirit.
Am I? he wondered.
It wasn’t that long ago since he had felt something else as he faced down the Titan. Some part of him still wanted more.
There were dream artists who performed mental therapy. He should find one of them. Too bad he didn’t have any Lord revelations left; he could have used a nice, cleansing personal revelation.
Yerin and Lindon were moving around the room, crushing hunger spirits with minimal madra expenditure. This was known as one of the deadliest locations in the world, where even Lords could be devoured, and they were treating it like a game squashing bugs.