“You don’t leave the gate open if you want the lambs to stay put,” Yerin muttered.
Eithan folded his arms. “I don’t like that Subject One seems to have taken Reigan Shen’s side. That makes our odds…unfortunate.”
Lindon had pulled out the case containing the Dreadgod’s hand, but now he just stared at it. Thinking.
He had resolved himself to keep everyone together, to fight together, and not to let the difference in their strengths matter. But in the end, he’d been forced to bow to reality.
“So it’s just us,” he said aloud. He forced a smile. “Makes sense. We’re the strongest.”
Yerin gave him a strange look, but Eithan looked as though he understood.
Evidently the labyrinth had lost patience with them, because the walls blurred again. Now, there was only one entrance.
And it led to another overwhelming spiritual presence, like the ones that had birthed the Tomb Hydras. This time, though, the feeling was of unstoppable physical power.
He released the hand, just to see if Subject One had been messing with them. This time, there was no response from the hunger techniques, and the hand indeed clawed in the direction of the one entrance.
“So which costs us less?” Eithan mused. “Fighting with that, or carving through the floor?”
Yerin was still watching the ceiling. “You want to run your feet instead of your lips?”
Lindon racked his brains. No matter how he thought of it, he couldn’t come up with a way to reach the bottom of the labyrinth with all three of them at peak fighting condition.
And if he didn’t, they would have no chance against Reigan Shen.
He might be able to see to himself. There should be an opportunity to extract some unadulterated hunger madra, and then he could get his Consume technique working again. At least for a while.
If he did, then he and Dross would have a way of restoring Lindon’s strength even in this aura-less environment.
But that required fighting this massively powerful dreadbeast and hoping.
“Let’s fight.” He began to run, but Yerin stood in front of him without moving.
“Don’t duel with yourself,” she warned.
Lindon nodded, but he dashed forward.
They ran down the hall…and although the master of the labyrinth had made them face a long hallway, their speed without Mercy and Ziel along was truly incredible. The Soul Cloak was economical enough to use even while sparing his madra, and Yerin’s physical power meant that she could literally sprint faster than her physical body should allow.
They reached the end of the hall in a blink, with Eithan lagging behind.
Lindon could see another of those endless rooms filled from wall to wall with flesh. The gorilla-like dreadbeasts that emerged reminded him of Crusher, and there were at least a dozen of them. Their pointed ears twitched toward the group as they arrived, and when they roared, the sound itself counted as an attack.
Right away, now that he could feel the scope of the opponent, Lindon stopped and began to turn. “We’ll try digging.”
Yerin had her sword and all six sword-arms out. “Better idea: let’s make a deal. Think I can get us good terms.”
Lindon’s heart twisted. She was about to fight. “No! Apologies, I mean, but…without you, we can’t…we can’t win.”
“There’s a lot about you that’s bright and sharp, Lindon.” Yerin smiled, and her red eyes gleamed. “But you think too much.”
Yerin’s entire body flashed white, and he saw another flare of light as she appeared in the center of the huge dreadbeasts.
Lindon still worried for a moment, feeling that overwhelming spiritual pressure, even though it didn’t make sense. The ones who were really in danger here were the dreadbeasts.
He was far away, now, so the chime sounded like a bell ringing softly next to his ear.
As Yerin used the Endless Sword.
Like a thousand invisible soldiers striking at once, blood flew into the air all around the chamber. If the previous scream had felt like an attack, this one rattled Lindon’s bones and shook the entire labyrinth.
The gorilla-like guardian dreadbeasts hurled themselves at her, and the Netherclaw technique began Forging over her head. As the three-clawed red hand wove itself into existence out of red strands of madra, Yerin looked at the surrounding monsters in contempt.
She said something, and though Lindon couldn’t hear it after having sealed off his ears, he understood the meaning behind it.
“Oh, please.”
Her Goldsigns flashed in four directions, and Rippling Swords shot out. In front of her, behind, and to either side.