“Escort her wherever she wishes to go, as long as you do not put her in further danger.”
Kahn Mala bowed to a distant point, and then looked back to Yerin. “Where would you like to go?”
“Can we get back down to Lindon?” Yerin asked Eithan. He shook his head. “Then let’s walk the road we’ve got. Where’s the Twin Star Sect?”
“I’ll find out,” the Archlady responded.
Eithan pointed.
Not all squads returned from the battlefield after dark, but theirs was scheduled to. Jai Long began to worry as the sun set, and that worry grew with every passing minute.
Finally, he went to find the Truegold Skysworn coordinating the Blackflame Empire’s forces. The woman was respectful to him, as he was about to advance past her, but she still couldn’t help.
“They haven’t checked in yet, and a number of squads were pinned down on the eastern slope. There.”
She pointed, and it was easy to see what she meant. An Overlord-level battle had erupted involving Emperor Naru Huan himself.
He swept great swathes of destructive green wind madra at his enemy, swinging his Blackflame greatsword in both hands, while his opponent controlled a pair of gold-and-blue serpentine dragons made of madra. A Stormcaller.
Jai Long had seen them in battle many times already, though he hadn’t crossed spears with them. It usually disturbed him that his sacred arts were so similar to a Dreadgod cult’s, but this time his throat was tight.
Kelsa and his sister were trapped behind that. Every Striker technique tore a new path through a forest and broke the clouds apart.
But the soulfire was still crawling through his veins. Slower, it seemed, every hour. There was nothing he could do.
He pressed his fists together and bowed to the Skysworn woman. “Please send someone to inform me when they check in,” he said. She gave him a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder.
“By this time tomorrow, you’ll be an Underlord. You’ll be able to take revenge yourself.”
Jai Long didn’t care what was going to happen tomorrow. He needed results today. And he was still more capable than any Lowgold, even mid-advancement as he was.
So he walked back to his tent, grabbed his spear, and changed into a nondescript outer robe that he stole from an unattended trunk. He veiled his spirit—as best he could, though the soulfire running through his channels meant that he wouldn’t stand up to a direct scan—and unwrapped his face.
Jai Long’s advancement to Gold had left him with an unfortunate Goldsign: sharp fangs of blue light and cheeks split deeply down his jaw to show them off. Usually, he kept his face covered to both protect his reputation and to spare others the sight.
Usually.
He hoped the advancement to Underlord would fix him, but thus far he’d kept the soulfire refining his spirit, not his body, in order to get him into fighting shape faster. It had slipped into his bones and organs anyway, even some of his limbs, but he’d managed to keep the soulfire away from his face.
While it might fix him, it might instead make things worse, and he didn’t want to find out until the last possible second. And, more relevant to his current predicament: no one knew what he looked like.
He strode out of the Blackflame Empire’s camp without anyone stopping him. He had to show his rank chip three times to be allowed to leave, but no one questioned a peak Truegold going out to fight.
It was perfect timing, in a sense. An Underlord would be too advanced to leave unquestioned, and a Highgold too weak.
He wouldn’t be able to re-enter the camp without a direct scan of his spirit, which would reveal him, but he shouldn’t need to hide then. He wouldn’t be alone.
Or he wouldn’t be returning.
He filled the body with his Enforcer technique. His inconsistently baptized channels meant that the technique was imbalanced, half-powerful and half-weak, so the snaking white lines of madra that covered his skin flickered between the verge of vanishing and shining brighter than ever.
His stride was just as uneven as the technique; he would dash forward, then stumble as strength left him, then shoot off far faster than he intended as his Enforcer technique gave him more of a boost. He kept his perception extended in case his team was on their way back, which had similar drawbacks; the distance and clarity of his spiritual sense varied by the second. But he made progress quickly, and soon he passed beneath the Overlord battle.
Which immediately proved to be a mistake.
The battle was hardly stationary; the two sacred artists were zipping across the sky. Jai Long had balanced slipping past them with staying out of the way, but there was only so much he could do.