While they weren’t destroyed, they were weakened.
Lindon slammed an Empty Palm against them, focusing his will and his soulfire on the technique. A Forged palm bigger than his body smashed into the fluttering blades, and they crashed into it like a wall.
But each one pounded against his spirit, and he felt like a window pelted by hail. Each strike left him cracked.
That was when the dream sword arrived. It wasn’t as dense as the spirits of sword madra, so it was weakened more by the Hollow Domain, but still not enough. It plunged into Lindon’s mind, and his concentration was disrupted as it struck.
The Hollow Domain flickered. Dross pitted himself against the technique, but he was weaker than he had calculated. It took too long.
In the absence of the Domain, the remaining bladed bats flew around Lindon toward their intended target. Mercy called up her bloodline armor as she fell, and it formed before the Domain returned.
Even so, they cut straight through her armor.
Mercy’s blood sprayed the floor from a dozen wounds, and she screamed.
Dross finally broke the sword, and instead of rushing toward Yerin, Lindon had to fall toward Mercy. Concentrated pure madra broke the technique, but Mercy’s bloodline armor had already shattered. She bled from too many wounds, including one to the neck.
Lindon pressed down on it, pulling out the healing construct he’d withdrawn earlier. A pulsing sac of blood and life madra attached to her wound, feeding her healing energy, and her breathing steadied.
With dread in his heart, Lindon looked up to Yerin.
She was pinned to the wall by a rush of dense water madra, and he saw flickers of red as she battled with the glowing white silhouettes in the depths. He felt her holding her own, and he was encouraged.
Then Reigan Shen lazily raised his sword in her direction.
Lindon’s world focused to a single point.
“Stop!”
Reigan Shen froze. He snorted and tugged his arm against Lindon’s will as though pulling against stubborn cobwebs.
Pain stabbed through Lindon’s head, and his working broke. But he blinked past tears in his eyes to see that it did have some effect.
Reigan Shen had turned his sword toward Lindon instead.
[I cannot go further,] Dross said, but there was a little more emotion in his words now. He sounded ashamed. [I am…too weak.]
Me too, Lindon thought.
But Lindon raised his arm and gathered his madra. He would try to Consume some of the power in the attack Reigan Shen was about to use. If it had worked to weaken the Titan’s attack, maybe it would work here.
As he activated the technique in his arm, he felt a soul-piercing snap. The binding fell apart.
And his arm fell to his side, inert.
The glowing sword cracked the void as Reigan Shen swung it down, sending spatial cracks to every side like a spiderweb. A slash of orange light rushed for Lindon, and when he felt it, he realized his Consume technique would have done nothing anyway.
Lindon still didn’t give up.
He stood over Mercy’s body and radiated the Hollow Domain. If he weakened it enough, then maybe—
Eithan appeared in front of them.
Ghostly blue-white armor shimmered over every inch of his body, as though he wore a Remnant over his skin. Archlord soulfire rippled through him for a second, like quicksilver.
Then he was striking forward with a Forged spear.
His will and technique crashed against Reigan Shen’s. Deep, black cracks spiraled through the air as the world began to break.
Orange madra dispersed into essence, Eithan’s spear broke, and the cracks healed.
A smile tugged at one side of Reigan Shen’s mouth. “You’ve worked so hard to stand before me. I’m almost proud.”
“That’s not what I was working for,” Eithan said. “But I admit…it is a perk.”
Lindon felt something. Eithan had reached beyond himself for that attack. His will was dense, and far-reaching. He had tapped into something bigger than himself.
An image began to form at the ceiling, something more real than a working of dream and light. Lindon began to see a shaft of polished wood, projected from beyond reality.
Then Eithan gestured, and the image cut off.
Reigan Shen’s head jerked back, and he looked truly shocked. “What are you thinking?”
Eithan pointed another spear of pure madra. “You are not my goal. You’re just in my way.”
“Very well.” The Monarch lightly twirled the sword in his hand and another golden portal appeared behind him. “Die, then.”
And the battle between Eithan and Reigan Shen began.
16