But Shen was focused on Eithan.
While the Monarch was distracted, his portal closed.
A Hollow Spear caught him through the gut.
He roared in pain as his spirit was scored, and Lindon felt the impact the spiritual damage had on his madra. Reigan Shen’s eyes flashed gold, and he tore open another portal behind him.
Lindon knew immediately that he had no chance of stopping this one from opening, but he had expected as much.
So he did the opposite, and pushed it wider. “Open.”
The portal opened easily this time, without the resistance that Shen had pushed through every other time inside the labyrinth. “Greetings from Tiberian,” the Monarch said.
Multicolored lightning thundered out of the portal.
It carried such destructive pressure that Lindon knew it wasn’t the end, but Eithan used everything he had to defend. The stars from the Hollow King’s Crown flew down to resist the lightning, Hollow Spears crashed against it, and he poured soulfire into everything.
The many-colored thunderbolt crashed through one star, then another. It broke a bundle of spears, pushed through a river of pure madra, and struck against the Hollow Armor.
Eithan gritted his teeth and pushed. His scissors split the storm madra as the attack peeled pieces of his Hollow Armor away one chunk at a time.
Finally, Eithan wavered unsteadily on his feet. Blue-white essence faded upward as his broken armor faded, but he had survived the attack.
Then a hand emerged from the portal, followed by another. The hands were made from Forged madra of the same aspect as the lightning before; storm madra of many lesser aspects woven together. This multicolored lightning was so dense as to be tangible, and it even reminded Lindon of the Ninecloud Court’s royal madra.
A man’s face pushed through, and Lindon could make out clear features of his face. This spirit was at least as dense as Little Blue or Ruby, with a similar level of existence. He looked like Eithan’s older brother, with short hair and a short beard, and a deeper light crackled in his eyes.
When he emerged, spiritual pressure pushed down on all of them. Even Reigan Shen flinched briefly at the tension in the air.
This was a Monarch without months of hunger aura eroding his spirit. A true Monarch’s Remnant.
As its gaze landed on Eithan, Lindon saw a golden collar encircling the Remnant’s throat. Runes on the gold blazed with power.
“Eithan,” the Remnant said, with a voice like buzzing lightning. “You survived. I am sorry.”
Pure grief was not an expression Lindon had expected from Eithan. “Shen…was our grudge really this deep, for you to do this?”
Tiberian’s lightning eyes turned to Reigan Shen, and he tried to duck back into the portal.
“Kill!” Reigan Shen commanded.
There was a clash of authority so intense that Lindon could feel it, as a weakened Monarch pitted its will against the Remnant of another. The collar flared, and he knew it would turn the competition in Shen’s favor.
This was Lindon’s chance.
With the last of his will, he issued the same command one final time: “Open.”
Reigan Shen’s concentration was entirely focused on Tiberian’s Remnant, and this time the portal around Tiberian expanded more rapidly. It pushed against the labyrinth, clashing against the authority that prevented spatial transportation until Lindon could hear the two forces groaning against one another.
But the labyrinth’s rule was endless. Reigan Shen’s authority was not.
With a snap, the portal’s structure collapsed.
The lightning Remnant smiled faintly as he let himself fade back into the void space. Shen tried to force the space back open, but the connection between himself and his weapons was now broken. It would take time to repair.
His golden eyes blazed with rage, and though Lindon felt like he would pass out at any second, he gave a smile.
“Apologies,” Lindon said.
The Monarch was not amused. Lindon only wished there were something they could do with this opportunity. Reigan Shen couldn’t recover his power either, and now he was cut off from his supply of weapons. This was the most mortal they could get him, and he had to be as low on madra and soulfire as they were.
But Eithan was just laughing weakly as he swayed on his feet, his armor still dissolving and scissors held in a trembling hand. His spirit felt like it would be extinguished by a passing breeze.
Ziel had lost consciousness at some point, and the burns across the left half of his body were still smoking. Mercy was conscious, and contained inside a cocoon of Strings of Shadow, but nothing she could do would defend her from even a casual attack of Reigan Shen’s.