53 - Spirit Well (Patreon)

Relief filled Lindon’s soul and body as the Spirit Well elixir worked its magic. He had cycled the contents to his pure core, and even as his Iron body siphoned its growing contents, the elixir was already beginning to push his advancement, purifying his core and strengthening its madra with every turn. It seemed like weeks and weeks of cycling and hard work were being condensed in every minute. If only he could cycle in vital aura as well, but unfortunately for his pure core, there was no such thing as pure aura.

The more madra seeped into his Iron body, the faster he could breathe. It felt like the broken bones of his torso slid into place on their own, their harsh sting reducing by the minute. The soreness around his muscles reduced in swelling at a noticeable pace.

It was only when he felt confident that he was not going to die that he opened his eyes and cast his sight and Jade senses about. His back was against the Spirit Well. It bathed the expansive room in a baby blue light. 

Seated against a wall separating them from… what seemed to be a library if the labyrinth of bookshelves were of any indication, were Sky and Mercy. They both looked up at him.

“He’s awake,” Sky said. It was still a shock to see him with barely any hair, and no eyebrows at that. They seemed to have grown back only slightly, covering his head with a hazy, near transparent film of white.

Then he saw Orthos, shell crushed and pieces carved out. His limbs and head had retreated into it. There was a pool of blood underneath him.

“You’ve been out for an hour,” Sky said, “How do you feel?”

“Where’s Yerin?” he asked, staring transfixed at Orthos, terrified to ask another question.

“Orthos is in trouble. Yerin went out to save him,” Sky said. He planted his spear on the ground and pushed himself to his feet with all his flagging strength. “How are you feeling, Lindon?”

Lindon scowled. “Yerin went out? On her own?”

“Yes,” Sky said tiredly.

Lindon couldn’t believe his ears.

“How could you—?”

“Orth–” Sky coughed, and the cough was terrible; hacking, long and jagged, with the sense that things were tearing apart on the inside. When Sky took away his hand, it didn’t have mere speckles of blood, his hand was covered with crimson. Lindon’s eyes widened, and he moved towards Sky, fumbling at a pouch, but the pale-faced Sky waved him off exhaustedly. 

“Never mind me. I’ll live. Orthos, though, he needs the elixir from the third well now,” Sky explained. “He’s in serious trouble.”

Lindon ran up to Orthos and slid on his knees, stopping just before the growing puddle of blood underneath him, right in front of Orthos’ headhole. “Hello? Orthos? Are you alright?”

The voice sounded like a weak echo of a man deep in a cave. “Tired…”

“Don’t fall asleep, Orthos, whatever you do.”

“Lindon,” Sky said gently. Lindon turned around to look at Sky. His expression was pained. “How are you feeling, Lindon?”

“I feel fine,” Lindon said.

Sky closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re not going to like the sound of this,” Sky said, “But I will just go ahead and say it, since lives are on the line: You’re our last line of defense, Lindon. Mercy can’t walk, and Orthos…” he sighed.

Mercy pushed herself up by her staff, walking the same exact way that Sky was walking: like a sickly old man on his last legs. “I can fight!”

Then the staff slipped on a smooth tile, and she landed roughly on her face.

She rolled up on her back. “I’m okay,” she said.

“Your leg?” Sky called out plaintively.

“Leg’s fine. Can’t feel it anyway. I think that means it’s fine.”

“I don’t think—”

“I understand,” Lindon said, then repeated it a little louder for emphasis, “I understand.”

Sky had taken the same exact hit that Lindon had, and for a moment, he had feared the worst.

Yet, he still lived.

“How are you feeling?” Lindon asked. 

“I think I broke some ribs,” he replied. “And I burned my lifeline to a crisp for extra power. Took a decent chunk out of my blood essence, too. I feel as strong as a day-old kitten and as stable as a baby deer on ice.”

The news hit Lindon like a train. “Your lifeline?”

He rolled his eyes. “The Life Well will fix it. You don’t seriously think that I would ever make a plan that involves my death, do you?”

Lindon had his doubts, though he kept silent. It wasn’t that he distrusted Sky, the Life Well just sounded too good to be true, even having seen the others. Something more out of legends than reality, or perhaps descended from the heavens themselves–even knowing what he knew of the sacred arts. A perfect spirit medicine, the next best thing to immortality in a bottle. Just lying around, free for the taking in an abandoned pocket world? 

Mercy finally pushed herself up on her staff. “Yerin will be back. I know it. She’s strong. And Palutin gave her some help.”

“Palutin?” Lindon raised an eyebrow. Sky just blinked.

“Ah, you were unconscious,” Sky said. Then he shrugged, “He’s an underling of the Beast King. His actual disciple, maybe. Not sure. Turns out that the factions that saw us coming in ended up raising a stink, and began sending more of their younglings in. Those Tidewalkers—the sharks—were not supposed to be here. But to hear the Beast King’s underling tell it, the dragons sent in three of theirs as well. We don’t know if the Ninecloud Court or Redmoon Hall sent more of theirs, either.”

“Hold on,” Lindon put a hand in front of his face as if to manipulate that deluge of information with it, “The Beast King’s underling helped us out? Why?”

“He’s really friendly,” Mercy beamed.

“But not our friend,” Sky said, “He has a rather strict definition of it. Simply be polite to him and his companions and you should be fine.”

“Will he protect her?” Lindon asked. Sky grimaced.

“He won’t do anything that puts his friends at risk,” Sky said, “And currently, Yerin doesn’t fit that definition. She’ll be on her own. They did give her a lift, though.” Sky paused, as if remembering something. “Also, she took Dross with her. So she has a lay of the land.”

“I need to follow her,” Lindon said, looking around the room, “Where is the exit?”

“Lindon, I love you like a brother, but please stop being dense,” Sky said, and Lindon raised an eyebrow at him, “What part of last line of defense don’t you understand? We’re helpless here. And you’re better off getting stronger and healing up with the Spirit Well to prepare for any threats that might face us.”

Lindon looked back at the veritable ocean of advancement elixirs and hungered from the pit of his soul. His Remnant hand jerked forward, dragging him a step towards the well. He wrestled for control over the limb, overpowering it with a will to do something far greater: having Yerin’s back.

But he couldn’t ignore his other friends, either. They were counting on him now.

If Yerin was out, he had to trust that she would return with what they needed, but leaving the rest of their crippled and injured group unprotected while he chased after her alone in the pocket world would only put everyone else at risk, including him.

Lindon bowed his head, “Apologies. I was not thinking clearly.”

“That’s a given,” Sky said as he slowly sidled down his spear shaft to sit on the ground. “You went through some pretty terrible things.”

“We understand,” Mercy said with a guileless grin, “You don’t have to blame yourself or anything. This is a pretty… rough situation.”

“Not like shark skin,” Sky muttered, “That’s very smooth.” He met their skeptical looks with a content expression, not explaining himself. He slowly laid flat on his back. “I’m glad you’re okay, Lindon, but I’m going to go to sleep now that you’ve been briefed on the situation.”

His breathing slowed down, but he cracked his eyes open one last time. “Don’t worry about Yerin, Lindon. Suppressing a Blood Shadow ever since she was a little girl… she’s stronger than you know, than I ever…”

He started to lightly snore. Mercy opened her void key and dug up a construct that looked like a wrapped up present. She put it on the ground, and out from it sprung a tent that could comfortably fit two people. “Could you move Sky inside? He’s… not in good shape.”

Lindon crouched to pick up Sky’s form. Even as tired and exhausted as Lindon was, it felt no more burdensome than picking up his backpack.

He searched for Sky’s void key, but saw that it was missing. As he moved Sky into the tent, he asked Mercy, “Do we have any more Dream Well water?”

“Yerin took his Void Key,” Mercy gave him a sullen look that then turned into a smile, “But I did snag a jug of it in mine if you’d like.”

After carefully placing Sky on a soft mattress inside the tent, he retreated and gave Mercy a deep bow, fists pressed together. “Gratitude, Mercy, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course not,” she said as she opened her void key, summoning a locker-sized space in the air. She pulled the jug out and gave it to him. Then she gave him another one, empty this time around. “Sorry, but… you should probably use this to drink the Spirit Well water instead of, you know, dipping your head in it.”

Lindon blushed furiously. “Apologies,” he bowed again, “A thousand apologies.”

“No, no! It’s fine! You were really hurt! I’m surprised you can still stand actually. The Spirit Well should only nourish the spirit, but it seemed to have helped your body as well.”

In any other case, Lindon wouldn’t have explained himself, but Sky seemed to have put a lot of his trust in her, and she was willing to part with their current stock of Dream Well water as well. The least he could do was meet that friendliness in turn. “My Bloodforged Iron body draws on my spirit to help regenerate wounds,” although in reality, it was more optimized towards purging poisons. 

Already, he could feel his pure core emptying as the Spirit Well’s effects began to die down. He would give it another hour until he was back in top form if he refilled on the spirit water.

“Impressive,” Mercy said with a wide grin. Lindon wasn’t sure if she was mocking him; she came from a Monarch’s family, after all.

“Gratitude,” Lindon smiled nervously,  “Though it probably cannot compare to the mythical Iron bodies afforded to those in your family.”

“I always found it made more sense to avoid getting hurt than being able to recover from it,” Mercy admitted. Lindon understood her meaning, but the way she put it made him sound like he was too inept to avoid damage, and needed ways to recover from his mistakes. 

Try as he might, however, he couldn’t deny the truth of that sentiment. Without the Bloodforged Iron body, he would have been killed by venom madra over a year ago. Or killed by the Blackflame Trials. Or by those criminals he had been made to execute.

Or even Jai Long.

“...But that doesn’t mean that yours won’t take you as far as you want if you’ll let it,” Mercy continued. “My younger brother uses high-speed regeneration, too. It’s very useful for Enforcement-heavy fighting styles.”

Lindon walked up to the Spirit Well, Mercy hobbling after him with her staff. He stopped, turned around, and helped her over to it, letting her sit on its wall while he considered the well more closely. He reached out with his Jade sight and spiritual senses, thinking, considering. He didn’t merely observe the Spirit Well, but the countless scripts in the room. Countless, countless scripts, all converging to this very point: the Spirit Well.

His thoughts raced. As far as he could tell, the Spirit Well was a carefully orchestrated convergence of idealized ratios of vital aura, infusing the waters with something very close to the impossible: pure aura. The well’s infused waters then reacted with the dream aura created from this habitat’s vast, uncountable accumulation of dream tablets. And in that process of eternal reaction, natural spirits were being born. It was those spirits he chose to focus on. Were they really…?

The shining blue light of the well illuminated the room with an ethereal light, and in its waters, natural spirits swam, so hazy and indistinct that it was difficult to tell they were real at all. 

“It’s beautiful,” Mercy said distantly.

It was, Lindon had to agree, but that was hardly the point.

“Pardon, but, I want to confirm. Are those Sylvan Dreamseeds?” Lindon said, eyeing the embryonic spirits frolicking amidst the waters. They were amorphous, variable in shape. He saw birds, fish, dolphins, flowers; as if the nascent spirits were still deciding what they wanted to become.

“Sure are,” Mercy smiled. “They’re really young, though. Like candles. Just blow on them once, and poof, they’re gone.”

“I wonder,” Lindon muttered. He opened his new void key, admiring for a moment just how–wonderful a thing it was to have his own void storage. Little Blue was hopping around inside, apparently toying with some of Ekerinatoth’s stuff. He still hadn’t had a chance to go through it all. A thought for later. 

But the moment he opened the door, before he could hardly even say a word–

“Wait,” he reached out a hand, even as Little Blue gave out a tinkling cry of delight. “We should be caref–”

Lindon gave up. Little Blue was already swimming in the Spirit Well. He had never seen her move so fast. He watched carefully for a moment, but a blind man could have seen that the Spirit Well wasn’t harmful to Little Blue: quite the opposite. Second by second, her color was becoming deeper, more solid, her spirit more substantial. He lost sight of her when she dove into the waters entirely.

That made Lindon wonder. It would obviously take more than scripts and aura convergences to create something as miraculous as the Spirit Well. No doubt the foundation of the well’s existence was based in a collection of carefully chosen natural treasures, probably buried somewhere below their feet, but Lindon doubted that they could be extracted without destabilizing the entire habitat. And what a tragic waste that would be.

“Why are you just staring at it?” Mercy asked, looking at him quizzically. “Drink up. She’s obviously fine.”

Lindon grinned. “Apologies.” He scooped some Spirit Well water into one of Sky’s travel jugs.  Before, he had practically inhaled the water as if it were an oasis and he was a sun-parched survivor of a hundred leagues of desert, wasting some of the effects. This time, he would cultivate with all the deliberation that a treasure like this deserved.

First, he drank of the Dream Well water. Only a mouthful. He knew from experience—and Sky’s many warnings—that the elixir was powerful in small doses, and while several doses would not harm him, it would go to waste. Even a single one of Sky’s travel jugs (meant to be portable carriers for high-end spirit wines, apparently) could sustain their needs for days if they stretched it efficiently.

Immediately, he felt his mind clear up. With it came a heightened degree of awareness of his body; namely how ruined it was. Still, it was functional. He wasn’t in fighting shape, but he would be soon.

“I understand if you want to keep it a secret,” Lindon said, biting through the pain, “But may I ask what your Iron body is?” It must have incredible properties of precision and accuracy, but most probably only in terms of aiming her bow. Otherwise, it was as though her body simply refused to obey her.

“It’s known as the Puppeteer’s Iron body,” she said, though she looked glum as she spoke, “It’s meant to give one perfect control over all their movements.”

Lindon blinked. “Pardon, but…”

“It was one of the conditions for me being allowed to leave the clan. My Iron body was sealed. And so was my advancement. Now I’m… weak.”

She was a Lowgold. Like him.

How much stronger had she been before?

So this was one power of the legendary Monarchs, then. They could strip someone’s advancements at will.

The thought horrified Lindon to his core. And to do such a thing to one’s own daughter…

“Apologies, Mercy, I didn’t know.”

Mercy looked at him in confusion. “Of course you didn’t. I’m not angry at you. I’m just… feeling a little low, but it doesn’t matter,” she grinned and inhaled deeply, “With this, I might be able to advance all the way to Truegold in a month. Soon after that, I may be able to work my way up to the peak, pass my Underlord advancement, and get back everything that I lost.”

Underlord. Mercy had been an Underlord. “Apologies for asking, Mercy, but how old are you?”

“I turned eighteen four months ago,” she said. Distantly, he noted that she was older than him. He would be careful to be even more polite towards her in the future.

“Pardon, but are there many eighteen-year-old Underlords in the Akura clan?”

She grinned, “Not really, they mostly start off in their twenties. I, myself, only ever reached the peak of Truegold. I could have advanced at any time.” That was only a slight relief, and it did somewhat explain why she tended to temporarily jump in advancement levels during combat. Perhaps some of that earlier power could occasionally sneak past her mother’s imposed veil in a time of need? Or perhaps that was a security measure that her mother had accounted for?

Still, the peak of Truegold, and she was only his age. Things sure were different in Monarch families.

“Then… why didn’t you?”

She frowned sadly as she looked at the ground. “I was afraid of losing myself.”

Lindon took a shallow swig of the Spirit Well jug, careful not to put any to waste. His madra churned without his command, his core filling up and purifying rapidly. “For me, advancement is akin to finding myself. Two years ago, I wasn’t even a Copper.”

Lindon told her his story. She already knew about Suriel from what Lindon had told Eithan in that basement after the Bleeding Phoenix’ attack. All he left out was Sky's knowledge of the future.

When he recounted his preparations for his duel with Jai Long, he felt a bittersweet sensation budding in his heart. He had worked harder than he ever believed was possible, pouring his heart and soul into every minute of training.

Until he had done it. Done the impossible. The weakest level of Gold beating the strongest level of Gold. He had practically crossed the boundary of power in the Gold realm, and could now count himself among the strongest.

That was, while he was still in the Blackflame Empire. Now, he was fighting some of the world’s best, and seeing just how small his perspective had been. 

These Gold-level sharks had toyed with him. Ekerinatoth had put pressure on him even as they attacked her five against one. 

“Without advancement, I would have been nothing,” Lindon said, “Just another Unsouled.” He would kill to have been in her position. “It’s when you advance that you don’t lose yourself to the expectations or demands of others. That’s when you overcome them.”

Mercy had a deep look of consternation as she stared at the ground. Then she turned her gaze to the jug of Spirit Well water. She took it in hand and took a deep drink of it. She put the jug down with a sigh, and turned to look at Lindon in a combination of defeat and determination. “My mother always had a saying. It’s easier to love the feeling of ruling than the feeling of being ruled. I never enjoyed that those were the only two options.”

“Pardon,” Lindon said, and he almost couldn’t believe himself that he was contradicting a Monarch, “But they're not. There’s freedom as well.” For Lindon, that was freedom to not have his home get trampled by a Dreadgod. It was freedom nonetheless.

You could be ruled, or you could gather the power to rule. Or you could gather enough power, and you could simply… reject the paradigm altogether. Sky always loved to say this, and the stronger Lindon got, the more sense his words made to him.

“Let’s get stronger before we make any big decisions,” Mercy smiled helplessly. 

Lindon sat down, back against the wall of the Spirit Well, and fell into a cycling trance.

000

Yerin hadn’t seen it necessary to put on her mask before the dolphin dove head-first into the water, following along Dross’ purple tracks. This was meant to be quick, after all.

According to Dross, this would have been a three-minute’s swim, but Dolph had cut that down to only a handful of seconds. The pressure of the water had almost blasted her off her seat, and she was forced to hug tightly around Palutin’s waist to prevent herself from getting flung off–riding Dolph was worse than riding a rented donkey on a bad dirt road. How did Palutin stand it?

Once they broke through the barrier of the next habitat, Yerin felt a touch queasy. She hopped off the dolphin and gave the duo a shaky bow.

“Say,” Palutin said as he eyed the piece of cloth wrapped diagonally around her torso, holding Dross to her back, “That the key to the whole facility?”

Unconsciously, Yerin’s hand found her blade’s handle. This was bad. They never should have trusted a random sacred artist to have their back, especially not with the valuable cargo they were carrying.

Palutin sighed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “Me and my stupid questions. Apologies for askin’. It ain’t none of my business, really. Well, hurry on now. You got a day at best, but I’d give poor Orthos better odds of livin’ if he gets that elixir in three hours or less. Don’t waste your time on my account. See you around, Yerin.”

Rather than wait for her to return the farewell, Dolph swam through the air and dove right back into the sea.  Their spiritual impressions, doused in water and shadow aura as they were, quickly faded into nothingness.

That had been a close call. Yerin didn’t love her chances against a peak Truegold and a Highgold working together, even if that Truegold was just a dream artist. Their kind usually never had ways of hitting hard, but that couldn’t be the case with him. He may have thrown that harpoon through the water to nail that shark with his own brute force, and when she had hugged around his waist during the dolphin’s mad rush, she had felt remarkable solidity in his slight frame. Maybe his Iron body gave him strength beyond his Path? A dream Enforcer technique couldn’t be worth much after all.

“What just happened, Yerin? Why did you almost fight him?” Dross asked.

“You don’t carry around a sackful of gems expecting nobody to want a piece,” Yerin said, “And to hear some people tell it, you’re the shiniest gem of them all.”

“...Do you really believe that?” Dross asked, and despite herself, her heart clenched for the weird memory construct.

“Sky usually isn’t wrong about this kind of thing,” Yerin said. Well, there was that time with the scythe, but this was different. If Dross’ only upside was being able to open every door in Ghostwater, she would still make sure he was taken care of for life.

Sky had reiterated time and time again how important Dross was. That he had then gone on to give Dross to Lindon was… it slightly undersold the construct’s importance. After all, if Dross was so powerful, why would Sky not just keep him for himself?

She would contend that Sky thought that Lindon truly was the only person that could get the best use out of Dross, then. Nothing else made sense to her.

The thought only excited her, contrary to her expectations. Lindon had come from absolutely nothing to beating a talented Truegold that was a pillar of his clan in just over a year while being two advancements lower, and now soon, he would finally be on equal grounds with her. He deserved it after all his hard work. She had never met anyone with the same drive as him. The same drive as her.

The surrounding area looked like a garden, only it was both overgrown and diseased at the same time.

And it was lousy with misshapen and horrifying monsters out of nightmares—giant insects fighting for food, twisted creatures that could only be dreadbeasts, and slug-like natural spirits with life and venom aspects. Luckily, the only scary part about them was their looks. They all felt like her level of Gold or under.

The Life Well facility, an ugly, windowless gray bunker of a building, was easy to spot from the edge of the habitat, and she wasted no time sprinting towards it, all the while Dross chattered about the history of Ghostwater. Some of the monsters tried to run after her, but after cycling some madra to her Iron body, she left them in the dust. 

“The Life Well is hosted in the refinery of Ghostwater, where the researchers conducted all sorts of experiments on life,” Dross explained cheerily. “These activities needed an environment rich enough in blood and life aura that very specialized experiments could be conducted, hence this habitat, which is also where they grew a lot of their raw materials. But all the good stuff happened in this refinery. 

“Their initial objective was to create an elixir of conferred spirituality, something that could infuse life and a spirit into any object. Exciting idea, isn’t it? It is said that heavenly messengers can do precisely that. But obviously, that turned out to be impossible, at least with madra and aura alone. But they moved on from failure! With the Monarch’s help, and after focusing on the most promising avenues of research, they found a way to extract the most active, volatile components of blood and life essence. The Life Well’s water is a sort of extracted quintessence of the most primordial components of blood and life essence. Something even deeper than essence. The very stuff of life, really. The philosophical and scientific implications were really quite exciting to the resident scholars–”

“I’m no refiner,” Yerin muttered, dodging under the tentacle of some nameless many-limbed abomination that looked like the son of a squid and three different horses., “But even I know that elixirs this strong don’t just come from nowhere. Your refiners have been dead or gone for generations. Who is still making it?” A dog-like dreadbeast with a jaw that extended halfway down its entire body intercepted her path and made to bite her, unfolding like some kind of flower made of nothing but teeth and gore. She jumped clean over it and continued running.

“It is entirely possible to automate the production of these kinds of products. Of course, the result will be much slower and more inefficient than if an actual refiner worked their skill, but with enough scripts, the right ratio of vital aura in the right aspects, and treasures capable of fueling the reactions, it should all be possible.”

“Why bother?” Yerin asked. This time, she found herself having to unsheathe her sword and cut past a rather stubborn crowd of monsters in her way.

In a perfect world, she would have found the time to stick behind and give this entire habitat the extermination that it desperately deserved, but unfortunately she couldn’t waste Orthos’ dwindling time on her own grudge against them.

It wasn’t anything special, really. She just couldn’t abide a mindless monster breathing in her vicinity. All there was to it.

“Good question! I don’t know!”

The life well facility just looked like one big slate-gray building the size of a barn, and it had a door with a similar design of a skeleton cupping its hands together, same as they had seen on the other well doors. The keyhole would be between the two palms, she reckoned from prior experience. She inserted the Eye of the Deep, and the door slowly slid apart.

“The Life Well was by far the most valuable well in the facility,” Dross continued lecturing in a happy tone “It could heal any physical injury, regenerate entire limbs, give youth to the elderly; pregnant women could even use it to enhance their children’s potential in the sacred arts while still in the womb. Northstrider’s project team leaders would be lucky to get even a spoonful of it after a successful project that took an entire decade.”

“And it can save Orthos?”

“Provided it also doesn’t kill him,” Dross said, “There’s a chance. The Life Well doesn’t interact well with those with weak constitutions and thin lifelines. Even giving the Life Well water to someone pregnant might just as easily kill the child than give them additional talent. It might be better to first heal Orthos’ spirit, then introduce some additional blood essence into his system before giving him the elixir. There’s also watering it down and giving it to him in small doses.”

Yerin did her best to memorize those instructions. “Would it stop my heart if I drank some?”

“You? No. You can take as much as you want, though you probably shouldn’t. Young humans–you are young for a human, right? Hm. I don’t see any gray in your hair. Though that’s not a great measure around Archlords or higher–anyway! Especially if you’re young and healthy, there’s only so much you can take before the rest of it goes to waste.”

As the door slowly slid open, Yerin prepared for… she didn’t even know, for any given monster under heaven to meet her. Whatever it was, she was ready. Her core was crackling with new energy, her madra congealing and becoming denser than ever, pushing at the threshold of advancement entirely on its own. More importantly, her mind was swimming with impressions from her Remnant. Most of that preternatural focus was gone after the fight she had with the Tidewalkers. She… needed to hear her master’s thoughts again, with the clarity offered by the Dream Well water.

Seeing nothing but a continuation of the trail of blood, she opened Sky’s void key, quickly slipped in and took a cup from the lid of one of the closed barrels where they sat, and scooped herself a quarter cup of that purple Dream Well water. She downed it in three gulps, and her mind simultaneously relaxed and became more active. The whispers of her master’s Remnant grew louder, bolder. They weren’t those hopeless, half-audible whispers that that had hobbled her understanding while she was a Lowgold. What she was hearing now had nothing to do with her own context. Instead, the Remnant’s recollections touched on deeper truths of her master.

Namely, his fascination with cutting things.

Suitably, her master had been obsessed with cutting things, separating one thing from another from a very early age. His mind was almost kaleidoscopic with with images and visions of rending, slicing, cutting, lacerating, carving, sectioning, cleaving. Dividing, above all, chasing the answers that lay behind the separation of all things. The finer the division, the better the answer. His favorite thing to imagine was how he could cut an object apart using the least amount of effort. And to do that, he needed to know what he was cutting.

Know the material, and you would know its weaknesses.

Know the weaknesses of every material, and you would know the truth behind the entire world.

That was how he had settled on his title. A Sage, endlessly searching for the world’s truths that could only be revealed by his sword.

Enemy swordsmen were especially difficult to cut, but in a way that made things interesting. They weren’t like boulders or trees. They didn’t stand still and let their weak parts get cut. Their whole bodies were the weak parts, in fact, and the only thing that stood in the way of them and death was a single piece of metal or wood or a sacred instrument of some sort. Cutting them was a puzzle infinitely more complex and amusing.

That was how the Sword Sage thought. Grudges and malice hardly figured into his view on things and his Path. It was… humbling to see how far one could go even without the burning wish to destroy every monstrous creature in the world. Even without the pain…

But what was she supposed to do about that, anyway? She couldn’t get rid of her pain. It was a part of her. A foundation of her will. Her pain was the reason why she found it possible to wrestle down her Blood Shadow. Pain and sorrow had allowed her to cut a path through an entire sect’s worth of disciples. It was her eternal companion.

She couldn’t set it aside, but she could try to see her master’s side of things. 

The simple beauty of cutting something in two with only the exact effort that was required of the act.

“Yerin? Did you sense something?” Dross whispered, “Is it safer in here than out there?”

Yerin mulled over her insights, and decided with a nod that she would give this obsession of her master’s a try.

Not in here, though. There were plenty of things that could be cut in the Life Well facility. Perhaps even enemies.

And it might push her Endless Sword from Sword like a Storm to Sword like the Wind. It would condense the ravenous storm of sword aura into a single coherent blade, far more energy efficient, far more powerful.

And next after that, Sword like a Whisper. Cutting an object so finely that it would still remain in one piece before an external force acted on it.

With it, the Sword Sage could decapitate someone, and they wouldn’t even notice they were dead until they tried to move or turn their head, only for it to fall off their neck.

There were three greater levels of attainment even beyond that. The Halo Sword, a ring of sword aura around the user that could automatically react to strike down threats that got too close to her. The Infinite Thrust that could send a single beam of sword aura in a long range that would even outstrip her Rippling Sword.

And finally, the Bird Cage. It was a formation of sword aura shaped like a bird cage surrounding the user, had the same defensive characteristics of the Halo Sword, and also served as a top-grade source of usable sword aura that could bolster every technique in their shared Path. The principles surrounding the technique included more than just the ruler aspect: there were elements of Forged and Enforced madra there as well, and other things that her mind couldn’t comprehend. Perhaps those missing things were the unique powers of a Sage or Archlord?

This was the apex of her master’s Path of the Endless Sword. The payoff to his ceaseless obsession with cutting things. 

“Just deciding the shape of my Path, Dross,” Yerin said as she stepped out of the void key, closed it behind her, and walked into the dark halls of the refinery.

It was a charnel house of horrors. Glass tanks rowed the walls, filled with desiccated corpses. Blood covered the ground, the walls, even the roof in wide swathes like morbid brush strokes.

Someone had come here–very recently, by the look of it–and slaughtered the local dreadbeasts with all the grace of ten blood-crazed butchers carving through a herd of pigs.

And the air was choked with blood and life aura so thick that it actually managed to displace the constant water aura of Ghostwater.

“It should be a straight jump from here,” Dross said. “Not many twists or turns, so I’d say your path is straight.”

Someone was here. And the more Yerin looked at the mutated lifeforms—what remained of them, at least—the more she was beginning to realize exactly who that was.

Her Blood Shadow was restless amidst all this blood aura. It complained. It wanted out, to enjoy this house of horrors that to it was like a natural habitat, like returning to the womb. She immediately put a lid on its complaining, spending several seconds having to fight against its will. Only several seconds.

With the Dream Well water focusing her thoughts, suppressing her Blood Shadow had never been easier, even amidst all this blood aura. She kept cycling her madra, faster and faster, focusing on the Remnant of the Sword Sage, blending its meditations on violence into her own will until even she could barely tell them apart. Her sword had never felt sharper.

She followed the trail of blood and bodies. Dross chattered at her, telling her the way, “Yes, just step around those misshapen corpses. Dog corpses, I think. I don’t know what dogs look like. Those things we fought in the water were dogs, right? Are sharks a kind of dog?” 

These things were more lizardlike than anything else, and they were… hollowed out. Not like the mummies she had seen in some ruins with her master, these weren’t dried-out husks hollowed out by time and the environment. These corpses had been exsanguinated until nothing remained but dry skin and bone. It was obvious from the smears of fresh blood under and all around them; whatever had committed this savagery, this slaughter, had done so very, very recently. 

Only one kind of enemy killed like this.

She had seen this style of killing twice before in her life; once, recently, in the shattered Blackflame backcountry the Skysworn had sent her to—the one good thing they had ever done for her since joining up. 

Secondly, as a little girl, trudging through a village of friends and family murdered by a Blood Shadow—the one she carried within her.

She walked beside a row of iron bars that looked like a prison cell meant to hold in some enormous beast. Her spiritual perception couldn’t pierce the dark depths beyond the iron bars, so she just continued ahead, following the carnage.

“Dross, shut up,” Yerin muttered as her heart rate spiked. She veiled her core as well as she could, intent on releasing that veil right before the action began. “I know where I’m going.” She pulled out her sword and walked quickly, skipping past the trail of corpses until she finally saw her enemy.

It was a woman, and a Redmoon Hall cultist if there had ever been one, all long black hair and crimson robes like blood. long and covering her face, was standing against a door with a similar skeleton design as the main entrance, trying to open it as she muttered curses under her breath. She wore baggy, red robes, and looked almost like a ghost or a figment of some child’s nightmare. She reminded Yerin of that death artist that Lindon had fought and killed.

She was probably far more heinous.

The entrance she stood in front of was probably the door to the Life Well.

And Redmoon Hall stood in her way. 

She couldn’t have asked for a finer excuse.

She released her veil, pumped her Iron body full of madra, and shot towards the emissary as fast as she could.

The Truegold blood artist turned around in the nick of time, raising a wall of crystalline Forged blood madra. 

Yerin spent a moment contemplating the blood madra shield, slipping into the mindset of the Sword Sage. His main concern would have been understanding the spiritual material’s composition, sniffing out its weakness, and then acting. She realized in that moment that it was this obsession of his that led him to becoming such a talented refiner.

She couldn’t get many insights out of the Forged madra in any case. She swept her sword, but not blindly. She aimed her cut at a line that she would have called a weak spot, and that her master would have called a cleavage plane–whatever it was, it was a weakness, a dividable line in the otherwise perfectly crystalline shield as far as her spiritual perception was concerned.

She made a note to herself to sharpen that spiritual perception as much as possible. Incredibly enough, the Sword Sage made liberal use of it when figuring out what and where to cut. He made use of his aura sight, too. Every sense available to him was dedicated to sniffing out weakness.

She parted the Forged blood madra easily, but the emissary had already thrown herself out of harm’s way, using the Forged wall as a cover to release another Striker technique. Using that technique this close to another technique’s activation couldn’t be doing her channels any favors, but at least she hadn’t brought out her Blood Shadow yet. It just hung on her back like a cape, like the world’s worst fashion accessory.

Yerin focused on the techniques, a handful of blood globules making their way towards her at high speeds. Her sight grazed each one, and her body was already moving to intercept all of them with her swords. The Dream Well had sharpened her, made her perfectly ready for battle. She had fought for her life against stronger opponents and won under far less favorable conditions than now.

After she cut down all the techniques, she rushed forward again, intent on ending the match with one downward swipe.

The Redmoon cultist’s cape flared with blood madra. A pair of muscled arms like crimson shadows extruded from the clothing, intercepting her sword strike.

“Anagi would go this far for me?” the crazed emissary asked, not even bothering to move, or even seem surprised, even as Yerin ducked beneath a lateral swipe from both crimson arms. “To chase me into a Monarch’s pocket world? Risking the ire of a Sage?”

Yerin jumped back and snarled. “Quiet, Redmoon Hall.”

The cultist’s cape separated from her like a great bloody river, pooling into the ground between the two of them. Over the next few seconds, a monstrous form fully manifested from the pool of blood madra, resolving into a creature with overlarge arms and legs, like some kind of gorilla, but its head was only a featureless dome with a mouth rowed with razor-sharp teeth. It didn’t even have eyes. Only two rows of slits along the sides of its head that met in the middle. 

“If you think I won’t send your head back to Anagi in a box, you’re sorely mistaken!” she snarled back, grinding her teeth together, eyes wide underneath the curtain of hair that blocked parts of her face.

Yerin wasn’t in the mood to talk. She sent out a Rippling Sword. Sword aura gathered along the edge of her blade, attaching itself to the madra that built up on it, as she swung her sword at the Redmoon Hall emissary’s distant form. The energies cut free from her sword, hurtling towards her enemy. The Blood Shadow took the technique head-on. The attack had aura in it, which was always less than effective on spirits, as she had come to learn while working for the Arelius family, killing Remnants and natural spirits.

Disappointingly, the Blood Shadow was barely scratched.

It hurled itself at her. The crazed Truegold emissary jumped to a higher alcove of the room, and took out a bow of crimson thorns from absolutely nowhere. Yerin had seen no sign of a void key Soulspace? This Truegold had a soulspace?

Yerin’s snarl widened as she cursed internally, realizing that this Truegold cultist was at the peak, only a hair away from advancing.

This would be a tough nut to crack.

000

“You froze your heart for power?” Arakmedes asked, horror and disgust etched in his features. “Is power truly that important to you?”

I ducked my head. “I thought it would be an advantage. An edge in this brutal world. I didn’t realize it would be double-edged. I didn’t think of the consequences.”

“Did you only become our friend so you could steal from our fates?” Lindon asked, grief shadowing his eyes. “Is there anything inside you at all, other than a smiling liar? What kind of a brother are you?”

I sighed, even as my eyes grew heavy. “It was the most rational thing I thought I could do. I wanted to have it all. Friendship, and power. I thought you of all people would understand.”

“I knew it,” Yerin scoffed. She glared at me, Goldsign raised. “You’re… vile,” she spat. “A parasite even worse than mine.”

My lips trembled. “I’ve helped, haven’t I? You’re even stronger than you would have been.”

“I was wrong,” Orthos rumbled. “I thought you might have had the heart of a dragon. But all I see is a coward who fled from one life into another.”

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. “I was in pain. I had no other choice.”

Eithan sighed. “I never should have raised you up. I knew, from the day you crippled Jai Hojin, that you would turn out like this: a monster. Could there ever have been a different outcome for you?”

I wanted to say yes, but my spear was covered in blood. People had died. I had killed many, and I felt nothing for it.

All I could feel was the crushing sensation of rejection from a man I trusted almost like an uncle.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Chiara asked, looking at me with disgust. “You said you loved me. But you gave that up for power. You surrendered what we had just so you could advance. You never loved me. You only loved yourself.”

“That’s not true!” I shouted, even as the tears flowed, hot and heavy.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Chiara asked. “What are emotions to you? What are tears? Frozen Heart can turn it all off like a switch. How could someone like you ever feel love? You gave up on yourself the day you stepped into this world. And that’s exactly what you did with me. Of course you gave up my love. You never could have done anything else.”

“You never believed those ideals you wrote, did you?” Mercy asked, accusingly. “You aren’t even capable of believing in those principles.”

I looked away from her. Somehow, her disapproval hung more heavily over my heart than all the others. I couldn’t form the words to give her any response at all.

The law of society was reciprocation. People only ever did things for others with the expectation that the favor would be returned.

Friends could only walk into the dark alongside people who considered them friends in turn.

People only loved those who loved them.

I was a walking reject. Nothing I ever did in my life had meaning. All my scholarly accolades were owed to the efforts of an infinitely better man. All my attainments in the sacred arts belonged to Eithan. Everything that made me special was the people I had chosen to surround myself with.

Underneath it all, I was nothing. Hollow. And to fill that emptiness, I would chase power. I would commit any evil, betray every ideal, violate every friend, for power. 

Someone like me could not deserve to live.

I woke up with a start, head swimming and chest sore. My eyes were blurry, and my body felt powerless.

“Sky!” I blinked away the blurriness in my eyes—tears—and saw as Mercy crawling towards me, one of her legs lifted as she did. “Are you okay, Sky?”

We were in a tent. Where did that come from?

“Fine,” I lied, looking away from her and her judgment. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured for my many shortcomings right now. Any more despair and I might just drown myself.

“You were sleeptalking,” Mercy said, looking worried. “Bad dream?”

I nodded.

She opened a void key and gave me a jug of purple water. From the Dream Well. I accepted the jug and drank a mouthful.

Instantly, I was able to separate my dreams from the waking world. I had lost confidence and trust in Mercy, in… everyone. For a moment, I had been convinced that I had no one on my side. I had been filled with true despair.

“You don’t hate me, right?” I asked, just to make sure the dream wasn’t… real.

“Of course not,” Mercy replied, looking a little shocked. “Where is this coming from?”

“I put you in grave danger,” I said, “I… I’ve provoked the factions. Orthos is almost dead. People are hurt. You’re hurt. All I wanted was treasure and advancement, and—” my eyes blurred again, “And now we might die.”

And it would all be my fault.

I frowned. What? That thought felt too… heavy to be mine. Different. Alien. Wrong. Where—what was that?

Then I realized.

In that instant, all my misgivings and fears died. I almost blacked out in the wake of the incandescent supernova that was my rage.

“Nevermind,” I gritted my teeth, closing my eyes until the dizziness passed. “It’s the Blood Shadow. It’s trying to chip away at me.” I clenched my fists as hard as I could as I spoke through gritted teeth.

This just got fucking personal.

I was going to systematically dismantle its will, chipping away at it until it was fully within my control, and then it would become a part of my power.

Then one day, I would torture the Bleeding Phoenix for ever doing this to me.

“Fuck!” I hissed as I punched the ground. I used all my strength, but I may as well have just gently dropped my hand. It was barely a tap. 

“Don’t listen to it,” Mercy said to me, steel in her eyes and tenderness in her voice. “But don’t let it anger you, either. It will only exhaust you.”

She was right. I should give the violent fantasies a rest. I had better things to do. Bruno would only benefit from every moment of my own inaction. I should have been cultivating instead of napping, so really, this was my own damn fault.

Grumpily, I crawled out of this… tent. Who had packed this thing, anyway? I eyed the obvious luxury of the damn thing. Was this Mercy’s? Had to be. All purple and black scripted sacred silks and probably worth ten entire city blocks right out of downtown Serpent’s Grave. 

My spear was on the floor, and I crawled over to it and used it to stand. Mercy helped me get on my feet as well, using Suu as a cane, and I gave her a grateful nod. Lindon was cycling, sipping at Spirit Well water, while staring at the pool in a contemplative mood.

The least I could do was exchange pointers with him.

“What are you working on?”

“I’m too limited by the Path of Blackflame,” Lindon muttered, opening his eyes from his cycling. “The Burning Cloak was useless underwater. I need…” his Remnant hand grasped at the air, as if searching for something he lacked the words for. “I need something finer. Something steady. Something that will never fail. ”

“You realize we’re in the middle of a dream tablet library, right?” I said, intending it as a joke, but it came out more caustic than I had intended.

Lindon flinched, looking back at me with a slightly hurt expression. “Apologies, I–”

Ah, shit. “No, my apologies,” I muttered, bowing my head a touch. “I’m sorry, Lindon. I’m… not myself right now. My entire world is pain. My Blood Shadow fed me a nightmare. Emotionally and physically, I’m on the verge of collapse,” I chuckled ruefully, but Lindon only looked worried. “But I am still a scholar,” I said, forcing a grin. “And we’re in a library. Let me be useful.”

We left Mercy to her quiet cycling as she reached for Highgold, and Little Blue to her… swimming, or whatever it was she was doing in the Spirit Well. Having fun playing with the other baby Sylvan Riverseeds, as far as I could tell, even though none of them had her definition or sentience. 

And no time at all later, Lindon was supporting me as I limped through corridor upon corridor of dream tablets, trying to make sense of the organization system. I soon realized I was being an idiot, and tiring myself out for no reason besides. Not long after that, we found our way to a circular desk near the habitat’s central water column that had to have been from where sacred receptionists of yore had managed this library. I collapsed into the battered remnants of a chair and started to make sense of the library’s map and organization schema–there were still plenty of scripted and even mundane maps and references to use here, despite the decay and weathering of time.

Lindon also made himself busy reading the library’s map, but he didn’t have my experience with these things. Which, in this case, might have been an advantage for him.

The first time I read over the organization system, I didn’t think anything was wrong at all, except for a certain triggered twitching somewhere in the back of my mind that took a while to place. In the end, it took not once, or even twice, but three times before I realized what I was looking at. Something that was achingly familiar and yet entirely alien all at once.

When I realized it, I could only curse out loud in a sort of baffled awe.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What’s wrong?” Lindon asked. I could only shake my head, ignoring him. He wouldn’t get it. No one would.

It wasn’t that something was wrong.

It was that, for the first time, I was looking at a library where, as I reckoned things, nothing was wrong at all.

The entire library was organized in alphabetical order by madra aspect type and Path name. 

That was it. That was the library’s entire organization scheme.

“What’s wrong, Sky?”

“I’m fine, Lindon.” I closed my mouth, which had been hanging open for the past good while. “Just… having a bit of a moment. I’m sorry. Don’t even ask. This is just so stupid.”

Lindon gave me an extremely skeptical look–he must have thought I was talking trash on Northstrider’s library–but I ignored him. Because it was really quite the opposite.

This was the best library organization scheme I had seen so far on this entire planet, actually.

I still had nightmares about some of the nitty gritty details about how Blackflame scholarly life had functioned. At the Imperial Academy’s library, works had been organized by the peak lifetime advancement rank of the author, and only then were organized in a descending priority of scholarly ranking and so on. Alphabetical order? Scholarly impact factor? Total number of citations? None of these concepts even existed in the world of Blackflame scholarship, which had been nothing more than a glorified rat race for clout chasers and worshippers of hierarchy. 

It had been rank insanity. Just, rank insanity. Even some barbaric caste system of brahmins/kshatriyas/vaishyas/whatever would have made more sense. At least within the closed society of brahmin, scholars had been theoretically equal under god. The Blackflame Empire didn’t bother with such naive pretensions. To them, personal advancement–and with it, the entire culture of slavish obeisance to one’s advancement and/or ranking superiors and being slavishly obeyed by one’s power and/or ranking inferiors–was all. To them, it was all. An entire system of ‘scholarhood’ that placed individualism over truth, and personal power over genuine insight. That entire abomination that the Blackflame Empire dared to call a civilization would collapse in on itself practically overnight if someone, some brave soul, some hero of the ages bestowed with truly enormous balls dared to introduce a double-blind peer review process.

And that’ll be me, if I have anything to say about it.

I was, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, downright distressed to realize that the organization system of this dead, rotting dream tablet library was incomparably better than that of the Blackflame Empire’s. Here, it looked like a genuine peer-review process had been in effect. Any work–any work–that made it through peer review went up on the shelves. Without discrimination as to advancement rank.

Ghostwater’s scholarly community, while it still functioned, must have been a true meritocracy. The kind of community I would have loved to be a part of.

This ancient, abandoned library was perhaps the most meritocratic I had seen so far in my time on Cradle. The works of Archlords were placed next to those of Coppers–the only metric that seemed to matter in this library was subject matter. And, of course, having the certain minimal level of quality required to pass peer review. But that went without saying.

It downright killed a part of me to see such a quality library abandoned, rotting, huge reams of knowledge looted, stolen out of the shelves of dream tablets where only empty, dust-filled voids awaited. 

No doubt the work of previous generations of factional aspirants who had taken, and taken, and taken from Ghostwater. 

What was wrong with that bastard, Northstrider? Why had he created such an amazing place only to throw it all away? Did he have any care for anything other than himself? 

All this, just to fail in the pursuit of creating a mind spirit that met his standards. It was genuinely maddening.

If this was the level of care he put into the world outside of his own supremely selfish self, it was no wonder that the birth of an existence like Dross had passed beneath his notice. 

“Sorry.” I shook myself off from my reverie and managed to stand again, with Lindon’s assistance. “I know where we have to go now.”

“Pure-path section?” Lindon asked, singleminded focus in his eyes. It seemed he had realized something of what I was leading him towards, and that he’d been waiting for me to find myself. 

“Oh yes, to the pure path section,” I said, nodding.

A few minutes later, we were practically on the opposite side of the library from where the Spirit Well was. I was getting a decent lay of the land, as far as this library went. 

This had been a repository of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of works, all devoted to the study of, at most, several tens of thousands of Paths. Some Paths that were famous and/or had been especially of interest to Ghostwater’s mission purpose of automating the sacred arts would have entire corridors of dream tablets devoted to them, such as the Path of Celestial Radiance. I doubted it was coincidental that those parts of the library had been entirely, absolutely cleaned out, nothing left but empty shelves labeled with the names of the Paths that had once been represented there.

It seemed like Northstrider had been spying on the other Monarch factions, and they had not been happy about it.

Most other parts of the library, though, had been far more modest, with no direct relation to Ghostwater’s mission purpose as far as I could tell. Apart from the general nature of the world that all knowledge was connected, and thus, all sacred arts were connected, I supposed. Just because I couldn’t see a link between, say, the Path of the Incinerating Storm or the Path of the Great Harvest and sacred arts automation didn’t mean that someone else couldn’t. 

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in our case, it looked like pure madra paths had fallen under the ‘useless’ category as Ghostwater’s scholarly community had estimated things. That section of the library was smaller than most others, relegated to the outer edges of the habitat, and was almost undisturbed, even after generations of decay and looting.

“Not here,” I said. “Keep going…” I thought about it, then pointed. “That way, towards the corner.”

As I limped through the corridors, Lindon supporting me by one arm while I used my spear like a cane with the other, I knew that we were almost there.

“Did I ever tell you about my father?” Lindon said quietly, still supporting me as we walked.

“No,” I told him. I knew about Jaran, of course, but… Yerin had been right that night, when we had shared a bowl of ice cream. I had to give them an opportunity to tell me about themselves. To actually know them, from their mouths, and not just from some book.

“Every seven years, the clans of Sacred Valley host a major event. We call it the Seven-Year Festival. It’s where the best sacred artists of each generation come and test their mettle. Back then, I thought it was the event of a lifetime. My father competed in one of them. He was a champion in the Iron bracket. It looked like nothing could defeat him,” Lindon recalled the memory fondly, and I smiled in support, even though I knew how this story ended. “There was an event during this Seven-Year Festival known as the exhibition matches, where the champion of each bracket could challenge a higher advancement. My father challenged a Li Jade,” Lindon’s expression became unreadable. “The Jade had been cowardly, using more power than was warranted. One of his attacks ended up hitting my father’s leg. Twisting it, destroying it almost completely. Healing arrived too late. The leg was saved, but it left him permanently disfigured.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to him. 

“I can never forget that image of him,” Lindon whispered, his eyes somewhere far away. “My father, weeping. When I was only nine years old. His life ruined, weeping over an injury that would take only a few medium-grade scales to fix in the Empire. The injury… changed him. Made him bitter. Now there were two cripples in the Shi family: the man with the gimp leg and the Unsouled. Before the injury, he was… supportive. Occasionally. After? He could barely even look at me anymore. He started drinking more often, as well,” Lindon’s permanent frown deepened into something that held a touch of pain, “He would typically find the nastiest things to say after he got inebriated to a certain point. I became quite good at detecting whenever he was on the verge.”

I patted him on his back. “We will get back to him and get him healed,” I said, “And he won’t have anything to say to you under my watch.” Lindon looked at me with an open mouth.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

“Just because he’s your father doesn’t give him the right to verbally abuse you,” I said. “I don’t care about his ties with you. I won’t let that stand.”

Lindon was quiet for a moment. We turned another corner, and I read the shelves to find clues on where that dream tablet could be. 

A few corners later, I said, “I won’t be like your dad, Lindon. This is all temporary.”

Lindon sighed. “What if Yerin can’t get the elixir?”

Then Orthos would die. “It’s not me you have to worry about.” Lindon ducked his head. “My path doesn’t end here, Lindon,” I muttered. “Even if she can’t get to the Life Well. I still have options.”

“I am… glad to hear it,” though his tone sounded doubtful.

It was true, though. As an absolute last resort, I could abandon my ambition. I could betray myself. I could step off the Path I had created for myself over the past year. 

If I were to sacrifice my hard-won Starseed construct and crack into Arakmedes’ Remnant the old-fashioned-way, I could use the resulting burst of energy to not only advance to Truegold but also burn the Blood Shadow out of my system. Broken Star madra paired with Collapsing Star madra control was, theoretically speaking, a fantastic method to finely incinerate just about anything, including glorified tapeworms. It would result in tremendous long term losses, but also tremendous short term gains. Between Truegold advancement, and burning the Blood Shadow (and afterwards digesting back into my system parts of what the Blood Shadow had stolen from me, or, preferably, murdering the shit out of the damn parasite and using its dead matter to make some sort of life pill), I’d recover enough of my lifeline and heal enough of my internal injuries that I’d be back on my feet again.

The problem was that doing so would effectively be the end of my Path–or, at least, the version of the Path that would allow me to keep up with the others. I’d lose all my momentum, all my hope of seeing Sage this decade–or this century, really. The spiritual damage alone might take decades to recover from.

And in the meantime, my friends would have no choice but to leave me behind.

Unacceptable.

All of this was moot anyway. Yerin would come back, and I’d get back on track. Nothing else was worth considering.

Certainly not the doubtful and mocking whispers of motherfucking Bruno. Shut up, Bruno, for fuck’s sake. I’m not listening to you!

“So, you saw a path of my future.”

“Yes?”

“I know the future is undefined,” Lindon said. “Not even the heavens know with certainty what will come. I was told that Fate is nothing but the series of opportunities we can grasp with our own two hands. But, still, I want to know. In this… vision of my future, was there a part of my Path I was dissatisfied by? Something I could have done better?”

I sighed. “Like I’ve explained, my vision was incomplete. I didn’t see the end of your time on Cradle; I only saw out to a time that’s now barely one year into our future, really,” this was a real shot in the dark, honestly, “But if I had to guess, I’d say that your future self, if he could do it all again, would have wanted to have three cores, not two.”

“Three?” Lindon asked, stunned. “But, wait, what aspect–”

He caught me giving his Hunger arm a look that no one could have possibly missed. “Oh. Oh. A hunger core? Why? I already have this prosthesis.”

“There’s only so much you can do with a sacred instrument. You should know this better than I, being a Soulsmith and all,” I explained tiredly. “You can’t add new functions to a binding, right? Not after you’ve dismantled the Remnant around it. That’s because, as a rule, constructs are dead matter: both the actual dead matter, and the binding produced, no matter how refined they are, no matter how skilled the Soulsmith. Your arm, for instance, is a construct with only one function, one you can’t even use yet: to consume. But a hunger path should be capable of so much more than just consumption.”

Lindon’s eyes were wide, his thoughts visibly churning as he drank in this information. “Like what?” he asked.

I sighed. “I don’t know. The Dreadgods have got techniques they can bring to life, like the Bloodspawn we fought, and…” I paused, looking down at my chest, “But I’m not quite certain if they’re special because they were made with hunger madra, or because they were made by Dreadgods. I… don’t know.”

Lindon frowned, but to his credit, he didn’t dismiss me out of hand.

“I’m not asking you to split your core now, or even to do it at all,” I said. “I’m just giving you options that might make sense. You should run this by Eithan first, honestly. He’d know more than I, at any rate. Still, I would bet that you’d get far more utility if you could directly manipulate hunger madra, and not just borrow its power from a construct.”

“I can imagine,” Lindon said with a frown, “But I can’t imagine why more people don’t do this?”

“There are plenty of hunger weapons out there,” I said, “Arakmedes had one. Eithan may have sold it off by now. Jai Long had one as well, as you already know. They are quite rare and expensive to create, but they do exist. And they’re far safer than directly manipulating hunger madra. That’s the advantage of sacred instruments and constructs. Degrees of separation. They sacrifice versatility for safety. A barrier between you, and it. The worst that could happen with them would be the spear being destroyed if they bit off more than they could chew—provided the hunger construct isn’t vastly stronger than them. You also run into this danger: you have a Lord-level construct as a Gold. It can consume far more than your channels could handle, provided you could even activate it in the first place. But provided that you and it were on the same level, overloading it would only leave you with one useless prosthesis, instead of collapsing your soul.

“But here’s one catch,” I said, raising a finger in warning. “One catch that all prospective hunger artists run into. Nothing too important. Just that every sacred artist in the entire history of the Blackflame Empire—of which I am very familiar—who brought hunger into their core died screaming. Or became a dreadbeast themselves. And then died screaming. This is the fate shared by most in this world, actually.

“With one exception. That exception owns this facility, in fact. He’s Northstrider. The Monarch. How did he do it? He must have some way of cleansing his body and spirit of impurities. Some kind of blood cleansing technique? Something having to do with the superiority and incorruptibility of dragons? Divine Treasure-class kidneys? I don’t know. That’s the point. I don’t know. What I do know is that Eithan has set you on a Path that is very capable of bringing you to the heights of power, if you work for it. More importantly, a Path that probably won’t kill you or drive you insane. It’s possible to move even faster, but the risks are heavy. Too heavy for you as you are right now, I think.” To be honest, this Path was already incredibly risky for him. Adding more risk to it would just be crazy.

But then again, we weren’t exactly sane to begin with.

“What do I need to do?”

“Dross,” I said, matter-of-fact. “Dross is what we have to do. The most important step is finishing him. The rest is a matter of getting to Truegold and honing your willpower. And, as it turns out, one other thing. Something we have with us right now.” 

“What is it?” Lindon asked, hunger in his eyes.

“You tell me,” I said, finally, finally finding what I had been searching for.

Certain insights were better found if Lindon realized them on his own. Not that I thought it would take him too long to realize that the solution to many of his problems had been with him ever since he had first started his journey.

For now, we would start with only one cornerstone of the Path of Twin Stars.

The Script Lord, Archlord on the Path of Whispering Wind: the Creation of the Seven Principles.

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Major thanks to Coldbringer/SnowGN for beta-reading and extensive editing!