Four green lances pinned the young man to the ground.

Jai Long didn't waste the instant the Sandviper had bought him. He swept his spear in a whirlwind around himself, drawing twisting lines of Serpent's Shadow in the air until he was surrounded by a nest of seething white snakes. The effort of Forging such a huge defense would have usually drained his core, but now it just relieved some of the pressure.

Star Lances cracked on the outside, burning holes in his protection, but none were strong enough to completely break through.

He focused on controlling the storm of madra inside of him, funneling it into his spear, piling the energy into the pale spearhead until it glowed.

This was the second Enforcer technique in the Path of the Stellar Spear: the Star’s Edge. It reinforced his weapon rather than his own body. Madra surged according to a rough pattern, fueling the deadly star at the end of his spear. By the time it was so bright he couldn’t look directly at the weapon any longer, he could breathe again.

Now, his core was merely full.

Jai Long released his Forger technique, and the cage of white snakes dispersed into essence. Thousands of white pinpricks rose into the sky like a bucketful of glimmering dust falling the wrong way.

With his Flowing Starlight twisting around his skin and the Star's Edge on his spear, Jai Long glowed like the moon fallen to earth. Two of them were pulling bloody spears out of the Sandviper who had distracted them, and the other two were desperately trying to put some distance between them and Jai Long.

Finally in control of himself, Jai Long faced four off-balance enemies.

He finished them all in a second.

The first woman he stabbed in the chest, to see if he had to strike the core dead-on to absorb its powers. Another rush of madra filled him, though not as fully as the first kill had. The second man he sliced in the arm, and if he gained any madra from that, he didn't feel it. He finished him off with a stab straight through the skull. The third took a spearhead to the throat, and the fourth through the belly.

All before the first of the four bodies hit the ground.

Leaving him to deal with his own exploding soul.

White light stormed through his channels, tearing him apart as though he'd swallowed a razor-sharp flame. He tried to vent it from his skin where he could, white light spearing through him and leaving tiny, bleeding cuts with every ray.

It was like getting stabbed by a dozen nails at once, from the inside. He screamed.

Through a haze of pain and tears, he saw the Remnant rise.

Only one. The bodies he'd cut with the Ancestor's Spear remained still and quiet, but the single individual the Sandviper had killed vented its Remnant into the air.

Even through his mind-numbing agony, Jai Long glared at the spirit. His thoughts were strained, fogged, but he still recognized the classic Stellar Spear Remnant. The Remnant he was supposed to have bonded.

He could barely see it, half-blind as he was at the moment, but they always looked the same.

It looked like a constellation. Points of bright light formed joints, hands, eyes, and a heart, like stars floating in the air. Thin, faded lines connected those points until the spirit looked like a bent, hulking skeleton torn from the night sky.

The Remnant's roar sounded like the rush of a bonfire.

Jai Long staggered forward, leaving bleeding footprints in the grass behind him. More shards of madra cut through his skin, but he could no longer feel them.

Gokren yelled something to him, but he was beyond hearing.

With no technique, no art, he jammed the Ancestor's Spear into the lines of the Remnant's rib cage.

This power was nothing like what he'd stolen in battle. It flowed into him, still and obedient, a gentle rain instead of a vicious flood. His core drank it up greedily until it strained against its limits, pushing to expand and contain this feast.

Jai Long dropped to the ground, cycling desperately. If it weren’t for his long hours of cycling every day, he didn’t think he would have made it. His soul moved without his conscious will to guide it, looping in precise patterns as it had done millions of times before.

Every Path had cycling techniques for different purposes: cycling to absorb and process aura from the atmosphere, cycling to use a technique, cycling to restore lost madra, and cycling to refine and control the power you already had. It was that fourth pattern he used now, revolving his madra along with his breath. Faster and more urgently than he ever had before.

The stolen light burned him and tore at him, even as the power from the Remnant threatened to drown him.

He knew nothing but guiding that river, losing himself entirely in the rhythm of the madra spinning within him, processing as much of the power as he could.

He swallowed everything he was able, making it a part of him, stretching his core to its breaking point, but it was like trying to drink a lake one cup at a time. There was more here than he could have handled in a week, and it threatened to tear his soul apart.

He shouted again, thrusting his spearhead into the sky.

A Star Lance thicker than his head rushed out of him, sending a beacon of white light into the clouds.

The extra madra in his veins dimmed slowly down. When his wounds finally stopped shining, the pain shrunk to manageable levels, and his breath grew too ragged to continue cycling, he let the technique and his weapon drop. He sagged, face-down, into the wet grass.

At some point, the sun had fallen to the horizon. Golden light died as twilight approached.

With a twitch of his head, he could see Gokren standing to his right, arms folded. The Truegold was bloody, missing one spear and leaning all his weight on his left leg, but he didn’t look worried. He stood within arm’s length of Jai Long, apparently unconcerned about the dangers of standing next to a Highgold blasting uncontrolled madra in every direction. The certainty of an expert.

Jai Long struggled on the ground, reaching for his spear. His madra was completely fresh and full, but his channels had been seared, and he felt as though one more technique would be one too many. But he'd learned years ago that he couldn't assume anyone else would protect him, not even Chief Gokren. If someone else decided to attack, he had to muster up a defense from somewhere.

Gokren clapped him on the back of the head, though the wrappings around Jai Long’s hair cushioned the impact. “They’re dead. Not the bats—my hunters wrangled them up. All seven of them, and only two of mine. Not bad for a night of work.”

He spoke lightly, but there was a steely resolve when he said ‘two of mine.’ He may have been prepared to lose his followers, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Before Jai Long could muster up the strength for a single word, Gokren pulled out his one remaining short spear and tapped the Ancestor’s Spear lying on the grass.

“That would work for me, wouldn't it? If I could find some Sandvipers who weren't worth as much as their madra.” He bent down, running a finger along the body of the weapon. “It's white, but it isn't Stellar Spear madra, is it...no, it's something else.”

Jai Long struggled over to the spear, grabbing it with weak hands and cradling it to his chest. Gokren straightened up and folded his arms again. “Don't go shy on me now, boy. I could take that from you if you were at full strength, and you're not. You think I’m going to turn on you now, after I pulled arms on the Jai clan for you?”

Jai Long felt guilty for a moment, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the spear. He’d seen people do worse things out of greed.