That was all Yerin saw. Rivers of silver aura rushed to her, blinding her, filling her spirit. They flooded into her veins, far more than she could ever cycle, rushing to her core.

Her master’s Remnant blurred, soaking more completely into Yerin’s madra. The sense of his presence weakened again, as it had when she’d advanced to Highgold.

Then, like a deep breath released, the sword aura burst from her in a wave.

Every tree in the clearing exploded under the strike of a thousand axes. Mercy wasn’t spared; violet crystal covered her chest in a breastplate, taking the brunt of the force, but scratches still appeared all over her body.

The Highgold dragon Derianatoth had been webbed up by Mercy at some point. Yerin guessed when she was focused on the Truegold. She couldn’t defend herself, and her black cocoon burst into sprays of blood.

Blood spurted from the Truegold’s scales too, but it wasn’t enough to kill him. Not until she followed it up with a Striker technique.

Seconds after the wave of sword aura passed through the forest, his body fell into chunks of flesh and bone.

And then the forest was quiet.

Sunlight streamed down on them, unfiltered by branches. A chill wind blew through now that it wasn’t blocked by trunks. Mercy’s presence faded back to Lowgold, and her bow relaxed to a staff. She hobbled closer to Yerin.

“Congratulations! Should we run?”

“Not yet,” Yerin said, eyeing the bodies. “Can’t leave the Remnants to follow us. And we can’t look like cowards in front of our new guest.”

Guided by her Truegold perception, she turned to look into the forest.

A young man stood there, emerald horns shining very slightly in the shadow of the trees that still stood around him. He wore a faded gray cloak, leaned on a hammer as big as he was, and wore an expression like he’d died two days before.

“Looking to pick off the winner?” Yerin asked, her sword starting to shine with the Flowing Sword Enforcer technique. It hummed with a might she’d never felt before; the strength of a Truegold.

He took a long, slow breath, letting it out like it was his last. “…no,” he said.

It looked like it had taken him a week of effort to force out that one word, but she had Remnants to deal with. They rose like sunset-colored serpents from the bodies of the dragons. At least in death, they looked like proper dragons: flying, serpentine creatures of flame.

As she’d expected, they both turned to Yerin.

Sword aura wouldn’t do much against these non-physical Remnants, but madra would. She whipped a Striker technique at the Highgold, dashing at the Truegold herself. A few strokes of her master’s blade left the Remnant in a few hissing puddles on the ground.

The whole time, she’d kept her perception locked on the newcomer. He didn’t feel like he was ready to step in. He felt like he would fall over at any second.

“We have to go,” Yerin said to Mercy. She didn’t like running past an unknown threat, but the Lady was coming from the other direction.

Wait…no, she wasn’t.

Yerin’s spirit crawled. In the instant she’d taken her perception off the dragon, the woman had covered miles.

Dreading what she would see, Yerin looked behind her.

The Underlady stood there, a sword in hand. It crackled with orange lightning. “On my blood and my name,” she whispered, “I swear that you will suffer as none have suffered.”

Perfect.

Yerin’s Blood Shadow spun out from behind her, and this time she didn’t try to stop it. Like a red Remnant copy of her, it spread its Goldsigns. Its right hand flattened into another sword, and it leaned forward, ready to fight.

“Don’t suppose you have another one of those shields,” Yerin said. Mercy gave a flat, lifeless laugh.

The stranger stepped out of the trees, dragging his huge hammer behind him. It carved a furrow in the soil as he walked, as though he barely had the strength to pull it. “I am the Beast King’s witness,” he said with a sigh. “I witness a Lady attacking two Golds. Fall back, or he has cause to intervene.”

The dragon’s shrieking laughter pierced the forest. “And who are you?”

“Underlady,” he said, “believe me when I say that I am no one at all.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she took him in from the tips of the horns to the bottom of his time-worn cloak. She bared fangs. Then more.

“No,” she said at last. “I will not bow to you. Nor even to your master.”

With a sweep of her sword, she whipped a rush of liquid flame at Yerin.

Yerin had expected it all along. Together, she and her Blood Shadow both launched a Rippling Sword at the incoming Striker technique. The Blood Shadow’s technique did about as much good as a kitchen knife against a tree. Her own wave of silver energy crashed into the flow of orange flame.

But the Underlady’s technique, like a river of fire bursting through a dam, pushed right through.

Yerin met the madra with the flat of her master’s blade. It pulsed with the power of her Enforcer technique; though it felt like pushing against an ocean’s tide and the heat of molten metal all at once, she gritted her teeth and braced herself.

Mercifully, the onslaught ended, leaving smoke rising from her arms—singed again—and her madra dangerously low.

She’d stopped it.

The green-horned man watched the whole thing with flat, dead eyes. “Remember you said that, Sopharanatoth.” Yerin guessed that was the dragon.

Yerin’s spirit trembled as another powerful soul was unveiled somewhere on the island. Yerin couldn’t put a name to its advancement level, but it felt impossibly ancient.

Then the mammoth rose over the trees and raised its trunk, trumpeting into the sky. She could see it mostly as a pile of fur in the distance; it looked like a mountain’s pet dog.

The stranger pointed in that direction. “My friend was listening. He’s not happy.”

The golden Thousand-Mile Cloud rushed in as though blown on a storm’s wind. Two Truegold dragons dropped from it, right in front of Sopharanatoth.

“Sophara,” one said. “We have to leave.”

The mammoth blasted another note.

“We have to leave right now.”

The Underlady raised her sword again, but was tackled by her retainers. She struggled against them, and though she could surely overpower them if she tried, they managed to wrestle her onto a smaller Thousand-Mile Cloud.

“Skysworn!” she howled. “I will come for you! Your Empire cannot protect you! You cannot hide from me!”

She kept wailing as the cloud carried her into the sky.

When she vanished, the giant Thousand-Mile Cloud started to slide away. It moved quickly, for something so huge.

Yerin took a deep breath of relief as the pressure was lifted, letting herself be soothed by the Truegold madra flowing through her. Mercy looked to her, and then to the newcomer.

“Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Mercy.”

Chapter 17

Lindon sensed no Eyes of the Deep in Harmony's possession, and his Goldsign was even more dense than before. It seemed like a hole hovering behind his head.

“He's only a step away from breaking through to Underlord,” Orthos rumbled. “He'll have a weapon in his soulspace, and he'll have soulfire in his body, but he won't be able to infuse it into his techniques yet.”