“Behind you,” Eithan said, and Lindon staggered forward.

He spun just in time to see a monkey with rotten skin grabbing at his shoulder, its lips peeled back in the grin of a fanged skull. His hands moved before he told them to, swinging the stinger with all his strength.

He smashed the monkey to the ground.

With half a thought, he withdrew the weapon and stabbed again and again, puncturing the monkey's hide each time. It shrieked and clawed at the Remnant part.

And a pulse of red-streaked force billowed out from the monkey, catching Lindon and slamming him into the ceiling.

Like sacred beasts, dreadbeasts were effectively monstrous sacred artists, and every one of them had a level of advancement beyond his. This was not a mistake he would have made before hitting Iron, and for an instant he thought it had cost him his life.

But he hit the back of his skull against the ceiling and landed on his feet. More than the impact to his head, what stunned him was that he was...fine.

The strike to the skull had hurt, but more like being struck by a stick than slamming his head against a rock. And he hadn't had to try to land on his feet, as though his body had known what to do without him.

He shook himself awake—an instant's hesitation could prove fatal, when facing a stronger enemy—but the monkey just scurried back into its tunnel.

Some shrieking followed its exit, as though it had gotten into another fight just out of view, and dark blood splattered onto the stairs.

“Hm,” said Eithan. “They're certainly excited.”

Lindon and Yerin broke into a sprint at the same time. He didn't check to see if Eithan was following; he suspected the yellow-haired man would survive if he was dropped into a pit of Remnants with nothing but his bare hands.

More Remnants and dreadbeasts boiled out of the walls as they continued, and Lindon learned about his Iron body.

For one thing, if combat before had been like trying to stay alive in the middle of a panicked nightmare, now he felt as though he were tearing his way through a lightning-fueled dream. His hands moved faster than his thoughts, his weapon a green blur, and keeping up with Yerin's running pace was easier than walking. His hearing was so acute that every breath of air was a note in a symphony, and he spotted movements he would never have noticed before: the tense of muscles in a wolf's shoulder, the flick of a sandviper's tail.

Compared to his previous self, he felt unstoppable. His blood burned in his veins, and madra flowed steadily from his Iron core, his breathing even and measured.

At the same time, he saw the difference between Iron and Gold.

Just when he was feeling like a dragon in human skin, a pale gray Remnant with six arms boiled up from the depths of the tunnel, howling like wind through a forest. It seized his weapon in one hand, his empty arm in another, and both his legs as its head peeled back to reveal a gaping mouth.

Lindon struggled, but he might as well have still been Copper; it looked insubstantial and blurry, like a weak Remnant, but it still had physical strength far beyond his own. Scrabbling from behind told him that there was a dreadbeast coming from the other direction, and Yerin was dealing with two enemies of her own.

Eithan was still whistling with his eyes shut as he dodged four creatures, but Lindon couldn't count on him.

The hands squeezed tighter and tighter until Lindon's breath came too quickly to fuel his cycling technique. He tried everything he could think of until his wrist went numb, and the Sandviper stinger clattered from his hand. Only then did he scream Yerin's name.

She went from a black-and-red blur with a sword of white to utterly still in a moment. Her Goldsign flashed, and Lindon felt an invisible pulse move through him despite his spiritual senses remaining closed.

It was the technique she'd demonstrated before: the Endless Sword. But this time, she didn't hold back.

The Remnant was blasted away from him, shredded into a thousand shapeless pieces and a cloud of dissolving madra. The dreadbeast behind him didn't even get to make a noise before it was reduced to a chunky puddle, and Eithan quick-stepped forward to avoid the chunks of blood that his own enemies had become.

Five or six cuts appeared on Lindon's arms where the Remnant had grabbed him, flaring to life like fires after a lightning strike, but he was staring at Yerin. She took a deep breath, restoring her breathing before she spoke. “Everybody stable?”

Lindon nodded wordlessly and she took off.

He scooped up his weapon, vaguely ashamed of himself. Just because he'd let the power of an Iron body go to his head, he'd forgotten the sheer force of the sacred arts. Of all the weapons in a sacred artist's arsenal, physical strength was among the least. He might be able to compete with Yerin in the force of his grip now, but she could carve him into pieces with her will.

It was a sobering reminder, but it was also somewhat liberating.

He had something to look forward to.

It wasn't much longer before they reached the end of the spiraling staircase, and by now the constant attacks were taking their toll. He hadn't used much madra, having no techniques in his repertoire that would help against monsters, but Yerin was noticeably weakened. They'd both taken wounds, in contrast to Eithan, who continued whistling as though his surroundings didn't affect him at all.

At the end, with the snarling of monsters behind them, they reached a door.

It was a heavy slab of stone, just like the ones before, but this one was carved with an intricate mural. It was divided equally into four sections, each depicting a different sacred beast: a serpentine dragon on a cloud flashing with lightning, a crowned tiger, a stone warrior with the shell of a tortoise, and a blazing phoenix.

Though Yerin moved forward to place her palm against the door, he froze at the sight.

He'd seen this before.

Chapter 17

Yerin removed her hand from the door, readying her sword. “It's some brand of riddle. Script keeps going right on into it, and there's a key buried here somewhere.” The howls of Remnants echoed up the stairs from behind, and the edge of her blade gathered force. “Take a step back.”

“Wait!” Lindon shouted, then coughed politely. “I mean, ah, please wait, if you don't mind. We've seen this before.”

Eithan sat down on a step and began fiddling with his thumbs.

The shrieks from below grew louder, and a Remnant like a giant purple onion squeezed itself out of the wall to Eithan's side. Before it had completely emerged, he kicked it back.

Yerin took a step back and looked at the door. “I do think you’re right. That looks more than a little like the picture in the Ancestor's Tomb.”

“That's a week away on the Thousand-Mile Cloud,” Lindon pointed out.

“Well, that's a head-scratcher,” she said, and then drew her sword back again. The edge of the blade distorted as though a haze of heat had gathered around the weapon, and she took a step forward.

Lindon's instinct for self-preservation kept him from stopping her before she smashed her technique into the door's surface.

It struck with a rush of power that was deafening in the enclosed space of the stairway, ringing in his ears as though someone had struck a bell over his head. Madra and aura flooded forward with her strike until his view of the action warped like he was watching through murky water.