Yerin glanced over at Lindon.

Lindon hefted the axe. He still had madra left; his shoulder was already knitting together, and he couldn’t stand still. He walked out from the trees, gathering Blackflame into his left hand and holding his axe in the right.

[If Lindon fights again,] Dross said to her, [he’ll last…ten seconds? Five seconds. I’m betting five.]

Yerin turned away from him, holding her sword up to bar his way. “Catch a breath or two. You've had your turn.”

Lindon stopped. “He’s exaggerating. It isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, I’d bet on ten seconds myself.” She tapped the bracer of her armor with one finger. “Caught two scraps of a message. It’s crumbling to pieces out there, but Underlords are heading to bail us out. Just have to hang on.”

“You can dance a round after you catch a breath or two. Hop in when you feel like I could use a ten-second holiday.” She strode forward, moving more naturally in the Skysworn armor than she ever had before.

As part of the same motion, Yerin and her Blood Shadow spread out, walking to either side of the Underlords. “You've about drained me dry,” Yerin said, looking across at her opposite. “Now let’s see if you can bury me.”

Both versions of Yerin raised their swords.

Meira laughed and brushed her hand to one side in a negligent gesture. Life madra flashed, affecting the aura, and branches twisted unnaturally down to grab at Yerin and her Shadow. Trees bent all the way over to snatch them.

Then they burst into chips of wood.

Entire trees exploded under the Endless Sword resonating from two sources, releasing a deafening roar like a million logs chopped at once.

Yerin dashed in, slashing at Kiro, who met her sword with his.

Her Blood Shadow lunged at Meira.

And in the first second, Lindon would have sworn he was watching a fight between four Underlords.

He had personally felt how strong Kiro's blows were. Without the enhancement of the meat from Ghostwater or his own full-body Enforcer techniques, he would have crumpled under a single strike. But when Yerin's sword clashed with his, the Underlord was the one under pressure.

Yerin struck more than once in every exchange. As he defended with his shield and inflated his sword to massive size, plunging it down on her, she ducked to one side, slashing grooves into his armor with the invisible claws of the Endless Sword. At the same time, she lashed out with a Striker technique that blasted at his eyes, forcing himself to raise his shield higher. She never stopped. Her every move flowed seamlessly into the next without a blink in between; when he raised his shield, she was already striking at his feet, moving to attack from a different angle, drawing her sword-arms back for a follow-up strike. She was a spinning, flashing whirlwind of destruction.

She held nothing back, throwing herself into the fight as though this battle were her last.

And her Shadow was her equal.

Lindon had heard that the Blood Shadows of Redmoon Hall made them worth two sacred artists of their level, but he'd never seen that to be true. Yan Shoumei, the Redmoon Truegold in Ghostwater, had used her Shadow as an extension of her sacred arts, like a cloak or a weapon. He'd never seen her fight all-out, but he couldn't imagine that the Shadow gave her enough of an advantage to count as a true copy of herself. At most, it would give her an edge over other sacred artists at her level.

Longhook, the Redmoon Underlord, had fought with his Shadow in the form of a weapon as well. Lindon had seen him overpower Eithan with it, but not to the degree that Lindon would have expected from a two-on-one fight.

But here, for the first time, he caught a glimpse of what the Blood Shadow could be. It fought like a mirror of Yerin focused on a different opponent. It sent silver-and-red crescents flying at Meira, tangling her scythe in sword-bladed arms and invisible clashes from the Endless Sword, cutting her like dozens of invisible knives. They didn't cut the Underlady's skin deeply, but left shallow gouges all over.

Her dress was still intact, as was the haft of her scythe, but wounds still appeared on her skin. This was the effect of blood madra; it affected flesh more easily than anything else. The Blood Shadow might have trouble cutting a tree, but it would have no trouble slicing through a cow.

Lindon wasn't sure if the Shadow was weaker than Yerin or if it had a more troubling opponent, because it was pressed on the back foot more often than the real Yerin. Meira pushed it back, shoving it away, keeping it on the defensive. Until it backed into Kiro.

Then, as though they'd planned it all along, the Blood Shadow spun and refocused on a new target.

Yerin struck at the same time, sending seven individual slashes of sword madra at Prince Kiro—one from her sword and six from her Goldsigns. Each crackled with aura, until the prince faced a silver storm. He flooded his shield with madra, calling up the gray half-dome in front of him that he'd used to defend against dragon's breath.

And behind him, the Blood Shadow drove its sword through his back.

The Underlord stiffened, his shield faltering. The last dregs of Yerin's techniques pushed through the fading wall, lashing him, stripping pieces of his armor from his back. That armor had prevented the Shadow's sword from penetrating all the way, but it still stuck about six inches into the back of his ribs.

Lindon only caught a glimpse of the wound for an instant before Meira, shrieking, hauled the Blood Shadow back. Her arms were shredded by the Shadow's retaliation, but she ignored her wounds, tossing the spirit one-handed into a nearby tree.

Her screams turned into sobs as she saw Kiro, and she dropped to her knees.

Green light flared around her. Roots and grass rose from the ground, weaving together in a wall, shoving Yerin away. The pink flowers in her hair shone, and vibrant green aura engulfed Prince Kiro's wound. A second later, he drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

Lindon released a bar of dragon's breath.

This wasn't a game. The two had attacked without warning—attacked sacred artists younger and weaker than they were. Lindon might not have been able to keep up with the fight in his condition, but one technique was enough. He had been waiting for the opening where it might do some good.

The fire punched through the roots easily enough, and he poured the technique through the barrier, drilling a hole.

When the Blackflame ended, he looked through the new gap in the wall. He saw only green.

Leaves of emerald madra spreading from the Underlady's hand had blocked his attack. Their edges danced with soulfire that they greedily absorbed. The black fire should have driven a hole straight through the leaves, but instead, the fire madra was dispersed into essence.

Hurriedly, Lindon readied another blast.

The green light around Meira blazed up into a column that stretched into the night sky above her. In an instant, the column bloomed into branches and resolved into the image of a tree; a massive, mythical tree that rose over the rest of the forest.

Lindon's gut tightened in fear.

Meira looked at him through the hole, her eyes absolutely empty. “You are all dead,” she said quietly.

Then she raised something in her fist: a loose blue stone that looked like a gritty ball of sand. A gatestone.

She crushed it, and in a flash of blue, she vanished.

The wall of roots fell when she disappeared, which allowed Lindon to see that Kiro had gone too. That was a pity; he had hoped to kill one of them. Now they would return.