[Here’s some good news,] Dross said. [If they do come back, I have a combat solution prepared for Prince Kiro. One hundred percent ready to go! It wasn’t too complicated, as these things go. I have a partial prediction for the one called Meira as well, though if you could spare some more Dream Well water, then I'd really knock your feet off.]

Lindon walked out, looking from Yerin to her Blood Shadow. “Gratitude,” he said, though his feelings were more complicated than that. He was grateful, but...he had also thought he'd caught up to Yerin enough to fight beside her. He felt useless.

“I've never seen you fight like that,” he said. “You were...”

He trailed off as Yerin's eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed.

He was there in an instant, catching her in his arms. Her master's sword fell from limp fingers. Her breathing was rough, her skin pale and cold. She weighed practically nothing.

Before he could ask Mercy to grab Yerin's sword, the Blood Shadow appeared next to him. It looked into his eyes, and it was like he could see a spark of the real Yerin in them. It was unnerving.

He dipped his head to her. He wasn't exactly sure how to address the parasitic spirit living inside Yerin, but it was best to be polite.

“Thank you for your help,” he said.

The Blood Shadow smiled again, gave him a wink, and then crumpled. It coiled into a rope of red light and slithered back into Yerin's spirit.

Had it really winked at him?

It wasn’t the time to worry about that. Yerin was in danger.

He looked back at Mercy, who had picked up Harmony's axe and Yerin’s sword, putting them into her own void key. He couldn’t unravel her expression, except that she looked pained.

[Oh, I think I caught a bit of that message she mentioned,] Dross announced. [Blackflame Underlords are on their way! Two or three minutes, I’d say. They’re gathering us up for the…oh. For the general retreat.]

~~~

The Seishen Kingdom's attack had come out of nowhere.

The Blackflame Empire wasn't entirely caught unprepared. Most of the Skysworn were acting as scouts, so they had taken the brunt of the attack, with some of their individual squads folding back to warn the major clans. The Empire had engaged their major defenses: boundary fields that created walls of wind, huge launcher constructs that could destroy even Underlords at a distance, and the Blackflame Underlords themselves.

But the suddenness of the assault had done its damage. No one had expected the Seishen Kingdom to launch an all-out attack at all, just to skirmish over resources. They hadn’t thought the Akura Sage would allow it.

The Empire's border in the Night Wheel Valley had collapsed, the Kingdom’s forces pushing through. Blackflame defenses crumbled, and the shadow aura made it difficult to coordinate an organized retreat.

Cassias stood on a Thousand-Mile Cloud, spreading his awareness around him. Now that he was a Truegold, his spiritual sense and his bloodline powers had both expanded, leaving him feeling like he had eyes in the sky for miles. The deep shadow aura restricted him as well, but it was still a difference of night and day compared to his Highgold senses.

He caught glimpses, not full pictures, but he could piece them together. If there was a bright side, it was that the Blackflame losses were relatively small—the Seishen Kingdom would be afraid to push the Sage too far. They were pushing forward to gain territory, not to kill.

Though lives were still lost.

The Emperor had sounded a retreat soon after their outer defenses failed. Now, it was a mad scramble to get back through the portal.

But Cassias was far from there. He had been left where the fighting was hottest. And the more desperate the battle, the more restraint began to slip.

His wife, Naru Jing, hovered next to him. Her right wing glistened emerald green—the Goldsign of the Path of Grasping Sky. The other was an almost skeletal orange-yellow, built out of madra, a prosthetic replacement created by Soulsmiths. Her left eye was the same color, taken from the same Remnant. She waved a hand, and her wind madra cut a volley of Enforced arrows from the sky.

She had been powerful before, as the top-ranked Highgold in the Empire. Now, the two of them had taken the opportunity to train in a place where the aura was richer than ever before. He doubted they were the top two ranked among Truegolds—there were some real monsters among the Truegolds of the Blackflame Empire—but he suspected they would be in the top two or three hundred. If the heavens were kind, they might even break through to Underlord before the end of this contest.

But with that power had come extra authority, and with the authority, duty.

Cassias relayed the situation he'd seen to Jing, who informed her father via courier. Her father was a significant figure in the Naru clan, and had taken to directing their defenses.

This hilltop, the headquarters of the Naru clan on this side of the shadowy portal, was the last site of fierce fighting. The Emperor and the Underlords were fighting elsewhere, and while they would likely return, the winged members of the Naru clan were being pushed back. Their losses were still manageable, but they had no one to match the enemy's Underlord: a woman with long, burning hair who shouted loud threats as she burned her way through the forest.

Cassias was singlehandedly doing the work of twenty scouts, and might have been the only reason they were able to maneuver around the fiery Underlady. Wherever she was headed, they gave ground, reinforcing their lines elsewhere. No matter how much stronger she was, she couldn't be everywhere.

The Naru clan could outpace her, falling back through the air, but it would mean leaving their servants and workers undefended. Servants like the Arelius family.

A fireball streaked like a comet through the air, and it took all of Naru Jing's attention to disperse it. Through his bloodline ability, Cassias saw the Underlady's fix on him, drawing a spear of burning madra from thin air. He pulled his awareness back.

“Time to leave,” he said. He ordered his Thousand-Mile Cloud to plummet downward, pulling out a caged purple butterfly as he did so. He whispered a quick message to it, informing the Naru clan that he was repositioning. He wouldn’t last long with an Underlord-level sacred artist targeting him.

He regretted the full retreat. Though he trusted the Emperor’s judgment, every day they stayed in this aura-rich environment was a fortune to their sacred artists. If they stayed here long enough, he might even reach Underlord himself.

He was focused on delivering his message when his wife tackled him.

The cloud he had been standing on exploded, the focus of not just the Underlady but her contingent of Truegolds. They fell, Jing's wings straining to hold them, her artificial eye blazing with effort.

Then, suddenly, Cassias landed.

It confused him, because he was sure they had not come close to the ground yet. And the landing felt as soft as if he had landed on a pile of pillows. He looked down and saw the emerald green cloud that had appeared beneath him.

Then he looked up, to the Skysworn armor. And the man wearing it.

Eithan shook his head, closing his eyes as though he couldn't bear to watch. “Shame. It's such a shame that I am duty-bound to the scouting mission the Skysworn have given me. I can't possibly help you.”

Cassias sagged back in relief, leaning into his wife's arms. She let out a long breath.

“If only I were the Patriarch, my spot would be here beside you, but alas I was ousted from my rightful position...”