It could have done anything it wanted.

The Shadow’s back shuddered, so it must not have finished some medicine or spirit-fruit. She moved around to the side to see what it was eating.

A tiny, blood-spotted bandage sat at its feet.

And the Shadow cupped something small and white in its hands.

Yerin’s fury boiled up as her madra began to flow through her sword, which glowed silver. She had known the Blood Shadow was a danger, but she hadn’t done anything about it. This was her fault, and she’d solve it here if it meant cutting off her own arm.

The Shadow looked up, snarling, and Yerin got a clearer look at the baby rabbit in its hands.

The rabbit was…fine. It sniffed the air and looked at Yerin curiously, ice aura playing around the tip of its horn.

Its bandage was fresh and clean, and only then did Yerin notice the roll of new bandages sitting to the Blood Shadow’s right.

Yerin’s thoughts felt like they crawled as she tried to put the picture together. The Blood Shadow had crept out of her spirit without her noticing, and it had used that time to sneak into another hut, steal an injured baby rabbit, and hold it while eating Yerin’s food.

The Shadow hissed and pulled the bunny closer to its chest, as though afraid Yerin was going to steal it.

Yerin’s Enforcer technique dissipated, but she felt only confusion. “You fattening that up before you eat it?”

The Blood Shadow responded in its broken voice that still gave Yerin the shivers. “You…got to…hold it.”

The Shadow was still a frequent guest of Yerin’s nightmares, but this was too bizarre to be frightening.

“The Sage will scrub you out,” Yerin warned.

“Why…alone?”

Yerin stared. The Blood Shadow glared at her resentfully.

“Why…are we…alone?”

“So you know, we’ve got less than no chance of winning next time unless we train with the Winter Sage.” A second later and Yerin realized what she’d said. “I. I’m training with the Winter Sage. You’re a wound that won’t stop bleeding.”

The Shadow ran a pink-tinged finger down the back of the rabbit, who didn’t seem to mind. “…no.”

“If you’re talking anyway, you should use more words than just one.”

“No need…to be here. Rather…lose together…than win alone.”

That stuck in Yerin like an arrow. She didn’t want to be here, where the Winter Sage saw her master instead of her and the other students treated her like she had descended from the heavens.

But she couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t lose. It would be a betrayal of her master’s memory.

And the Sage would have her sensing the Sword Icon well before Archlord. That was an opportunity only a blind fool would pass up.

“It’s no account of yours anyway. I’ll sink or swim without you.”

Her bloody reflection sneered. “Good…luck.”

Yerin slammed the door open, marching into the icy wind. She was going to the jagged fields of ice to work on her connection to the Sword Icon.

She wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight.

12

Abyssal Palace moved over Sky’s Edge and the surrounding valley like a plague.

They didn’t attack. Their goal wasn’t to kill Akura sacred artists, but to prepare for the coming of their Dreadgod.

Teams of cultists swarmed over the land, erecting squat towers. These two-story cylinders of stone, raised with Ruler techniques, were covered with scripts inside and out. They served to hide cultists from outside detection, but Lindon didn’t understand their other functions at first.

If the towers were only shelters, why build so many? Abyssal Palace was lifting towers from the earth even when there were five others already in sight.

Only when he and his team forced a group of Truegold cultists away from a tower and Lindon got a look inside did he understand.

The towers were filled with scripts that would capture and store Dreadgod madra.

There were other scripts he didn’t understand, like one pointed into the ground that he assumed had some kind of mining application, but only one thing mattered: even the masks of low-level acolytes were worth seven points apiece.

The average Abyssal Palace construction team was made up of three or four acolytes with one higher-value priest. That meant at least forty-six points per team.

Since acolytes tended to be Highgold or Truegold while priests were usually Underlords, not all the Akura clan’s teams could handle them.

But Lindon’s most certainly could.

Lindon peeled the mask away from a Truegold acolyte and tossed it back to one of the Maten twins, who were covering their retreat. The eight of them stood in a battlefield of still-smoking holes and wreckage that had been an Abyssal Palace tower and a field of flowers only minutes before.

Pride and Grace were both finishing up acolytes of their own while Lindon walked up to the leader of the cultist squad.

Acolyte stone masks were bare and only lightly detailed, carved with what could barely be called a snarling face. Priest masks were more detailed and clearer, with pronounced jaws and fangs. More noticeably, the right eye of the mask shone yellow.

This priest, an Underlord, gathered madra, aura, and stones between his hands. They swirled together in a chaotic ball of golden light and razor-sharp stones, and as he hurled it out, the attack expanded.

Naru Saeya swept it away with a gust of wind.

The technique screamed as it landed in the ground, the flying rocks chewing up stones, but none of the Akura Underlords batted an eye. These cultists were outmatched.

The priest fell to his knees and pulled his mask from his face. He was visibly older than they were, and his skin was covered in patches of living stone. The Goldsign of his Path, and one of the reasons why they wore masks.

“We surrender.”

Pride stepped up behind Lindon and spoke under his breath. “If we’re not going to kill him, we need to move.”

Lindon nodded. Abyssal Palace fighters had been quick to surrender, and after his first attempt to take them captive, he’d learned why.

As soon as they had tried to fly off with their prisoners, a squad led by an Overlord had locked onto their position. They had been forced to kill or abandon their captives before they could be caught themselves.

Lindon had dumped them immediately. He already had their masks, and if he let them live, maybe they would get new ones. Like dumping small fish back into the lake.

They were allowed to kill, of course. The Dreadgod cults weren’t much of a threat yet, but they would be a danger to any survivors of the Wandering Titan.

But Lindon and the other leaders had been warned not to go too far. His team was powerful, but if they stuck out too much, then Abyssal Palace would target them specifically. They had to lay as low as they could.

While scoring points.

Fury didn’t mind this sort of combat because their entire objective was to slow Abyssal Palace down, not to eradicate them. In fact, killing too many would invite unwelcome reprisal that could end up drawing the attention of the enemy Herald.

Lindon took the mask from the priest and tucked it away, but this time he had a test. “I will happily let you go, but there’s one thing I’d like to try first.”