Sophara held out both hands. To her left, water aura and madra gathered into a floating blue light. Azure Moon Reigns.

To her right, fire aura and madra condensed into a matching ball of red. Crimson Sun Rises.

The second technique would control fire aura as the first controlled water. Rather than interfering with the aura in her body, as the Azure Moon did, the Crimson Sun would induce all the fire aura in the area to burn her.

Simple burns weren’t much threat to an Underlady’s body, but she would have to spend a little power and concentration keeping the aura away. Which would distract her and bring her madra to its end that much sooner.

There were other attacks Sophara could use with the techniques, but Mercy was going to end the fight before she saw any of them.

The Dark Tide Incantation went into the arrow, adding the force of a crashing wave. Then the Nightworm Venom and the Shadow’s Edge.

Finally, with great difficulty, she wove the Dream of Darkness into the arrow. Its tip began to warp like a heat haze.

Attaching a technique to an arrow took intricate madra control, and she wasn’t familiar enough with the Dream of Darkness to make it easy. So as she did so, Sophara completed her two techniques and released another gold dragon’s breath larger than Mercy’s entire body.

Mercy could endure it with her armor, but the Striker technique would destroy her arrow—with so many techniques combined, it was unstable. She leaped into the air with the power of the Dark Tide Incantation, flipping over the Striker technique and taking aim.

She sensed a change in Sophara’s spirit, focused on her mind. The mental enhancement she’d used before.

Quickriver whipped out, slashing at Mercy in midair and spoiling her aim.

Mercy could have unleashed the arrow there, but it would only have been intercepted by the Imperial Aegis. She kicked the end of the whip, a crystalline boot appearing on her foot as she did, but then Sophara followed up with another dragon’s breath.

This one didn’t cover a huge chunk of the arena, but it would still be enough to erase half of Mercy. She lashed Strings of Shadow to the ground, pulling herself down and out of the path of the beam.

Sophara’s mental enhancement would only last a few seconds, so Mercy just had to dodge until it dropped. That would be her opening.

No sooner had she thought so than Sophara’s blade cut her across the back of the ankle.

She tried to stand, but her left leg almost buckled beneath her. Mercy was forced to fire the arrow, but as expected, it detonated against the Imperial Aegis.

Sophara slipped out of the area of the explosion, but she did so with no difficulty, keeping up a barrage of whips and dragon’s breath.

Mercy would have no chance to load up such an arrow again.

She released the Shadow’s Edge, pulled at Sophara’s feet with Strings of Shadow, kept her body upright with the Dark Tide Incantation, pushed against the aura using her soulfire, and blocked attacks wherever she could with her bloodline armor. All the while keeping her temporary advancement to Overlady under control.

It was too much. She was juggling twenty knives at once; sooner or later one of them would slip.

So when she sensed the power fading from Sophara’s mind, she dropped everything she was juggling except one. She kept her Overlord-level madra and joined her spirit to the bow.

Quickriver shredded her right arm, and gold dragon’s breath had already ruined her left.

Mercy fell backwards, twisting in the air to hold her bow with her right foot and pull the string back with her teeth. The arrow was a plain, unadorned String of Shadow, and as she watched her aim through the Moon’s Eye, she knew Sophara’s scripted golden shield would block the shot.

Mercy’s spirit strained past its limits, her channels screamed in pain, and her core dimmed to almost nothing.

As she activated the technique in her bow.

Arrows of violet light formed in the air all around the weapon, dozens and then hundreds Forged in a blink. Their color matched the blazing eyes of the dragon’s head at Eclipse’s center, which was currently glaring at Sophara.

Mercy released her black arrow, and two hundred violet arrows followed as the Archlord Forger technique launched at the same time.

The Imperial Aegis intercepted one attack…but only one.

Sophara wrapped liquid dragon’s breath around herself, but Suu’s arrows twisted in midair, seeking her with the will of the Sage’s Remnant that had gone into the bow’s creation.

The arrows exploded into violet lights as they landed. Made of shadow and force and destruction, they were an equal threat to the body and the spirit, and the barrage blinded Mercy both physically and spiritually. Tiny chunks of the floor were sent flying into a cloud that completely obscured Sophara.

Even her Moon’s Eye couldn’t pick out the dragon from the chaos, but Mercy pushed up on Suu to hop on one foot. She couldn’t hold the fifth page anymore; her Overlord power faded.

The barrage slowed, but the match hadn’t ended. Sophara was still alive.

She let her bow melt back into a staff; her arms were too ruined to draw the bow quickly anyway. Only her burned arm could somewhat move, and then only through agony.

But Sophara was trying to kill her mother.

She focused the Strings of Shadow technique through the tip of her staff, shooting black madra indiscriminately through the hole where the dragon had been. With only a little more effort, she brought up the Nightworm Venom technique, spraying it over everything.

The Imperial Aegis emerged, catching most of the poison.

From the web-filled pit, a dragon roared.

Sophara’s hair had been seared off, as had most of her clothes and huge patches of her skin. A sacred artist’s clothes were not often destroyed in battle; not only were they made of sturdy materials, but a person’s inherent spiritual protection extended to their clothes as well. Sleeves and hems were often damaged, but you usually only saw completely ravaged clothing on corpses.

Her left arm was a withered, bloody mess that looked like it had been torn apart by wolves, and blood spread across her middle. Even a chunk of her jaw was missing.

But she gripped Quickriver in her less-mangled hand.

And the liquid metal blade began to glow orange.

Fire aura flowed easily to it, thanks to the Crimson Sun that still shone behind Sophara, but it was the madra that really concerned Mercy. It was Archlord madra.

She had activated her own weapon.

The Enforced whip blazed like the setting sun, whipping at Mercy, and she desperately conjured her bloodline armor. If she could endure this, then surely Sophara could take only one more—

Mercy slipped.

She couldn’t afford to push away the subtle Ruler techniques of the Azure Moon and Crimson Sun anymore. Water aura had gathered around her foot and knocked her off-balance.

Her other leg gave out as she landed on it.

And a fiery blade passed through her neck.

16

The Akura audience stands were very quiet.

Lindon sat staring into the projection as the Ninecloud Soul replayed moments from Mercy’s three fights, spread out and slowed down for the sake of the spectators.

None of the Akura around Lindon seemed to want to watch the images again, but none left either. Lindon himself kept watching Sophara’s huge Striker techniques that she could release so easily…and Mercy, who could dodge or weather them with ease.