Reaper(Cradle #10)(37)

He had gone through great battles, suffered indignities, and lost weapons of incalculable value these last few days. But now there were no obstacles remaining.

He raised the silver container at his belt, the one that had been stained red. The Blood Core was overpowering its case.

Fortunately, he didn’t need it anymore.

Reigan Shen steadied himself, cycling his madra, stilling his heart and focusing his will. This was it. When he placed the Blood Core back where it had belonged, he would be flipping the hourglass.

Then the whole world would be against him.

For a time.

When his mind was steady, Shen summoned the Blood Core. The huge red sphere streamed out of the tiny flask, and he placed it on the altar from which he had first taken the Storm Core.

Instantly, red light poured upward. And the room changed.

The liquid-looking crystals all over the walls and ceiling turned from blue to purple in an instant, blood madra flowing through them. The lightning now crackled red.

Originally, this chamber had been made to hold the Blood Core. The Cores had been scrambled long ago, their placement swapped, to help change the function of the script they powered. In a sense, Reigan Shen was setting something right.

The power of storms had built up in this room over centuries of exposure to the Storm Core, leaving these remainders, but that would be cleared out soon.

Now, for the first time in memory, this place would serve its true purpose.

Shen didn’t linger. He dashed out of the room, pitting his willpower against reality to push him faster, faster than his body could normally handle. Even the air swept around him, guided by his soulfire control.

Hunger madra focused on him. He was spending too much power in the labyrinth, but he had no choice.

The clock had begun to tick.





One of the elders of the Holy Wind school dipped her hand into Greatfather’s Tears to take a drink. The water level had fallen after the attack of the Titan, but over the last few days, it had risen again. But it was no longer as crystal-clear as before.

An instant after tasting the water, she spat it out. The Greatfather’s Tears had been corrupted. This coppery tang was unmistakable; it was blood.

She drew herself up, shouting in fury for the guards. If their most sacred place had been defiled with violence, then her entire school had failed in its duty. There might even be a body at the bottom of the spring.

She marched away, furious, as bit by bit the water darkened further.





The door slamming open interrupted Lindon’s meal, though both he and Yerin had sensed Eithan coming from a mile away.

They both looked to him in equal irritation. They had specifically taken time away from training and anyone else but each other, and booked an entire restaurant. Lindon had even gone to see a barber on Eithan’s desperate pleading.

Yerin’s sword-arms stretched out, but she deliberately pulled them back in. “You had a chance to keep your skin in one piece, and you left it at home.”

“It happened again!”

Lindon exchanged a look with Yerin. It had been weeks since Eithan had felt his first premonition of danger, and both had kept their eyes out. But neither had sensed anything like what Eithan had described.

They still took it seriously.

Yerin frowned and her perception rushed out of the restaurant in a river. She might have a chance of reaching all the way to Sacred Valley, if that was indeed where the problem had come from, but she still wouldn’t be able to push past the suppression field.

Lindon reached out to the Void Icon. He still spoke as he did. “This is bad timing, Eithan.”

“It could have been worse!” Eithan pointed out. “Believe it or not, I do know when people can be interrupted and when they can’t.”

Lindon’s cheeks heated, and he focused on his spiritual sense to avoid meeting Eithan’s eye. Again, he felt no foreign authority in the area. There was no influence that reminded him of the Void Icon, nor any powerful wills working against them.

Yerin’s ruby eyes snapped open. “Not a sniff or a hair. I’d be red-hot if I thought you were just poking at us, Eithan, but I don’t think you are. You’ve got me shaking.”

Lindon had a similar feeling. The longer this went without passing as one of Eithan’s jokes, the more disturbed he became.

Eithan scratched furiously at the side of his head, disturbing his short hair. “It’s something, but…if only I could…maybe if I fly…”

He mumbled to himself as he left, leaving Lindon and Yerin staring at the door in shock.

“He didn’t even try to pull up a chair,” Lindon said.

Yerin leaned over to look out the window. She didn’t watch the street, looking instead to the sky.

“What are you looking for?”

“Just checking to be sure the moon’s still there. The longer he does this, the bigger the problem’s gonna be.” She fell back into her chair and speared a chunk of eel.

She looked at it, then replaced it without eating it.

“Maybe we should take a cloudship out west,” Lindon suggested. “I do think he sensed something.”

“That’s why I’m shaking.”





The shattered remains of Mount Venture still vomited up yellow light. It was fainter than it had been, the Core having been fed upon by the Titan, but it would work for Shen’s purposes.