Reaper(Cradle #10)(93)



Onto the altar went the two broken halves of Reigan Shen’s death trident…and the beating, throbbing heart-shaped binding from the Tomb Hydra.

The death madra immediately resonated between the two of them, and some death madra strings—dead matter that were still attached to the heart—began to weave around the trident.

“Better hurry up,” Eithan observed. “Looks like it’s trying to finish itself.”

Lindon gripped the bone ring set with the ruby, the object that had once given birth to the Bleeding Phoenix. He felt its weight on the world and looked back to Eithan. “Are we sure we want to—”

Eithan slapped his hand, knocking the twisted ring into the Soulforge. The circle of bone flew into the flames.

Instantly, the blue fire roared. It swelled to fill the entire interior of the altar, to the point that flames licked out around Lindon’s knees. He wondered whether the altar could handle it.

The invisible energy on the surface of the altar grew powerful, and the trident levitated into the air, carrying the death binding with it.

Lindon wasn’t sure whether it was an effect of the Soulforge or the materials, but he could sense the hunger aspect of the binding much more clearly than he had before. He pushed only a little, and the physical form of both faded.

They didn’t burn away to blue light, like the hammers had. This time, they seemed to fade until they covered one another, like one piece of paper layered on another.

This time, Lindon could feel an easy resonance with the Void Icon. There was hunger in the binding, and a hunger in the trident too; a hunger to destroy the enemy. To bring death.

Lindon spun Genesis in one hand, and he didn’t need anyone to tell him to use the red side.

Blackflame focused his will as he slammed it down on the two ghostly images.

You bring destruction, Lindon thought.

The heart squeezed halfway into the trident, and the weapon’s physical metal began to shift. The two halves slid closer together.

You bring ruin.

The metal came together, and the binding disappeared into the weapon. Now loose strands of death madra flailed around, and even the steel of the trident glowed an eerie spectral green.

But Lindon wasn’t watching its physical shell; he could feel the essence of the weapon in the Void Icon. Having used the Soulforge once before, he could more clearly feel how this process was similar to the Soulsmithing he’d always known.

Normally, he balanced different aspects of madra with his own, while making sure to manually mold its physical shape. Now, he was holding the clashing wills in the weapon, molding and steering them into one purpose.

You bring death, Lindon said.

Dross cackled in his head.

The hammer came down again, and this time Lindon saw—and felt—a clash of red against green, fire against death.

The trident shone, and blue soulfire erupted upward in a roar. It surrounded the weapon so that he couldn’t see it, and instead of passing over it, it twisted and disappeared as though it had been inhaled into the trident.

An entirely new weapon hung in the air. A spear. Its shaft was dark, with a green tint to it, and the steel of its blade was a death-green chrome. Spectral green sparks came off the weapon here and there, as though it were still hot.

And its presence…

In Lindon’s senses, it pushed against the world so that the air seemed to bend around the spear. It pushed against the spirits of everyone present, eager to be used. Even its spiritual might wasn’t at all inferior to the attack of the sword Reigan Shen had used to crack space.

“I don’t know that you could quite call it a Monarch weapon,” Eithan said, “but a Monarch wouldn’t be ashamed to use it.”

Lindon wasn’t at all embarrassed by the evaluation. He agreed; this could be considered a Herald weapon with added significance. Perhaps one day it would evolve into a Monarch weapon, if someone used it to accomplish great deeds, but even at the moment he would pit it against almost any other weapon he’d ever encountered.

He sent a glance at Mercy’s bow, Suu, which was currently in its staff form. Without knowing exactly what the spear’s binding did, he couldn’t be certain how it stacked up, but in terms of its overwhelming aura, the spear definitely won.

Mercy was looking at the hovering weapon in excitement. “Name!”

“We don’t have time,” Lindon said, but the others overrode him.

“Lindon already had a turn!” Eithan shouted. “Who’s next?”

After a moment of deliberation, Lindon was left with Midnight, Cursed Spear of the Destroyer. Dross and Mercy had combined forces and dominated the discussion.

He was almost afraid to grab the weapon, even as its creator. If his hunger arm was functional, he would have had more faith in that, but he ended up gingerly retrieving the spear.

Its will to destroy was almost a voice in his mind, and he found himself wishing he could keep it in his void key. But he wouldn’t risk opening the key again in the labyrinth unless he had to.

“Good timing,” Eithan said, looking out of the portal. “It seems we’re due for another shuffle.”

Sure enough, as Lindon closed the Soulforge—and slipped its key around his neck—they saw the walls of the labyrinth blurring. The lights flickered as the entrances changed.

New doorways opened up all around the room, but one caught everyone’s attention in the first moment. Instead of a gaping cave mouth onto a hallway of stone, this one was a small wooden door leading off of the platform with the Dreadgod tanks. It simply hadn’t been there before.

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