Underlord (Cradle #6)(55)

Her screams turned into sobs as she saw Kiro, and she dropped to her knees.

Green light flared around her. Roots and grass rose from the ground, weaving together in a wall, shoving Yerin away. The pink flowers in her hair shone, and vibrant green aura engulfed Prince Kiro's wound. A second later, he drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

Lindon released a bar of dragon's breath.

This wasn't a game. The two had attacked without warning—attacked sacred artists younger and weaker than they were. Lindon might not have been able to keep up with the fight in his condition, but one technique was enough. He had been waiting for the opening where it might do some good.

The fire punched through the roots easily enough, and he poured the technique through the barrier, drilling a hole.

When the Blackflame ended, he looked through the new gap in the wall. He saw only green.

Leaves of emerald madra spreading from the Underlady's hand had blocked his attack. Their edges danced with soulfire that they greedily absorbed. The black fire should have driven a hole straight through the leaves, but instead, the fire madra was dispersed into essence.

Hurriedly, Lindon readied another blast.

The green light around Meira blazed up into a column that stretched into the night sky above her. In an instant, the column bloomed into branches and resolved into the image of a tree; a massive, mythical tree that rose over the rest of the forest.

Lindon's gut tightened in fear.

Meira looked at him through the hole, her eyes absolutely empty. “You are all dead,” she said quietly.

Then she raised something in her fist: a loose blue stone that looked like a gritty ball of sand. A gatestone.

She crushed it, and in a flash of blue, she vanished.

The wall of roots fell when she disappeared, which allowed Lindon to see that Kiro had gone too. That was a pity; he had hoped to kill one of them. Now they would return.

[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.