Underlord (Cradle #6)(90)

Even the Sage was looking down on him, saying he wasn't ready to compete in her tournament. He'd been born to fight, everyone said it. He'd show the world. He hadn't been an Underlord for a week, but he knew he could go toe-to-toe with anyone of his generation.

Meira...didn't count. Her Path wasn't meant for combat, and that she could fight anyway was because she'd been born a freak. She was so obsessed with his brother that it scared him a little. Only a little.

Now, even this Highgold girl was looking down on him.

In more than one way.

She stared down at him from the ceiling with those purple eyes, hanging from her black strings, mocking him. She kept slipping through his hands like a fish, and to make matters even more humiliating, she even found the time to launch an arrow at him every now and then. They didn't hurt him, but they might make him trip a step or blind him for a second, and then he found she had scampered even further away.

By this point, as she pulled him further down the hallway like a mouse leading a cat, his rage was making it hard to breathe.

“STOP RUNNING!” he roared.

An arrow smacked him in the face.

“No!” Akura Mercy said, and he felt her running again.

Daji wasn't sure what he did next, but somehow he activated the armor that his father had given him. Its power Enforced him without costing him any madra, and he blasted down the hallway. A yellow light flared on the floor beneath him as a Ruler technique gathered up loose stones and dust and turned them into deadly projectiles, which flashed at the Highgold.

His grin was furious, though she couldn't see it through his helmet. He gripped his swords, seeing her avoiding the pebbles that flew at her faster than arrows. He almost had her.

The whole vault shook, and there was a flash of light and power behind him.

He skidded to a stop, boots scraping on the stone floor. That had come from his brother's direction.

He couldn't see much from his vantage point, but he saw dust and flying stones. That hadn't been Kiro attacking, he was sure of it. Kiro had poured everything he had into defense.

Why did Kiro get the real fight, while Daji had to play catch-the-mouse?

He hated to let his prey go, so he turned to look back over his shoulder. “Stay right there,” he said. Then he ran for Kiro.

There was another thundering crash, and he was filled with regret. He was missing an actual fight. Kiro and Meira had told him that these Truegolds could stand up to Underlords, but he hadn't believed them. Now, they had stuck him with the—

Something grabbed his foot as he ran, and he tripped, slamming headfirst into the floor.

He kept a grip on both his swords, but he was sprawled out on his chest. Behind him, there was a steady chuff-chuff-chuff as his armor's Ruler construct kept launching stone missiles.

He craned his head to look at his foot, where a sticky tendril of black madra gripped his ankle.

Mercy dipped around a rock, launched an arrow, smacked another rock out of the air, and launched an arrow. It was a display of skill he would have never thought he'd see out of anyone below Underlord.

Each black arrow stuck where it landed, spreading into sticky goo, but the ones that hit him in the armor had another technique embedded in them. They burned his soul and his flesh, eating into the constructs of his armor, a hungry acidic venom that chewed at him. They couldn't do much against his soulfire-enhanced body, but they stuck up the joints in his armor and interfered with the scripts.

Then she tripped.

The next pebble pelted her, and she cried out in pain. Now she was under pressure herself, doing everything she could to defend herself. She had been trapped.

He slowly pushed himself to his knees, tearing free of the black webs. More arrows came, but he knocked them aside with his swords.

It was strange; he felt so angry that his body could not contain it all. Like his wrath had gone beyond him and was controlling him from the outside.

That was it. He was done.

His armor was almost out of power, but he used the last of the fading Enforcer technique to rush down the hallway. Mercy saw him, Forging a string to pull herself up to the ceiling.

He'd seen that trick before.

He triggered the Striker bindings in both his swords. Blue crackling light lanced from his blades, one slicing through her string, one stabbing at her chest. Her green breastplate split under the attack, sending her tumbling backwards. But it hadn't killed her; the armor had done its job.

Daji Forged both blades to a massive size with the Titan's Blade technique. With the strength of an Underlord, he slammed them both down on her. It was enough force to spray her all over the stone.

When he removed his swords, he saw she was covered in purple crystalline armor. A full suit, like his. And she was giving off the pressure of a peak Truegold; had she advanced? Had she always been Truegold, but hiding her power? And how many layers of armor did she have, anyway?

Not that he cared.

He slammed his massive blades down on her, again and again. The armor she wore looked Forged, like his Goldsign breastplate. It looked like it had grown onto her, not like it had been crafted by Soulsmiths, and it didn't crack.

But it would sooner or later. And beating on her was healing his mind.

Finally, he paused. The armor dissolved, and she writhed on the floor. Her eyes looked like they were made of the same purple crystal her armor had been, but they soon retreated back to normal. Her spirit returned to Highgold, and she gasped for breath.