You have no choice. They pushed you to this.
Before a breath of time had passed, while the first Highgold still had half her flesh left, he had already taken aim at the second.
The old man kicked off a movement technique, sparks flying from his feet, as he dove for the window. He still presumed to run; that stoked Enkai’s fury even hotter. If he had to burn through the Skysworn servant to reach the old man, so be it.
But the stranger wasn’t outside the window anymore. He was dashing across the wooden floor, focused on Enkai like a man staring at a blood enemy, pulling back his arm of flesh as though he was about to drive it into Enkai’s stomach.
Enkai drove his red fireball down instead of forward, slamming it onto the Skysworn servant’s head.
The man dropped to one knee, ducking to the side, forced to drive his strike up to meet Enkai’s wrist. His palm struck, but not hard enough to stop Enkai’s move. He seemed even weaker than a normal Lowgold. Pure madra rushed into Enkai’s wrist without ruffling a single hair on his arm, but it did flow into his spirit and disrupt his technique.
…about as much as a gentle breeze disrupted a bonfire.
The bloody fireball fell undeterred, burning through the servant’s blue robe in an instant and entering his body. With the bloody power of the egg fueling it, he was dead already.
He screamed, but Enkai had already moved past him. He should have known what would happen when he tried his tricks. They wouldn’t work on Enkai.
The real Skysworn would arrive to find nothing of this town but ash.
He leaped out the window and landed on the stranger’s green Thousand-Mile Cloud. From his vantage point, he could see the old man almost to the edge of town, sprinting down the dirt road and past the half-destroyed buildings that had remained after the Bleeding Phoenix’s passage. Another few seconds, and he would be beyond Enkai’s range.
But he wasn’t there yet.
Enkai hurled another ball of fire flanked by eight lesser echoes, and it hurtled toward its target. The egg’s hungry power would draw it to the scent of blood.
He would have watched, but a twinge of danger turned him around. Six green daggers floated around the old woman, and her spirit had latched onto his. She paled when he turned around and launched her Forger technique early.
Familiar with her madra, Enkai knew that this technique contained a life-poison that was all but impossible to stop. It would devour his life just like his own fire devoured the body, but leave him with an unmarked corpse.
A wash of bloody flame consumed all the daggers. He could barely call what he’d done a technique; it was nothing but pure power flowing out of him. As such, the red flames that landed on her skin didn’t consume her instantly.
Or quietly.
She screamed loud enough to wake the dead as he hopped down from the Thousand-Mile Cloud, landing on the ground two stories below. He felt the first aching pain of exhaustion in his spirit, drawing more deeply on the egg to quench it.
The town was nothing more than a collection of homes flanking a single wide dirt road. Most people lived above their businesses, and more than a few faces peeked out of upper windows at the sound of the screams. When they saw it was him, they slammed the windows shut.
Cowards. They all disgusted him.
Filled by the egg, he poured one ball of fire after another into the air around him, keeping them in orbit around his body. He was relying so much on the egg now that they looked more like fist-sized droplets of blood that were shaped like flames rather than actual fire madra. Eight smaller lights hovered around each one, until he was surrounded by a swirling constellation of power.
The energy within him was thirsty. He could feel it. Each technique strained against his control like a dog against a leash, begging to go hunt its prey.
Someone slammed to the ground beside him, kicking up a ring of dust.
It was the Skysworn stranger.
His skin was undoubtedly scorched, his face tight with pain, but he had not been consumed. Enkai’s hatred raged hotter; the Skysworn must have wasted valuable defensive constructs on their servants. They spent so much money just to defy him, when they could have had him as an ally.
He would show them the truth of the choice they’d made.
The stranger spread his hands, watching the fireballs encircling Enkai. “You don’t have to hurt anyone else,” he said, voice smooth and calming. “This isn’t what you want. This is what the Blood Shadow wants. Let’s just slow down, and we can talk about how to get you what you want.”
A peal of laughter boiled up from inside Enkai, loud and venomous. “I’ll show you what I want.”
He released his techniques.
Sixteen balls of fire, each trailing eight sparks, streaked away from him in lines of red light so that he was surrounded by a crimson web. There were sixty-two spirits left living in town.
It went down to forty-six in an instant.
The egg’s power wasn’t exhausted yet. After those first people died, their bodies burst into hungry red fire. That flame craved flesh, and it jumped from victim to victim in a second. The second wave didn’t die so quickly.
The screams rose from a solo to a chorus.
Enkai whirled on the Skysworn servant, rage so great his body couldn’t contain it. He filled his palm with bleeding fire, but it felt just like blood.
“It’s mine!” he shrieked, and even he wasn’t sure whether he meant the egg or the town. “You don’t get—”
Enkai froze, throat locking up.
Something had changed.
The stranger stood with his eyes widened in horror, mouth half-open as he stared at the blackened holes burned in village walls. He looked like a man watching his own home burn.
But he felt like a monster.
His spirit suddenly loomed like the shadow of a dragon flying overhead. Rage replaced by icy dread, Enkai scanned the stranger’s spirit. His core still wasn’t dense or bright enough to be a Highgold. For a moment, Enkai wondered what had changed. Then he realized: the man’s madra wasn’t pure anymore. His channels were filled with black fire.
Darkness flooded into the stranger’s eyes like ink, his irises kindling into circles of burning red. That horrifying gaze locked onto Enkai.
“Why?” the Skysworn servant asked, and the word was a plea.
Enkai drew even deeper on the egg. Its power was the ultimate counter to fear.
He hurled the ball of red light in his hand, packing twice as much madra into it as usual. The lights following it looked like stars, and each could consume a tiger like a torch.
When the technique left his hand, the Skysworn servant’s body erupted in a black-and-red haze. It was like an illusory flame, burning all around him, but it put a heavy pressure on Enkai’s spirit.
The stranger waited, motionless, until the bloody fireball had almost reached his chest.
With explosive force, he leaped straight up.
Enkai’s fireball blasted through the cloud of dust he’d left behind, which trailed up into the air. The Striker technique looped in the air, swirling up, nine orbiting lights chasing after the stranger.
He’d already started falling, gathering red-streaked black fire into his human hand. It gathered slowly, taking far longer than Enkai’s technique had, but it carried a great sense of danger.
Enkai reached behind him, pulling a twisted green-tipped knife from his waistband. This was a Highgold treasure, one of the most valuable weapons in the town. The blood-fire was rising to meet the falling servant, and even if he landed safely, this dagger would be waiting for him.