Mercy cheered, and Orthos laughed. Lindon’s pile had already collapsed, three of the four Truegolds having risen to their feet, but none of them attacked.
Yerin looked from the Truegolds to Lindon. “Tell me true. What were they feeding you while you were gone?”
“Sea monsters,” Lindon said.
Naru Gwei surveyed the situation from his cloud, arms folded. In one long, slow motion, he pulled a finger-sized leaf from a pocket at his waist and placed one end into his mouth.
Behind him, the wind wall had already died to half its original height.
“No one is hurt too badly,” Lindon said. “We can end it here.”
Naru Gwei chewed on his leaf, looking from one of them to the other. Lindon couldn’t guess the Underlord’s thoughts, but he kept pure madra cycling quickly through his channels.
“Bai Rou,” Naru Gwei said at last, “says that you all are a calamity waiting to happen. A bunch of indiscriminate murderers.”
Lindon relaxed a fraction. The Skysworn squads were bruised and embarrassed, but all still alive. Naru Gwei knew as well as anyone how much easier it would have been for Lindon to kill someone with dragon’s breath.
Although their enemies hadn’t been out for blood either. The fight could have been a lot worse, on both sides.
“Looks like I need to take a look at you for myself,” the Skysworn Captain said. Reaching up for the sword hilt over his shoulder, he stepped off his cloud.
Massive emerald wings flared out behind him, and he glided over to Yerin, pulling his sword as he flew. The huge slab of dark steel was so pocked, pitted, and scarred that it didn’t reflect sunlight.
Yerin’s, by contrast, gleamed white, and her Goldsigns shone silver. All three blades flashed as she swung them, sending three madra blades slicing through the air.
He broke them with one sweep of his sword, but Yerin wasn’t finished.
She jumped at him as he was dealing with her techniques, smashing her weapon into his side. He responded quickly, swinging his own heavier blade, the two swords meeting with a deafening crash.
Yerin smashed into the ground, but Naru Gwei didn’t come out easily. He was launched back, his wings losing purchase on the air, flapping and twisting to try and land on his feet.
A bar of Orthos’ dragon breath blasted toward him.
He pushed one armored hand against the black-and-red stream, holding it off like a flow of water as he landed on his feet. He drove his sword into the earth, making a clawed fist with his now-free hand, and Mercy stiffened. She had been drawing an arrow into her dragon-headed bow, but now she was gripped by invisible chains.
She was only Lowgold…or, wait, she was giving off the pressure of a Highgold now. Had she advanced during the fight? Either way, she was still too weak to bother Naru Gwei. He had immobilized her to show that he could.
He pushed his way up the stream of dragon’s breath, shoving the Blackflame madra down, though his armor had dissolved around his hand and it was starting to disappear up his forearm. Orthos had finally had enough, biting off the Striker technique.
Then it was Lindon’s turn.
He dashed in with a sudden burst of speed from the Burning Cloak, launching a punch at Naru Gwei’s back. He didn’t know how much it would do to an Underlord, but he could at least knock the man off-guard.
With disarming speed, the Skysworn Captain spun around into a punch of his own. Aimed straight at Lindon’s.
Their two fists crashed together. Naru Gwei’s hand was bare, his gauntlet stripped away by Blackflame, and Lindon’s was a skeletal Remnant white.
Madra flashed, green against black-and-red, in an explosion that tore away the grass around them.
Lindon was knocked back, pain shooting up his Remnant arm as though he’d cracked a bone, his shoulder aching.
But Gwei backed up a step too. He shook out his hand as though it were sore.
Then the towering pressure of his spirit vanished as he veiled himself. A familiar exhaustion crept over his expression, and he sighed. “I need your word—all of you—that you will at least help me unravel this whole mess around you and Renfei and Bai Rou. Then I promise you fair treatment.”
They all agreed, though Yerin muttered something under her breath that Lindon didn’t catch.
Naru Gwei rubbed at the burn over his eye with one thumb. “You’ve taken up far too much of my personal attention already. And I’m not so flush with strong Truegolds that I can afford to throw them away.” The leaf in his mouth had been torn away in the fight, so he replaced it.
When it was between his teeth, he grumbled around it, “…now I’m going to have to see the smug look on that guy’s face.”
~~~
Naru Gwei and his team had come in a cloudship of their own, and it was three times the size of the one that had carried Lindon and the others. There was plenty of room for all of them onboard, though Lindon, Yerin, and Orthos were all wary of sharing a ship with the sacred artists they had beaten only hours ago. The woman with spikes on her shoulders kept pointing at Lindon as they boarded; one of her arms was held up in a sling.
Lindon didn't know if she was threatening him or pointing him out to her friends, but it wasn't comforting.
Naru Gwei left orders behind in the town for a crew to repair and recover the cloudship Lindon had traveled in on, and then their ship was leaving.
Though their previous cloudship had crammed them all inside, and this one had plenty of room to spread out, Lindon immediately found this trip the less comfortable of the two. No matter where he looked, there were Skysworn and Skysworn apprentices—some with armor, some without—all sporting injuries that he and the others had caused. They treated him like a vicious, wild dog let loose among them, avoiding him at every turn.
Yerin reacted by vanishing as soon as she could. Which left Lindon trying to find her.
He passed over the deck, stepping around the young Highgold woman with the crystal tear-tracks on her face. She seemed less hesitant around him than the others. He hoped that catching her had built up some kind of goodwill. She kept shooting glances at him like the others, though he didn't sense any hostility from her. Maybe she was better at keeping her wariness under control.
Past her, he walked around some Skysworn polishing armor to see Mercy leaning over the railing, staring down beneath her. Her hair had grown long enough to fall down around her face. She leaned so far over that Lindon thought she might pitch over the side, clutching her black staff in one hand.
She gave an audible gasp and whirled around. When she saw Lindon, she dashed over and seized him by the wrist, dragging him over to the railing.
“Look, look, you have to see this!”
She pointed with one black-tipped finger at a circular patch of burning forest.
It was only after a few seconds that he realized what he was really looking at. One massive tree, as big as a town but far below, with leaves that blazed. A quick glance at the vital aura showed him a huge sea of fire aura, but not nearly enough destruction—the flames were burning, but they weren't consuming anything. The leaves might have been made of fire.
Around the branches flew fiery birds. They almost looked like leaves drifting off of the burning tree, drifting on the wind.
There was a strange shiver at the base of Lindon's neck, and Dross spun into existence. The one-eyed spirit had pebbly purple skin and two stubby, boneless arms that drifted down to touch Lindon’s shoulder.