Outclassed he may have been, but Daji’s body had still been remade in soulfire. He twisted in midair and his sword expanded to massive size with Forged madra. He slashed at Lindon, beneath him, with a blade the size of his entire body.
Lindon’s eyes cooled as they turned to crystalline blue, and blue-white pure madra erupted into a dome all around him. He controlled the expansion of the Hollow Domain so he wouldn’t catch any of the Akura clan in it, but Daji’s technique slid through the dome.
It dissolved like dust in water.
Lindon let the cloud of harmless essence pass over him as Daji fell into the field and his Enforcer technique failed him. The prince twisted to land with his legs beneath him, but Lindon grabbed his ankle.
Daji caught himself with his hands, rather than crashing face-first into the ground, but that wasn’t the result Lindon wanted.
So he lifted Daji one-handed and slammed the Underlord back into the ground.
At first, Daji twisted to kick Lindon’s head with his free leg, but the power Lindon had drained from Crusher still flowed through him. The kick landed like a dragonfly smashing into a window.
Lindon smashed him into the ground again.
Daji kept trying to pull his madra together, but under the influence of the Hollow Domain and the trauma of the beating, he couldn’t form a technique.
And Lindon was holding Daji’s ankle with his right hand.
Whenever it looked like the prince was about to finish a technique, Lindon bled the madra away with the Consume technique and vented it into Daji’s back. The force and earth madra came out like a fistful of bricks.
All the while, Lindon hammered him against the floor over and over.
It didn’t resemble anything like an honorable sacred artist’s duel. There was no dignity and no possibility of escape. Only when Daji was bloody, broken, and whimpering did Lindon let the Hollow Domain die and drop the prince one final time.
Everyone watched Daji land on the ground with a smack, where he curled in on himself with a sound like a cross between a scream and a groan.
Lindon knelt beside him, speaking quietly. “I tried to leave you alone.”
Almost gently, he pulled the prince up from the ground by his collar. Daji sputtered and spat out blood.
“I know this was just you. Meira and your father…they’re smarter than this. I don’t think a Monarch would have approached them. Am I right?”
Daji burbled incoherently, his eyes spinning in their sockets to come to rest on Lindon. They were surprisingly lucid.
“You deserve to die. You know that. But they don’t, do they?”
For a moment, the anger and the pain cleared from Daji’s eyes. For the first time, Lindon saw something human in them.
Very slightly, the prince of the Seishen Kingdom shook his head.
Lindon rose to his feet as Mercy, rather unnecessarily, announced victory. Seishen Daji was dragged off into the shadows, and Lindon remembered Orthos’ words from long ago: “The Akura do not kill honorably. They take prisoners.”
“I believe him,” Lindon said to Mercy.
“Y-yeah…” Mercy said. She sounded like she was trying to encourage him.
“I know his confession won’t make a difference.” It wasn’t as though a single shake of the head after a brutal beating counted as proof. Even the ‘duel’ had just been another way of punishing Daji within the Akura clan’s rules, not a way of obtaining evidence.
But Lindon did believe him.
“I’ll ask them to take it easy,” Mercy promised.
Charity slipped up beside them. “We will take it easy on everyone but Daji. Unless we find evidence of collusion. How did you feel about your arbitration, Mercy?”
“Terrible.”
Lindon gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder, but he was already turning to leave. “I have to prepare. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Where are you…no, it doesn’t matter. I have to stay with Pride. I’ll see you tonight!”
Charity’s eyes narrowed on him. “You know not to leave the city, don’t you?”
“Of course, Charity. Thank you for your concern.”
It felt almost painful to call a Sage by her given name, but she only nodded before vanishing with Mercy.
Lindon rubbed at the blood on his fist as he walked through the artificial veil of shadow. Dross projected images of what the room had looked like before, so he strode through like the darkness was only a thin mist. His mental map would be accurate, assuming no furniture had been added that Dross didn’t know about.
[Not to cast doubt on my own predictions, but I thought you