aura-storm. It was a force of nature you could do nothing about, and at least it was over in a moment.
Now, the bloodspawn would wear them down. Even if they escaped, there were dreadbeasts ahead of them and the Wandering Titan behind.
With one surge of soulfire-enhanced madra, Jai Long whipped his spear in a circle. The force of his blow and the power of his serpents of living madra tore open a clear space around him. Bodies and bloodspawn were equally torn apart and shoved back, giving him enough space to work.
He leaped over to a log, dragging it closer. With a few quick stabs, he separated the fallen tree into segments, and dragged them into a circle around the edges of the empty space.
A bloodspawn clambered over the side, and he blocked its Striker technique before returning one of his own.
His core flickered, dim at the center of his spirit, but he focused on his task. Jai Chen had picked up on his project, and was helping him keep the circle clear. That took enough pressure off that he could begin carving symbols into the segments of log.
The work couldn’t have taken more than two or three minutes, but it felt like hours before their crude script—stabbed into pieces of log arranged in a rough circle—activated with a flare of white light.
It would push spiritual powers away, repelling Remnants and bloodspawn. Even dreadbeasts, to a lesser extent.
But it couldn’t stop them. Any script that solid would put too much strain on the material, and the first impact against it would send his logs tumbling.
Upon immediate activation, a bloodspawn with flourishing tree branches for limbs stumbled back, then shuffled around the edges of the script to look for prey elsewhere.
It would help…but it wouldn’t stop everything.
Sure enough, a dense, more advanced bloodspawn shaped like a man with a sword in his hand shied back from the script, but he crawled over the log to get to them. Jai Long faced him with no techniques, but they had to exchange blows several times before he got the better of the spawn, sending a chunk of its madra fizzing away to essence.
Jai Chen had finished another on her side, but even Fingerling was growing tired, drifting lower in the air.
More bloodspawn flowed around them, but some still ignored the repulsion and climbed in.
They would still die now, only slower. This was nothing but a way to stall for a little more time.
But wasn’t that every day?
A bear-like dreadbeast leaped over the back log, and Jai Long braced his spear against the ground. The rotting bear impaled its chest on the length of the spear, but didn’t seem to care, rabidly snarling and swiping at Jai Long.
He left the spear and the bear, turning to stiffen his fingers and Enforce them like a weapon. The Star’s Edge technique sharpened his hand with a point of bright white sword-and-light madra, and he drove his fingers through a bloodspawn’s chest.
While the technique was still going, he spun and slashed open the bear’s throat.
Jai Long was breathing hard, and his mask seemed to be getting in his way. Roughly, he tore off the bandages, baring his hideous fanged smile to the world.
The air wasn’t fresh, it was filled with smoke and dust and the stink of blood and rot, but he gulped down deep breaths anyway.
He seized his spear, kicked the dying bear dreadbeast off the end, and turned his weapon to work on a bloodspawn.
The last of his madra failed him, and soon he was fighting with nothing but the strength of his limbs. Even so, he swore an oath to the heavens.
If nothing else, he would die before his sister did.
One long second after vanishing from Moongrave, Lindon landed on his hands and knees in half-melted snow, surrounded by debris and wind-torn trees. People screamed around him as they fought featureless humanoids of red madra that rose from mere droplets of blood. To the east, Lindon felt hordes of dreadbeasts filtering out from the Desolate Wilds, driven mad by the presence of a Dreadgod.
As he recovered from the exhaustion of his working, Lindon felt nothing but relief. Mount Samara was still in one place. He’d made it.
The earth shook beneath his hands to a steady rhythm. Footsteps. Lindon heaved a breath and pushed himself to his feet.
He hadn’t come here to rest.
The chaos around him resembled a battlefield. More and more people poured endlessly from the Heaven’s Glory pass, stumbling over bodies, and Lindon