the illusion to make people look away from him. Their minds would fill in the details themselves.
He left the smoke, the Fox Dream hanging around him. The Irons who rushed in close, carrying weapons, were affected by the Dream and screamed or stared off in the distance or simply ignored him.
He walked through the crowd. This modification had been his own; he hadn’t needed Dross’ help with this one. He had worked enough with dream and light aura, and his own experience with shaping aura showed him that he could hold the Fox Dream as a continuous Ruler technique rather than a one-use ability that he simply cast on someone.
If anything, he was mimicking the same boundary field that the Wei clan had put up around him only a minute before.
The Patriarch and the Elder surrounding him were too far to be fooled by the Fox Dream, so they shouted orders.
Following their instructions, a steel-haired Jade with a pair of blades and a shield badge closed the distance with Lindon. One of the Elders, maybe the Seventh. Lindon didn’t care.
A sword flashed at Lindon, but his real weapon went lower. This was the Foxtail, an Enforcer attack technique that bent light and perception to hide movement.
In a fight between equals, it was a huge advantage. Lindon had once been proud of the way other clans avoided duels with Wei Enforcers.
Lindon slid past the real strike, letting the illusion pass through him, and seized the man by the neck.
He Consumed enough White Fox madra to replenish the amount that already moved through his veins; he couldn’t hold much without taking it into his core.
The man’s madra was weak, diffuse, dirty, and he was using it wrong.
A wave of attacks had pierced the decoy Lindon behind him, and his Forged madra dissipated, but Heaven’s Glory had gotten in on the action now. A wall of golden glass madra was Forged in front of him.
He conjured purple flickering Foxfire, and the Striker technique burned a doorway-shaped hole in the wall. They used their Striker technique only to inflict the illusion of pain, but it was a spiritual attack. It could fight against other spiritual energies, just like pure madra could.
Two Iron Enforcers waited for him on the other side, using the Foxtail, but he used the technique on his whole body at once.
His image lagged behind, and their real spears clashed in the middle of his afterimage. Lindon had never stopped walking up the hill where the elders stood.
Foxfire brought them both down.
He Forged a paper-thin illusion behind him according to the Fox Mirror. It was literally a huge blank wall. An Iron stumbled through it almost immediately, tearing the illusion apart.
But it did its job. It just needed to interrupt the view of the people behind him.
A pair of Akura Golds soared in on clouds, demanding to know what was happening, striking down a few who dared to launch techniques at them. They could handle themselves.
Lindon advanced on the two men who hadn’t run.
The Patriarch and the First Elder.
The elder looked regretful, sighing into his long white beard. The Patriarch remained stone-faced.
“Why?” Lindon asked.
“You may have learned powerful sacred arts,” the Patriarch said, “but you haven’t learned how the world works. You do not have absolute power. You tire. You will run out of madra. You cannot take the Wei clan from us so easily.”
In disbelief, Lindon turned to the First Elder. Was that really what they thought he was doing?
The First Elder regarded him with sad eyes. “Revenge does not become you, Lindon. If you had come to us with this talent, we would have welcomed you with open arms. But this…scheme…” He shook his head. “You never learned the real lessons you needed to.”
“You…” Lindon didn’t even know what to say. “…have you lied for so long that you are blind to the truth?”
The First Elder shook his sleeves out. “You may have great power, but we have honed our techniques over many years. You have never seen the true Path of the White Fox.”
The aura in Lindon’s mind was pinched with a deft touch. The First Elder was smoother, subtler, more skilled than anyone else Lindon had seen use the Fox Dream.
[He wants to distort our eyes so we see him to the right of where he actually is,] Dross reported. [Too bad his technique is…hm. Is it bad that I want to say “his technique is dross”?]
The Fox Dream technique itself was flawed. From the pathways the madra