Chapter 738: The Man Who Would Take It

Chapter 738: The Man Who Would Take It

Tobin reached Leon before he had crossed the terrace, keeping his voice low.

"He came an hour ago," Tobin said. "Down the main stair. He walked to the cradle, saw it was empty, and sat down. He hasn’t said a word since." He swallowed. "That’s Mardoc Hollin."

"I knocked twice," Tobin added. "You didn’t answer. I wasn’t opening that door with him watching."

Leon looked down at the old man.

He was thin, with a short white beard and bare feet, and he wore a gray robe that had been mended so many times it was mostly patches. There was nothing remarkable about him at all, except that the column of light beside him bent, very slightly, away from where he sat.

The pressure was far beyond any of the foreign entrants. Tobin’s warning fit what Leon could feel: a cultivator at the edge of Earth Immortal advancement, with an enormous foundation beneath him.

Leon had spent a year testing his new circulation. Looking at the old man’s bare feet on the stone, he wished he had been given a less thorough first opponent.

"He’s strong," said Seraphine quietly, beside him.

"Yes," said Leon.

The old man stood up when they came down the last terrace. Leon came first, with the four women behind him in a loose line. The cultivators on the terraces above had gone silent.

"You have it," said Mardoc Hollin. His voice was dry and ordinary. "I can feel it on you."

"I have it," Leon said.

"I’ve waited sixty-one years for that door to open in my lifetime." He looked at the empty cradle. "I knew what was down here before your grandfather was born. I’ve gathered earth for half a century. Every vein in the Graywater hills. It’s not enough. It never will be. My path wants a stream my land doesn’t give." He looked back at Leon. "The stone turns what I have into what I need. With it, I can make the step."

"I know what it does," said Leon.

"Then you know why I want it." Mardoc held out his hand, palm up. "You’re a foreigner. You’ll be gone in two weeks. You’ll take it out of this realm, where it was made, and use it to grow a little faster at home." He said it without contempt, just as a fact. "I’m offering to let you go home."

Leon thought about the year of work, Ira’s Hearthseal, the jars Vyra had labeled, and every ration of ore he’d counted for months.

The crystal sat in his inner pocket, steady and warm.

"No," he said.

Mardoc didn’t seem surprised. "It’s not a request, boy."

"I didn’t think it was. It’s still no." Leon kept his voice level. "I found it. I learned to use it. It’s going to carry me a very long way. I’m keeping it."

Mardoc lowered his hand and pressed his bare heel into the floor. A crack opened beneath it.

The crack ran straight at Leon, and the stone on either side of it rose in two walls that slammed toward each other like jaws.

Leon stepped sideways out of it. The jaws met where he had been with a sound like a hill falling, and splinters of rock sprayed across the floor, toward the terraces, toward the people on them.

Ira’s flame met the first spray in the air. It was a narrow white thread, fast, and it took a piece of rock the size of a man’s head and burned it to grit before it reached the second terrace. A second piece. A third. She hadn’t moved from where she stood, and her hand barely moved either.

"Young Master!" Tobin, from somewhere above. "The east arcade! The visitors’ hall! The walls are three paces thick and there’s a stair to the annex!"

"Get everyone behind those walls," Leon called back.

"Blue coats, east!" That was Orrin, already moving. "Green coats follow me! Single file, stay off the open floor!"

They went. Leon heard them go, boots on stone, the scrape of someone being half-carried. A Hall disciple had been caught by a splinter in the thigh. Loriel was already beside him on the terrace, hands on the wound, and Leon saw the bleeding stop before she had finished kneeling.

"Young Master—" Seraphine began.

"I know," said Leon. "Go."

She went. Vyra went with her, a curtain of Crownfire unrolling along the base of the terraces behind them to catch whatever fell.

Leon spread his Illusion Aura along the inner court while the last witnesses withdrew. It followed the real walls, dust, and crossing currents, confusing the view through the remaining gaps. He left the enemy inside the concealment with him.

The deep elemental channels already muddled spiritual perception across the court. When Leon reached outward to check, Seraphine met his probe at the arcade and pressed it back. She and Vyra would keep the withdrawn cultivators from reaching their senses through that approach. The stone blocked direct sight; his illusion obscured what remained.

The witnesses would know a powerful fight was taking place. They would not see how he fought it.

Mardoc’s perception pushed through the edge of the illusion from inside. His eyes shifted toward the arcade, then back to Leon.

"A veil," said Mardoc. "For them, not me."

"For them," Leon said.

He could feel Seraphine waiting just beyond the last clear sightline. She had understood his order and obeyed it, but she wasn’t going to withdraw farther than she had to. He sent one brief pulse toward her, confirming that he was ready. Her answering pressure moved back toward the crowded stair.

He could not keep looking over his shoulder. That part was theirs.

"You’re hiding something," Mardoc observed.

"You didn’t come here to ask about my techniques."

The old man smiled for the first time. "True."

The floor came up under Leon.

He had expected the floor. He hadn’t expected all of it.

The entire inner ring of the hollow lifted under his feet like a wave. Leon stepped onto empty air and the wave followed him upward. He drew his sword and cut down into it with wind and lightning together, and the stone parted, and closed again around his blade.

The stone caught his blade for an instant. He tore it free before it could close around his wrist, and a brief memory of the forest struck him.

Qingyue had once stood between him and a threat he could not handle. He remembered his relief as clearly as his helpless anger. This time he had the strength to stay in the fight. He intended to use it.

He threw a fold of space between himself and the next wave. It struck the fold and slowed. It didn’t stop. The fold buckled. A second wave came behind it, and a third, all earth, all heavy, and all of it pressing on the same point.

The fold broke.

Leon was flung back across the hollow. He hit the base of the first terrace hard enough to crack it, felt the air go out of him, and came back up onto his feet with blood in his mouth.

Mardoc Hollin hadn’t moved from the cradle.

"You’re strong for a foreigner," the old man said. "You hide it well. It won’t be enough."

Leon spat red onto the stone and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

His Foundation kept circulating despite the impact. He could still draw upon the strength of the Primordial Void Heart. The other Heart remained separate, its holy energy held back.

All right. Everything, then.