walked inside and down to the basement, he found Yerin sparring against the training dummy he’d left for her.
She glared out from under her straight-cut hair, holding her sword in both hands. She waited with utter stillness, letting the puppet make the first move.
Her opponent was made entirely of dead matter, looking like a stitched-together Remnant of silver, gray, black, and rusty red. Adama didn’t consider himself much of a Soulsmith, so it had been a headache to assemble the puppet from the meager Remnants of sword, earth, or force madra he could find in the Valley.
The scripts etched into its body of solidified madra kept the dummy from moving except when activated, and then only in the few patterns he had allowed. Though his limbs felt like dishrags wrung dry, Adama folded his arms and watched.
A few breaths later, the puppet moved.
It drew a training sword at its side and struck at Yerin, who deflected it with a blade that shone with the Flowing Sword technique. They traded a few moves, both emanating the spiritual pressure of Jades.
He had no complaints with her movements. She had clearly mastered these basic forms, and her madra control had improved in leaps and bounds. It wasn’t so long ago that her techniques destabilized the second her mental state did, but her Flowing Sword was steady as the moon.
He did detect some impatience, though. One strike was a little too firm, another step a shade too eager. She didn’t like being cooped up in the basement.
Since they’d come to Heaven’s Glory, he had allowed her to interact with the Valley natives only at his side, and only while veiled as an Iron. He was thinking of relaxing that restriction soon.
For one thing, the spiritual perception of the Jades here was pathetic. He could barely call them Jades at all. They would never be able to see through her veil, so she could hide easily.
More importantly, while he had initially expected the elders to try to get to him through Yerin, none had. Not one had attempted anything.
They knew his apprentice was here in the house, and that he took her out sometimes to fight Remnants or train against Irons, but they had shown no interest in her. They hadn’t asked her so much as her name. It was bizarre.
Over these last weeks, he had come to figure out that it came down to the strange, twisted view they had of honor. None of them wanted the Sword Sage to think they were interested in a lowly apprentice for any reason, because that would…lower their standards in his eyes, for some reason?
He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t here for cultural research. If the Jades thought Yerin was beneath them, so much the better. No one would discover their reason for being here and Yerin would be that much safer.
Not that any of these half-baked Jades could touch Yerin’s shadow. Every cut on her skin and the edges of her robe was from her own Endless Sword; the only threats to Yerin in Sacred Valley were contained in her own body.
At the thought, he focused his perception on her uninvited guest.
The Blood Shadow was bound into a rope and tied around her waist like a belt, making a wide bow behind her. Ordinarily it should be stirring, restless, trying to tempt her into relying on its power or waiting for a gap in her control to feed on blood essence.
He felt almost nothing from it now. It was sleeping to conserve power, held down by the same curse as the rest of the Valley. As long as she stayed here, she wouldn’t be bothered by the parasite sleeping in her soul.
For that reason, this was the safest place in the world for Yerin.
The puppet-construct’s motions jumbled for a second as the wills of its various Remnant parts clashed, and Yerin took advantage.
Two motions, and she separated its head from its neck and one arm from its shoulder.
Silver sparks sprayed into the air like blood, and the nested scripts at the center of the puppet registered the damage as a defeat. The construct powered down, curling in on itself like a dying spider, preserving energy so that the Sword Sage wouldn’t have to spend so much effort rebuilding it later.
Yerin shone like a lamp uncovered. She turned to him, beaming but trying to hide it.
“Cleanest win so far,” she said, staying casual. “Smoother than butter.” She dispersed the Flowing Sword and slid her weapon back