Lindon's History
Lindon is the youngest child of Jaran and Seisha, Irons of the Wei clan. In his youth, Lindon failed the Spritual Origin madra affinity test and was labeled an Unsouled, cursed of the heavens. As such he was forbidden to learn the Sacred Arts of the clan and was denied a path. His clan refused to invest resources to help him advance due to this deficiency. As a result he remained at the Foundation rank long past the age when children advance to Copper.
Prior to the Festival, Seisha sent Lindon to find the white orus, a spirit fruit. A normal orus fruit was like a pure white peach, and grew only in Sacred Valley. Fruit from an ancestral orus tree looked no different, but a bite would deliver him years' worth of purified vital aura that he could process into madra. As Lindon began to harvest the spirit fruit, Teris soon emerged from the woods, hair mussed and covered in scratches. He was hunting a snowfox, which was illegal. Angered that Lindon had interrupted his hunt, Teris punched the bark and leaving the imprint of his fist in the wood. The tree bent in the middle, splintered and fell apart. As a result, a remnant rose from the tree’s corpse. Immediately, Teris ran deeper in the woods without a glance back. Lindon used scripts and a crystal flask to distract the remnant and retrieve the spirit fruit from the remnant. Seisha was able to restore the remnant of the spirit fruit and split it between Kelsa and Lindon.
Soon, Lindon and Teris were called before the First Elder to recount the confrontation. Since Teris had abandoned a child of the Foundation Stage, he was to receive three lashes. Lindon, however, was to feed Elder Whisper. Elder Whisper told Lindon that the Path of the White Fox was not for him and Lindon would have to forge his own path. During the public whipping of Wei Mon Teris, Wei Mon Eri challenged Wei Shi Lindon to a duel of honor before the entire clan. Lindon was forced to accept the duel to surrender.
Lindon spent his time scouring the Clan archives searching for a suitable path. There he found a book called "Heart of Twin Stars." The book taught two techniques, the Empty Palm and the Heart of Twin Stars. Since Lindon would be shamed in the duel regardless of the outcome due to his age and deficiency, he and Kelsa devised a plan. Lindon would challenge Wei Mon Keth, Teris and Eri's father. Lindon requested a duel in which each party would have one strike each. The first to lose his footing is defeated. Lindon quickly executed the Empty Palm and punched Keth in the gut. Immediately, Lindon surrendered the duel.
During the seven years festival held by the Wei Clan, Lindon was a victim of a temporal divergence. Due to the nature of this event, he ended up meeting Suriel, the Phoenix, Sixth Judge of the Abidan Court. Suriel had taken an interest in Lindon after seeing him give his life in what he knew to be a futile effort to stop a being who had transcended Cradle, Li Markuth. She admired his actions and, as something of a reward, showed him his most likely fated future. During this vision, Lindon discovers that Sacred Valley would be destroyed by a Dread god (the Wandering Titan) a being so powerful that it crushes the entire valley underfoot. Desperate to save his home, despite his treatment, Lindon begs the “Celestial Messenger” to show him a way to prevent this tragedy from occurring. In response, he is taken by Suriel to see several individuals (The Eight Man Empire, The Monarch Northstrider, and Luminous Queen Sha Miara) stating that they each had the power to save his homeland. At first, this is believed to be the answer to his question but he is proven wrong as Suriel asks him what they have in common. Unable to come up with the correct answer he is told that it boils down to one simple thing: Drive. “...any Sage will tell you that all paths can be reduced to one: Improve yourself.” Thus begins Wei Shi Lindon’s journey. After time was reversed by Suriel, he easily won the tournament, via his Empty Palm, and went to the Heaven's Glory school, only to leave almost immediately after with Yerin after killing several irons and a jade.
After escaping from the Sacred Valley, Yerin and Lindon enter territory of the Sandvipers. Again, they soon leave, and enter Fisher territory. Yerin does jobs for the Fishers, such as helping them kill off remnants, while Lindon is recruited by Fisher Gesha to forge scales for her due to his pure madra. Lindon is captured to work in the mines but is immediately rescued by Gesha, who says it won't happen again. Lindon attempts to free the slaves working in the mine, but he gets captured for real this time, as does Yerin. Eithan is also 'captured' though he actually came willingly. Lindon undergoes a lot of training, and after being stung five times by the venomous sandviper, ascends to iron with a Bloodforged body. Soon, Eithan gets them out, but Lindon is severely injured by Kral, but because of his iron body, survives, and kills Kral after Eithan reveals that Lindon was still alive to him. Jai Long demands retribution but after Eithan revealed that he was the Arelius Underlord, backs down, but Eithan promises Jai Long a duel in a year. With this, Lindon and Yerin are healed by the Fishers, and taken to the Arelius family. This ends up pushing Lindon to stretch himself past his limits which leads to him killing a High gold as an Iron later on. In doing so he accidentally enters into a feud with Jai Long who, having made a difficult and irreversible choice to save his sister, was shamed by his clan and had looked at his fellow Highgold as something of a brother.
Lindon goes to the Blackflame Empire and embarks one of his pure cores on the Path of Black Flame. Eithan shows him various powerful paths, before he settles on the Path of Black Flame. Eithan has Lindon bond with a Truegold Sacred Beast, named Orthos. This allows Lindon to instantly have a core producing Blackflame madra and advance to Jade. He then begins training with Yerin. After several months, the Arelius family within the city Serpents Grave is attacked. While under attack, Lindon and Orthos are forced to fight the chief of the Sandvipers and Kral's father, Gokren. Lindon's newly mastered Dragon's Breath takes his arm off. Just before this, he advanced to Lowgold, though he doesn't realize it. While this fight is going on, Yerin is fighting Jai Long. Jai Long is Truegold while Yerin is Lowgold, though she advances to Highgold during the fight, and due to the circumstances within the city, Jai Long is forced to retreat. After fighting and killing the Sandvipers with Orthos, Lindon sees a bloody and bruised Eithan. Eithan jokes that his ranking amongst the Underlords would soon go up, as a Skysworn was watching the fight. Eithan also shares that he had a marble from the Abidan, which is similar except for having a darker, black color. On Eithan's orders, Lindon goes to the Jai Clan tower to find Jai Chen. Jai Chen was injured by a Remnant many years ago, which damaged her madra channels leaving her weak and crippled. Lindon, with the help of Little Blue heals her channels and restores her madra flow, thus helping her recover and slowly get her strength back.
Lindon is still forced to fight Jai Long, and loses his arm in the fight, which leads to him getting a prosthetic Remnant arm. Jai Daishou, the patriarch of the Jai clan and another underlord, who had opened the labyrinth in search for weapons and elixirs to help him defeat Eithan, unintentionally awakens the Bleeding Pheonix, one of the four fearsome dread gods and sets the Phoenix and its cult of followers, Redmoon Hall, on a path of devastation and slaughter till they are finally stopped with the help of the Akura family Monarch, Akura Malice.
Lindon, Yerin, Mercy, Renfei, and Bai Rou are sent on a mission to a pocket dimension known as Ghostwater. Ghostwater was created by the Monarch Northstrider. Northstrider is said to have vanished many years beforehand and is believed dead. The Skysworn send Lindon and the others to investigate the status of Ghostwater and potential retrieve any useful artifacts left behind by Northstrider. Upon arriving at the portal to Ghostwater, Lindon, Orthos, and Renfei enter alone and are taken by surprise to find a large number of unknown Truegold sacred artists waiting by the entrance portal. Renfei is then killed by one of the Truegolds, revealed to be Akura Harmony, a young prodigy of the Akura Clan. Lindon and Orthos flee the battle and are pursued by Ekeri, a Truegold golden dragon. Lindon takes refuge inside an underground vault wherein he discovers a pool known as 'The Dreamwell'. Water from The Dreamwell restores ones mental clarity as if they had just had a full nights rest. Inside The Dreamwell Lindon discovers a sentient construct named 'Dross' which guides him through the rest of Northstrider's facility.
Lindon takes advantage of the time with the dreamwell to train far faster than he is typically able, since he does not have to sleep when using the dreamwell as a supplement. He also discovers that the sacred beasts that live in Ghostwater provide extreme benefits to his physical body when eaten, due to their extremely high Madra concentrations. After being strengthened by Dreamwell training, and Sacred fish, Lindon is able to defeat Ekeri in a battle and escape the Dreamwell chamber.
Led by Dross, Lindon and Orthos proceed to another section of Ghostwater where Dross leads them to the Spirit Well. This well provides Madra on the level of a top grade elixer and allows Lindon to quickly expand both of his cores. Within days, Lindon reaches Highgold in both cores. They then meet Ziel, a Truegold disciple of the Beast King. Ziel proves to be relatively friendly to the group, and passively watches Lindon cycle and train using the Spirit Well, occasionally driving off a Sacred Beast threat. Ziel then tells Lindon that Ghostwater is collapsing more and more rapidly and encourages him to move on to the next section so that he may escape in time. He then gives Lindon several bottles of Spiritwell water that will be enough to advance him to Truegold. Lindon proceeds to the next section of Ghostwater where he encounters the Life Well, which unnaturally strengthens his lifeline, ensuring an extremely long natural life and increased vitality. Lindon then proceeds to the deepest level of Ghostwater, where he confronts Akura Harmony. After a heated battle, Lindon and Orthos are able to defeat Akura Harmony using Dross, a sentient construct that Lindon fuses into his spirit. Lindon begs Akura Harmony to come with him as Ghostwater collapses. Harmony, too proud to accept Lindon's mercy vows revenge and refuses to come with him. Lindon then flees Ghostwater, leaving Harmony to die.
Lindon heads to the Blackflame Empire to regroup with Eithan. Akura Charity announces to the Blackflame empire and its neighboring kingdom, the Seishen Kingdom about the Uncrowned Tournament. Since both the Blackflame empire and the Seishen kingdom are vassal states of the Akura family territory, they are allowed to participate in the uncrowned tournament, but only 3 members will be selected. To participate in the Uncrowned Tournament, the participant must be an Underlord and the age limit is 35 years. Since there are only a few underlords in both the Blackflame Empire and the Seishen kingdom, Charity opens a portal into the Nightwheel Valley, the training grounds of the Akura family, where the aura is much stonger, making it easier to advance for sacred artists. Eithan, Yerin, Lindon, Mercy and Orthos are one of the first to arrive at Nightwheel Valley, but they soon discover they have to fight for their place there.
Lindon has been selected for the Uncrowned Tournament, but instead of going as a part of the team from the Blackflame empire, he is selected by Akura Charity to represent the main branch of the Akura family. She sees this as payment from Lindon for killing her promising candidate, Akura Harmony. Eithan, Yerin and Naru Saeya, Emperor Naru Huan's sister, make up the team representing the vassal states of the Akura family and the Blackflame empire.
Lindon is taken to the Akura homeland for training, where he faces extreme hostility from the other Akura underlords fighting for the last position on the Akura team. Mercy's younger brother, Akura Pride hates Lindon even more than the others and treats him with contempt and disrespect. Initially, in the first months of training, Lindon is constantly challenged to duels by the other candidates and loses most of the time, thus giving the idea to the others that he is weak. When the final day comes to select the third member of the Akura main team, all the Underlords prepare to dual each other. Even though Lindon is already a part of the team, he insists on fighting all of the Underlords head on, at the same time. Lindon has gathered information about each of their techniques and with the help of Dross, he easily defeats all of them except Akura Pride, who fills the last spot on the team.
In the Tournament itself, Lindon faces off against the most powerful Underlords on Cradle in a series of trials. The first round of the tournament is an individual event where all the participants are required to go through a series of challenges, testing their strength and versatility. Lindon finishes 10th of 64 spots and Yerin finishes 11th, ahead of many other participants. Each of the qualified members in the top 64 move on to the next trial. As a reward, they each receive a floating palace specially designed for each individual from the Ninecloud Court, which they choose to combine.
In the second round of the tournament, the contestants are placed on an open island. Golden crowns appear with fixed intervals and the objective is to keep the crown on your head without getting killed. Lindon, Yerin, Mercy and Eithan of the main protagonists succeed while Pride and Naru Saeya sacrifice their spots in the tournament for their team's sake.
Now in the final stages of the uncrowned tournament. Yerin defeated Lindon in a thrilling match to take one of the 8 Uncrowned spots. Kiuran, a member of The Abidan appears and says that the winner of the tournament will receive 'Penance' a weapon so powerful it could kill a Monarch or a Dread god in one hit, thus raising the stakes of the tournament. Whilst trying to discover his Overlord revelation during his battle with Sopharantoth, Lindon accidentally discoverers a connection to the Void Icon, and advances to Sage. He is given a Wintersteel badge by Eithan, with the same Unsouled symbol carved into it as his first badge.
Now, the tournament is over, and everything is calming down, but not for Lindon, Yerin, and Eithan. They have decided to go to Sacred Valley and warn Lindon's family that the Wandering Titan is coming to rampage. As they arrive in Sacred Valley, the suppression field that suppresses your advancement to jade affects them all immediately, especially Yerin, with her somewhat unstable Overlord-Herald body. They all push on, but when they split up to try to warn the clans, they all respond negatively. The only clan that cooperates is the Kazan Clan, who follows Zeal. Mercy, Lindon, and Eithan all have to deal with their respective clans with force. In the end, the ones who listen have a chance at surviving, and the others don't as the dreadgod approaches. Meanwhile, Reigan Shen is over in Akura territory in secret. He feeds the Bleeding Phoenix a piece of Subject One's hand and the bird flies away toward Sacred Valley.
While all this is happening, Yerin is with all of the Monarchs making a choice about her gift from the Uncrowned King Tournament, and she ultimately chooses, with much prodding from the Monarchs, to fix her own spirit. After that, Akura Malice goes and faces the Titan, driving it away from Sacred Valley. Then, as the Bleeding Phoenix approaches, Northstrider has to step in and save Lindon, Yerin, Mercy, Eithan, and all the Sacred Valley refugees still in Windfall. In the end, Lindon and his friends face down the Wandering Titan as Akura Malice and Northstrider are drawn away by the Phoenix. Dross sacrifices himself to stop the giant, sending an illusion that all the Monarchs are there in Sacred Valley opposing him. The book ends with Elder Whisper asking Lindon if he wants to know how to kill the Dreadgods.
Now, Lindon and his team are armed with the information that the secret to destroying the Dreadgods lies within the Labyrinth. They make plans to enter it and find it out. Meanwhile, Reigan Shen is already inside the Labyrinth, disabling the suppression field and trying to take control of the Dreadgods. As Lindon and his team prepare to go in, Lindon tries to fix Dross. It works, but now he is a spirit with no emotion whatsoever. After they enter the Labyrinth, they are bombarded with hoards of hunger spirits sent by Subject One. They fight their way through these spirits, dreadbeasts, and the Labyrinth's protections. In the middle, they come face to face with Reigan Shen. If he hadn't been in the suppression field for months, they would've died on the spot, but he was weaker than usual, so they were able to fight to flee, only sustaining a few injuries.
As they regrouped, Lindon figured out how to manipulate hunger madra so that he could make images and memories of the people whose power Subject One had consumed. He figures out which room Akura Malice went in when she explored the Labyrinth, and he helped Mercy advance to Overlord with her revelation being "She is Malice. I am Mercy." After this, they have to make more and more sacrifices as they advance deeper into the Labyrinth. The first two to go are Little Blue and Orthos, the two weakest of them. They are immediately taken 'captive' by Red Moon Hall, who are camping out at the entrance of the Labyrinth. Next, Mercy goes back, and then Yerin. Finally, there are only two of them left. Eithan and Lindon continue on, but get separated as Subject One summons a memory of Ozriel who fights Eithan and he is forced to go back up with Yerin. Now, Lindon is the only one left, and he continues on until he finds Subject One's throne room. It's a tiny room with a throne on it, and Subject One is splayed out on the chair, a hole in his chest. Reigan Shen has killed him and taken his binding. After this, Lindon summons Subject One's memory and talks to him, and Subject One gives Lindon his blessing. Lindon then takes control of the Labyrinth. He has to pass a few layers of protections. The first, he had to prove that he was hungry to the Labyrinth, which he did with his hunger arm. Then, he had to prove that he was a Soulsmith to Ozmanthus, which he did by imagining all he had done as a Soulsmith. Then he had to prove himself to the creators of the Labyrinth, the original Abidan. He did this by bringing out Suriel's marble, gifted to him during his first encounter with the Phoenix. Then, the Labyrinth was fully his to control. He ejected Reigan Shen and emerges.
After this, everyone on Cradle feels strange buzzing, and at night, the stars start disappearing. The Mad King has finally come for Cradle. He descends, and prepares to destroy Cradle, but Eithan holds out his black Abidan marble, and breaks it. His power is restored and everyone sees him as he actually is. He is Ozriel, the Reaper. He drives the Mad King away, and the Abidan come down to take him back for trial. The book ends with Reigan Shen realizing that Eithan was Ozzrial and he realizes that Eithan was Ozriel and that he's going to die if he doesn't force Eithan's students to ascend.
