Path of the Immeasurable Swarm [Worm/Cradle]

[Walliseatscheese]

"Inform my father, and give him the location of the Blackflame Empire ship," instructed Charity. "He will escort them to ensure there are no further… incidents."

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Well, that's a big difference. Teaching Taylor and having Mercy around must have really rooted Charity deeper to human connections.

As promised, the Blackflame Empire ship pulled into the dock just as the sun was going down. I saw immediately that they'd suffered damage, too; a huge hole had been blasted in the top deck of the ship, and there were several other scorch marks. Honestly, they were lucky their ship could still fly at all. I headed down to greet them, and hopefully get some answers while I was at it. Mercy of course came with me, and after a bit of prompting, Meira decided to get it over with as well.

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Huh. Lindon being there must have changed a lot more than I expected.

"It was still a pretty near thing. She probably would've wrecked the ship if it weren't for Lindon, and he just about got burned to a crisp doing it."

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Went after Lindon like a starving wolf after a hunk of beef.

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Okay, that makes sense. Lindon acts as a target other than the Rainbow Engine, while also being anothet source of Madra Resistance, so the Engine either remained intact or was preserved enough that they made it, or were at least close enough for Fury to get out and push so to speak.

Pride also managed to secure himself a spot on the team, although narrowly. Mercy's little brother had only advanced to Underlord a few months ago, and although he was talented, he hadn't been through the same kind of exhaustive training the rest of us had in preparation for the tournament.

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The lack of pressure to make up for Mercy's absence has really mellowed Pride out, hasn't it?

Makes sense that, as he's had time training with Eithan, Lindon might have picked up more pure madra techniques/refined the ones he has further. I don't think he had his sphere at this point originally?

I know he only developed the palm strike in the months leading up to the tournament.

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It's interesting. The Hollow Domain was definitely not a thing pre-tourney, which implies either the LB assist or that Eithan's guidance lead to a different way to achieve the effect.

The Empty Palm's development is also intriguing.

Per Canon, Fury's guidance lead to it being developed as a Forged Echo technique.

We definitely see evidence of development as a Forged Tech, but did Lindon get the insight needed for the Echo aspect? Did training as a team lead to Lindon focusing on it as a Melee Range Tech with Eithan covering Long and Yerin as Medium, in terms of Striker Techs? Did training the Hollow Domain and whatever else Eithan did to direct their training lead to the Empty Palm not getting as much focused training as in canon? Or have we simply not been shown the Echo aspect yet?

Lots of possibilities, and I'm eager to find out what happened.

 

[Roth963]

Just because she could, doesn't mean she will, imo.
Even among the Abidan, people specialize in different areas. Taylor's skillset doesn't lend itself well to outright destruction like Lindon or Yerin.

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All judges can destroy universes, even Suriel, the healing one, Ozriel is just the only one that can do it without leaving pieces behind.

Taylor as part of the main cast, will probably grow to that level eventually with the rest.

 

[Walliseatscheese]

If I were to put this story's Taylor in a branch of the Abidan based on her skillset I'd probably say she'd fit in the Ghost division.

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I'm thinking the Spider personally. Lots more intel focus there.

 

[Puffy]

All judges can destroy universes, even Suriel, the healing one, Ozriel is just the only one that can do it without leaving pieces behind.

Taylor as part of the main cast, will probably grow to that level eventually with the rest.

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I guess it depends on the definition of "destroying a universe".

When Suriel the Phoenix spares Gadrael the Titan from the task of finishing a corrupted iteration, she doesn't outright destroy the universe so much erase most life in it. In that instance, neither of them really had the power to destroy the iteration itself, simply sever it from The Way by getting rid of all life, especially Gadrael, who was noted to be among the weakest of the Abidan when it comes to combat power.

I'm thinking the Spider personally. Lots more intel focus there.

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I mentioned the Ghost division because while the Spiders deal with communication and information, the Ghosts are in charge of safeguarding Iterations from far away. Though, honestly, thinking about it, I agree with you on being part of the Spiders' division. Not that it would matter, since I can see Taylor joining the canon crew and not joining the Abidan to begin with.

 

[tfesmo]

Taylor also lost because she took a risk and got hit. She wouldn't make the same mistake in any followup fight, now she knows her illusions are fallible against Dross.

In a second fight she'll probably go for a grind and run him out of resources, using mobility and hit and run tactics.

 

[Roth963]

I guess it depends on the definition of "destroying a universe".

When Suriel the Phoenix spares Gadrael the Titan from the task of finishing a corrupted iteration, she doesn't outright destroy the universe so much erase most life in it. In that instance, neither of them really had the power to destroy the iteration itself, simply sever it from The Way by getting rid of all life, especially Gadrael, who was noted to be among the weakest of the Abidan when it comes to combat power.

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I was sure she said every judge can destroy an iteration, plus, we see silverlords making solar systems sized attacks, and that entering a universe when a judge level being does it shake the very stars and galaxies.

 

[Puffy]

In a second fight she'll probably go for a grind and run him out of resources, using mobility and hit and run tactics.

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She would lose there, too. Lindon's madra would last longer, and his speed is simply far greater than hers. I love Taylor as much as the next guy, but this is pitting two strong protagonists while one of them is on the losing end of a Rock-Paper-Scissors scenario. Taylor would have to be so much stronger that his advantages just don't matter. It's best for them to just be allies.

 

[Roth963]

I mentioned the Ghost division because while the Spiders deal with communication and information, the Ghosts are in charge of safeguarding Iterations from far away. Though, honestly, thinking about it, I agree with you on being part of the Spiders' division. Not that it would matter, since I can see Taylor joining the canon crew and not joining the Abidan to begin with.

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She could learn both abillities, I mean, Ozriel can do everything as good or better than all judges but Suriel, nothing says you can learn only one.

She would lose there, too. Lindon's madra would last longer, and his speed is simply far greater than hers. I love Taylor as much as the next guy, but this is pitting two strong protagonists while one of them is on the losing end of a Rock-Paper-Scissors scenario. Taylor would have to be so much stronger that his advantages just don't matter. It's best for them to just be allies.

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I agree, she will either need a new cheat (like Dross or devour) or to get to sage/herald to beat him.

 

[tfesmo]

She would lose there, too. Lindon's madra would last longer, and his speed is simply far greater than hers. I love Taylor as much as the next guy, but this is pitting two strong protagonists while one of them is on the losing end of a Rock-Paper-Scissors scenario. Taylor would have to be so much stronger that his advantages just don't matter. It's best for them to just be allies.

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She can fly/evade and bombard him with long range techniques - she states that the defense he uses is expensive, so if she's efficient with it she can force him to use it nearly constantly and run him low on madra.

To be clear I'm not saying she'll win 100%, I haven't read the most recent books and I don't know what other tricks Lindon has up his sleeve, but it seems weird to me that everyone is calling it based on the first fight. Taylor lost because she bet on her illusions fooling him and took a hard hit, and she wouldn't do that again because she's not an idiot, so it seems to me that the result of future fights isn't nearly so clear cut as everyone is stating it would be.

 

[Puffy]

She can fly/evade and bombard him with long range techniques - she states that the defense he uses is expensive, so if she's efficient with it she can force him to use it nearly constantly and run him low on madra.

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The problem with this is that Lindon, as a protagonist himself, also won't just use the exact same tactic as before despite his opponent changing tactis. Just like Taylor, he's profficient in changing tactics mid-fight, and his advantages over her are just too great.

In the case of Taylor taking flight and trying to bombard him, Lindon is more than capable of doing what others suggested Taylor do and keep himself on the move while attacking her with Dragon's Breath, rather than bleed madra with the Hollow Domain, at which point 1 good hit from him would also decide the fight.

Again, as others have said, Taylor is still perfectly capable of defeating opponents that Lindon wouldn't be able to beat even with multiple attempts. The fact that she doesn't get instantly defeated by him despite being hard-countered speaks a lot about her skill, but she has no real chance of winning unless she starts to greatly outpace him in advancement somehow.

 

[edmantgoog]

is reaper going to have an impact on your writing? or has it already had an impact?

 

[Zoneco]

I think Lindon isn't quite as much of a hard counter to Taylor as everyone is saying. Hes close but remember that Taylor's techniques are more than just illusions like Juvari or other illusion artists. Dross may be immune to the illusions but hes not going to be able to shut down everything Taylor can do, especially once she has a bit of time to adjust her techniques accordingly. Dross is still a major counter to Taylor and his ability to predict her is going to make that even more the case but its not an instant win button for this matchup.

 

[derivativeoflife]

It does make sense that a year of training with Eithen would benefit Lindon more than the year of guided self study he had in canon. Though his empty palm is the same as canon even though he developed it with Furys help. You could've done something interesting with it.

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I actually forgot that Lindon only develops the Empty Palm in that direction with Fury's help 😑. I might've done something slightly different if I'd remembered, but I don't think it's completely unreasonable that he might've developed the same technique with Eithan's help instead. The other option would've been developing it into a ranged attack like the Hollow King's Spear, but Lindon already has an extremely powerful ranged attack, so I'm not too bothered about it.

Again, as others have said, Taylor is still perfectly capable of defeating opponents that Lindon wouldn't be able to beat even with multiple attempts. The fact that she doesn't get instantly defeated by him despite being hard-countered speaks a lot about her skill, but she has no real chance of winning unless she starts to greatly outpace him in advancement somehow.

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This is pretty much how I see it.

is reaper going to have an impact on your writing? or has it already had an impact?

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It has, although only a small one so far (the line between Mercy and Eithan, for example). I did have to completely rethink a major plot point which will come much later on, but I actually like it better now.

 

[Kadmus]

She can fly/evade and bombard him with long range techniques - she states that the defense he uses is expensive, so if she's efficient with it she can force him to use it nearly constantly and run him low on madra.

To be clear I'm not saying she'll win 100%, I haven't read the most recent books and I don't know what other tricks Lindon has up his sleeve, but it seems weird to me that everyone is calling it based on the first fight. Taylor lost because she bet on her illusions fooling him and took a hard hit, and she wouldn't do that again because she's not an idiot, so it seems to me that the result of future fights isn't nearly so clear cut as everyone is stating it would be.

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Taylor is a clever, albeit not particularly innovative, fighter. She's got a little bit of experience and age on her side, and against many other peer opponents she's unbeatable. The problem is that Lindon is a protagonist too, and he only used less than half his abilities in this spar - the less dangerous and less destructive half, too. He's loaded to the gills with the best cheats around, and his madra capacity is obscene for someone multiple advancement stages above him.

Taylor could beat him, if she was very lucky and acted perfectly. She really couldn't grind him down, though; he's literally built his Path around that not being possible.

It's all well and good to cheer for Taylor, but you have to be realistic about things. She's just not a good match-up against Lindon, and that's fine. She can splatter people that might give Lindon real trouble! She can deal widespread damage and subtle damage in a way that Lindon just can't! She can't, however, use half her abilities against him even if he doesn't use any active defences. His using his sphere defence? That was basically unnecessary, thanks to Dross. Like, the spar was not actually a spar, it was Lindon wringing as much information as he can about Taylor's fighting style out of her and then ending it decisively.

 

[Walliseatscheese]

I actually forgot that Lindon only develops the Empty Palm in that direction with Fury's help 😑. I might've done something slightly different if I'd remembered, but I don't think it's completely unreasonable that he might've developed the same technique with Eithan's help instead. The other option would've been developing it into a ranged attack like the Hollow King's Spear, but Lindon already has an extremely powerful ranged attack, so I'm not too bothered about it.

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Personally I think Eithan's in a better position to help Lindon work out what options he has to further develop the EP.

Ignoring the "Eithan is a Genius" stuff, because to a degree so is Fury, Eithan has much more on hands experience with both a Pure Madra Path and with Lindon, so he'd probably have a better stable for Lindon to compare to.

Of course knowing Eithan, he'd also make it obnoxiously obvious what the best option is, but that's just Eithan being Eithan.


On a different tangent, thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Akura Clan sent training aids similar to what Lindon received in Canon if they were made aware of his lack of fundamentals. The four big things Lindon gained in canon during the Pre Tournament Training Arc were Sage Grade Dream Scales, One Insight from a Herald, Fundamental Training, and Varied Spars.

Eithan alone covers the latter 3, especially with Akura Training Tablets, and Dross wasn't actually consuming as much Dream Madra as he could handle to try to not rouse Charity's suspicion, so it's actually plausable that Lindon's at roughly the same position he was in canon, except with more hands on guidance.

Interesting.

 

[sayeftyfirst]

Honestly, I am not sure that Lindon actually hard counters her in the real world as much as everyone thinks. Yes, in a moderately sized arena, Lindon will dominate her in competition matches.

But Taylor is reaaaaaally not built for 1v1 close to mid range fighting against an alert opponent prepared for a match. That is the exact size arena that Lindon is built to destroy all competition inside. Lindon can wreak absolute havoc in that range against even multiple opponents. Taylor on the other hand has massive mobility, good stealth and great range. None of which can be used to their fullest in this sort of competition.

If the arena were large enough she would be utterly untouchable to Lindon. Both of them have built their paths around completely different styles. Lindon is basically the Juggernaut, which makes it a hilariously bad choice to go toe to toe with him in an arena but he has completely sacrificed utility for that level of short to mid range combat power. Meanwhile Taylor has incredible utility in the world outside of an arena, great spy, great assassin, great speed, incredible battlefield commander... They are so incredibly different outside of an arena.

 

[Walliseatscheese]

I'd say that we've accounted for just about everything when it comes to TvL.

Except the Void Dragon's Dance.

The Black Flame Ruler Technique is about perfect for forcing confrontations on longer engagement scales.

It forces opponents to either engage before it builds up or to retreat entirely from the fight, because if you retreat out of range with the intention of coming back in after it's deployed you only end up with even more Destruction Aura for Lindon to use for the next Dance.

It doesn't really come up in the story directly after the Duel, because Lindon uses the Path with immense skill and because Eithan built Lindon with Sustainability in mind, but the Path of Black Flame is a Path of Conquest.

Each of the three primary techniques are designed around two specifc engagement zones, or they're supreme there at the very least.

The Burning Cloak excels in Melee and Mass Battle conditions. In Melee, there are few enforcer techs that provide more strength for the bursts the Cloak has, and it's those bursts that enable the Sacred Artist to casually shake up a mass force of nominally peer opponents.

Dragon's Breath dominates in Duelist and Mid Range conditions. Unless they're similarly bullshit, in a peer fight all it takes is one bar to land on your foe and they're at best maimed and at worst dead. For the Mid Range, that same threat is perfect for forcing movement or defensive techniques, which either helps you maneuver your opponent or drains their Madra.

The Void Dragon's Dance covers Mass Destruction and Matter Destruction. If it hits, it's dead in essence, especially against non-Protagonists.

I think that if Taylor and Lindon had to fight to the death in an "open" field, then it'd be a vicious fight.

If they fought for real outside of space and time constraints though, Taylor would almost certainly kill Lindon in his sleep. He just doesn't have the background to be sufficiently paranoid to survive that without Eithan bailing his ass out of the fire.

 

[Zoneco]

If they fought for real outside of space and time constraints though, Taylor would almost certainly kill Lindon in his sleep. He just doesn't have the background to be sufficiently paranoid to survive that without Eithan bailing his ass out of the fire.

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I'm not sure that would even be necessary, outside of space/time constraints Lindon doesn't have the endurance to win, if Taylor stays away and attacks with her ruler technique he needs to use his pure madra to defend and pure madra doesn't have the advantage of being able to draw from aura. In a tournament setting Lindon is a major counter to Taylor with his ability to walk through everything she has and his brute force but outside of that setting Taylor can just stay far away from him and use shadow aura to replenish her core faster than he can replenish his pure madra all the while poking at him from range and keeping track of where he is so she doesn't get cornered.

Lindon can only win via attrition in a contained battlefield. If his opponent can fight him slowly over hours or days he can't win given how slowly pure madra regenerates.

 

[illhousen]

My hot take is that I dislike Dross hard-countering illusions because illusions are dope, actually. The protagonist being stuck in an illusory realm and having to use logic and reason to figure out a flaw in it or find a pattern they can exploit (or reach an emotional breakthrough resolving an internal conflict, if the illusions are of the "summon past traumas to haunt the victim" variety) is just more interesting and far more impressive than simply lolnoping it.

(Also, while I'm pretty sure Cradle enforces the power ladder by having more highly advanced artists be able to see through illusions of lower-level ones even if they don't have any affinity for illusions themselves, more broadly speaking illusions is one of those powersets that allows you to flip the bird at the concept of power levels since they allow you to play the player, not the game, so to speak. That's always fun.)

So I hope that Taylor does develop a way to counter Dross (her attacks have a material component, sorta, and shadow aspect is supposed to be good at fucking spirits specifically up, so maybe she'd be able to infect Dross with her Dream Parasite, so his perception and predictions would become unreliable, or possibly to force him to project more illusions into Lindon's senses). Not because I want to see her win*, but simply because it would lead to a better scene.

Taylor's powers here have an incredible potential to produce fucked up psychodrama, and that potential shall be realized.

*In fact, if she does manage to trap Lindon in a nightmare realm, I would like to see him prevail in the end by going back to his roots as a clever and resourceful fighter or, alternatively, by having an emotional revelation helping him to withstand the nightmares. Lindon having a Sage or Overlord revelation in the middle of fighting Taylor, provoked by her techniques, would be pretty neat.

 

[Lenimentus]

Can't help but point out that while this vs debate is interesting and all, they're hopefully not ever going to need to fight each other outside of tournaments. Ideally they'll be allies.

 

[tarrangar]

That's why she's underestimating him. According to Eithan, Dross has the potential to 'dwarf Dreadgods.' Dross is like an AI, only he could potentially gain root access to the universe's code. That's far off in the future of course, but even now dream madra is effectively useless against him.

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And Dragon unchained could be a threat to an Entity, so that's still not underestimating him, Dragons potential is just as high as Dross's potention, it's just focused on technology instead of magic.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

And Dragon unchained could be a threat to an Entity, so that's still not underestimating him, Dragons potential is just as high as Dross's potention, it's just focused on technology instead of magic.

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I'm pretty sure that was more of a threat to the Cycle than to the entities themselves, but either way that did rely mostly on her replicating out of control and creating a nigh infinite robot swarm (which she couldn't under Richter's restrictions).

 

[tarrangar]

I'm pretty sure that was more of a threat to the Cycle than to the entities themselves, but either way that did rely mostly on her replicating out of control and creating a nigh infinite robot swarm (which she couldn't under Richter's restrictions).

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Sure but it's something she could theoretically do, just like Dross potential to become a world destroying super entity with root access to the universe, is something he can theoretically do, but is far from actually having done.

 

[CollosalDreadmaw]

For everyone who thinks Taylor is nerfed vs another protagonist and his knockoff cortana, that's sorta because she is. Remember, this is a Taylor without QA (which in a setting where there are many enemies who are at a least on the Triumvirate's power level, being able to mind control her enemies would become very curbstompy very quickly). Taylor with a handicap is inherently more interesting, because it forces her to come up with unorthodox solutions.

 

[Roth963]

but he has completely sacrificed utility for that level of short to mid range combat power.

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He made up for it with his soul smithing, soul smithing is broken when you go all in on it, and Taylor didn't reveal having her own preferred skill like scripting or something similar so far (although she did reveal having rounded her education to be at least somewhat okay at everything).

which in a setting where there are many enemies who are at a least on the Triumvirate's power level, being able to mind control her enemies would become very curbstompy very quickly

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It isn't actually that out there path, followers of the silent king replicate his powers somewhat (to a lesser degree) and he shown the abillity to mind control, it allowed him to do cool things like focusing the will of all his thralls to help him do will workings.