by Will Wight
And hurling Striker techniques from outside the field had done nothing. He had to plunge inside.
Behind him, space cracked.
Dross gave a squeal, then covered it up with a cough. [I’m not relieved. But we are saved. But it’s fine, I’m not excited. You’re excited.]
Yerin dashed out of a blue-edged crack in space before the portal had finished forming, and she shot through the air to land on his cloud.
She caught the very edge of the Thousand-Mile Cloud, where the madra was thinner. She could catch herself with aura control or by summoning her own cloud, but he caught her arm and pulled her onto his anyway.
She grabbed edges of his outer robe in both fists, but didn’t raise her head to look at him. “I know I’m cutting myself with my own knife saying this, but if you thought you could cross swords with a Dreadgod and leave me behind, you…” Her breath caught as she glanced to the side and looked into the Titan’s face. Her whole body shivered. “…bleed and bury me.”
Lindon spoke quietly. “I don’t know if I can stop even one of its techniques. I couldn’t ask you all to come protect my home when I’m not sure I can keep you safe.”
She looked up at him, and rather than angry, she looked amused. “Didn’t, did you? I’d contend you asked us to stay behind. But we’re not exactly tripping over people who can tickle Dreadgods. My list ends with me and you.”
A voice shouted distantly from beneath them, muffled and unintelligible.
Down on the ground, the spatial crack hadn’t widened into a stable portal. Mercy had stumbled out of it, and she was pulling the last inch of Suu free, when Orthos shoved his way forward. His presence in Lindon’s spirit was brighter than ever, stronger, more vivid. But to the naked eye, he looked no different.
Finally, Eithan strode out of the messy blue light.
He released a heavy breath, as though he’d been holding it, and wiped sweat from his brow as the crack in the world sealed itself behind him.
“I said ‘put me on your list,’” Eithan called up. “You couldn’t hear me, could you?” He sighed and began drifting up to join them.
Lindon and Yerin exchanged glances.
“Can you help?” Lindon asked. “Any of you?” He didn’t raise his voice, though Eithan was still far away. Eithan would hear him.
He had meant that to include Mercy and Orthos as well, but as soon as they arrived, they took off east. In seconds, they were rounding up people, stopping fights, and pulling them out of overturned shelters.
They knew they couldn’t touch a Dreadgod, but were still doing whatever they could to help.
Lindon wished they wouldn’t. Now he had more to worry about.
“You don’t think I’ll be an asset?” Eithan asked as he finally reached their level.
Yerin’s eyebrows lifted. “If I had to pick between you and a rusty spoon, I’d have to think about it first.”
“Infusing techniques with willpower is not the exclusive domain of Sages and Heralds. They’re just better at it.” Eithan planted fists on his hips and glared at the Dreadgod. “I will defy this beast with all the power of a leaf drifting on the wind!”
[Oh, and you’re not going to get in our way by making us cover for you? That’s impressive.]
“I make no such promise,” Eithan said. “But I can’t let you stand up against a Dreadgod without me. It’s a bit earlier than I planned, but who could object to one little life-threatening practice run?”
Yerin squeezed Lindon’s ribs and then slipped away, stepping onto a purple Thousand-Mile Cloud of her own. “Have to say, I’m not looking for death here. If there’s nothing we can do, we’re leaving, even if I have to grab you both by the neck and drag you off.”
The Titan still hadn’t stirred. It remained searching for something. Or waiting.
But as Lindon looked at Yerin and Eithan on either side of him, mist formed in his eyes. They didn’t need to be here. If he had full control over his abilities, he would have sent them back.
At the same time, he was glad they were there.
“Gratitude,” Lindon said.
[Awww, that’s sweet. Very sweet. But I’m going to need you all to focus so that we don’t die. First of all, none of us move until the Titan does, even if you stand still until your fleshy human feet decay.]
“We won’t have to wait quite that long,” Eithan said, spinning his black fabric scissors around his thumb. “The Titan is famous for its…lethargy…but when it is ready to move, it does so quickly.”
[So, objective one: we’re holding it back as long as we can. If we lose and it breaks through the mountain, we leave.]
Lindon wasn’t happy about that, but he knew that if the Titan left the suppression field, their chance was up. If they couldn’t match the Dreadgod inside the valley, they would have no chance outside.
[Objective two: don’t die. Wait, how about we make that objective one?]
Almost casually, the Wandering Titan began drawing its hand back for a swipe. Wind swirled around them, snatching at their clothes and pulling their Clouds.
The fear and pressure returned. Eithan’s smile dropped, and madra flowed through his black scissors. Yerin pulled a sword in each hand, one white and one black, her gleaming red Goldsigns extended.
Lindon focused all his panicked energy and his resolve on the Dreadgod’s hand. Whatever technique it was about to use, he needed to be ready.
But it was no technique. The Titan swiped at Mount Samara like a child knocking over his own sandcastle.
Every fiber of Lindon drew to a point. He pushed past the rules of the world, substituting his own will.
“Stop!” Lindon shouted.
The Titan’s hand slowed, as though it had been caught in an invisible net. Then Lindon felt an outside consciousness pushing against his own; a mind he’d felt before, when he had Consumed some of its thoughts.
But the Wandering Titan had been sleeping then.
This time, it turned its attention to the force restricting its hand in dull annoyance. Lindon’s working tore like spiderwebs.
It was like a cat had clawed the inside of Lindon’s head. His vision blanked out as madra streamed from both Yerin and Eithan.
An instant later, when he could see again, Lindon saw Eithan’s Striker technique—the Hollow King’s Spear—breaking on the boundary of the suppression field. It faded from a clear, defined spear to a diffuse stream of madra, though it still impacted the wrist of the Dreadgod where it landed.
It pushed the Titan’s arm. Slightly. Like a gentle breeze.
Yerin’s gleaming silver-red madra broke as it entered Sacred Valley too, but it rained down on the Titan in a thousand needles. The Dreadgod swatted at its own chest in irritation, then roared.
Lindon felt the sound in his bones.
He cycled madra to his ears to stop from going deaf, but even as the roar drowned out all sound, Dross spoke into their heads.
[As reluctant as I am to encourage this insanity, if we’re going to do this, then it’s time to go inside.]
While they would weaken steadily inside the field, they wouldn’t be in there long enough to reduce to Jades. From within, they would be more effective. At least a little.
Together, they flew toward the Dreadgod.
From that moment, Lindon had no time to think.
A ball of stone and chaos formed in the Titan’s hand, and a blue-white Spear of the Hollow King pierced it through. Now that the Spear didn’t have to pass through the wall of the script-circle, the technique looked like a real spear, in full physical detail. However, it still wasn’t nearly as powerful as an Archlord technique should have been.
At the same time, a wave of yellow earth madra pulsed out from the Titan’s chest, and Lindon met it with a Hollow Domain and the full force of his will.
It still battered him back, smacking him like a fist across the whole body, but it created a weak point in the Dreadgod’s technique.
Yerin rushed through, a shining meteo
r of silver and red. She focused the Final Sword through her blade.
With Lindon and Eithan taking care of the Titan’s techniques, hers landed. A lance of bright red madra pierced through the Dreadgod.
It streaked behind, stretching for miles.
Dreadgods had blood, Lindon knew. He had dissected enough dreadbeasts. As they were made of flesh, Yerin’s madra should tear it apart.
But that little pinprick didn’t even slow the Wandering Titan down. Its free hand came in as a fist, striking at Yerin.
She leaped off her Cloud, meeting it in midair with both her swords. She had nothing to push on but aura, so the strike should have sent her flying into the horizon.
But Lindon felt power beyond the physical, a weight of conceptual strength like he had once felt from Crusher. For just an instant, the Dreadgod’s fist hit Yerin and stopped.
Together, Lindon and Eithan launched Striker techniques at the same time.
The Spear of the Hollow King and breath of a black dragon struck the Wandering Titan in the eye.
It blinked and flinched back like Lindon might have done at an unexpected flash of light.
Its knuckles, having stopped for an instant on Yerin’s swords, pushed forward again. This time, she hurtled into the side of Mount Samara. The ground exploded into dust and snow, but he could feel her power was barely diminished.
Outside Sacred Valley, a direct hit like that would have killed her.
Lindon had already begun drawing up his will again, preparing to command the Dreadgod to stop. Or at least to try.
[We talked about this!] Dross said desperately.
He brought up Lindon’s own memories. Neither Charity nor Malice had commanded Dreadgods directly. They had worked their Sage powers through their techniques.
Lindon opened his void key.
He wished he had kept Sophara’s void key, since she had a Heaven’s Torch, the ultimate source of fire aura.
But his own fire treasures weren’t too bad either.
Fire aura gushed out, far stronger than any other source of aura in Sacred Valley. As for destruction aura…that was all around them.
In moments, Lindon gathered black-and-red aura into a cloud swirling around him, but he wasn’t forming a Void Dragon’s Dance. He blended the Ruler technique with madra Forged into a dragon’s claw, and fueled it with a focused application of the Burning Cloak.
Crystallized Blackflame madra covered his left hand, trailing black and red energy behind him as he shot toward the Titan.
Eithan was flying just beneath the cloud, Forging madra as he moved into huge stars the size of the Titan’s eyes.
As the Dreadgod squared itself and roared, Lindon felt another source of aura: blood and sword madra gathering at its feet.
Lindon reached out for the Void Icon.
And together, the three of them all triggered their techniques.
A distant bell rang, and blood and flesh flew from the Titan’s calves. Lines of blue-white light speared down from the Hollow Crown, tearing into the spirit that was entwined with its body. And Lindon slammed the Dragon Descends technique into the Dreadgod’s chest.
It detonated in a black explosion, washing over the Titan in a tide of dark fire.
Not black-and-red fire. Pure black flame.
The power of the Void Icon was strong in that technique.
Lindon wanted to keep up the barrage, but he had wrung himself dry in body and mind. They had already unleashed power on a scale that Sacred Valley actively suppressed. If the heavens were kind, they would have at least gained the Titan’s attention.
Dross spoke in a panic. [Oh yay, we did it!]
The Dreadgod’s tail whipped out from the cloud of destructive flame. Yerin rocketed up hundreds of feet to crash into the tail, blocking the strike, but a hand was coming Lindon’s way again.
Without Dross, Lindon wouldn’t have been fast enough to avoid it. The Soul Cloak sprang up around him, and he leaped and twisted in midair. Fingers the width of roads crashed into his Thousand-Mile Cloud, dispersing the construct. Lindon landed on the back of its wrist, clinging to stone-like skin for his life.
At the same time, the Titan opened its mouth and breathed out onto Eithan.
A stream of golden madra covered the Archlord whole, driving him backwards. Lindon didn’t see him land, but the Striker technique in the Dreadgod’s breath tore a chunk from the peak of Mount Samara.
Eithan was gone.
Lindon could feel his spirit, and the amount of pure madra that had gone into defending himself, but Eithan had to be out of the fight.
He couldn’t even spare a thought for concern; the sky was falling.
The world slowed down as Dross accelerated his perception. The ceiling falling on him was the Dreadgod’s tail, plunging onto his head to swat him like a fly.
He dashed out, running across the Titan’s hand for the rapidly narrowing stretch of sky that meant freedom.
[Below!] Dross shouted.
But there was no dodging.
Earth aura reached out from the skin, pulling Lindon down. He stumbled, and it took the whole strength of his Soul Cloak to keep him standing upright.
The tail was coming down.
Lindon opened his void key.
He tumbled inside just as the Titan’s tail and arm crashed together. It was like being in the middle of two islands collapsing, and the wind rushing in blasted everything in his void key to the other side of the room.
The hand of the Dreadgod passed over the doorway…but the willpower accompanying the blow did not.
Lindon felt it like a sudden weight dropping on the void key, and the opening back into the world began to stress and fracture. If he hadn’t focused on it, reinforcing it with its authority, the void space opened by his key would have collapsed. Leaving him stranded.
The view returned in just a moment, giving Lindon clear line of sight as the hand lifted away. His storage space was still floating in midair, so he found himself around the height of the Titan’s shoulder.
The Dreadgod turned, moving away from Mount Samara. Toward Yerin.
Dross, Lindon begged, give me something.
[I gave you all the advice you need: don’t do this. We can get away!]
The Titan raising its foot seemed slow, but only because of Dross’ acceleration.
What about Yerin?
[Well yes, of course, we’re going to save Yerin. I’m not a monster. But then we can leave.]
I don’t want to run, Dross. I want to win.
[Lindon, this…I…] Dross sounded less certain than ever. […I don’t want to do this. It’s too much.]
Please, Lindon said.
[I don’t have anything for you,] Dross said at last, and Lindon’s heart clenched. [No, now, hold on. I don’t have anything for you. Alone.]
Dross sounded like he was taking a deep breath. [Brace yourself.]
His thought carried the impression of great pain, so Lindon prepared himself. I can handle pain.
[Oh no, this is worse than just hurting you. It’s about to hurt me.]
Ziel’s Thousand-Mile Cloud carried him south, toward the mountain that looked like a broken bottle gushing water. The east exit was far too popular; he’d meet up with the rest again once he left the valley.
Except, considering the fact that they were fighting the Wandering Titan right now, he would probably never see them again because of their sheer stupidity.
The wind from the fight buffeted his cloud, and the aura here was thin anyway, so it was slow going. But every foot of progress was a foot away from the Dreadgod.
He had thought his progress was slow before, so he almost panicked when he stopped entirely. For a moment, he was certain the Dreadgod had caught him in some kind of Ruler technique.
When he realized the whole world had stopped, Dross popped into existence in front of him.
Lindon’s spirit panted, though Ziel was certain he wouldn’t need to breathe, and swiped one of his boneless arms ac
ross a forehead that was basically just his upper eyelid.
[Okay, I don’t have much time, so just do what I tell you. Okay? We need your help against the Dreadgod. All you have to do—]
“No,” Ziel said.
[Let me finish! Let me finish. I only need you to make a couple of platforms. Just put them where I tell you, when I tell you.]
“No.”
[Don’t—Look, Dreadgods don’t fight to the death. If the prey takes too much energy to beat, they back off, and everything takes too much energy here. We’re just…pushing it back a little, that’s all. All we’re doing. Not going in for the kill.]
Ziel tried to say no a third time, but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining what it could have been like years ago. To watch the Weeping Dragon turn around and drift away, looking for easier prey.
“…fine,” he said reluctantly.
[That’s a promise! You’ve promised now, you can’t break it! And that’s perfect, because I was lying before, I need you to do more than just make platforms. I need you to make a lot of platforms.]
Mercy herded her crowd of Irons to the south. She had gathered up over two hundred of them, according to her Moon’s Eye lens, and they were dragging even more wounded on litters.
It had taken her only minutes to draw so many people together. They had been several groups before, she had just flown over and stopped them from panicking so they could band together.
Under her guidance, they gathered as one. Her guidance and Jai Chen’s, since the Jai girl had formed the largest group before Mercy’s arrival, but Jai Chen was growing more and more concerned about her brother.
Mercy was surprised to find them out here; she had expected them to retreat long before this. She wished they had; she hated to see them so exhausted and soaked in blood. Of course, that described everyone out here except her.
They were about to enter a clutch of trees in which her Lens had spotted a pack of dreadbeasts. She could handle them all herself, but she couldn’t watch every single falling tree and flying rock.
