The Bleeding Phoenix congealed in front of him, its eyes blazing scarlet. It was small enough to fit in a barn, for now, but with every second more eggs hurled themselves into its body, adding to its mass.
Shen’s heart pounded. He couldn’t show weakness in front of the greatest predator in this world, but even before it was fully formed, the Phoenix radiated a pressure that gripped his spirit painfully tight.
When it lowered its beak and let out a shrieking cry, it was all he could do not to retreat back through space.
Instead, with deliberately casual movements, he snapped off a fingertip of the mummified hand. The last joint of the pinky.
Then he flicked the treat to the Dreadgod.
A beak snapped, and the Phoenix swallowed the tiny piece of power whole.
Reigan Shen spoke as he tucked the rest of the hand back into the box. “That should be enough for you. Now you know the way home.”
The Abidan container melded shut, cutting off all power from the hand. The Phoenix bobbed its head around him, trying to sense—or perhaps smell—any other trace.
The Emperor of the Rosegold continent very much did not sweat as the Dreadgod’s beak brushed by his mane. He remained icy and cool, both mentally and physically, and he would annihilate anyone who implied otherwise.
He would be able to defend himself from a Phoenix of this level, of course. In a body this small, it posed only a little threat to him.
But it would re-form soon, and if it remembered him in its complete form, his life could be in danger.
Fortunately, the Phoenix’s attention left him. It looked west.
Where it now knew its goal waited. The being that some called the fifth Dreadgod, and others called the father of the Dreadgods. Their progenitor, the original, from which they were all formed. Subject One.
The Bleeding Phoenix spread its wings, and Reigan Shen slipped off into another portal. He breathed a sigh of relief when it worked; the Dreadgod could have stopped him, had it wanted to.
His work here was done, but the next phase of his plan was even more dangerous.
Now, while the Dreadgod cleared his way, he had to follow it without anyone detecting him. Besides the danger, it was the stealth that really stuck in his craw.
Sneaking was for mice.
14
Lindon drove an Empty Palm into the core of the Third Elder. The plump old man doubled over, wheezing, but Lindon hadn’t used the force he’d unleashed on the Patriarch. The Third Elder would recover his madra in minutes.
Lindon leaned over to speak into the man’s ear. “I cannot be surprised. I cannot be ambushed. My eye sees all.”
Though Lindon didn’t summon him, Dross popped out in front of the Third Elder, his purple eye wide open and menacing.
The elder shuddered, and Lindon played along. “Here it is now.”
[I am the Great Eye,] Dross intoned. [My gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth, and…what else? Metal. Leather. And cloth, it penetrates cloth.]
His gaze drifted down from the Third Elder’s face, and the old Jade blushed and hurriedly clutched his outer robe closer.
The golden sky loomed over them, and the ground shook, so Lindon’s fear shook him to action again. He pulled the elder to his feet with one hand, shoving him toward the buildings of the Wei clan. “You’re on duty,” Lindon ordered. “Search for stragglers. Get them running for Heaven’s Glory by any means necessary.”
With fists pressed together, the Third Elder started to bow to him, but Lindon shouted “Now! Go!”
Their trip to the east was a mad rush, and they weren’t the only ones with the same idea. Streams of people trickled in from all over Sacred Valley, pushing for the exit farthest from the encroaching threat.
But none were as frightened as Lindon. He knew what was out there.
At least he could vaguely sense the Wandering Titan’s location. While his spiritual perception was still restricted, the Titan was a big target. It hadn’t moved all day, feeding on aura and physical materials from the earth.
That pause was just a temporary reprieve that could end at any time. Whenever the Dreadgod changed its mind, or drained that location dry, it would move east once more.
Only a few more of its strides would break through the mountain and set it loose on Sacred Valley.
So Lindon made sure the Wei clan flowed to the east, occasionally stopping to prevent some Iron from robbing a group of Coppers, or a family from dragging a massive bundle of what looked to be all their earthly belongings.
For the moment, the elders followed Lindon out of fear. Fear both of him and of the Dreadgod. But most of the clan had no idea who he was, and he couldn’t keep demonstrating his strength to everyone he passed.
Fear of the Titan would have to be enough.
The Heaven’s Glory artists and their Grand Patriarch were bound in scripted chains, struggling from the back of a wagon that Lindon kept a special eye on. He might need to use them as hostages when he reached their school.
But as the day crept along, the golden sky’s shine fading to a duller hue, they finally came up to the foot of Mount Samara. Its ring hadn’t started to form yet, and Lindon could already tell something had changed in Heaven’s Glory.
The normal path up the mountain, with its wide road crawling upward in a series of switchbacks, was packed with people. That much, Lindon had expected.
To the side, however, the Trial of Glorious Ascension was gone. The bright pink haze that had once covered the long staircase was gone, leaving flights upon flights of bare stone steps. Some Remnants still wandered in confusion around the slopes, and a few of the scripts still flickered fitfully with dream madra, but it was mostly clear.
So the Heaven’s Glory School had deactivated their formation to allow people to reach the top faster. Good for them. Eithan must have really taken over.
Which might explain the other difference he’d noticed: the column of smoke drifting up from the school proper.
Lindon rose on his Thousand-Mile Cloud, glancing over the Wei clan to make sure they would follow his instructions—although there wasn’t much chance of the opposite, at this point. They were stuck in a thick tide of fleeing people, so there would be nothing to do but wait to move forward.
He flew toward Heaven’s Glory, keeping his perception extended and scanning for Eithan. He’d expected the Archlord to have taken over one of the Jade Elders’ houses, but he felt nothing from that direction.
In fact, as he gained altitude, he saw that one of those homes was the source of the smoke he’d noticed earlier.
When he didn’t spot Eithan where he expected, he extended the radius of his search, sweeping the Heaven’s Glory School.
Dross cleared his throat. [Don’t be mad at me. It’s a miracle I can see anything with your senses like this.]
What is it?
[There’s a battle.]
Dross dragged Lindon’s attention to the wild territory behind the Heaven’s Glory School, where once Yerin had run from the school’s pursuers. Those slopes were mostly snow and Remnants, with occasional sparse bushes or trees, but Lindon quickly sensed what Dross was talking about: flares of light and heat in his spiritual perception.
A fight.
Lindon flew over, but only when he came closer did he feel Eithan’s presence. Weak. Flickering. Low on madra. Heavily drained.
Dread made his heart pound, and he reached into his void key. Wavedancer flew sluggishly over to him; the aura was just barely thick enough to support a flying sword, but this one was used to richer environments. The artfully crafted weapon lurched like a graceful fish squirming through mud.
That didn’t stop it working as a sword, though. Lindon clutched the weapon in his left hand as constructs took aim at him.
Heaven’s Glory had protected themselves from the air.
An accelerated missile of Forged force madra shot for him, and if Lindon had been any more than a Jade, he would have just let it hit him.