In seconds, Lindon walked away as an Overlord. He could have imagined it, but it seemed that Ekeri’s Remnant nodded to him.
Orthos stayed where he was, watching the other natural treasures. “I would like to use these.”
The turtle would need soulfire too, but Lindon didn’t at the moment. All the other tools he required were in his personal key.
He took the golden ring on its cord off his neck, putting Sophara’s void key around Orthos’ head. Then he rested his hand on the turtle’s shell.
“I’m glad we found you,” Lindon said quietly.
“I was never lost.”
Lindon walked back out of the void key, where of course everyone had felt his advancement. Yerin gave him a lopsided smile and gripped her sword, ready to fight. Mercy nodded, but she looked worried. Eithan stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Lindon held up one hand to Mercy, and she tossed him the scripted stone.
“Hold on a moment,” Eithan said, but he was standing too far away.
Lindon caught the stone and focused his will. He met Yerin’s red eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”
The horrified realization had only just appeared on her face when she lunged for him, but she couldn’t stop him that way. She would have been better off standing in place and pitting her willpower against his.
“Return,” Lindon commanded himself.
In a rush of blue, he vanished.
With every swing of his spear, Jai Long cursed himself. He was a fool.
They should have left the second they knew a Dreadgod was involved. Why had they ever stayed to take their chances?
Now they were miles outside of Sacred Valley, but the world was still a nightmare battlefield. The forest around them—their leaves only slightly tinged black with the corruption of the Desolate Wilds—had been completely leveled. The battle between the Dreadgod and the giant had devastated the landscape for as far as he could see; footprints left lakes, and he could see straight through a hole in a far-off mountain.
Or he could, if he could spare the attention to look.
Each sweep of his spearhead traced white light behind it, and the Stellar Spear madra came alive with the will of the Remnant who had long ago infested him. The Striker technique became a snake that sought out enemies, drilling through their head or chest.
But there were always more bloodspawn.
Jai Chen directed Fingerling, who breathed his strange pink madra over a bloodspawn that looked like it had been made from scarlet scissors strapped together to walk like a man. Fingerling’s breath didn’t behave like fire, or even fire madra, but like a dense cloud that passed over the jagged spawn and dissolved it.
But as this bloodspawn fell, it stretched out its arms and slashed at the legs of a man who was trying to sprint passed it. The man screamed, but even the new hole in his leg didn’t stop him from continuing to flee, hobbling and leaking a red trail with every step.
And from that trail, another bloodspawn rose.
Jai Long speared it as it formed, but they were surrounded by bodies, and either the Phoenix hadn’t moved far enough away, or its influence lingered. Blood gathered up into these grotesque puppets of men and women.
He tried to use his techniques sparingly, but if he was growing exhausted, his sister could barely breathe.
Around him, he felt only chaos. Pressure from the Dreadgods, malicious hunger from the bloodspawn, and disordered madra of every aspect from the crowds of people fleeing Sacred Valley and spreading into the forest.
Jai Long looked east, and he saw a swath carved through the forest ahead of them. Black spots were dashing across that space, and only by focusing his spiritual perception did he realize those were dreadbeasts.
First a few, but that trickle almost immediately became a torrent. Dreadbeasts were famously enraged by the approach of Dreadgods, and the Desolate Wilds was home to more dreadbeasts than anywhere else he’d ever heard of.
Coldly, Jai Long realized that they were about to die.
He had known they might be killed by the Wandering Titan, but that was like being killed by a thunderbolt or torn apart by an aura-storm. It was a force of nature you could do nothing about, and at least it was over in a moment.
Now, the bloodspawn would wear them down. Even if they escaped, there were dreadbeasts ahead of them and the Wandering Titan behind.
With one surge of soulfire-enhanced madra, Jai Long whipped his spear in a circle. The force of his blow and the power of his serpents of living madra tore open a clear space around him. Bodies and bloodspawn were equally torn apart and shoved back, giving him enough space to work.
He leaped over to a log, dragging it closer. With a few quick stabs, he separated the fallen tree into segments, and dragged them into a circle around the edges of the empty space.
A bloodspawn clambered over the side, and he blocked its Striker technique before returning one of his own.
His core flickered, dim at the center of his spirit, but he focused on his task. Jai Chen had picked up on his project, and was helping him keep the circle clear. That took enough pressure off that he could begin carving symbols into the segments of log.
The work couldn’t have taken more than two or three minutes, but it felt like hours before their crude script—stabbed into pieces of log arranged in a rough circle—activated with a flare of white light.
It would push spiritual powers away, repelling Remnants and bloodspawn. Even dreadbeasts, to a lesser extent.
But it couldn’t stop them. Any script that solid would put too much strain on the material, and the first impact against it would send his logs tumbling.
Upon immediate activation, a bloodspawn with flourishing tree branches for limbs stumbled back, then shuffled around the edges of the script to look for prey elsewhere.
It would help…but it wouldn’t stop everything.
Sure enough, a dense, more advanced bloodspawn shaped like a man with a sword in his hand shied back from the script, but he crawled over the log to get to them. Jai Long faced him with no techniques, but they had to exchange blows several times before he got the better of the spawn, sending a chunk of its madra fizzing away to essence.
Jai Chen had finished another on her side, but even Fingerling was growing tired, drifting lower in the air.
More bloodspawn flowed around them, but some still ignored the repulsion and climbed in.
They would still die now, only slower. This was nothing but a way to stall for a little more time.
But wasn’t that every day?
A bear-like dreadbeast leaped over the back log, and Jai Long braced his spear against the ground. The rotting bear impaled its chest on the length of the spear, but didn’t seem to care, rabidly snarling and swiping at Jai Long.
He left the spear and the bear, turning to stiffen his fingers and Enforce them like a weapon. The Star’s Edge technique sharpened his hand with a point of bright white sword-and-light madra, and he drove his fingers through a bloodspawn’s chest.
While the technique was still going, he spun and slashed open the bear’s throat.
Jai Long was breathing hard, and his mask seemed to be getting in his way. Roughly, he tore off the bandages, baring his hideous fanged smile to the world.
The air wasn’t fresh, it was filled with smoke and dust and the stink of blood and rot, but he gulped down deep breaths anyway.
He seized his spear, kicked the dying bear dreadbeast off the end, and turned his weapon to work on a bloodspawn.
The last of his madra failed him, and soon he was fighting with nothing but the strength of his limbs. Even so, he swore an oath to the heavens.
If nothing else, he would die before his sister did.
One long second after vanishing from Moongrave, Lindon landed on his hands and knees in half-melted snow, surrounded by debris and wind-torn trees. People screamed around him as they fought featureless humanoids of red madra that rose from mere droplets of blood. To the east, Lindon felt hordes of dreadbeasts filtering out from the Desolate Wilds, driven mad by the presence of a Dreadgod.