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 meteor 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.