All four cult leaders gave him a blank look.
“Why?” the Storm Sage asked. He wore his confusion so openly that Reigan wanted to claw his face off.
The masked Herald of Abyssal Palace placated him. “We will place our best sacred artists here.”
“No. Yourselves. Do it…” He caught himself, took a deep breath, and moderated his tone before these allies. “…because I have requested it of you.”
The Storm Sage shrugged both shoulders and sank to the ground, leaning his back against the door and whistled idly. He snatched up a flower and started pulling its petals off one by one.
Red Faith gnawed on one finger as he gazed on Reigan Shen, and as usual, Reigan couldn’t tell if the Sage was sizing him up for a betrayal or lapsing into drooling lunacy.
“Do you have a question, Red Faith?” Reigan Shen asked.
He was weakened badly after such a long stay in the labyrinth, and the Sage knew it better than anyone. But one advantage of being Reigan Shen is that no one else knew what cards you had to play.
Even when your hand was empty.
Reigan met the Sage’s eyes with complete calm, and eventually Red Faith pointed to the sky with a bleeding finger.
“As I said, it will be for the best if we hurry.”
Without waiting any further, Reigan Shen seized the wind aura—it was all but the last of his soulfire—and drifted into the air. He held the silver box aloft, and he projected his voice with Herald lungs. He didn’t trust the rest of his soulfire to carry his voice.
“I am the Emperor of the Rosegold continent, and I have returned in glory. I invite my peers to witness my triumph.”
The Eight-Man Empire appeared first, of course; Reigan wouldn’t be making a speech if his allies weren’t closer than his enemies. Some hovered in the air near him, some lounged on clouds, and some stayed on the ground.
But their presence made it clear that they would defend him when Malice and Northstrider drifted closer.
The two human Monarchs were side-by-side, Northstrider muscled but covered in rags and Malice finely dressed but soft. Neither of their appearances did them justice, in Reigan Shen’s opinion.
Malice’s voice was carried to him on the wind. “You come to us so boldly, weakened as you are. Tell me, now that you have your prize, how do you plan to leave with it?”
Northstrider simply glared.
“Why do I feel like I have been severely underestimated?” Reigan asked. Now that he was back in his element, with aura nourishing him more at every second and his own spirit restoring his body, he was starting to enjoy himself.
“As I said all along, we could have shared this bounty together. I would have relished your wealth of experience—both of you—and would have been willing to set aside our years of rivalry for mutual benefit.”
“Is that what you told Tiberian?” Malice asked.
Reigan raised his eyebrows and looked from one of his peers to the other. “Tiberian wanted us to kill the Dreadgods and ascend. Would you have allowed that?”
Now that he’d recovered some of his power, he could spend a fraction on theatrics. He summoned a goblet and a jar of wine. A construct poured for him.
“I interrupted my work for this,” Northstrider said. “I will not come all this way and then allow you to escape.”
“Ah, but you see, I don’t need to escape.”
With one hand, Reigan Shen lifted the goblet to his lips. With the other, he tapped the silver cube in a throwaway gesture. It unfolded, unveiling the core binding of the Slumbering Wraith.
Its authority screamed through reality, warping the world in an invisible vortex. Color seemed to leech from everything, and immediately an image formed in the sky overhead.
A widened mouth full of sharpened fangs.
The Hunger Icon.
The Sages braced themselves against the exposed power of Subject One, but none of the Monarchs batted an eye. The Eight-Man Empire, protected as they were by their armor, looked on only with interest.
Malice’s eyes shone purple, and she radiated fury, ready to summon her armor at any second. “If you call the Dreadgods here, you will all perish with us, I promise you that.”
Reigan feigned surprise. “Here? I don’t need them here. Not yet.”
Then he activated the binding in his palm.
Invisible power and white aura thundered out from him, traveling along invisible, metaphysical paths. He had never known this was possible, never gained the insight necessary into the mechanics of reality, until Tiberian gave him the hint.
Then he’d researched on his own. He’d consulted with the Sage of Red Faith, even gathering the Dreadgod cults to gain their knowledge on the invincibility of the Dreadgods.
Ultimately, he’d realized what he needed to do. He would fuse with this binding and become the new Slumbering Wraith, attaining immortality and power beyond the dreams of Monarchs.
He had intended to take over the labyrinth first, then recover his power, then become the new Dreadgod. He was doing things a little out of order.
But it would all be worth it. All of it…once the Dreadgods were awakened.
At the heart of a mountain range far to the north of Sacred Valley, the Wandering Titan dug deeper into a chasm of its own construction.
It could have controlled the surrounding aura to make a tunnel, but it didn’t bother. Why expend energy it didn’t have to?
So with every movement, it burrowed deeper into the earth, and the nation above it split further. A city collapsed over its head, buildings crashing on its shell, and it didn’t even feel them. It was digging for something that smelled delicious.
The Titan finally burst through a metal container almost as big as its own rib cage. Inside, there was a structure of interlocking metal swirling with sand that glowed gold. A relic of ancient times; the Titan could smell the ancient aura in every grain of sand.
The device gave off the impression of distant lands, and the will of its creators was ingrained deep. It was meant to birth a city, or maybe revive one, and then carry it to distant worlds through the void.
Not that any of that mattered to the Titan. It took in the details without consideration, tore off a chunk of the ancient metal frame, and shoved the piece into its mouth.
Over its head, sacred artists fled in every direction, but the Titan had already begun feeding. Earth aura flowed into it from miles around, and power of all sorts flooded from the ancient device.
The Titan continued to crunch down on the vessel, but it fed on more than just what entered its mouth. The entire device grew weaker and weaker as it fed, power of all kinds flowing into the Titan. Soulfire, willpower, authority, madra, aura…it all went to fill the empty space inside the Titan.
For now.
It knew that the hunger would return. It always did. But in the moments when it fed, it was content to do nothing else. It hadn’t been truly satisfied since its birth.
Then it caught the scent of something irresistible.
Its stone head snapped up, and one of the cliffs around it snapped off and shattered to dust on its shoulder. This was the smell of the original.
The Titan reached up to the surface and began to haul itself up. It was going to return to the origin of this scent, and maybe it would finally be satisfied.
Or so it thought. Until the golden aura on which it had fed flashed white.
Then, at last, it got a taste of what it meant to feel content.
Everything else it had ever eaten was nothing. It was just a lick, while this was a full meal. The aura streamed into it, accompanied by a nourishing will. Its soul swelled, pushing deeper into its body. Its muscles bulged and its skin hardened. Its eyes glowed brighter.
The Titan felt like it did when it awakened from the long sleep, but now it was awakening even further. Now, it was more awake than it had ever been.
With more agility than it had been capable of a moment before, the Wandering Titan slid out of its chasm. This time, it was conscious of all the lives that were lost as the ground cracked and crumbled for miles around.