A moment later, warm liquid trickled down both sides of his face. His Iron body drew madra to his ears, but there was a moment of blissful silence where he couldn’t hear…he could only hear the cry in the rest of his body.
He didn’t even dare to listen to his spirit, which trembled under a force much greater than the sound.
The Bleeding Phoenix had awakened.
The stench of blood filled the red-tinged air. His heart beat more heavily than usual, as though it were hammering on his ribs, and his veins seemed to boil. He opened his Copper sight—not south, lest he blind himself, but at the room around him—and everything was tinged red. Even the pale green of the wind was tinged with wet red.
Mercy was sitting on the ground, both of her palms stuck to the floor as though nailed there. She squinted south, staring into the bright red light. Her ears had been stoppered up with the same black goo that seemed to coat her hands and staff; her madra, Lindon guessed. Renfei stood on dark platforms of solid cloud that she had generated with her madra, face horrified, and Bai Rou was clinging to his emerald Thousand-Mile Cloud like a drowning man clinging to driftwood. Blood ran from their ears as well. Orthos had let himself fall, slamming the side of his shell into the far wall. His sanity had fled before the Dreadgod, his madra raging up, and it was taking all his self-control to keep from breathing fire in the general direction of the Bleeding Phoenix.
However badly off the rest of them were, whatever changes the Phoenix’s aura was making in their bodies, Yerin was worse.
She lay on the floor, collapsed on her back. The only things keeping her from sliding down the slope were her silver blade-arms, which had been driven into the stone. She shook even worse than the ground around her, her back arching and her eyes rolling up into her head.
Blood spilled from her stomach.
Despite his total lack of any medical ability, Lindon looked for a way to slide over to her before she bled out. At least he could keep pressure on the wound, even if his pack—which he'd kept in the back of the room during the ceremony—had slid to the opposite wall. Little Blue's case must have cracked in the impact, but he couldn't worry about that now. There were bandages in there.
It was only at that point that he realized it wasn't blood. It was a Blood Shadow.
Sparks of gray soulfire hissed from the broken seal over her core. The Shadow reached tendrils out, sliding over her body, questing about, looking for something.
Bai Rou let out a roar when he saw her. Lindon's ears had just healed enough to hear. The Skysworn struggled onto his cloud, kneeling on it and flying over to Yerin.
With one hand, he scooped her up. The Blood Shadow latched onto his arm, but a sheath of liquid yellow madra protected him.
With the other hand, he sprayed a geyser of his madra at the window.
The glass dissolved as though eaten away by acid, and he soared free, dragging Yerin along with him.
For a long, frozen second, Lindon panicked.
Where was he taking her? What was he doing? The Dreadgod's scream had quieted, but Stormrock was still rushing away. Why was Bai Rou flying around?
One thing was clear: he’d taken Yerin. And Lindon had to follow.
He released the table, letting himself slide down the slanted room. He bent his knees as he hit the far wall, his legs Enforced by pure madra, landing between Orthos and his pack.
His right arm betrayed him then, grasping at the air to the south, so he had to open his pack with one hand.
"Orthos," he said, as he dug through his belongings. "I don't know if you can hear me right now, but I have to go after Yerin. If I'm not back soon...please don't kill anyone."
Nothing in his spirit told him if the turtle heard him or not, but he couldn't spare any further thought. He'd found the scripted box that contained one of his most valuable possessions.
His own Thousand-Mile Cloud.
He slung the pack on his back even as he spilled out the cloud, hopping onto it immediately. Unlike the Skysworn's, his was a rusty red, made a vibrant ruby by the light.
With no more hesitation, he poured his madra into the construct, hurtling out the hole in the window after Bai Rou.
Wind tore past him as he flew out of the building, and it took most of his effort to keep up with the flying city. After one frantic look around didn't reveal a huge, armored man on a green cloud, he reluctantly opened his spirit.
He was drowning in blood.
Life, vibrant and powerful, had been spilled here. The power that anchored his soul to his body was in his blood, and it was overwhelming him, choking him.
Strangely, the overpowering sense of the Dreadgod actually made it easier to sense what he was looking for. There was only one spot of power that was hanging in the air instead of cowering in a building, and Lindon headed straight for it.
It was to the south.
The red light was almost blinding, but within it he could see a shape. A monstrous shape.
It was so large as to defy description, swallowing half the sky and stretching into the clouds. Each of its feathers was an oozing, flowing blob, as though it had been made from clumps of crimson gel pushed together. Its beak was curved like a scythe and razor-sharp, and its eyes were shapeless masses of white-hot power.
The Bleeding Phoenix spread its wings like a wound stretching from one horizon to another. Then it opened its beak and cried again.
Lindon sent madra to his ears to protect them, but it didn't save him. That stabbing pain returned, blood dribbling down his ears.
This time, a pair of bloodspawn formed beneath him in midair.
They hadn't sprouted earlier, inside the building, though he wasn't sure if that was due to some scripted protection on the Skysworn fortress or if the influence of the Dreadgod simply hadn't been strong enough yet.
These bloodspawn—made of liquid, but clear as red glass—clawed at him as they fell, splattering against the street below and re-forming.
Even when he went deaf again, Lindon kept his eyes locked on the distant green speck. It had reached the southern end of the city, the part that was trailing deep emerald clouds and tilted downward.
He closed on them as the other cloud began to slow down.
Then Bai Rou released Yerin.
Her Blood Shadow clawed for him as she fell, but he defended himself with yellow madra. Without waiting to see her fall, he turned and started flying his cloud after the city.
Lindon tore after her.
She was falling through natural clouds now, and he pushed his Thousand-Mile Cloud harder than he ever had before. She was too far below him. He wouldn't make it.
For months, he'd been stretching his core using the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel. He had more madra in his core than he could possibly use at one time.
He strained his madra channels, shoving as much out as he could, flooding the construct's core with power. He didn’t need the cloud to last beyond today. Just now. Just one last time.
She was close now, her tattered robes blowing in the wind, her Blood Shadow flailing. He reached out his right hand, trying to grab a fistful of her robes.
His arm betrayed him.
The Blood Shadow reached for the white madra of his arm, seeking it, and his arm flinched away.
Desperate, he tried to push the Thousand-Mile Cloud even harder, but the cloud was already dissipating beneath him. The script at the core had overloaded and warped, and now he was flooding the cloud madra with his own. It would fall apart any second.
Which was only fitting, because they would hit the ground any second.
A searing pain hit him in the shoulder, and he shouted, though even he couldn't hear it. He had only a moment to see what it was: a black arrowhead, sticking out from the front of him.
Then, from the tip of the arrow, burst a net.