That had been too close. When the arm’s instincts fought him directly, he could win, but this time he hadn’t noticed when the hunger madra’s desires had begun to bleed into his own.
Embarrassed, Lindon tucked his right hand behind his back and sliced into the Dreadgod’s skin with the knife in his left.
Even deprived of the Silent King’s living spirit and will, the hide was tough. He had to gather sword aura around the blade of his knife and push with a significant portion of his strength. After that first incision, though, the process became easier.
As Lindon skinned and cleaned the Dreadgod, its blood splattered on the floor and then was drawn up into a ball around the simple construct he’d set up. The blood-aspect construct would certainly be warped by the touch of the Silent King’s blood, but that would be a fascinating experiment in its own right.
Lindon had dissected dozens if not hundreds of dreadbeasts in the past, so he knew something of what to expect. The Dreadgod’s spirit was twisted and merged through its body in the form of shining white threads that wove through its muscles, tendons, and bones until the power made a complex tapestry.
That was far more thorough than any other dreadbeast he’d encountered before, as expected. The presence and spiritual pressure of a Dreadgod’s corpse was enough to radiate all throughout the pocket world.
Unraveling the spirit and body of the Dreadgod was a difficult enough task even without all the illusions.
Lindon’s mother whispered in his ear, giving him false instructions, as the line of white madra he was trying to extract squirmed like a worm. A hand reached out to grab his wrist, a scream came from behind, and even his spiritual perception picked up a massive presence heading to kill him.
All illusions, and all convincing.
Dross shielded him and Lindon focused his own will, but without the cooperation between the two of them, the dissection process would have been impossible.
The room warped and shifted as he continued, until Lindon cut deep enough into the Dreadgod’s chest to reveal a white core that shone like a twisted sun. Its light was wrong somehow, greasy and slick, as it tried to warp and corrupt the world around them.
Like the binding of the Tomb Hydra, this one had a complex, round shape with multiple applications. Unlike that one, which had still resembled a normal binding, this one burned against Lindon’s eyes and spiritual senses. It was like an organic star, squirming in the grip of his goldsteel tongs, and half a dozen apertures opened and closed all over its surface like blinking eyes.
Dross had a catalogue of memories from Soulsmiths ready for Lindon’s consideration.
All of them had made bows before, and Lindon let their expertise bubble at the back of his mind as he considered the binding, the bones, the tendons, and the material of the Silent King’s spirit.
Then he entered the Soulforge and began his work.
4
Two more days had passed in the pocket world before Lindon judged that he should leave to defend Sacred Valley.
[Longer than we expected,] Dross observed. [Reigan Shen must be afraid if he’s approaching so carefully. That, or he has a perfect, inescapable plan to kill you.]
Yerin froze with one of her sword-arms poised to descend on Lindon. They had been sparring in the sky, testing out some niche uses of their techniques, but she sensed the same thing Lindon had.
“You looking for company?” Yerin asked.
Lindon pulled his main void key from around his neck and tossed it and the string from which it hung to Yerin. “Better if only I go. I’ll adjust the flow of time so it won’t move quite so quickly while I’m gone. I should be back by tomorrow, from your perspective.”
She stepped closer and looked up at him, clearly worried. “Bleed me if it wouldn’t be smarter to go together.”
Lindon gathered her up in his arms. “There’s not much he can do to me in Sacred Valley with the protection of the labyrinth. He’s trying to waste our time, and I don’t want him to waste yours too.”
“You stone-certain of that, are you?”
[How certain can we be of anything in this world?] Dross asked philosophically.
Lindon bid Yerin goodbye before heading to the scripted doorway at the edge of their pale stone island. Everyone here would sense him leave, but he should be back soon.
[I’m getting nervous. You want to wait here a little longer?]
Through his observation network, Lindon had felt the nature of Shen’s attack on Sacred Valley. It was a barrage of launcher constructs; strong, but nothing the barrier he’d left around the labyrinth couldn’t handle.
“By leaving, we’re playing right into his hands,” Lindon said. “But if we don’t leave, he will eventually get in. There are still people down there.”
He had left them other protections, but even so, the people he was sheltering in Sacred Valley couldn’t handle a Monarch.
[I have wanted a good weapons test,] Dross admitted.
Lindon stepped through the doorway to the outside and found himself drifting over the Trackless Sea. The clouds drawn by the Weeping Dragon had crept slightly closer, and he could see glimpses of the Dreadgod itself as it wove in and out of its bed of clouds.
Though that wasn’t the enemy that concerned him.
With arms crossed, Lindon propelled himself down. Into the depths of the sea.
As he’d seen Northstrider do years before, Lindon sank rapidly to the bottom of the ocean. Where a branch of the labyrinth waited.
Minutes later, he emerged in Sacred Valley to the sound of distant thunder.
Reigan Shen had given up stealth. He lounged openly in midair with his arms folded, staring imperiously over the Valley. From the air behind him, gold-edged portals unleashed a barrage of Striker techniques. Hundreds of them at once, representing every conceivable combination of aspects.
They slammed against an invisible wall when they crossed the barrier into Sacred Valley. The suppression field had never been intended as the primary defensive function of the great script; it wasn’t even the default setting. However, the script could be overloaded, and a shield like this one was vulnerable to more subtle attacks.
Lindon felt the panicked spirits of everyone in the Valley as they witnessed the assault. While the original buildings were mostly still rubble scattered for miles between the three remaining sacred peaks, there were more people living in Sacred Valley than ever.
Refugees from all over the world, who had fled from the Dreadgods, now sheltered here. Members of the three original clans and four schools, certainly, but also people from the Desolate Wilds, the Blackflame Empire, and Dreadnought City in Everwood.
Even Redmoon Hall’s cloudship sat on the ground, now flying the two-colored star of the Twin Star Sect. In fact, Lindon saw that symbol everywhere he looked.
When had that happened?
They were all protected by the great script, and many of them hid in the outer layers of the labyrinth itself. Lindon had left several entrances open; all the ones where ordinary Golds could enter without getting themselves killed.
Many people down there were calling his name. Including some voices he knew.
He could feel their intentions in his spiritual sense, like a distant whisper or a tapping on his shoulder. That ability was a relatively new development, but Lindon had no time to reassure anyone. He rose into the air on a cushion of aura and flew away.
Now that the suppression field was down, the aura here was richer than ever. Lindon reached the edge of the shield in seconds and passed through it without hesitation.
The enemy Monarch’s launcher constructs went silent and retreated, their portals closing. He didn’t want to lose his treasures.
Besides, Reigan Shen had achieved his objective the moment Lindon revealed himself. A smile curled up one corner of his lips, and he raised a goblet that Lindon was certain from experience contained wine.