“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Lindon said. “This is not your battle.”
A flurry of arrows, copied by the Silent King Bow, blotted out the sky overhead. They were matched by a similar volley from Malice, but Charity would be hard-pressed to deal with a single attack from the Dreadgod weapon.
Charity turned the entire situation over in her mind before she spoke. “Grandmother. He has the gaps in the protection script under surveillance. I don’t believe we will be of significant help in this conflict.”
An owl flew off with the message, though Malice likely heard her.
More importantly, so did Lindon. He pressed his fists together. “Gratitude. Mercy will be pleased.”
The illusion of Lindon winked out.
Charity gave orders to her Archlords out of nothing but instinct. They could fly around Sacred Valley, supposedly looking for gaps, but she knew there would be none. This was busy work to distract them.
And to distract herself.
Within the Sage of the Silver Heart, cracks continued to spread.
The Winter Sage fought in the snow-capped passage on the top of Mount Samara. When she’d seen Lindon approach her, she had recognized it as an illusion, but had ordered an immediate attack instead of talking with him.
The fake Lindon was giving her no end of frustration.
She had seen the Silent King project illusions solid enough to trade blows with Monarchs, only to fade away when they finally struck him. Lindon’s weren’t quite on that level, but the fact that he could fight in so many ways at the same time scratched her pride.
Blackflame burst through an Archlady’s shield, the Empty Palm disarmed an Archlord’s puppet construct, and a brief flash of the Hollow Domain wiped out two quick Striker techniques. He seized another Archlady with his right arm and began to Consume.
She cut that off with a quick slash of her sword, forcing him to release his prey. The illusion was made with a hunger madra aspect, so it could actually Consume madra to sustain itself.
Which wasn’t its most irritating aspect.
The worst part, at least to Min Shuei, was how much he kept talking.
“I need the Monarchs gone,” he said. “Not you.”
“Shut up!”
His flying sword, Wavedancer, pushed away an Archlord water artist. Lindon leapt on another, hungry for power.
“Break!” Min Shuei commanded.
The illusion shivered and distorted, but it was too substantial for her to shred so easily. It snapped back into form, though her disruption allowed Lindon’s prey to escape.
“Yerin would be disappointed in you,” Lindon said.
“You don’t understand anything!”
Furious, Min Shuei unleashed the binding in her sword.
Everything inside a hundred yards, including many of her allies, were frozen by her power. Madra, aura, and authority locked everything she could reach, and razor-sharp snowflakes were Forged to hover in midair.
Her allied Archlords would resist the technique to some degree, thanks to her control on their behalf, but Lindon was locked down.
Still, he continued speaking. “Work with me. I can put the Dreadgods down for good.”
Min Shuei gave a wild laugh and whipped a Striker technique at him. He stopped the slash, but his illusion was coming apart. “No, you can’t! Nobody can! Do you think you’re the first to try?”
Lindon lost an arm to her next attack, but he calmly kept fighting. And talking. “I can do it.”
“Then prove it.”
With that, Min Shuei tore the illusion of Silent King madra apart.
She released her lockdown on the space and the snowflakes began to disperse. Several of her Archlords gave sighs of relief. The Winter Sage looked deeper into Sacred Valley, resolve burning in her.
“He’s not a true Dreadgod yet,” she said. “Without his labyrinth and his bow, he is only a Sage. A Sage with too high an opinion of himself. Follow me, and we’ll bring him down before the Monarchs do.”
Boldly, she flew toward Sacred Valley’s border.
She came to a violent halt in midair when a shadow passed over her.
Not a physical shadow. Not even Malice’s shadow madra. Something cold and dark pressed on her spiritual senses, and she looked up.
The real Lindon hovered over her.
Above his head, the Void Icon appeared, like a hole in the sky.
“I have a few seconds,” he said. “Sword artists prove themselves in combat, don’t they?”
Min Shuei bared her teeth. “That’s right!”
“Then allow me to show you my proof.”
Without his Dreadgod weapon, Lindon shot beyond the protection of the labyrinth and attacked.
As he said, the battle only lasted a few seconds.
Reigan Shen sat up in the center of a vast crater and spat out a mouthful of dirt.
He was largely unharmed, but fury filled him nonetheless. That projection of Ozmanthus had struck him from the sky, leaving him to crash to earth like a falling star. If he had been Lindon’s only opponent, that could have opened him to a lethal blow.
Then again, if he had been Lindon’s only opponent, he wouldn’t have tested his greatest attacks against the legendary defenses of the labyrinth.
Not after his defeat that morning, anyway.
He stretched his perception to the south, feeling the Monarch battle continuing. It had entered a lull, Malice and Northstrider content to lock Lindon in place. Every second they stole from him was a gain.
But Reigan couldn’t take that game anymore. He wanted to win something.
He stretched his perception north.
The storm-clouds of the Weeping Dragon were visible now, at least to him, and the Dreadgod’s overwhelming power deafened him to detail.
But if the entrance to Lindon’s pocket world wasn’t in Sacred Valley, it would be there. And he was the best sacred artist in the world at tracking down spatial manipulation.
He set off north. Truthfully, he thought the pocket world probably was in Sacred Valley, protected by the labyrinth’s scripts.
But he hoped he was wrong, and that he would get the chance to crush the space with Yerin Arelius and the others inside while Lindon remained locked in battle.
Either way, he wasn’t returning to Sacred Valley. That echo had almost killed him.
From within himself, he felt Ozmanthus Arelius laugh and laugh.
10
Lindon stretched his perception far to the north, checking his time.
Beyond the horizon, the sea was drowned in storm clouds and liquid lightning. Shining storm-dragons, constructions of the Dreadgod, swooped out from the underside of the clouds or dove down to consume prey.
Above them all, the Weeping Dragon soared through the sky. Lindon could feel its power and its pride. It was coming for him, and it had absorbed almost as much power from the Silent King’s death as he had. It would be taking the Slumbering Wraith’s arm back.
Windfall had been left in its path. The others would be able to escape before the Dreadgod arrived, but he wasn’t sure they could advance by then. Not without his help.
He desperately wanted time to prepare, but the Monarchs were determined not to give him any. Hunger echoes of Malice and Reigan Shen fended off Striker techniques from the real Malice as Northstrider fought off the echo of himself and of three other Heralds.
The real Reigan Shen hadn’t resurfaced after Ozmanthus destroyed his vaults, which was fortunate. The only reason the echoes had held out so long was because of Lindon’s support.
And because the objective of these Monarchs was to pin him here. Neither had shown the true extent of their power.
If they did, Lindon would be forced to unleash the labyrinth’s greatest weapons. None of them wanted to risk that, and the Monarchs were content to lock him in place, so it was a stalemate.