Mercy shook her head. Her mind was in chaos, but she managed to say, “The…the Remnant…”
“You can lean that one on me too.” Yerin looked over Mercy’s shoulder and nodded.
A moment later, Aunt Charity gathered Mercy up in her arms. Her eyes were wet too. “Veil yourself,” Charity whispered.
Mercy did, so she didn’t sense anything when her mother died.
She did, however, see the color vanish from the world for just a moment. Then a dim purple light that must have been the Remnant rising. She tried to turn around for battle, but Aunt Charity held on.
Finally, after a few more sounds, everything went quiet.
Lindon felt Yerin advance.
[This is nothing to worry about!] Dross said desperately. [What a reliable ally we have now, right? Don’t you think? Allies!]
He didn’t have the freedom to feel much of anything. A quarter second’s lapse in concentration would kill him.
But though he told himself that, his gut tightened. Their timeline had just gotten shorter. And if he couldn’t ascend…
The Wandering Titan’s tail cracked into him, and then he really did have to shove those concerns into the back of his mind.
A short while later, Malice died.
[That’s a relief, isn’t it? Plus one, minus one! Everything evens out!]
That was indeed something worth celebrating, but Lindon’s concentration was at its limit. He kept his energy up by Consuming the attacks from his enemies, but they were constantly doing the same to him.
Only Reigan Shen couldn’t use hunger madra to replace his power, but he used little enough anyway. He pounced when he could, striking just enough to keep Lindon off-balance.
That was how they continued as the day ran on. And into the night.
In the few, scattered seconds he had to think, Lindon wondered where Yerin had gone. He’d expected her to join the fight, but hours continued to pass as the earth and sky quaked, and she never arrived.
[I told her not to come here. We can still hang on.]
Lindon would have expected Yerin to show up anyway. She might not be able to fight the Dreadgods like he could, but she could at least keep Reigan Shen off his back.
The first newcomer to arrive in their delicate balance was Sha Miara. She appeared in a shimmer of rainbow light, and Dross began to sweat. At least, that was the image he showed Lindon.
[If she joins in with Reigan Shen and they can coordinate with the Dreadgods, we’ll last roughly another…fourteen seconds.]
Lindon tensed even as he shattered a meteor dropped by the Wandering Titan, but Sha Miara didn’t join the battle. In fact, Reigan Shen leaped through space to join her, shifting back into human form as he did.
The pressure lightened significantly. Though, in a way, the damage was done.
Lindon wasn’t going to run out of madra, but there were other factors less easily quantified. He’d kept stretching himself to fight at his maximum for almost a full day, and it wasn’t as though he was fully rested and ready to go beforehand. He and Dross were both about to snap.
But he could hang on a little longer. That was what he’d told himself a thousand times now.
A little longer.
Horizon-spanning sheets of rainbow madra grabbed the Bleeding Phoenix’s barrage of Striker techniques before they could hit the coastline, redirecting them back into the ocean. That was the first time Lindon remembered being conscious of the fact that they had hit a coastline at all.
Sha Miara was working together with Reigan Shen to keep the fight from hitting Rosegold.
The Titan and the Phoenix didn’t cooperate. An earthquake split the coast in half even as a blood-tinged hurricane scoured the skies. They were focused on Lindon, and didn’t care what happened to the land.
It struck Lindon as funny that he and Reigan Shen were on the same side, though Shen probably didn’t know it. Lindon would have gladly turned back to the ocean to avoid the populated continent, but now he was cornered. Stuck between the Dreadgods to the west and the pair of Monarchs to the east.
If he stayed where he was, he’d be crushed. He needed to break through one side or the other, and the east was far easier.
But that would drag their battle onto the continent, so he tried to hold on. Nonetheless, with every technique, he was gradually pushed farther inland.
Until eight figures arrived in bright gold armor.
Larian shouted something to him, probably a quip about being late to the party, but Lindon had his plate full. Through Dross, he told her what he needed.
They pulled Sha Miara back so Lindon could run. He borrowed the momentum from a punch of the Wandering Titan’s, letting it blast him miles away so he could fly around and back to the ocean.
[Uh-oh. They saw that one, huh?]
A bloody wing of the Phoenix met Lindon as he tried to run.
It swept him back toward the land, and this time he really couldn’t resist. By the time he caught himself in the air, he was over a city of the Rosegold continent.
The other two Dreadgods caught up to him in a moment, walking apocalypses of burning blood and rolling earth.
The fight raged on, crushing Reigan Shen’s empire underfoot.
Emriss only had a connection to two Icons: the Oracle Icon, in the shape of an all-seeing eye, and the Life Icon. Which, fittingly, took the form of a flowering tree.
A greater number of Icons did not indicate power, it only increased versatility. Emriss preferred depth. The more she learned of her Icons, and the more she studied how to reflect their meaning on reality, the more uses she found.
Hers were particularly well-suited to helping others.
The young Sage, Ziel, sat cross-legged on the grass with stars overhead and green runes spinning around him. He’d formed a typical Herald circle, at her direction, but was having trouble manifesting his Remnant.
His shaggy hair blew in the wind, and he frowned in concentration, his emerald horns glowing slightly. Living green madra flickered and tried to manifest in front of him as he concentrated.
This was the problem all Monarchs faced. At least, the ones who started out as Sages.
Their power had a new, external foundation in the form of a connection to an Icon. It took extra time to harmonize their bodies and spirits.
Lindon had been trying to solve that problem by the usual method of hunger madra: forcibly stabilizing Ziel’s spirit by jamming it full of power. In fairness, that could have worked, though there would be problems with consistency. It was risky, in other words, and not the best for long-term growth. But if one intended only to fight a few more times and then ascend, there were few downsides.
Emriss, however, was better suited to a more subtle approach.
She traced the symbol of an eye in shining purple-and-green light over Ziel’s head. “See yourself,” she commanded.
Insight could not be forced, but it could be taught.
In this case, if Ziel understood his Remnant more clearly, manifesting it would be easier. And it would be more likely to cooperate with him. This was the same advice she gave to anyone advancing to Herald, though it was more difficult for potential Monarchs.
Then again, he was better-prepared than most, thanks to Lindon. It should roughly balance out.
It was only minutes later when his Remnant took shape.
Judging by his expression when he opened his eyes, its form surprised him. Emriss was not shocked.
Ziel’s Remnant was a hulking, horned creature with much longer horns than Ziel himself had. Its deep green body pulsed with violent energy, its thick jaw was locked in a perpetual expression of rage, and its hands were massive fists.
Even so, it slumped onto the ground, staring at nothing.
Ziel pointed to it and looked to Emriss. “How am I supposed to get that thing to cooperate?”
“That thing is you,” Emriss reminded him.
The Remnant let out a heavy breath.
She could see what he’d been thinking. That wasn’t only a result of time and wisdom; her connection to dreams had left her with the ability to see dream aura more clearly, and to interpret the subtle patterns every thinking being produced.