The Titan pushed for Mercy, wading through a stream of dragon’s breath.
Orthos, in his human form, shouted as he poured all the power he could into the Dreadgod. Above him, the Icon of a black dragon slithered through the sky.
The Wandering Titan’s sword lifted, trailing golden madra. Lindon had thought he’d lost Orthos before, in Night Wheel Valley. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
Wavedancer, Lindon’s prize from the Uncrowned King tournament, gathered crackling blue-and-gold power. The Weeping Dragon’s breath began to form, forcing the Titan to break off its attack and defend itself, though Lindon didn’t release the breath.
Yerin took the opening. In a blink of white light, she appeared beneath the Phoenix, condensing the Final Sword. The technique they’d named together.
A sword of red-and-silver, detailed enough to appear real and large enough to impale a Dreadgod, erupted from her. It stabbed up, and the Bleeding Phoenix stopped it with a claw.
“Break,” Lindon commanded, and the working around the Phoenix’s talon broke. The sword pierced through, skewering the Dreadgod through the center.
Then a lash of black stone flickered up to swat Lindon in midair. The Wandering Titan’s tail. When he’d faced this attack in Sacred Valley, it had been a deadly blow.
Now, Little Blue erupted into a Hollow Domain that wiped out the excess energy the tail carried. With a Soul Cloak powered by Lindon’s madra, she met the strike with a punch of her own.
She stopped the blow, and it was Dross’ turn.
He tapped into the Crown of the Silent King, magnifying his mental assault, and struck at the Titan’s mind.
He used the same technique that had exhausted him before. It had almost cost him his life, just to make a weakened Titan retreat.
This time, the Wandering Titan staggered in place, its mind temporarily overwhelmed.
And the timing passed to Lindon.
Black fire condensed into claws onto Lindon’s left hand, dragging a smoky tail of destruction aura that reached into the sky. He slammed into the Titan’s head, bringing down The Dragon Descends.
The technique detonated. For a moment, it blacked out the world, filled with such Void authority that the sky darkened.
As it had when the Reaper ascended.
Sight returned, and Lindon fled the retaliation of the Titan. Its head was split, bleeding golden light, and it lashed out wildly with a technique of ancient stone.
He Consumed the earth madra with the right hand of the Slumbering Wraith. Through his body, veins of white spread, infecting him. His time grew ever shorter. If the Monarchs remained any longer, he would lose himself.
That was the price he’d chosen.
The Titan backed off one step and refreshed its Enforcer technique. More gold light covered it in flowing armor.
Just the pressure from that step and the internal technique sent force rocketing through the streets of what had once been a city. Half-ruined buildings completely collapsed, and foundations were ruptured.
The Dreadgods destroyed the world just by existing. Letting them stay another second was too long.
What was a year or two? Lindon fully intended to live forever.
Together, with his friends, on the other side of the Way.
Apologies, Dross. Let’s go.
Messages passed in an instant between the different versions of Dross, and everyone moved together.
Yerin broke off from the Phoenix suddenly, her sword-arms drawn back. Power concentrated in each one as she formed her master’s technique: the Final Sword. But this time, the Death Icon resonated with the technique.
The Bleeding Phoenix spun in the air to watch her, but Yerin switched her attention. Over to the Titan.
From her Goldsigns, she unleashed a six-sided blade of energy that shone silver and red but carried absolutely lethal intent.
The Wandering Titan held up its sword to block.
Ziel Forged a circle over the Titan’s head, focusing vital aura for hundreds of miles. The Titan was bound within, restricted by every aspect of aura.
A black star fell from the sky: Mercy’s arrow. It bore with it every one of her techniques, and as it fell, dozens of copies split off to land together.
If they were the only ones fighting the Titan, this wouldn’t be a threat to its life. This was worth the Dreadgod equivalent of a bloody nose and a black eye.
But their jabs kept the Titan in place.
All the while, Wavedancer had continued holding crackling blue-and-gold power. It shone like a sun of storm madra, and now that the Wandering Titan was locked down, Lindon released it.
Burning liquid light lanced out from the sword, many times thicker than Lindon’s body. The Weeping Dragon’s breath was blinding to the eye and spirit both, until it was hard to sense even the Dreadgods below. The Titan focused, turning its shell and raising its madra, defending against a truly lethal hit.
And, thanks to a temporary veil provided by Dross with the Silent King’s Crown, it didn’t see Lindon dashing up from below.
Not until it was too late.
Lindon’s Empty Palm covered the Wandering Titan’s entire midsection. A Dreadgod’s spirit, being improperly fused to its flesh, wasn’t easily disrupted. But this was the technique Lindon had perfected the most. It was a part of him.
The Void Icon wiped out the Titan’s power. Only for a moment.
Then the Weeping Dragon’s breath, the technique that had cut a scar into the face of the moon, speared the Dreadgod through the center.
Dross showed Lindon what was about to happen. The Wandering Titan would slowly lock up from the legs first, like a puppet-construct losing power and forgetting how to walk. It would, at last, lose the golden light in its eyes and become a statue. Dross assumed it wouldn’t collapse under its own weight, but that remained to be seen.
Lindon couldn’t watch it happen with his own eyes, because it would only take a few seconds.
And in those seconds, he had another Dreadgod to kill. If the Wandering Titan really died, his own transformation would progress while the Phoenix grew too powerful. In the nightmare scenario, the others would have to face down both the Bleeding Phoenix and the Empty Ghost together.
Lindon blasted through the air toward the Phoenix.
Yerin was dodging a spear of crimson light as he flew past her. The Phoenix re-focused on him.
Lindon didn’t bother with Blackflame. The Bleeding Phoenix’s body didn’t have the same composition as the other Dreadgods. There was little separation between its actual flesh and the living madra that made it up.
He activated the Hollow Domain.
The blue-white light covered one of the Phoenix’s wings. The wing didn’t immediately fall apart, but it didn’t resist when Lindon crashed into it. And dove right through it. It felt like diving into an ocean of warm pudding, but it smelled like a slaughterhouse.
Lindon’s arm couldn’t be contained anymore.
His Consume technique slipped its restraints and began devouring everything it could reach.
From the inside, the Phoenix’s scream was like a physical blow. Every aspect of madra and aura that could be combined with blood assaulted his body, tearing him apart, but he rebuilt himself with what he Consumed.
[You…see what’s happening, don’t you?] Dross asked.
The hunger arm was powering his Bloodforged Iron body. The two had formed a strange synergy. Every wound that Lindon suffered was now being filled with inhuman white flesh, like a pasty sludge.
[I thought you did.] Dross took a deep breath, or at least made the sound of one. [All right, let’s put it all on the table! That’s what they say, right? The table?]
The Silent King’s Crown expanded over Lindon’s head again, and a psychic explosion rocked the Phoenix. Emriss joined in, her techniques like gentle leaves.
The Bleeding Phoenix retaliated on the outside, but rainbow madra filled it, warping its techniques, pushing back against its spirit. The royal madra of Sha Miara.