When she’d presented it to the last generation of Monarchs, they had seen immediately that such knowledge spreading would lead to their secrets losing power. Not least among those was the secret of hunger aura.
It wouldn’t take long for the public to learn that the existence of the Monarchs sustained the Dreadgods. To Emriss, this hadn’t been an issue. The more people who knew, the more minds could work on solving the problem for good. It could be a new era for Cradle.
The Monarchs had killed her.
Since then, she had worked in subtler ways, but she always kept her many eyes open for opportunities.
Opportunities like this one.
“We will have one chance,” said the Monarch to the mind-spirit. “Make it count.”
The Silent King was considered the weakest of the Dreadgods, but this did not disturb him. If anything, that reputation only reflected the nearsighted perspective of mortals.
It wasn’t destructive might that indicated power, but the ability to influence the future. In that case, the Silent King was on a level of his own.
He had been the one to figure out how to swap places with the Titan, and the Titan was finally intelligent enough to follow such cooperation. This way, the Silent King had the greatest chances at the prizes he really wanted.
Moongrave, so full of power and potential. New minds to feed upon.
Lindon, the young Void Sage, and his potent mind-spirit with a connection to the Way. And a limb of potent hunger madra that the Silent King couldn’t find without devouring one of its siblings.
Such fat prey with such little experience was nothing but a meal for a Dreadgod. But the Silent King had goals beyond these.
Moongrave was the heart of the Ashwind continent, and driving Malice from this place would weaken her greatly. Once the Silent King expanded through this continent, he could mount a campaign against Emriss and reduce her to splinters.
Even when the tree showed herself here, that was not unexpected. He had seen this possibility in Fate. She would be watching the future as well and acting accordingly. That was what made her a worthy opponent.
The Silent King was forced to abandon several of his lower-priority objectives, but even as the Monarchs harassed him and pushed him back and relished their victory, he knew he was not cornered.
He had more plans than these.
Then something shifted in Fate, and he saw it as clearly as a symbol projected across the sky. His own severed head.
The Dreadgod growled, low in its throat. It had been killed before, and this was an indignity it would not suffer again. When it turned this time, it stopped holding back.
Malice’s arrows hammered into the ground around him, driving holes deep into the earth, but none touched the Dreadgod. It pushed them aside, meeting power for power.
Illusions were not the only weapon of the Silent King.
Northstrider pulled constructs from a void space and unleashed a deadly volley of toxic, corrosive madra. At the same time, the Monarch’s own Striker techniques detonated around the Silent King like bloody grenades.
The Silent King not only burst those techniques, but fought on more layers than a human could comprehend. It manipulated the remaining legions to pepper Moongrave and sabotage the city’s defenses from the inside.
It spun copies of itself from dreams, one for each Sage and Herald on the battlefield. They could tell these were only illusions, but an illusion of the Dreadgod was more substantial than these mortals could handle.
The King watched the future, directed armies, countered two Monarchs, and coordinated its thralls on other continents. Even so, it kept up its steady assault on a dozen minds.
Its mind and spirit were endless, so it noticed immediately when Lindon tried to sneak up on it.
Cloaked in a veil and the concealment of the Void Icon, the immature Sage was dashing toward the Dreadgod under propulsion of a pure madra Enforcer technique. Dross even hid his thoughts, but they both made so many mistakes that the Silent King couldn’t count them all.
The Dreadgod pushed them back with only a fraction of his attention…but they were defended by floating leaves.
Before his eyes, a glorious new future opened up.
Emriss had distracted herself for this human. Left herself vulnerable. The King saw himself clawing the tree to pieces, as he had always dreamed.
She’d left a critical flaw in her defenses, and the Dreadgod pounced on it.
Three copies of himself appeared before her trunk, supported by a healthy fraction of his will. She reached out to space, but the Silent King was there to close any door she opened. She peeked into the future, but his will blinded her eyes.
Northstrider and Malice were making ground against the Silent King’s legions now that they didn’t have the majority of his support, the Monarchs’ attacks getting closer and closer to his true position. The army was losing people, but he didn’t care about them. He didn’t even care about his own life so much.