Or maybe it was his imagination.
“When you reach the peak of Archlord, you’ll be close to Sage,” Lindon said. He stepped back. “At least, I believe so.”
Ziel sighed, but he nodded as though he agreed.
“Blue,” Lindon said.
Little Blue peeped and held her hand up.
“You did a great job.”
Blue ran around in a circle on Orthos’ head, cheering.
“I have a few more elixirs for you and I’ll feed you a little more power, but I think you’re ready. Yerin, how about you?”
Yerin opened her void key and jerked a thumb at the wide opening. A scripted chest quivered and shook as the vessel struggled to maintain the power within. Red light spilled from the lid.
“Still not convinced he’s not going to bust out and eat us.”
“He missed that chance. Dross.”
Dross appeared in the air next to him and pushed his tentacles together in a salute. [At your service, Sage!]
“Tell them how strong you are.”
Dross’ eye glittered. A shining halo appeared over his head, and then the world began to flex as he distorted the senses of everyone in the room. A thousand copies of Dross appeared in every square inch of air.
[Strong,] they all said.
“Now tell them what’s on their way.”
The extra clones of Dross vanished, replaced by an image of a huge red bird flying over the ocean. The Bleeding Phoenix gave a searing cry.
A miles-long sapphire dragon swam over a sea of clouds, and its mouth crackled with lightning anger. The Weeping Dragon roared.
A towering black statue with a shell and skin like stone waded through mountains. The Wandering Titan plunged its fist down into a canyon, and when its hand re-emerged, it was holding a gargantuan sword.
The images vanished and left everyone in silence for a long moment.
“Dross,” Ziel said at last, “now tell them how they’re going to survive the attack of three Dreadgods without the Monarchs to help.”
Dross gave a wide grin, revealing sharp teeth, but it was Lindon who answered the question. “We’re not just going to survive,” Lindon said. “We’re going to attack.”
Ziel looked from Lindon to Dross and back. “Oh.”
Behind his back, Lindon clasped his human hand in his white one. “Not long ago, far below this spot, I promised you that I wasn’t going to fight alone anymore. I swore to you, and to myself, that I was going to find a way for you all to catch up to me.
“Now we’re going up against enemies who have all defeated sacred artists stronger than I am. They have more support than we do, more people than we do. More skill. Centuries more experience.”
Lindon leaned forward, and his new eyes burned. “And we are going to beat them anyway. We are going far past them. I barely killed the weakest Dreadgod with the help of three Monarchs, but now I’m going to carve out its heart and make it a weapon. Next time, the seven of us are going to crush a Dreadgod, we’re going to mount it on a spear, and we’re going to use it to kill the next one.”
Yerin’s and Orthos’ eyes glowed in two different shades of red. Little Blue nodded, uncharacteristically solemn. Ziel raised a hand.
“There are six of us here.”
“Yes. But there are seven of us.” Lindon looked to Yerin as Dross projected several dozen images into the air. “The rest of you have training to do in the labyrinth. Cycle as much power as you can and prepare to advance.”
Orthos rumbled deep in his chest. “It will take months to prepare myself.”
“Then we will have to find you some months.” Lindon nodded to Yerin. “Time can be compressed into pocket worlds.”
“That takes Monarchs years to do,” Ziel pointed out.
“If they can make it, we can take it. Which brings me to what Yerin and I are about to be doing.”
Yerin looked down from the images floating in the air and finished his sentence with relish. “Stealing.”
“The Monarchs keep their best treasures in their void spaces at all times, but they own too much to carry everything. They have a lot of assets to defend, but not so many people who can stop me or Yerin. And they can’t move as fast as we can.”
He pointed to the images floating overhead. “These are attack points that a sympathetic Monarch helped Dross identify.”
[A Monarch who shall remain nameless,] Dross said before he coughed out a mouthful of leaves.
“The Monarchs can predict the future. We can’t. I can hide us with the Void Icon, but this will be a shifting situation. Since it is our intentions that influence Fate, we will each pick our targets separately, and not inform the other until the last moment.”