He hovered on pure aura as his perception searched for them. Malice deactivated the technique that rendered the fortress invisible, and he focused on them.
Malice knew she had to keep the reins of this conversation. “You have violated the laws of my realm and endangered the stability of humanity itself. Surrender yourself now, and we will punish you as lightly as the law allows, in recognition of your potential.”
Lindon looked to Mercy. “Gratitude, but I’m here for Mercy.”
“Lindon, what’s going on?” Mercy called.
Before she could ask any more, Malice cut in. “You can talk after we have you under my supervision. I won’t let you take my daughter hostage.”
“Mercy, I swear on my soul that we will—”
Malice spoke over him. “Enough. I don’t have time to chatter with a criminal.” She extended her hand and activated a piece of her bloodline armor.
The hand that extended from her was gigantic, almost the size of the cloud fortress itself, and it wrapped around Lindon in a moment.
A trickle of dream aura flowed into Mercy’s mind, and Malice cut it off violently. Lindon’s dream-spirit, Dross, had spoken into her mind. She cut it off before the message was fully formed, but Mercy still looked conflicted.
Malice felt a pressure in her hand, and she gripped harder.
In the center of her armor’s palm, Lindon blazed blue-white with his full-body Enforcer technique. He pushed against her.
And he really pushed. It was power she didn’t think he’d be able to show before Monarch: the physical strength of a Herald. The stolen Dreadgod vitality had treated him well.
Of course, it wasn’t enough. The Void Icon had no domain over physical power.
And she was a true Monarch.
She crushed him in her grip and held out her left palm to stop the other technique that shot in from the other side of the ship. The sword-and-blood madra splashed off her amethyst hand as Yerin finished her Striker technique.
“So you came to attack me,” Malice said heavily.
“You’ve got twice the tongue a snake does.” A claw of dense blood madra Forged itself over her from the binding in her sword. “If we leave here without Mercy, it’ll be in pieces.”
Malice let her armor vanish and stepped off the edge of her cloud fortress. “It doesn’t have to be that way. We were not enemies until you decided we were.” She drifted in the air until she was between Lindon and Yerin.
“Let’s keep Mercy out of this, shall we?” Malice suggested.
The three of them floated over the waves. A flying sword hovered behind Lindon while Yerin had her six Goldsigns and her one Archlord blade bare.
“Let us talk to her,” Lindon said quietly. “If she wants to come back with you after, she can.”
Mercy flew out on her staff. “No, stop! You can’t win!”
“See?” Malice murmured. “She does know me.”
Then her armor returned, but not at its titanic maximum size. It poured out of her in less than a blink until it fit her like a tailored suit. It flickered with shadow as the Dark Tide Incantation filled her limbs.
Lindon and Yerin didn’t waste time, striking out with dragon’s breath and the Endless Sword. But Malice had been slaying dragons for centuries, and the sword artists that had died to her arrows were beyond counting.
Blades of aura scattered off her armor and Blackflame madra splattered harmlessly in the air. She stood before Yerin in an instant and grabbed Netherclaw with one gauntleted hand. A weapon Enforcer technique lent it strength, but it was nothing before her armor.
Yerin instantly vanished in a flash of light.
In an implosion of shadow, Malice followed. They reappeared a hundred yards away. Malice didn’t even lose her grip on the sword.
Malice’s fist caught Yerin in the face and drove her down into the ocean.
Lindon’s sword drove at her with an impressive force of will, but she slapped it aside with a backhand. Constructs flew from his open void key, launchers by the dozen. They all sighted on her.
She summoned only one.
In the same time Lindon used to attack her and summon his own weapons, she called her bow and drew. Dense madra of ice and shadow formed into an arrow on the string.
A host of arrows shot out, and her aim was flawless. She pierced every construct Lindon had and forced him on the defensive by pelting him with a dozen shots. He defended with the flying sword and his Hollow Domain, but that was the end for him. He was on the defensive.
Malice lashed out with a Striker technique of pure shadow, but launched it half-finished as a dense stream of madra approached her from below.