That sort of damage was a trivial inconvenience to an Overlady. She rose to her feet and sent the people around her sprawling, but she was beyond caring about them for the moment.
Mercy stood at the center of a crowd of tens of thousands, all barreling out of a sky-high pillar of darkness. The portal between Moongrave and the Tower.
The sky above her was the familiar shrouded gray of the Akura capital city, and she was surrounded by a skyline of glorious dark buildings.
But she had eyes only for the pillar.
She needed to see Charity come through. She needed it.
Or, hopeless or not, Mercy was going back inside.
One of the Heralds flew through next, followed by a Sage.
Then a castle-sized gauntlet of amethyst armor. As Mercy’s mother strode through, her bloodline armor bled away to purple essence, streaming into the sky in a glowing cloud. Mercy released her breath, and her heart began to slow. Aunt Charity drifted through the air behind Malice, and she was still in one piece.
The Monarch wasted no time. The instant she emerged from the black portal, she turned in midair to address the flood of people beneath her.
“Flee,” Malice commanded, and Mercy felt the same compulsion to obey seize her as everyone else did.
She turned and ran. Most around her were running in a mad scramble, though some used techniques to leap, fly, or dash. Mercy found herself on top of Suu, pushing the staff as fast as it would go.
Her mother’s orders still held her, so she didn’t stop when she heard the Titan’s roar. But she did look back.
A black stone shoulder, large as a cliff, shoved through the shadowy mist. The Titan’s head came next, and its blazing yellow eyes met Malice.
Its spiritual pressure caught Mercy, making her staff shudder in midair and slowing the flow of her madra. Hundreds of people, closer and weaker than she was, fell like grass before a scythe. Their Remnants rose and were reduced to shining dust in the same instant.
The Dreadgod itself stared pure hatred at the Monarch. It strained to come through the portal, but it looked like Lindon trying to force himself through the crack in a door. The towering portal of shadow cracked and began to collapse, sending wisps of dark madra flying in every direction.
Malice hovered in front of the Wandering Titan. Her black hair drifted behind her like strands of night, black even against the skies of Moongrave, and she was nothing but a speck before the Dreadgod’s face.
The Titan roared, and the ground around the portal cracked. A building too close to the courtyard collapsed. More people fell.
Mercy herself felt the world go silent as something in her ears failed. She had thought the Titan was deafening enough when she fought it in Sacred Valley, but now she knew the difference between standing in the middle of an avalanche and having an avalanche scream at you.
Malice raised a hand, and Mercy heard the word with her mind and her spirit rather than her ears. It was the only sound she could hear.
“Close,” the Monarch ordered.
The pillar of shadow winked out.
Mercy hoped for a moment that the Titan’s head would be severed by the closing gateway, but instead it slid back as the opening vanished. The last pieces to disappear were its golden eyes, still locked on Akura Malice with hatred.
And hunger.
With the Titan gone, the weight on Mercy’s body and spirit lifted. She tried to turn Suu around, to go help the fallen people who had been injured but not quite killed by the Titan’s presence.
She couldn’t do it. Her mother’s command still held her.
Helplessly, Mercy continued flying to safety.
Sector Seven
Suriel drifted through the blue light of the Way with Ozriel at her side. He spent most of their trip humming, but her silence slowly quieted him.
“I am sorry, Suriel,” he said, moments before they arrived. “I did regret hurting you. I still do.”
“You could have told me.”
“Could I have?”
Her Presence spun out onto her shoulder and answered him. [No. After your disappearance was confirmed, Makiel kept Suriel under close observation. If she had known of your location, her actions would have conformed to certain patterns which—]
That’s enough, Suriel thought, and her Presence cut off.
Ozriel held up two manacled hands. “I shouldn’t be making excuses. I could have come up with a plan to include you, and it’s possible we could have deceived Makiel together. The success rate was low, but…”
He sighed. “…I still wish I had tried. Sparing you the pain would have been worth some more risk. And I didn’t expect to come back to all the worlds on fire.”