As the transportation began, the Herald’s will crashed down on him like a wave, anchoring him in place. Blue light shone, then faded.
The Sage allowed it; the gatestone was only a diversion. While Redmoon focused on that, Red Faith began a new transportation.
His authority was not well-suited to spatial travel, but centuries of practice had their benefits. He disappeared from the cloudship and appeared outside, on a grassy plain beneath the sun.
A hand grasped him by the back of the outer robe and hauled him back.
Red Faith knew what had happened without needing his senses to confirm. Redmoon had torn his portal back open and seized him, more quickly than the Sage had hoped.
Red Faith controlled flying daggers with his mind, driving eight of them at the Herald. One he caught with his own hand, whereupon he struck out with a Striker technique layered over an Enforcer technique.
Scarlet madra crashed into the Heralds fist and splashed around him like water crashing into a boulder.
The Blood Sage turned off his own sense of pain just in time.
Redmoon hurled him through the wall, and he crashed through room after room before slamming into the inside of the outer hull. This fortress had been constructed and scripted to endure the presence of a Dreadgod, and had recently withstood even a Monarch-level battle. The Sage of Red Faith was not capable of breaking it with his body alone.
Unfortunately, it was capable of breaking him.
His consciousness was only scattered for a moment before he initiated his own inner Enforcer technique, which knitted his bones and flesh back together.
Not in time. The Herald loomed over him, and his command of blood aura lifted Red Faith into the air.
Red Faith met the eyes of his copy and matched his will.
“Release,” the Blood Sage commanded.
For an instant, the Herald’s control of the blood aura broke, and Red Faith’s body was free again. In that fraction of a second, Red Faith dashed for the ceiling…and then he froze. The Herald had reestablished control.
The point of Red Faith’s dagger drove into the ceiling. While the outer hull was nearly impervious, the decks overhead were not. They were made of ordinary, if high-quality, wood, and that had been his chance to dig his way out.
He felt himself pulled down by blood aura, his limbs spread out as he drifted before his former Blood Shadow. Redmoon stroked his chin and examined Red Faith from every angle.
“Do you know what I will do to you?” the Herald asked curiously.
Of course he did. Exactly what the Sage himself would do were their positions reversed.
“Force me into a situation in which I have no choice but to bind myself in soul oaths, then use me as a tool to accomplish your ambitions.” It was the most practical solution.
Traditional wisdom said that soul oaths could not be coerced, but Red Faith had discovered exactly the boundary at which that restriction became vague. Compelled soul oaths were weaker, but they would be binding enough.
Redmoon nodded. “After all this time, we will be united in purpose.”
They would be.
Red Faith tried to set aside his anger, his hatred, and his bone-deep rejection of working for the purposes of another. Maybe this was the way forward. Maybe this was how he could overcome the flaw that had ruined his ascension to Monarch, so long ago.
He couldn’t do it.
He would rather toss his soul to the nameless creatures in the Void than be kept as a slave by this ghost of himself.
Any sentient individual had authority over their own body, and as a Sage tied to the Blood Icon, he had exceptional control over the flesh. The Sage of Red Faith focused his will on his own heart and began to squeeze.
As expected, Redmoon turned all his power and attention against him, but this was where he was outmatched. The Sage of Red Faith gave him a cold smile as both of them wrestled for control.
They were both absolutely focused…until they felt power gathering.
Somewhere outside the ship, perhaps a mile away, one of their number was gathering massive power into a technique. It must have been one of the Archlords, but the Blood Sage could spare no part of his brain for speculation, nor could either of them extend their perceptions for a better look.
Even noticing that power cost him ground, as the grip of the invisible fist around his own heart loosened, bringing him that much closer to failure.
Redmoon’s cheek, with its milk-white line traveling through it, twitched like the last nerve response of a corpse. Sweat ran into Red Faith’s eyes, and he couldn’t spare the attention to stop it.
Then the room was lit by a flash of white light.
Yerin appeared a step to the side, her sword drawn back for a thrust. Soulfire, madra, and aura twisted around the blade into a dense star of power. Her hair whipped in the wind it kicked up, and her expression was tight as a bowstring.