Malice’s arrow staggered the Titan back a step, but only then did Lindon sense what she had. A chill tingled up and down his spine.
Space had begun to twist where the Titan was standing. He was calling something.
The Sages were the first to strike, behind the Monarch herself. Min Shuei, the Winter Sage, struck out with a Forged sword so large it could be wielded by the Titan itself. The air darkened and twisted around the Dreadgod’s skull as the Heart Sage attacked its mind.
Even Lindon unleashed a bar of black dragon’s breath the width of his two hands together, with the full force of his soulfire and his authority behind it.
Ignoring their attacks, the Titan pulled its fist back and slammed it into empty air.
Space cracked.
Moongrave’s battery of constructs launched attacks faster and faster, each Striker technique sending a purple spear into the Titan’s stone skin that made it stagger in place. Malice’s arrows were even heavier, but the Dreadgod weathered the barrage. Its tail was a blur, swatting a dozen techniques from the air every second, but enough landed that its rocky carapace started to break.
Though not fast enough. It landed another blow on the world, and the empty air was now a mass of dark cracks.
It drove the fingers of both hands deep into space and started to heave like it was pulling stuck doors apart.
Malice slammed her foot on the ground, and for the first time, Lindon saw the full power of a Monarch’s technique.
A specter rose into the air behind Malice, an echo of power like an Icon. This was a crowned woman whose regal authority he could sense, a ruler in elaborate clothes. She did not resemble Malice herself, but her expression was cold and full of disdain. An empress looking down on an enemy.
Her will suppressed the entire countryside. Everyone but Malice felt it, and even the Sages and Heralds staggered in place.
Since Moongrave was behind this towering royal spirit, the city was less affected, but Lindon was still sure some Golds would pass out.
This spirit’s image stepped into Malice, and Lindon realized it was an Enforcer technique. One beyond anything he’d ever seen.
Malice’s armor shone, and her bow snapped back into the form of a staff. The Titan’s tail froze, and it stopped its fist mid-punch to stare at the Monarch.
For a moment, the world was still.
Then Malice moved. Lindon didn’t catch the motion until she was suddenly in front of the Dreadgod, having crossed miles in an instant. Her staff struck the Dreadgod in the skull and the world felt it.
The sky emptied as the clouds blasted away, the earth was stripped of its features, and the scripts at the base of Moongrave’s walls shone to blinding intensity. Without them, Lindon was certain the city would have been devastated.
The Wandering Titan staggered back a step, then it roared. And their battle began in earnest.
Malice’s every motion trailed violet light as she attacked the Titan. Arrows blackened the sky and fell in sheets, each one piercing the Titan’s hide. Shadows curled up from the ground and wrapped it tightly, binding its body and spirit, singing to the Dreadgod’s soul in whispers Lindon could hear even from miles away. The strikes of her staff left corrosive spots on its skin where shadows ate into its flesh.
The Titan matched everything.
Hands of dark stone caught each blow of her staff as the Dreadgod danced with intricate footwork. Its tail blurred as it slapped barrages of arrows from the air. A half-dozen swirling spheres of golden chaos, churning masses of madra and aura and Forged earth, sprang into being over its head. The explosive techniques rushed at Malice and pushed her back, even forcing her to spin her staff and shatter them before they reached Moongrave. Each one detonated in a thunderous explosion that left Forged shrapnel and golden earth madra raining for miles.
Since Malice had engaged in close combat, only seconds had passed.
Lindon remembered his first glimpse of Malice’s fight with a Dreadgod, when he had almost passed out from trying to catch a glimpse of her exchanges with the Bleeding Phoenix. Now, he could watch.
But even as far as he’d come, this was an intensity he couldn’t match.
Lindon himself had fought the Titan and a Monarch. Both had been weakened, but he was proud enough for surviving those encounters.
That wasn’t good enough now. He needed the ability to fight them at their full power. The power he was seeing now.
Lindon had been placed in a defensive position over the city, so he wasn’t meant to participate in this fight. He had the perfect chance to watch, so watch he did. His eyes and spirit were wide open, and even Dross was silent as they witnessed the devastating display.