The Heralds and Sages were a moment behind the Monarch. After that first exchange, they unleashed their own might.
Icicles pelted the Dreadgod, each carrying authority of the Winter Icon. Frost grew over its hide, and its movements were slowed. Another giant white sword appeared over its head, plunging down, as the Sage unleashed a technique that resembled Yerin’s Final Sword.
An army of silver ghosts, animated by the will of the Heart Sage, rushed up and over the Dreadgod like a swarm of ants. A cloud of aura attacked the Dreadgod’s head, and even a bubble of darkness. The Titan shook off the domain, reducing it to mist, but another appeared immediately afterwards. A silver sickle flashed and released a very different technique: a colorless slash, a Striker technique of death and destruction, which flashed through the Titan’s entire body and caused the Dreadgod to stagger.
Chips of stone flew off the Titan like sprays of blood, and the Dreadgod was pushed further and further away from the spiderweb of cracks in the air.
“They can’t push it too far,” Lindon muttered. It seemed Malice might be able to deal the finishing blow to the Dreadgod, and if it felt itself under lethal threat, it would call its brothers.
[We would feel if the Titan was on the brink of death,] Dross said, drawing attention to Lindon’s hunger arm. The scripted cloth holding it back was hanging by a thread now, but Lindon was grateful for it. The Slumbering Wraith’s limb sensed the struggle of its brother, and the conflict stimulated its own appetite.
[This battle has not come close to its end,] Dross whispered.
It was like the Wandering Titan had heard Dross’ words.
Light flashed in its eyes, and it roared in Malice’s helmeted face. Destructive light streamed out of its mouth like gold dragon’s breath.
The Monarch caught the blast on her armored forearms, but that wasn’t the only technique the Dreadgod had used. Golden light flowed up around the Titan, armoring it in spectral light and filling it with an even greater sense of weight and inevitability.
At the same time, it slammed its foot down.
Walls of earth and golden light rose in a circle around it as the Dreadgod blasted out with a technique that was a combination of aura and madra. The Ruler and Striker technique shoved back everyone and everything except Malice, breaking techniques and forcing Heralds and Sages to run.
Lindon and Dross came to the same conclusion at the same time, and both acted.
“There!” Lindon commanded, his authority tearing space.
He stepped away from his position over Moongrave and through the world, emerging next to the cracks in the air. They stretched above and to either side of him, like breaks in an invisible wall that towered over him.
Moving like this tired him, but it was only within sight, and he had work to do. The Titan was about to push past Malice.
When it did, it was going to come here, and it was going to tear open space and bring something from the other side. Unless someone healed the cracks.
[There should be no other Dreadgods close enough to summon in this way,] Dross said. [Unless one of them has outwitted us with a nefarious scheme.]
What else could it be? Lindon asked, even as he focused on the cracks.
Dross relished the bad news. [The other possibilities are even worse. Maybe we’ll see our friend in the bone armor again.]
Panic supplemented Lindon’s will.
“Close!” he commanded.
As he’d seen in Ghostwater, the world fought against wounds like these, and the real world was far stronger than a Monarch’s pocket space. Otherwise, repairing such damage would be far beyond him, even if manipulating these empty spaces fell under his authority as the Void Sage.
But with the world itself on his side, the cracks began to close. Lindon’s focus trembled, and his eyes blurred. Even with assistance, this was an exhausting working beyond anything he’d ever done, except maybe claiming the labyrinth for the first time.
The smaller cracks disappeared and the larger ones thinned. Though Lindon’s vision darkened by the second, he was doing it.
[Lindon!] Dross shouted. A warning flared in his spirit, and Lindon tried to run in time.
A mighty force seized him and hurled him through the air.
He was back to Moongrave when his head cleared enough for him to control wind aura, righting his flight and hovering in midair.
The Wandering Titan’s fist had landed where he’d been floating.
Dross helped sort through his confusion, clearing up his memories in an instant. Charity had been the one to grab him and throw him back, helping him retreat before the Dreadgod’s attack could land.