[You gave me quite the fright. If Charity hadn’t intervened, I would have had to use…Plan Three.]
Lindon had a number of backups ready to save his life, even from the attack of a Dreadgod, but he was glad he hadn’t been forced to use one.
Though all of that was a distant concern. His eyes and perception were locked onto the spiritual cracks. The Titan’s one blow had undone all his work, and Malice was just now finding her feet. She thrust out a hand.
“Stop!” the Monarch commanded.
All around the city, everything froze, including the spreading cracks.
But not the Titan.
It shrugged off her authority and landed one last punch.
The horizon broke like a glass wall, and Lindon saw into an endless void. His Icon resonated with the power of nonexistence and annihilation he felt within, and distant balls of color swirled like pockets of life he couldn’t quite make out.
A force pulled at the Titan like a strong wind, hauling it closer to the void. It didn’t resist, letting itself be dragged away. As it was drawn backwards, the Dreadgod looked Malice in the face and its stone lips stretched into a smug smile.
Lindon felt like someone had torn out his guts.
[I can feel it,] Dross said. [He’s trading.]
Dreadgods had a limit on how far they could transport themselves. They were too conceptually heavy to move far…but now Lindon could see the workaround the newly intelligent Dreadgods had created.
They had figured out how to give themselves a counterweight. Something to trade with.
And there were only four beings on Cradle with the metaphysical mass to trade with a Dreadgod.
Dross rubbed his tendrils together in anticipation. [Which one is coming through?]
Lindon was certain he knew.
“Archlords, to me!” Lindon shouted. The construct network of Moongrave’s defenders picked up on his words, transmitting them to those under his command.
The Archlords likely didn’t understand what he meant, but they still reacted immediately to follow him as he flew downwards as fast as he could. Toward Mercy.
Dross switched to contact the defenders in charge of the great scripts. They were Archlords too, though not any of the ones on Lindon’s team. “Change scripts! Activate the dream boundary!”
A dream artist down by the scripts responded, sending Lindon a mental message. “Void Sage, please clarify.”
“The dream script!” Lindon shouted back. “Prepare for the Silent King!”
Only an instant later, something emerged from the tear in space. It was relatively tiny compared to the Titan, little more than the size of an elephant. From Lindon’s distant perspective, he saw a small white creature with black stripes and a shining circle over its head stride out of nowhere.
When it appeared, the sky flashed from gold to white.
Lindon unleashed the Hollow Domain.
His blue-white circle of pure madra spread hundreds of yards around him, powered by all the madra and soulfire he could unleash. He caught hundreds of people within it, maybe thousands.
Some of the Archlords dodged it, maybe thinking he was attacking them. Some people saw it and ran.
But Mercy, and everyone in the short tower where she was waiting, was swept up in his Domain. As were three of the other Archlords who didn’t resist or run.
Therefore, they were saved from the wave of domination that passed over the entire city.
Dream madra and aura swept out, assaulting millions of minds at once. The crews on the protective script had been too slow to swap, or the dream script took too long to activate. Either way, they hadn’t made it in time. And Lindon’s Hollow Domain couldn’t cover all of Moongrave.
All over the dark city, new spots of light appeared. Rings.
The white crowns of the Silent King.
His Hollow Domain weakened the madra enough to disrupt the technique, but trickling flows of dream aura still wove their way inside.
“Lindon,” the Silent King whispered into his mind, “I keep my promises.”
And that was when Lindon realized this attack wasn’t limited to Moongrave alone.
The Blood Sage slunk past Yerin and Little Blue. He was half-hunched, and his spirit was a ranging mass of power, but he didn’t seem as delighted as she would have expected he would be after having triumphed over his rival.
He looked around to the Emissaries of Redmoon Hall, most of whom were still unconscious or groaning from the effects of the Phoenix.
“I am your leader now, and you will obey me as you should have from the beginning. Now, you see that there are none who can lead you into the future as I can, and that even the Dreadgod itself cannot stand up to the power of my creations.”