Charity hefted the shield as though it were hollow, holding it to her left and her sickle to her right. “When I give the all-clear, you may follow me. Only fly where I direct you, but accelerate as quickly as you can. The Titan has more tempting targets, but if he does notice you, I will send you back through the portal immediately.”
Lindon braced himself, cycling pure madra and controlling his breathing. Here they were, ready to return to Sacred Valley. The time had come.
Nothing between him and his family except a Dreadgod.
[Could be worse!] Dross pointed out. [There could be two Dreadgods.]
A ribbon seemingly made of liquid steel flowed out of Charity’s void key, tying her hair into a short tail. That was a sacred instrument of concealment and banishment, with powers of stealth and space.
Now that Lindon could feel concepts like that, he had to wonder what his new perception could do for his Soulsmithing.
But that was an idea he could save for later.
“Prepare yourselves,” Charity said. She raised her weapons, cycling her madra through her three sacred instruments, and Lindon felt the intimidating will of the Heart Sage equipped for war.
Then she flew through her column of darkness and vanished.
[Our escorts are ready. Or at least they say they are. Could be lying.]
Lindon steadied himself, running his madra through the cloudship. It had its own stored power, and was fueled partially by ambient vital aura, but he primed everything and powered as much of it himself as he could.
Propulsion constructs warmed up, the cloud beneath them bobbed a bit in the air, and scripts flared to life all over their portable island.
Only seconds after Charity had vanished into the darkness, her owl spoke again. “Clear!”
The fortress rocketed forward.
Shadow swallowed Lindon. As he’d experienced before, his senses vanished as though he no longer had them. He and Dross were left completely alone, floating in a sea of soundless, lightless black.
Only this time, the oblivion wasn’t quite so absolute.
[Is this what spatial travel feels like?] Dross asked in awe. [It feels…twisty.]
Now that Lindon could feel the distortions in space, moving through a portal like this gave him a new perspective on transportation. Even when he’d pushed his way through space himself, he hadn’t felt the substance he was working with so clearly.
Inside the darkness, it felt as though he was traveling through a tunnel. Someone had bored a hole, and they were in the middle of sliding through.
As Dross had mentioned, it felt almost like the tunnel was spinning around them, like they were being twisted somehow.
One impression was clear to Lindon: Charity hadn’t done this herself. She had taken an existing route and widened it, but she couldn’t create something on this scale on her own.
Akura Malice must have made the original doorway, leaving Charity to expand and direct it. He suspected she’d done the same thing all the way back in the Night Wheel Valley.
The realization encouraged him. He was starting to feel the edges of a Sage’s power.
He would have plenty of time to experiment with his own powers, once Sacred Valley was safe. Once everything was over, and he had the rest of his life to explore…whatever he wanted.
The world faded in, and every protective script in the fortress blazed against his spirit. They were holding against crushing spiritual pressure.
And the sky was dyed gold.
They were emerging above the fortress that the Seishen Kingdom had raised at the border of the seaside town called Sky’s Edge. At least, they were supposed to. There was very little left to recognize.
The town was gone.
Most of the landscape was unrecognizable after the battle between Heralds, with chunks blown from the surrounding mountains and ravines carved in the ground.
Only a few features remained to remind Lindon of the town he’d left so recently, including the tower-sized sword of Frozen Blade madra plunging into the ground.
And the Dreadgod that cast its shadow over everything.
Though they had left the Ninecloud Court in the morning, the sun hung low over the western sea, behind the Titan. And as drastically as the surroundings had changed, they were hardly worth noticing next to the Wandering Titan itself.
The humanoid giant of dark stone knelt at the edge of the ocean, its feet still partially submerged in water. Its shoulders scraped the clouds, a turtle’s shell rising behind it like a shield strapped to its back.
It was a titanic statue come to life, a walking mountain. Its face looked like a man’s, but expressionless, as though it had indeed been carved. Stone eyes glowed slightly, dull yellow.
Just by its presence, it dominated the earth aura for many miles. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
Lindon wasn’t about to extend his perception to check.
Its control of earth aura was so intense that it stained the sky gold, as the Bleeding Phoenix had once enhanced blood aura until the sky blazed red. All around, mountains buzzed as though quivering in anticipation.
The Titan’s arm was plunged into the earth up to the elbow, and it knelt almost motionless as it fed.
Power moved up its arm slowly but steadily, like sap in a tree. A hunger technique. Intense aura flowed into the Dreadgod, but not just aura. Lindon couldn’t be certain without a direct scan, but it felt like even physical materials were consumed by that hunger.
He had sensed the Wandering Titan directly before, perhaps closer than anyone other than a Monarch. He didn’t want to try it again.
Stone and dirt slowly collapsed around the Titan’s arm, falling inward like a sinkhole.
Lindon’s right arm quivered, its madra resonating with the presence of the Dreadgod, but his will was stronger. The limb never left his control.
The Titan appeared almost motionless, except for its tail. It resembled a monkey’s tail that stretched out into the ocean perhaps half the length of the Dreadgod’s body, and it lashed back and forth like an impatient snake.
With every motion, it carved waves from the sea, sending walls of water splashing up to the sky.
Lindon put the Dreadgod to their backs and directed all his power to propulsion.
Their fortress shot forward.
Scripts inside manipulated aura to control air and gravity, preventing the inhabitants from pitching over at the sudden acceleration. He followed one of Charity’s owls due east, chasing silver-purple tailfeathers.
He felt like he’d bared the back of his neck to a hungry tiger. It could strike at any second.
Sweat trickled down his back and his forehead, and he kept his eyes flicking between the window to the front and the projection of the Titan behind them. It didn’t seem to be bothered by their presence, maintaining its hunger technique, but they wouldn’t be out of danger until they were many miles away.
Charity stayed behind, next to the portal, as purple cloudships emerged one at a time and streaked after Lindon.
The Heart Sage floated in place with her shield raised, vigilantly watching the Dreadgod. It wasn’t long before half the cloudships had emerged from the portal, trailing behind them like ducklings.
Lindon’s fear started to fade into exhilaration. They’d made it. They were okay.
Then, in an inexorable tectonic shift, the Wandering Titan stood up.
Madra cycled through the Dreadgod’s body, and in the same instant, their cloud fortress was buffeted in midair. The protective scripts screamed as they resisted an invisible assault, the projection construct fuzzing into chaos so that Lindon could no longer see what was behind them.