The outer layer of scripts shattered, and Lindon finally turned toward it with impatience. This was an opponent that deserved his full attention, but it would be tragic if he couldn’t find his way back to this room.
Still, he was filled with renewed motivation to proceed. “It’s death madra. Can we get rid of it from here?”
“Not with the aura as weak as it is,” Ziel put in. “Ruler techniques would be best for such a big target.”
Lindon nodded. Mentally, he went over the constructs and dead matter he had prepared. How could they clear this with the least expense?
“This is going to cost us,” he finally said. “We’ll try to spread it out—”
He was cut off by a roar that shook the entire labyrinth and a flare of spiritual energy. The Forger techniques pushing against their defensive scripts vanished.
Everyone readied weapons.
“Here it comes!” Yerin shouted.
But nothing did.
After a moment of waiting, everyone turned to Eithan. He closed his eyes and extended his awareness.
“It’s tricky to get much here,” he murmured. “But I don’t think its attention is…”
Eithan trailed off, and his jaw hung open for a moment. Then his eyes snapped open.
“Run,” he ordered. “Lindon, we need a hole in the wall. Right here.” He pressed his hand against the wall in the opposite direction of the Tomb Hydras.
Lindon didn’t ask any questions. If Eithan was talking like this, that meant that the time for saving resources had passed.
He focused everything he had into black dragon’s breath. Soulfire bathed the technique, and it fused easily with the authority of the Void Sage. A black bar of liquid flame, containing distant sparks of red flame, warped the world as it struck at the stone of the labyrinth.
Lindon felt another will opposing his, but his technique won out. He began carving through the protected stone. The edges glowed red-hot, but there was no molten stone; it had been erased by destruction.
Behind him, even without focusing his perception, he could feel a presence clashing against the death madra. He couldn’t make out its properties exactly; it was like a team of sacred artists of all different Paths had joined forces.
Eithan was still barking orders. “Yerin, guard the tunnel! Ziel, we need veiling scripts now! Mercy, put up the Dream of Darkness past the scripts. Orthos, help Lindon with the wall.”
Drilling through the wall like this was far harder than cutting through ordinary stone, but Lindon had almost carved the outline of a human in the stone.
Then webs of hunger madra shot from every direction.
Everyone had to dodge. His Striker technique was disrupted, and everyone’s techniques were interrupted.
Lindon and Eithan unleashed waves of pure madra—Lindon a little slower, as he’d been forced to switch from his Blackflame core.
These strands of hunger were more difficult to disrupt than any they’d faced so far. They pushed through the Hollow Domain, carrying a stronger will before Eithan eradicated them with concentrated Striker techniques.
“Too late,” Yerin said, and then Lindon felt what she had a moment later.
An overwhelming presence had been unveiled, and it felt like the twisting of space. The death madra swelled to meet it…and was battered back.
Then torn apart.
They heard the tearing of meat echo down the hallway, followed by a deafening silence. And all of them knew who was coming.
Reigan Shen.
14
Iteration 001: Sanctum
On Suriel’s screen, Gadrael hovered in the middle of space. A translucent blue wall of force intercepted a planet-obliterating strike without so much as trembling.
“Did Makiel agree with this course of action?” Gadrael asked.
The Titan was a small but athletic man, made of muscle, with blue-gray skin and short horns like swept-back hair. He had perfected his body as he ascended, as virtually everyone did, and among his people his form was considered ideal beauty.
Suriel wondered how they would see him with a broken nose.
Not that she could break his nose. Not only was he an infinite distance away, but his cartilage was sturdier than most planets.
She could dream, though.
“Makiel is still in treatment,” she told him. Again. “His mind is occupied with potential outcomes, and he cannot be distracted from his management of Fate.”
“Contact me again when you have his approval.” Gadrael turned, presenting her with the back of his smooth white armor, and readied the buckler on his arm. A vast cloud of black smoke billowed against his barrier, and the wall of order slowly began to dissolve.
Gadrael swept a hand and his barrier vanished. The smoke boiled forward, suddenly unhindered, and Suriel could sense the appetite and corrosive influence it carried. Enough to swallow a hundred planets.
The mundane buckler expanded in an instant, and Gadrael was holding the Shield of the Titan. It was a bulwark of gleaming steel, wide enough to shelter his entire body, and it crawled with red-hot veins like molten metal. She heard a distant roar as its powers activated.
The black smoke crashed over Gadrael in a wave, and her connection to him faded to nothing.
Suriel’s hands curled into fists as she stared into her blank wall, and her Presence had to restrict her strength before she crushed everything in her building with the force of her irritation. With every passing day, worry ate away at her soul.
Not worry for Gadrael. He was the closest thing to invincible, and anyone standing behind him was as safe as they could be.
But he would plant himself like a fortress wall in front of someone, declare them under his protection, and never consider whether there was someone else who might need him more. He relied entirely on Makiel to direct him effectively.
Makiel, the Hound, who had refused to lend his support to Suriel’s efforts.
She’d fail, he said. She had a far greater likelihood of success by waiting for the Vroshir to leave, as her Presence had told her.
Suriel couldn’t accept that.
She had contacted every single one of the other six Judges, and they had all—in their own ways—turned her down. They would be delighted to accept her help, but provide their help to a risky venture when they didn’t need to? Why? Their worlds weren’t under threat.
Suriel was starting to see why Ozriel had left.
[You always knew why Ozriel left,] her Presence said. [He was abundantly clear about his frustrations with the Court.]
She held her hand over her eyes, wondering if she should make herself sleep. Sleep was nothing but a luxury for her now, but it sounded amazing.
She wouldn’t, of course. There was too much to do.
“I thought that when things were dire enough, they would change.”
[That was never likely.]
“What haven’t we tried?”
[Giving up.]
“Other than that.” She downed another cup of tea. It really was good. It had been Ozriel’s favorite.
Her Presence tapped into the power of her residence and teleported another dose of steaming tea into her cup.
[How high of a priority is this request?]
That was an unusual question. Suriel almost responded that it was the highest priority, but her Presence literally lived inside her mind. There was a reason why it had asked.