Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (81)

It looked like a shadow pouring onto the arrowhead, a darkness so deep that it warped the space around it, as well as a core of purple light shining through its center. But it felt like she’d woven sixteen intricate spiderwebs through one another in a split second.

Did you catch that? Lindon asked.

Dross’ astonishment was loud in Lindon’s thoughts. [Do you think too much of me, or do you mean to attack me with your unreasonable expectations?]

The arrow flashed out.

It tore the air. Far beneath the arrow, its passage ripped a trench into the ground. The wind kicked up into a hurricane, and the defensive scripts around Moongrave flared as they protected the defenders from the backwash of the Monarch’s attack.

Lindon focused, so he saw everything clearly. When Malice’s arrow came close to the Titan, the Dreadgod’s fist met it in midair. Gold, purple, and black madra swirled in an explosion that tore up the landscape.

The Titan’s fist was unscathed. It kept running…

…for one more step.

Then it skidded to a halt. Earth sprayed up in a wave as the Titan stopped, and the ground rumbled for miles around the protective field of Moongrave.

Malice’s fingers paused on the string of her bow. The Wandering Titan stood proudly, a warrior unafraid. Its serpentine tail slowed.

The Monarch drew back another arrow, and this time Lindon sensed panic in her power.

Malice’s cold command reached everyone. “All forces attack now!”

The launchers on the wall closest to the Titan drifted into place and unleashed lances of devastating purple force immediately. The other launchers drifted around the wall to the correct positions before they began gathering power.

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.