For another, she had the opportunity now to help more people. House Arelius had been on the verge of destruction for years now. They needed hope.
“Hold on!” Mercy called to Ziel. His gaze flickered to her in evident surprise, but he couldn’t afford more of a response than that, since the Storm Sage came riding in on the back of a Forged lightning dragon.
Mercy tapped her sixth page and her Shadestep technique. She melted through shadow and appeared a moment later behind the Arelius lines.
They were holed up in a building that was half-ruined and covered in ash, like most everything in eyesight. Some of the Lords targeted her with techniques immediately, but not as many as she’d expected. Even most of those attacks cut off half-formed.
Mercy weathered the stray attacks on her armor and admired the Arelius bloodline gift. Their reaction speed and coordination were impressive, although that might have only been true when the Oracle Sage guided them.
Thinking of the woman must have summoned her, because Cladia Arelius stepped out of nowhere a moment later. The Sage of a Thousand Eyes indeed had many eyes of light madra swarming around her, like a cloud of bees. Her face was gently wrinkled but pleasant, her blonde hair streaked with gray and pulled back, and her dark blue robes were worn and disheveled.
She had clearly pushed herself hard for a long time now, but she didn’t appear too urgent as she surveyed Mercy.
“I’m here to help!” Mercy said brightly.
“Hmmmm,” the Sage responded. “Eithan didn’t leave a message for me, did he?”
Mercy scratched the side of her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get to talk to him before he ascended.”
“Pity. Well, I suppose he didn’t get to pick his timing, did he?” Eyes flew out from behind the Oracle Sage, and her head snapped to a corner of the battlefield. “See. Sorry, I’m spreading myself thin as it is. How are you with taking orders?”
“Tell me where you need me!” Mercy said enthusiastically.
“Great. You’re the best piece I have on the board right now, so I’ll be leaning on you hard.” The Oracle Sage tossed her a construct: a blue-and-white crystal that came to hover next to Mercy’s ear. Cladia spoke into a larger version of the construct, and the one by Mercy’s head buzzed with her voice. “Test one. Test two. Good.” She conjured a floating ball of light madra. “This will be your visual guide. Think of them like your aunt’s owls. Then I’ll relay the situation. As I get used to your capabilities, I’ll be able to guide you more precisely, but I will be pushing—” She cut herself off, casting a half-dozen spears of light into the air to intercept launcher constructs.
Mercy clapped black-gloved hands together. “Let’s go!”
An eye appeared in Mercy’s vision. It was hovering over a cloudship. “Take the ship down. Overlord-class force barrier, basic script protections, and the most-advanced crewman is an Overlord. His Path is—”
While Cladia’s voice was still explaining the enemy’s forces, Mercy had taken the ship down.
One arrow broke the barrier, a Shadestep and an armored punch tore apart the scripted hull, and Strings of Shadow bound the entire crew.
The Overlord would escape eventually, but the cloud base was leaking and drifting toward the ground.
“Next!” Mercy called.
Mercy couldn’t be sure, but she thought the Oracle Sage’s voice was brighter. “Disrupt the formation.” A floating eye indicated a circle of two hundred Golds led by a few dozen Lords and Ladies. They were operating a boundary field that manipulated aura all over the battlefield, bending wind and fire to push back Arelius troops.
Cladia was explaining the function of the script, but Mercy shot an arrow bound with the Dream of Darkness.
The script pushed against her Ruler technique, but enough people were affected by the nightmares of her Dream of Darkness that the formation weakened. She whipped Blades of Shadow at the boundary flags planted around the circle, and though the Blades were broken by techniques, a bombardment of Arelius Striker techniques hit at the same time.
That took enough pressure off that Mercy used Strings of Shadow to bind a group of a hundred Golds in a massive spiderweb.
“What’s next?”
“Archlord and his personal guard.” The eye showed the coordinates.
Mercy focused. The Oracle Sage had clearly decided to pick up the pace. Mercy was a brand-new Archlady, and the man hovering over her—engaged with a troop of Arelius Lords—held a massive sword in both hands. He was weathered by the years, and her sense of him suggested a spirit honed by battle.
The pair of Overlords and trio of Underlords behind him worked in perfect concert, and all had quality weapons.
Though they were focused on different opponents, she still wouldn’t be a match for them. Not as she was, anyway.
She started to tap into the seventh page, but Cladia’s voice echoed in her ear. “You just need to counter the Archlord. He was only a few seconds away from breaking through us and slaughtering my people. This should help you.”
The Sage’s next word didn’t echo through the communication construct, but Mercy heard it nonetheless. She heard the command in her very soul.
“See,” the Sage of a Thousand Eyes commanded her.
The world clarified as though she’d been blind a moment before.
It wasn’t like borrowing the Arelius bloodline. Mercy understood that as strings of awareness that spread around and carried information. This was more like her existing sight had become sharper and deeper.
She saw weak points in the Archlord’s stance highlighted: places where he would be slow to react. She saw his effective range in a circle around him, and what techniques to avoid.
Like a shadow layered over him, his future actions played out a split second before he did them. She saw him swing his sword an instant before he did, saw his head turn to her just before it happened.
“Hang on for two minutes, and I’ll have backup for you,” Cladia said. Then her voice vanished. No doubt she was coordinating someone else.
Mercy drew the Archlord’s attention with an arrow and flew on wind aura past the squad of exhausted Arelius Lords. “Follow me!” she called and flashed them an encouraging smile.
She shot every weak point of the Archlord at once.
He was still an experienced Archlord, and “weak point” was relative. They were just places he couldn’t block as easily. He did still block her shots, but they put him on the back foot.
Mercy whipped blades of shadow madra at the squad behind him, activated the Dream of Darkness for just a moment, and then was among them.
They had protections against her domain, but it still startled them enough to allow her to land. All six members of the squad, including the Archlord, flew on their own separate clouds.
Within their ranks, Mercy wore her full-body armor and filled her limbs with the Dark Tide Incantation.
An Overlord tried to block her punch, but his arm broke. Mercy then dragged an Underlady from her cloud with Strings of Shadow, but that was as far as she got before she had to twist back to avoid the Archlord’s sword.
Even with her armor, she didn’t underestimate the weapon. She dodged, using her Puppeteer Iron Body to control her body precisely. Combined with the Oracle Sage’s foresight, it was almost effortless.
She felt like she could dodge a Monarch, and the sheer exhilaration of it made her giggle.
The Archlord’s face darkened at that, and he gathered madra for a larger technique.
Only it was too late. The Arelius squad crashed into his, sweeping away his guards in an instant. He was forced to fly away, and Mercy dismissed her armor.
“Where to?” she asked.
Only then did her backup arrive. The Arelius Archlord was bleeding and panting heavily, carrying a spear, but he met Mercy’s eyes and nodded his thanks. Then he flew to a different battle.