Now that everyone had arrived, the Mad King began his address.
“The Abidan have fallen. Those who imprisoned you no longer hold their old worlds, and it will be centuries before they rebuild, if we allow them to. I do not intend to give them the chance.”
That caused another wave of reaction through the prisoners. Some were hungry for this chance at revenge while others had their fear of the Abidan branded into them.
He could work with both.
“I have tasks for each of you,” the Mad King went on. “Some will return to your home worlds to bring a new order while others will carry out my will. The chaos you spread will ensure that the Abidan never fully recover. You are my twist of the knife. I have broken the pillars of their house, and now you will burn it to the foundations.”
Some of the prisoners cheered. Kash-Nagh growled. Others winced and steeled themselves. None protested.
At least, none who had seen what happened to the Witch.
“Why should we?” one of the two newcomers demanded.
Those around him, the ones who had witnessed the King’s demonstration, didn’t wait to hear an answer. They pounced on the newcomer and began beating him to shut him up.
The Mad King left them to it.
Iteration 110: Cradle
Larian crashed into the peak of a mountain many miles from Sacred Valley.
Their battle had taken them through the sky, far from where they’d started, but she’d felt as though she was backed into a corner the entire time.
She coughed up blood, and even her golden armor was cracked and spewing out wisps of spiritual essence. Her body was in worse condition.
The Eight-Man Empire was down to six. At least, for now. One would recover, but one might not. They had known the risks of holding back a Dreadgod, but with all eight together, she’d thought they would hold out longer.
Her fingertips trembled as she reached for the bow at her side. It snarled in dream aura, manifesting a white halo over it as it attacked her thoughts.
She gave a laugh that coughed out a spray of blood onto the nearby snow. Weakened she may have been, but she wasn’t going to give in to the mind of a weapon.
Through the still-functioning armor, she could feel the others of the Empire. All were as weak as she was, so they only had enough power left to stay on their feet. They would be using their emergency life-saving measures soon. Many of them would have already, she was sure, if not for Larian herself standing her ground.
Over them, the Weeping Dragon loomed.
Its colossal eye sparked with lightning as it landed on her, and even its gaze pressured her. She stopped groping for the Silent King Bow and summoned her own, pushing her back up against an outcropping of rock so she could use it.
She took aim at the Dragon’s eye.
The Dreadgod’s laughter shook the storm, and she could feel its disdainful amusement. There was nothing her arrow could do, no matter where she hit it. Not as weakened as she was.
Then it looked away from her.
Her arrow still landed, though it skipped off the Dragon’s bare eye. Something else had caught its attention, and now she was no longer important.
It still didn’t let her off, though. Serpentine lightning bolts swam down from the dark clouds, lunging for her.
“Destroy,” she commanded, and she pushed wind madra out from both hands.
The crude Striker technique, reinforced with her authority, blasted apart lightning dragons. There were more, though. Always more.
Some landed, cracking fangs into her armor and dissipating as they tried to wrap their bodies around her. The Eight-Man Empire’s armor was not something an animated technique filled with rudimentary willpower could touch.
However, hers had been broken. The first snake didn’t reach her, and the next dozen were torn apart by her hands and her madra.
Some of the ones that landed afterward did find flesh.
Lightning coursed through her, and Larian had to shove the remainders of her madra through her body to stop her muscles from locking up. They slowed her enough for more and more to land.
The Weeping Dragon blasted a line of madra into the sky, then followed up with a swipe from its claw. She felt the sacred artist it was after, and she pushed her lips into a grin.
“What took you so long?” she forced out.
Blue-white madra passed over her in a tide, and the Dragon’s animated techniques were weakened enough that her own passive resistance to madra and the remainder of her armor wiped them out in an instant.
Lindon followed the edge of his technique, holding a Hollow Domain over her.
And over the entire mountain.
The sphere of madra stretched for miles, forming an umbrella against the passive Striker techniques of the Weeping Dragon. It would take a direct act of the Dreadgod to push through the Domain with enough strength to hurt someone on their level.
Larian sank down onto the snow in relief, pushing away the pain. Now that she could focus better, she could finally hold the Silent King Bow again.
“Hope you figured something out,” she said, looking up to him.
He stood over her, and while he kept his eyes on the Dreadgod, he held out his left hand. “We’ll see. How did you like my weapon?”
She took his hand and used it to lever herself up. “It’s a little much, but you need something at least that heavy to hunt real prey.”
Larian released his hand, but he kept it held out. She pretended not to see it.
“…I do need it back,” Lindon said.
She held up the Silent King Bow in mock surprise. “You do? Wasn’t this payment for fighting the Dragon?”
Another pair had joined her brothers and sisters of the Empire in battle. A newborn Sage and a Herald, from the feel of them. Though newly advanced sacred artists shouldn’t be able to stand next to the Eight-Man Empire, they were taking quite a bit of the Weeping Dragon’s attention away.
Lindon’s expression firmed. “Dross is helping them hold on, but they can’t do this for long. I need it.”
“So stingy.” She hugged the bow to her chest. “I’m sure I could shoot it another couple of times.”
“With this arrow?” he asked, then he pulled something out of a void space.
Something dark and terrible.
Her breath hitched in her chest as she beheld the arrow in his hand. It was lethal authority condensed into solid form. She’d fought Heralds on death-aspect Paths who weren’t as deadly as that weapon.
After her first impression, she recognized it, of course. The arrowhead was Penance: the prize the Abidan had offered for the Uncrowned King tournament. Or a copy, at least. This one wouldn’t be able to kill a Monarch or a Dreadgod without resistance.
But it would go a long way toward getting the job done.
Larian held out the bow with creaking joints. This situation was urgent, but she couldn’t seem to part the weapon from her hand.
Lindon snatched it away, and her soul hurt from more than all the spiritual injuries.
“Make me another one!” she insisted. “Look at that dragon! Look what a great bow he’d make!”
When Lindon nocked the arrow to the string of the Silent King Bow, a dark Icon formed in the sky. He radiated such authority that even the Weeping Dragon spun around, its motion whipping up a hurricane.
Lindon shot into the sky to meet the Dreadgod in combat, but Larian called after him.
“It doesn’t have to be from a Dreadgod! I’ll take Malice’s bow once you’re through with her! Later? All right, we’ll talk later.”
She cycled her madra when the Hollow Domain passed away from her, but even doing so little made her stumble. In a much graver voice than she usually showed the world, Larian spoke into the communication construct within her armor. “Eight-Man Empire, retreat.”
The Weeping Dragon’s attention was off them. It couldn’t stop their transportation without taking its eyes from Lindon. Now was their best chance.