Yerin. Mercy. Ziel.
They were on the way.
He could feel the Weeping Dragon’s disdain, but the Dreadgod still sent a storm billowing in their direction to slow them down. The next action Dross predicted was the Weeping Dragon putting extra pressure on Lindon, because no matter how much the Dreadgod looked down on the newcomers, he would still end the fight before they arrived.
Lindon pushed out the Hollow Domain, which covered the terrain from ground to sky and miles in every direction. He had to hold off the pressure until Yerin and the others arrived.
Dross showed the Dragon moving toward Lindon.
But in reality, the Dragon moved back.
[No, wait! Lindon, hit him! Orthos, where are you?]
Orthos responded to the call with black dragon’s breath, but he was a second late. His technique missed, and the Weeping Dragon was already gathering power between its jaws.
Dragon’s breath. On a level incomparable to anything Lindon had ever seen before.
The storm swirled into the Weeping Dragon’s mouth as it devoured aura from miles around. Serpents of living lightning returned, gladly throwing themselves into the newborn star of blue-and-yellow madra. They carried stolen power with them, madra they’d taken from the spirits of those they’d consumed.
The technique was just beginning. Lindon could stop it.
Lindon was aware of all his possible actions, but Dross played them out anyway.
In the first vision, Lindon saw himself lunge toward the Dragon to stop the dragon’s breath. The incomplete Striker technique struck him head-on, and Lindon was blasted from the sky. The Dreadgod turned to Orthos and Little Blue.
All of them were eaten before Yerin or the others arrived.
In the second vision, Lindon clawed open the air and tried to flee. The Dreadgod shut down his transportation and hit him anyway.
In the third, Lindon flew to the side and drew away the Dragon’s attention. In that case, the Dreadgod had his pick of targets. Whoever landed in his sights died.
[We’re cornered, aren’t we? This is a corner.]
We still have options.
[Not good ones! I want good options! I don’t like gambling with our lives!]
Neither did Lindon. He preferred stacking the deck.
Though he found himself gambling with his own life at stake disturbingly often. When he ascended from Cradle, he’d put an end to that.
Lindon selected his plan. He gripped the Silent King Bow and fitted a second Penance arrow to the string, then he leaped up through the air over the Weeping Dragon’s head.
If he did use the arrow, it would be the last thing he did in the fight. Releasing the arrow would push his mind, body, and spirit to the limit. If it didn’t kill him, he certainly wouldn’t be in the shape to continue fighting.
But the Weeping Dragon was in the same position. One more blow from Penance was all it could take.
Lindon had no intention of loosing the arrow. He was posing a threat the Dreadgod couldn’t ignore. In all of Dross’ projections, the Weeping Dragon followed Lindon.
That was where the risk came in. Roughly six out of ten times, the Dreadgod would hit Lindon with the half-completed technique. In the other four cases, Lindon dodged it.
He was betting on his own ability. At the very least, the Dreadgod wouldn’t be targeting his friends.
Or that was how it was supposed to be.
[That’s…Oh no. He got me.]
The Weeping Dragon didn’t follow Lindon for a second. It tracked the others.
The storm had reached Yerin, and she, Mercy, and Ziel were battling their way through a hostile storm and a flight of lightning-dragons. The Weeping Dragon’s attention was on them. His techniques would hold them in place, and the will of the Dreadgod would ensure they didn’t escape through the Way.
Lindon had left them unprotected.
And Dross hadn’t seen it coming.
The world paused again, and now Dross saw possibilities he hadn’t before. They had been shrouded. By storm clouds.
The authority of the Weeping Dragon.
It had done the same thing Lindon had, but Lindon and Dross had been too inexperienced to notice. The Dreadgod had hidden threads of Fate. Shrouded them behind clouds.
Now it was pulling away those clouds, showing entire branches of possibility in which the Dragon ignored Lindon’s threat and targeted the others.
The final piece of the puzzle slid into place in Lindon’s mind.
Unlike the other Dreadgods, the Weeping Dragon remembered its original life. It thought of itself as a superior being, greater even than its siblings. A dragon’s pride would not bend.
If it died while striking a fatal blow on its enemy, it would go to its grave with head held high.
There was no manipulating a dragon. No negotiation. You moved as it decreed, or you died.
[I didn’t see it,] Dross said. He sounded lost. [I’m…I’m sorry.]
Lindon dropped the bow.
Even if he shot the Dragon with Penance, that would only kill it. The attack wouldn’t stop. That was what the Dreadgod was counting on.
The Void Icon ate into Lindon’s thoughts, leaving him cold. There were no options left to him. The Dragon Descends had enough power to move the Dreadgod, but the technique required fire aura, and they were in the heart of a rainstorm. The Hollow Domain and Consume could weaken the dragon’s breath, but not enough.
None of Lindon’s techniques were good enough or fast enough here.
He needed a new one.
[I don’t like this,] Dross said. [But it should work.]
Help me with it.
Lindon drew madra from both his cores. He was so careful not to do so that it was second nature at this point; he barely thought about it anymore.
The two types of madra fought each other, but he forced them into place.
A smooth, blue-white flame erupted from his whole body. The Soul Cloak.
Then a rough, violent black-and-red flame. The Burning Cloak.
Finally, the silver rush of soulfire filled them both.
Two full-body Enforcer techniques raced through him in an instant, threatening to tear him apart from the inside out.
But he wasn’t finished.
The arrogance and unyielding spirit of the Weeping Dragon was still strong in him. He could feel it hanging in the air like the rain.
He matched that attitude with his own.
Two Icons formed in the sky over him. A yawning emptiness and a dark dragon.
With the authority of the Void Icon and the Dragon Icon, Lindon gave his order.
“Burn,” Lindon commanded himself.
Everything in Lindon—his body, his spirit, his blood essence, his lifeline—began to dissolve. It all went into the technique.
It was perhaps the most delicate and complex use of the sacred arts Lindon had ever performed, but it all took only a blink. In an instant, Lindon was surrounded by a strange black-and-white fire.
The world warped around him from his very presence.
Force madra gave him a platform, and he kicked off. As he shot down to the ground, space cracked in the wake of his flight.
Lindon slammed into the ground, and the impact would be enough to create a new crater. If there had been a mountain beneath him, it would have been reduced to pebbles.
But none of that had happened yet. The world moved so slowly it was as if Dross was making a prediction. Everything seemed still.
Lindon kicked off again, aiming for the underside of the Dreadgod’s jaw.
He hit the bottom of the Weeping Dragon’s head like an erupting volcano. Bones bigger than ships cracked.
The Dragon still released its breath.
A column of gold-and-sapphire energy split the air. It resembled solid matter, like the Dreadgod had Forged glowing steel instead of releasing a Striker technique.
The Dragon’s breath slashed across the sky. The storm clouds were split in half.
Too high to threaten the others.
Still, the Weeping Dragon forced its head down. While it still had the technique, it was trying to bring it down on them like a sword.