The Dreadgod’s great head snapped up, focusing on a new figure. A tiny dot in the distance, to Lindon’s eyes, shrouded in a spiraling serpent of red light.

Northstrider slammed his fist into the head of the Dreadgod with an explosion of force. Trees far below were stripped of leaves. Even miles away, the broad windows on their cloudship cracked. The sound was deafening.

The Phoenix was hammered down from the sky, almost slamming into the earth before it caught itself on its massive wings and a cushion of wind aura.

Lindon took a deep breath. If it had crashed into the ground, the impact might have destroyed the entire Desolate Wilds.

He sent pure madra flooding into the controls so they drifted away from the fight as the Monarch of the Hungry Deep met the Bleeding Phoenix in battle.

Legions of spirits rose from the Phoenix, tiny versions of itself splitting off from its body. They looked like red raindrops rising upward from its body. Northstrider responded with another punch that launched a serpentine dragon of scarlet madra. The dragon devoured the cloud of phoenixes, roaring as it did.

That was the only exchange slow enough for Lindon to catch.

In the next second, the Dreadgod unleashed lightning, a wall of sword-madra slashes, a smaller cloud of bird-spirits, and a beam of concentrated destructive light from its beak. All of its techniques were tinged blood-red. It moved constantly as it fought, a blur of motion covering half the sky.

Northstrider conjured dragons, he struck with blows that split the clouds, he summoned planes of black force that shielded him, and he moved even faster than the Phoenix. They spiraled around one another so that even Dross couldn’t track them perfectly.

But it was obvious, even to Lindon, that Northstrider was out of his depth.

The dragons he Forged were torn apart by the slightest brush of the Phoenix’s talons. His walls of force—no doubt created by a sacred instrument of some kind—shattered before they could cover him. And the feeling of the Phoenix continued growing by the moment.

Even so, Northstrider wasn’t overwhelmed. The battle was tilted against him, but not so terribly as Lindon had imagined.

He understood for the first time the dilemma the Monarchs faced with the Dreadgods. They could fight on an almost even level, but if the Monarchs pushed too hard, the Dreadgods would awaken and work together. And the Monarchs had people to protect, while the Dreadgods didn’t.

But there was something to that explanation that didn’t quite satisfy Lindon.

The Monarchs were that close in power to the Phoenix; Malice had fought it more or less to a standstill for three days the last time. And even if the Dreadgods joined forces, they were still outnumbered by Monarchs.

There had to be something else. Something…

A feeling of utter cold passed over Windfall like a glacier shooting through the sky. Lindon’s body and spirit shivered together as it chilled him on a more-than-physical level, but it was past them in a second.

The Phoenix’s head came up, and it snapped its beak onto one of Malice’s glistening blue arrows. The missile shattered.

A purple-armored fist followed it an instant later as Malice punched the Dreadgod in the ribs.

This time, the impact did blow out Lindon’s windows.

He was ready for it, pushing out with force and wind aura to blast the glass shards back before they slashed all the Sacred Valley refugees to ribbons. The crowd was screaming, but Lindon couldn’t hear them.

Now darkness was interspersed with red light as the second Monarch joined the battle. If Lindon had thought it was hard to follow before, it was chaos now.

And devastating for the land beneath.

Malice strode through foothills, and they became a plain. The impact from one of Northstrider’s strikes stripped a forest bare. One of the Phoenix’s techniques was deflected, and bloody fire rained down.

There was only one saving grace: the Monarchs were pulling the battle away from Sacred Valley. Every second, they were further north.

Lindon’s heart hammered, and he checked the viewing constructs in the fortress. Some of them had blown out, or the scripts that controlled them had, but some were still intact. An image floated over his console, flickering and indistinct because of the damage.

The eastern slopes of Mount Samara were covered in rubble. And filled with bodies.

As he watched, armies of bloodspawn rose like ants.

He quickly turned the projection to another direction, trying not to vomit all over the control panels. How many people who had left Sacred Valley on foot had survived? Had anyone?

His own spiritual sense told him that the suppression field had stopped the worst of it for the people inside, blunting even the physical force from the blows. Crowds still pushed their way out of Heaven’s Glory…though the human tide slowed with reluctance as they saw the bodies piled on the eastern side.

Then he found the Titan.

It was standing just outside the ruins of Mount Venture, still except for its lashing tail, watching as the northern horizon was lit red by the battle. Lindon’s heart tensed as he waited for it to go join the fight. If it did, would the Monarchs be overwhelmed? Or did they have some kind of plan? Maybe an ambush?

His first breath passed while the Wandering Titan stood still, except for its writhing tail. Then his second breath.

His third breath caught in his throat as the Titan turned. Slow, lumbering, the giant turned back toward Sacred Valley.

The yellow beacon that had once rested inside Mount Venture was still dim and flickering, but the Titan marched over in one stride, ignoring it. The Dreadgod took one purposeful step after another, marching across Sacred Valley.

And leaving it in ruins.

Its footsteps crushed trees like grass. Its tail lashed out behind it, knocking more chunks from the ruined Mount Venture…and as it continued walking, its tail cut into more and more.

Lindon felt like his heart had stopped beating.

From their vantage point, high above Samara’s ring and moving south quickly, the high-quality viewing constructs from the Ninecloud Court picked up the destruction in great detail. Not all of them had been damaged, and this projection was crystal clear.

So Lindon missed nothing as the Dreadgod waded into the Wei clan.

The central avenue, the artery that supplied traffic for all the major businesses in the clan, vanished beneath its colossal foot.

Earth aura flashed out in a golden wave, and the earth rippled like water. Entire housing districts were torn apart by rolling earth, including the Shi family. Somewhere in that chaos of destroyed buildings and uprooted trees rested the remnants of Lindon’s childhood home.

A black tail slashed through the middle of Elder Whisper’s tower, and the top half toppled slowly to shatter on the ground.

If the elder hadn’t escaped when he had the chance, then he was dead now.

The Titan didn’t even notice as it kicked aside the arena where the last Seven-Year Festival had been fought. Where Lindon had met Suriel. Where he had first seen this vision of the Titan wading into Sacred Valley.

The vision he’d failed to stop.

With inexorable steps, the Titan was heading their direction. It seemed to be drawn to Samara’s ring, but not in a particular hurry. To the Dreadgod, it was simply time for a stroll.

Mercy laid a hand on his shoulder. “You should turn that off,” she said quietly.

Only then did Lindon remember that the construct was projecting this image into the air. If he could see it, so could everyone else.