But as this bloodspawn fell, it stretched out its arms and slashed at the legs of a man who was trying to sprint passed it. The man screamed, but even the new hole in his leg didn’t stop him from continuing to flee, hobbling and leaking a red trail with every step.

And from that trail, another bloodspawn rose.

Jai Long speared it as it formed, but they were surrounded by bodies, and either the Phoenix hadn’t moved far enough away, or its influence lingered. Blood gathered up into these grotesque puppets of men and women.

He tried to use his techniques sparingly, but if he was growing exhausted, his sister could barely breathe.

Around him, he felt only chaos. Pressure from the Dreadgods, malicious hunger from the bloodspawn, and disordered madra of every aspect from the crowds of people fleeing Sacred Valley and spreading into the forest.

Jai Long looked east, and he saw a swath carved through the forest ahead of them. Black spots were dashing across that space, and only by focusing his spiritual perception did he realize those were dreadbeasts.

First a few, but that trickle almost immediately became a torrent. Dreadbeasts were famously enraged by the approach of Dreadgods, and the Desolate Wilds was home to more dreadbeasts than anywhere else he’d ever heard of.

Coldly, Jai Long realized that they were about to die.

He had known they might be killed by the Wandering Titan, but that was like being killed by a thunderbolt or torn apart by an aura-storm. It was a force of nature you could do nothing about, and at least it was over in a moment.

Now, the bloodspawn would wear them down. Even if they escaped, there were dreadbeasts ahead of them and the Wandering Titan behind.

With one surge of soulfire-enhanced madra, Jai Long whipped his spear in a circle. The force of his blow and the power of his serpents of living madra tore open a clear space around him. Bodies and bloodspawn were equally torn apart and shoved back, giving him enough space to work.

He leaped over to a log, dragging it closer. With a few quick stabs, he separated the fallen tree into segments, and dragged them into a circle around the edges of the empty space.

A bloodspawn clambered over the side, and he blocked its Striker technique before returning one of his own.

His core flickered, dim at the center of his spirit, but he focused on his task. Jai Chen had picked up on his project, and was helping him keep the circle clear. That took enough pressure off that he could begin carving symbols into the segments of log.

The work couldn’t have taken more than two or three minutes, but it felt like hours before their crude script—stabbed into pieces of log arranged in a rough circle—activated with a flare of white light.

It would push spiritual powers away, repelling Remnants and bloodspawn. Even dreadbeasts, to a lesser extent.

But it couldn’t stop them. Any script that solid would put too much strain on the material, and the first impact against it would send his logs tumbling.

Upon immediate activation, a bloodspawn with flourishing tree branches for limbs stumbled back, then shuffled around the edges of the script to look for prey elsewhere.

It would help…but it wouldn’t stop everything.

Sure enough, a dense, more advanced bloodspawn shaped like a man with a sword in his hand shied back from the script, but he crawled over the log to get to them. Jai Long faced him with no techniques, but they had to exchange blows several times before he got the better of the spawn, sending a chunk of its madra fizzing away to essence.

Jai Chen had finished another on her side, but even Fingerling was growing tired, drifting lower in the air.

More bloodspawn flowed around them, but some still ignored the repulsion and climbed in.

They would still die now, only slower. This was nothing but a way to stall for a little more time.

But wasn’t that every day?

A bear-like dreadbeast leaped over the back log, and Jai Long braced his spear against the ground. The rotting bear impaled its chest on the length of the spear, but didn’t seem to care, rabidly snarling and swiping at Jai Long.

He left the spear and the bear, turning to stiffen his fingers and Enforce them like a weapon. The Star’s Edge technique sharpened his hand with a point of bright white sword-and-light madra, and he drove his fingers through a bloodspawn’s chest.

While the technique was still going, he spun and slashed open the bear’s throat.

Jai Long was breathing hard, and his mask seemed to be getting in his way. Roughly, he tore off the bandages, baring his hideous fanged smile to the world.

The air wasn’t fresh, it was filled with smoke and dust and the stink of blood and rot, but he gulped down deep breaths anyway.

He seized his spear, kicked the dying bear dreadbeast off the end, and turned his weapon to work on a bloodspawn.

The last of his madra failed him, and soon he was fighting with nothing but the strength of his limbs. Even so, he swore an oath to the heavens.

If nothing else, he would die before his sister did.

One long second after vanishing from Moongrave, Lindon landed on his hands and knees in half-melted snow, surrounded by debris and wind-torn trees. People screamed around him as they fought featureless humanoids of red madra that rose from mere droplets of blood. To the east, Lindon felt hordes of dreadbeasts filtering out from the Desolate Wilds, driven mad by the presence of a Dreadgod.

As he recovered from the exhaustion of his working, Lindon felt nothing but relief. Mount Samara was still in one place. He’d made it.

The earth shook beneath his hands to a steady rhythm. Footsteps. Lindon heaved a breath and pushed himself to his feet.

He hadn’t come here to rest.

The chaos around him resembled a battlefield. More and more people poured endlessly from the Heaven’s Glory pass, stumbling over bodies, and Lindon couldn’t tell if they had been destroyed by the powerful wind or the falling boulders or if they had simply been trampled alive.

Formerly bound Remnants ran wild, darting through the crowd. Children hunkered together behind a broken and overturned cart. And everywhere, people ran from or struggled with freshly risen bloodspawn.

All the while, the dreadbeasts were on their way.

Do we have enough launchers? Lindon asked Dross.

[We need to hurry.] The earthquakes now couldn’t be compared to the ones from before; with each heavy pound of the Titan’s footsteps on the earth, Lindon was lifted off his feet. […but yeah, we have enough to eliminate a majority. The bloodspawn here are especially weak, thanks to the aura and the general flimsiness of the hosts.]

Lindon’s void key opened, causing several people nearby to scream and flee. Launcher constructs, some complete and some half-formed, flew out on gusts of air. He had stocked up, in case he needed to make another cannon. Wavedancer followed, sluggish in this aura.

Take over.

[Yes, Captain!]

Lindon rose into the air on cushions of wind aura. Though the vital aura here was weak, he still had an easier time controlling it thanks to his Overlord spirit. He wouldn’t be able to freely fly like this, but he could hover in the air, giving Dross a better vantage point. Now they could see far more targets.

Lindon controlled the aura and powered the constructs, but Dross handled targeting. The spirit’s attention split thirty, forty, fifty ways.

[Aaaannnnd done!]

Lindon triggered all the launchers at once.

Striker techniques of every color and description lanced out, tracing a web all over the pandemonium of fleeing people. Bloodspawn splattered, melted, imploded, wilted, dissolved, collapsed, and deflated.