The second, third, fourth, and fifth shots came on the heels of the first. Some of the bindings and unfinished constructs broke after the first shot, some after the second, and a few more on the third.

In only a breath, over a hundred bloodspawn had been eliminated. Not a single bystander was scratched.

Lindon let the expended launchers fall to the ground, hissing essence of every color into the air, and returned the functional constructs to his void key. His eyes were on the sky.

The footsteps were growing heavier.

The entire process had taken only a breath, but it was still time they couldn’t afford to lose. The constructs traded place with his Thousand-Mile Cloud, and he raced into the sky.

Jai Long had felt Lindon arrive.

Even exhausted and weak as his spirit was, he could sense the arrival of a spirit much stronger than anything in his immediate vicinity.

He didn’t feel any hope. He was too tired for that. Even if Lindon had come to save him specifically, Jai Long couldn’t spare any attention from the battle.

He climbed over dreadbeast corpses, hefting the halves of his broken spear in each hand. His sister screamed nonsense as she stabbed her dagger into a rabbit dreadbeast’s eye, and he hurled his spearhead through a flying bloodspawn that had tried to take advantage of her distraction.

Then the sky lit up.

Pulses of light—Striker techniques—rushed out in every color. Dreadbeasts exploded into corrupted flesh. Bloodspawn were torn to essence.

Where monsters were, light followed.

Jai Long’s weapons fell from numb, tingling fingers. He had seen sights like this before; when an entire sect of sacred artists unleashed a barrage of Striker techniques all at once.

He turned to the source.

Lindon hovered in the air, his back to Jai Long. He was surrounded by a halo of shining constructs, firing in every direction. A rainbow of colors streaked out from him, and just for that moment, he looked like he had sprouted a pair of wings made of light.

For a frozen moment he hung there, blazing like a many-colored phoenix.

Then the Striker techniques stopped. The world settled down.

Compared to the noise of battle before, the silence that settled over them in that moment felt unnatural. Jai Chen hobbled up to stand next to her brother, her mouth hanging open and an expression of awe on her blood-spattered face.

Sound returned with a deep rumble as the earth shook like a drum. A footstep of the Wandering Titan.

Lindon summoned a Thousand-Mile Cloud and flew off.

Sage of Twin Stars, Jai Long thought. He believed it now.

Then he collapsed.

18

Iteration 129: Oasis

Images, impressions, and desperate voices screamed through Suriel’s head. From a hundred Iterations at once, Abidan begged for help.

The Vroshir had held nothing back. In one world, their war machines crashed through deserts, while in another their fleets blackened planets, and all across the cosmos their champions met Abidan guardians blade-to-blade.

They were defending only a pathetic number of worlds, and only the ones held by Judges had any guarantee of victory. Dozens of Iterations called for Suriel to defend them.

As she entered Oasis, she cut off their voices.

This world needed her more than any other.

The fabric of reality itself trembled, every particle quaking in fear. Oasis’ central planet was a blue marble beneath Suriel’s feet, and she could feel the sudden terror rising from the billions of lives down below.

All across the thousands of islands that made up Oasis’ land, those sensitive to power collapsed under the weight of visions, or screamed at the feeling of a predator descended to take them all. She sent out her own influence to calm them, but there was only so much she could do.

She couldn’t hide the power of the Mad King.

Her Presence showed him drifting on the other side of the planet, eyes blazing from beneath the shadow of his bone helmet, his yellowed armor and fur cloak shrouding his figure. He clutched Ozriel’s Scythe in his right hand, and glared in her direction.

But not actually at her.

She floated next to Makiel, in his full battle gear. His seamless white armor covered him up to the neck, and he held the Sword of Makiel in both hands. The massive two-handed blade had once been used to pass capital punishment on the first generation of Abidan, and purple energy passed through its steel in complex veins.

Unlike the other Judges, he hadn’t perfected his physical form. His dark skin was weathered by his mortal life, and his hair had been touched with gray for millennia. His weary face did not turn to her as he spoke. “You could save more lives elsewhere.”

“Not yours.”

She might really be able to save an entire Iteration of her own if she left, but Makiel would be much safer with her around. Perhaps together, they could drive the Mad King away.

Together, they looked into Fate.

The future crackled and twisted, each vision unfolding with slippery uncertainty as the King’s chaotic presence warped Fate itself. But with the stabilizing presence of two Judges, and Makiel’s skill and significance at her side, they could see victory.

With the two of them together, a chance had opened up.

Not of slaying the Mad King, of course. It would take at least one more Judge joining them to make that a possibility, and they couldn’t abandon too many other worlds.

But she could see herself reverting a wave of devastating chaotic fire to nothing, giving Makiel the chance to strike a full-power blow and piercing the Mad King’s armor.

The outcome was by no means certain, but they could do it. If they made the Mad King leave the field, they would free up the Judges. The entire battle, across all of creation, could turn here.

“‘With our swords, we carve our place in destiny,’” Makiel recited.

“Don’t quote yourself. It’s not flattering.”

Blue power vented behind him, taking on the image of sapphire wings. “I first heard that from him.”

From the other side of the planet, Daruman spoke, and they heard him. “If you’re standing against me, you must believe you can win.”

“We stand before you to save the lives of trillions,” Suriel said coldly.

“And I am willing to spill that blood so that the survivors can live free. You have to know that you won’t shake my resolve with a few words.”

Makiel raised his sword, the purple lines shining. “Daruman, King of Madness, the Court of Seven sentences you to die.”

“If you believe you have seen that, then the eye of the Hound has grown truly dim.”

Suriel saw the attack a moment before it happened. A black slash, so vast that the concept of size no longer applied.

With one swing of the Scythe, the Mad King sliced the Iteration in half.

The entire universe split with the blue planet at the center, the two halves drifting apart, the Void stretching between them.

The Mantle of Suriel flared, and she channeled the Way, reversing the damage. Restoring order.

Makiel didn’t wait for her to finish stitching reality together before returning a strike of his own.

The inexorable will of the Hound, focused by his blade, closed on the Mad King to tear him from existence. The Vroshir broke the working, but then Suriel had finished restoring the Iteration. Her Razor bloomed from a two-meter bar of blue steel into a multi-pronged weapon of shining blades, like a razor-sharp tree.