Jai Chen didn’t know how to respond. On the one hand, having a sect backing them would solve most of their problems. She yearned to stop running and hiding, to settle down somewhere.

On the other hand, there was no Twin Star sect.

“I’m sorry, Archlord, but the sect…I was just—”

“Making it up? Every organization in history has been made up by someone.”

“We don’t have—”

“A headquarters? There has been quite a bit of real estate around here leveled in a recent disaster. You may have heard about it.”

“My brother—”

“I’m not just looking for your brother.” His head lolled to one side, and he looked at her with a single blue eye. “From you, Jai Chen, with no pressure from me, I would like to know: if we could provide you with a home, would you want one?”

She hesitated.

“No commitment,” he assured her, “and pending your brother’s approval. You could both walk away if and when you wanted.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But it’s hard for me to believe it isn’t a trap.”

She flinched as she said it. He was an Archlord, and she was doubting his given word.

He let out a breath of relief. “Fantastic! It actually isn’t a trap this time; I just need someone who knows real sacred arts to sort through all these Irons to find some who might actually be worth teaching. It so happens that I have recently come into possession of a plot of flying farmland with plenty of sacred herbs and spirit-fruits to support the development of a small sect. So I appreciate you founding one.”

Eithan dipped his head in what was probably supposed to be a bow. It was really just him pushing his face deeper into the cloud.

Despite her misgivings, Jai Chen giggled.

Northstrider crossed his legs and closed his eyes in midair, catching his breath and slowly recovering his spirit.

The clouds below him were torn apart, the landscape devastated for miles. An abandoned fortress had been reduced to rubble, there was now a bay where once had been uninterrupted coastline, and one small mountain had been leveled while another one had burst into its place.

“I’ll have to have my maps re-drawn,” Malice said with a sigh.

She drifted up next to him out of a cloud of violet essence. Her dissolving armor lit up the sky, but it was nothing compared to the red light that retreated north.

The Bleeding Phoenix, flying into the Trackless Sea.

Not fleeing.

[Behavioral deviation detected in the Bleeding Phoenix,] his oracle reported. [It acts according to unknown purpose.]

Northstrider didn’t need the reminder. They both knew they hadn’t driven it off; it was flying somewhere with intention.

“Do you think it’s feeding to regain its power?” Malice asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Oooh, I know how much you love that.” She was smirking, he was sure, but she had always valued useless conversation. He continued cycling, seeing to his spirit, categorizing how much strength the battle with the Phoenix had cost him and how long it would take to recover.

“He did this,” Malice said at last.

“Yes.”

It would be no mystery among the Monarchs who was responsible for the strange actions of the Phoenix. Only one among them even claimed to have any influence over the Dreadgods.

“He has gone too far,” she said, and now he could feel her cold anger bleeding out into the world around her. “He’s toying with forces that could be the ruin of all of us. What could he possibly expect to gain from this?”

Northstrider opened his eyes. “I will know soon.”

Wearing more veils than he ever had in his life, Reigan Shen shoved his way through collapsed houses and upturned trees. He was still in his human body, and he was both sweating and breathing heavily.

He felt as weak as an Iron. It was like wearing a suit so tight that it had burrowed into his skin.

Even so, he wasn’t doing the work himself. He may be a sacred beast, but he wasn’t an animal.

Jade-level constructs pushed beams aside, dispersed soil, and lifted boulders so he could pass. More scoured the area, clearing the entrance.

It had taken him hours to reach this point, and finally the starting point was within reach. The last chunk of masonry rolled away, revealing a towering stone door. It was carved with the image of a gaunt, sunken human with many grasping hands, its eyes hollow and mouth open unnaturally wide.

This was Subject One, at least as he had appeared long ago. A Dreadgod, though few knew that. The man who had become warped by hunger aura. The origin of their bloodline.

Shen’s willpower was veiled, but still powerful. He commanded the door to open, and it obeyed.

With great ceremony and a hissing release of power, the Nethergate swung open.

Inside, a wood-paneled hallway was lit with flickering scripts. Finally, Reigan Shen had gained the wish he’d dreamed of ever since Tiberian’s death: entrance to the western labyrinth.

Only the shallowest layer, to be certain. The bulk of the work was still left to be done, and the depths of the labyrinth would surely be locked down tight. Fortunately, he had the key.

Reigan Shen strode into the tunnel, on his way to retrieve his new weapon.

Epilogue

With his Remnant arm in a scripted sling, Lindon faced the Ancestor’s Tomb. It had come through the Wandering Titan’s attack more or less intact.

Part of its roof had caved in, one pillar was cracked, and it was covered with debris like a small town had dumped its garbage all over it.

But Heaven’s Glory must have done their job well when they rebuilt it, because the Tomb still stood.

There were no security measures left around it, all of them having been destroyed either by the trembling earth or roaring winds, so he walked through the front doors of the Tomb easily.

Once he stood inside the open temple-like room, he faced down the sealed door at the other end. A mural of the four Dreadgods covered the entrance.

Lindon had learned many things from the Wandering Titan’s memories. Too many things, he would say; it was impossible to process all the impressions, instincts, and thoughts. Dross had been going through them, but even for him, it was difficult to separate what had come from the Titan and what from Lindon’s own mind.

Still, a few themes were clear. One was that the Titan had detected its goal here. The one meal it needed. The source of hunger madra.

When it had arrived and felt nothing more of the sort, the Dreadgod had assumed it wasn’t here. Like a dog chasing after a stick, only to never find it.

But Lindon had more than a few reasons to suspect the Dreadgod’s prize was still here. Just locked away. Buried.

Besides, Lindon’s arm had been strained and cracked by absorbing so much of the Titan’s power. He needed more weapons of hunger madra if he wanted to rebuild it. And improve it. Scavenging from dreadbeasts wouldn’t hold him forever.

He had to pick his way across a field of debris as he crossed the room; evidently some people had used the Tomb as shelter during the Dreadgod’s attack. As it had been before, the inside of the Ancestor’s Tomb was just a wide-open space lined with pillars.

At the end of the room stood an ornate door, sealed shut. The entrance was undamaged by the previous collapse of the building, which didn’t surprise him. If it was part of the labyrinth below, it had to be made of stronger stuff.