Path of the Immeasurable Swarm [Worm/Cradle]

We kept moving, the Silent Sage in tow. In the next chamber, the aura was noticeably weaker than the first two. Stone spires had erupted from the floors and walls, but blood still dripped from the cracks. The beam of yellow light emanating from the core linked to the Titan was dimmer than the first two had been, but it was clearly still functional. We took it like the others and continued.

Halfway to the final chamber, a shiver ran through the Labyrinth, both spiritual and physical. "A power fluctuation in the script circle maintaining the barrier," stated Eithan. "The Bleeding Phoenix has arrived."

"Has the barrier been weakened enough for it to break through on its own?" I asked.

"In time, yes. More time than it would take for us to remove the final core."

"Then we continue," said Charity.

The final chamber contained the crumbling remains of stone spires and a white mist of dream aura. Miara blew it away in a moment, seizing the final core. I felt it as the enormous script circle surrounding the valley failed almost immediately. I couldn't sense anything happening on the surface, but anyone who hadn't already managed to flee inside the Labyrinth was as good as dead.

"Now fulfill your oath and lead us to the lion," ordered Northstrider.

The Silent Sage took point, guiding us deeper into the Labyrinth. It was slow going. The deeper you went into the Labyrinth, the less fixed its structure became, and the more responsive it became to the will of its master. Fortunately, weren't actually fighting Reigan Shen's will directly. He must have been entirely focused on completing his weapon, not sparing any attention even to defend his domain. The Labyrinth was obeying his orders to keep us out passively, and we had enough authority to overcome that… but not instantly.

We were forced to take a winding path through dozens of different rooms. There were living quarters and offices and prisons that had once contained massive dreadbeasts like the one Eithan and I had killed. There were laboratories and workshops from countless soulsmiths across different eons of Cradle's history, some even belonging to Ozmanthus Arelius. Everything had already been thoroughly looted, of course, and we had no time to investigate anyway. At least there was no significant resistance; the highest-level sacred artist we encountered was a solitary House Shen Archlord, and he lasted roughly half a second.

Several hours passed like that. We were all growing frustrated, but Northstrider said we were approaching our destination. From what I could sense, I agreed. Finally, we came to another passage marked with the crest of Ozmanthus Arelius. "I believe this was his deepest workshop," said Eithan. "The lion likely appropriated it for his own use."

The room was occupied. I couldn't sense who they were, but they weren't weak. Still, they didn't feel strong enough to be Shen himself. "Could he be in a pocket dimension?" I asked.

"Possible," said Eithan. "We should prepare ourselves."

Northstrider and Miara took position in front. She produced the flying swords Victory from her soulspace and Forged her own rainbow sword, while he merely cracked his knuckles and cycled his madra. We proceeded forwards. When we reached the door, Northstrider commanded, "Open."

There was no resistance to his working. The door opened, revealing a single figure, and it wasn't Reigan Shen. The man looked emaciated, almost skeletal, with bone white hair and skin, and he wore tattered crimson robes. He crouched on a large table near the center of the room, making no move to attack. "Finally," said the Blood Sage. "I expected you hours ago. Did you not understand the need for haste?"

"Red Faith," growled Northstrider. "Where is the lion hiding?"

The Blood Sage gave the Monarch a look of utter contempt. "He is not hiding at all. He is hunting the Bleeding Phoenix. By now, he may well have already killed it."

"Explain."

"You lack imagination. He was not crafting any simple weapon, or a set of chains. His goal was always to take the Slumbering Wraith's place. To become a Dreadgod. And he succeeded. Should he slay the Phoenix, he will gain its power. Not just a portion of it, but the entirety, leaving none for the other two."

That pronouncement was met with several seconds of silence. "Is he insane?" demanded Miara. "Does he want to end up as a mindless beast like the others?"

"He believed he could retain his mind. The Divine Treasure he created and merged into his spirit is designed to limit the flow of hunger aura to an amount he can manage without being overwhelmed, and release the rest into the world. In this, he is a fool. Hunger aura is not so easily controlled. He would have failed in the end even if he had the time for proper tests and refinement. But he is still an exceptionally dangerous fool."

"How'd he get past us?" said Yerin.

"Incomplete as his mastery of the Labyrinth is, it is still sufficient to open a path directly back to the surface. Be grateful that I was able to keep that path open behind him, or you would have no hope at all."

There was an outburst of questions, each from people who were used to taking the lead in any given situation. Northstrider managed to restore order after a few seconds by flaring his spirit, and I didn't contest him; someone needed to. "Are we to understand that the lion has already taken the power of the Slumbering Wraith, then? How much stronger has he become?"

The Blood Sage chewed on his thumb, not even seeming to realize that it was bleeding. "Difficult to say. He is still finding the limits of his new power. Certainly stronger than any living Monarch."

Again, there was silence for a few moments. This time, I was the one to speak. "The plan remains the same. Northstrider and Miara will pursue the lion and prevent him from killing the Phoenix if at all possible. The rest of us will secure the Labyrinth to deny him an escape route, then reinforce them."

"And if Shen has become a Dreadgod in truth?" asked Northstrider. "Can we risk killing him?"

That was a tricky question, and one I should have thought of immediately. What would happen if Shen died now, with the changes he'd made? Would he be reborn? Would the three remaining Dreadgods be empowered, or would the hunger aura be released directly into the environment?

"It doesn't matter," said Miara after a moment. "We have two Monarchs, and a Monarch-level weapon. Even if he has become a Dreadgod, he won't be able to stand against us. Once he's been sufficiently weakened, I'll restrain him. Then we'll stick him right back in the Wraith's prison. Red Faith, lead us to the exit, and we will allow you to leave as thanks for your assistance."

No one was really happy about letting the cultists go, but anyone who wasn't actively supporting Shen was a secondary priority right now. "Go with them," I told the Silent Sage, not wanting her present in the heart of the Labyrinth. "Keep a low enough profile, and maybe we'll be too busy to look for you any time soon."

"With pleasure," she replied sourly.

Mercy rushed over to Miara, throwing her arms around her and giving her a short but thorough kiss. "Be careful, okay?"

"I promise."

"Again, I emphasize the need for haste," spat the Blood Sage.

"Lead. We will follow," said Northstrider.

They left through a side door. In the hallway beyond, a door was set incongruously in the ceiling. It opened at Northstrider's command, and I was able to catch a glimpse of the enormous power being wielded outside. Good; the battle was still ongoing. They leapt upwards, and the door closed behind them.

"Well. Shall we?" asked Eithan, gesturing towards the door at the end of the room. No one spoke as we followed.

We stepped into a hallway sloping down. The hunger aura was far stronger here than it had been higher in the Labyrinth, as strong as it was in the presence of an actual Dreadgod. The stone of the walls had been warped and twisted by it over the centuries until it almost resembled flesh. An eerie gray-white light filled the air, coming from nowhere in particular.

The hallway was long, one final attempt by the Labyrinth to delay us, but there was a limit to how much space could be distorted even here. We covered the distance in a few minutes. The final door opened into a wide chamber lined with pillars. The stone was the same unhealthy grayish-white, and it was discolored and distorted in patches, as though something had grown over it and recently been scoured off. The only object in the room was a single throne, undecorated and made of the same stone as the rest of the room. For all its simplicity, it radiated ancient significance and authority like the sun.

Eithan approached. For a moment I was concerned that he was going to immediately sit on it, but instead he simply rested his hand on the back. "Hmm. This won't do at all. Multiply."

I understood the intent of his working and added my own authority to it. So did the others. We clashed against an echo of Shen's will, but his mastery of the Labyrinth had been too short and too shallow. It broke. Five additional thrones rose from the floor, arranged in a circle, each identical to the first. They were all, I understood, reflections of the same throne. It was singular, but it had been intended to be shared.

The plan we'd devised was effective from a purely tactical perspective, but it had another purpose as well. Northstrider had never realized mastery over the entire Labyrinth was possible, only over small sections of it. We'd been careful not to disabuse him of that notion. We'd needed his help to reach this place, at least in a timely fashion, but allowing him to sit in one of these thrones had been out of the question. Miara would have been more acceptable, but as much as I hoped her blossoming relationship with Mercy endured, I wasn't willing to stake something so important on it. These people, I trusted, even Eithan.

Each of us moved to stand by a throne. Mercy and Charity were to my left and right, then Yerin and Lindon, and Eithan directly across from me. Charity wore a small smile, likely at standing in a place even her grandmother had failed to reach. Mercy looked determined, Yerin looked impatient, and Lindon looked eager. Eithan was smiling as well, not his usual cocky grin, but something smaller, more genuine. "Together, then," was all he said.

Together, we sat on the thrones. Instantly, the weight of the Labyrinth crashed into me, the ancient authority imbued into every single stone. I felt the ravenous, insatiable hunger of the Slumbering Wraith which had filled its halls for centuries. Why should you be allowed to sit on my throne? it demanded.

Because I will free you, I replied. You will never be satisfied, not even if you devoured the entire world. But I will end your torment.

It didn't like that answer, raging against it like a child who refuses to take their medicine. If I'd been alone, maybe I would have failed there. But I wasn't alone, and each of us had our own answer. Grudgingly, the hunger relented, accepting our claim. But the trial wasn't yet over. I felt the echoes of ancient soulsmiths, Sages and Heralds and even Monarchs, the creators of the Dreadgods. Why should you be allowed to sit on our throne?

Because I will finish your work. I will correct your failure and solve the problem you never could.

They replied with both doubt and hope, but eventually agreed to allow me my attempt. The next echo was solitary, radiating a sense of lethal arrogance. Why should you be allowed to sit on my throne? asked Ozmanthus Arelius.

Because I've killed a god. I saved my own world, and I intend to save this one as well.

To my slight surprise, Ozmanthus accepted our claim easily, leaving behind a sense of approval and even amusement as his presence withdrew. But the final echo was the greatest. There were seven of them, Monarchs all, but their authority exceeded even that, each of them touching on something deeper. The original Abidan, and the creators of the Labyrinth itself. Why should you be allowed to sit on our throne?

I refused to bow, even before them. Because I am your equal. I have opened one of the doors you left behind and understood its contents. And, I added somewhat spitefully, because I will clean up the mess you left behind.

One of the echos drew closer to me in some abstract sense, the fourth. Its authority was familiar, a reflection of my own… Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say that mine was a reflection of it. It acknowledged me, offered its approval, and withdrew. The fifth echo gave its approval to Yerin, and the sixth to Mercy. The other four didn't single out any of us in particular, but they gave their approval nonetheless. They were glad to see powerful sacred artists working together to improve the world, rather than competing and pursuing their own power. They wished us luck, and their presence faded.

And just like that, the Labyrinth was ours. Where before the power in the walls had been an impenetrable barrier, now my senses exploded outwards, far beyond the range of my scarabs. I could see events taking place in Rosegold, in Everwood, in every continent and even beneath the ocean. Only pinpricks, where branches of the Labyrinth extended to the surface, but the scale of it was still immense. There were numerous other functions as well, obviously spacial transport, but many other things that I didn't yet understand. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to investigate them.

The battle against Shen had moved over two hundred miles away from Sacred Valley. Miara and Northstrider had arrived, and it was clear she'd been correct; even with the power of a Dreadgod, Shen couldn't stand against both of them at once. He'd thrown his vaults open, dozens of invaluable Divine Treasures assaulting them along with the desperate efforts of the Storm Sage, the Thunder Fairy, and the Herald Redmoon. The two Monarchs scythed through the barrage, swatting it away with serpentine blood-red dragons, rainbow mirrors, and a golden vortex of sand many miles wide.

But the Bleeding Phoenix was in an even more desperate state. Its wings were tattered, and its body was losing cohesion, becoming more of a red bird-shaped blob. Shen was famous for his arsenal, but that didn't mean he had no techniques of his own, and it was these that he directed towards the Phoenix. Space itself shattered, an explosion of broken reality more than a mile wide which engulfed one of the Phoenix's wings. Nothing purely physical could survive that, but the Phoenix was a self-defined existence; it pulled its wing free. But it wasn't unharmed, because the razor-sharp fragments of space were further empowered by Shen's authority, given the purpose to unmake everything they touched. The wing was shredded and torn when it emerged, and although the rips immediately began filling in, they did so slowly. Clearly, its strength was fading fast.

It retaliated with a storm of crimson lightning, but the technique was much weaker than I'd seen from it before, not even at the level of a Monarch. It wasn't just its injuries that were hindering it, either. Shen had inherited the Slumbering Wraith's authority, authority over the other Dreadgods. The Phoenix had to struggle against that authority to be able to fight at all.

"We need to get out there," I said.

"Then let us," said Eithan, grinning. I felt his intention and wondered if it was really that simple.

It was. Each of us possessed only partial mastery of the Labyrinth, but together, even the slightest exercise of will was enough to direct it. Space bent, and a moment later, we were outside. It had dropped us about twenty miles from the ongoing battle, far enough that we weren't in immediate danger of being attacked, but close enough that we could close the distance quickly.

I used the Strands of Unity, putting enough power into it to reach all the way to Northstrider and Miara. Both of them accepted the connection, although Northstrider did so grudgingly. The others were already rushing forwards, scattering so as to not present a single target. Within seconds, what had been a one-sided battle turned into a full rout. Portals spewing out destruction were skewered by white stars, destabilizing and snapping shut. The Storm Sage staggered in midair, clutching his head and screaming as he was assaulted by visions, and failed to defend against the crimson dragon that smashed him into the ground. The Herald Redmoon managed to deflect Yerin's Final Sword, but it took all of his focus, and the sandstorm surrounding him instantly began shredding his body. An immense claw of black fire met the Thunder Fairy's golden lightning in a titanic blast that sent her rocketing away. And Shen himself was struck by a black arrow which punched straight through his outer layer of defensive constructs, leaving cracks in his final shield.

The Storm Sage, who had somehow survived Northstrider's blow, was the first to flee. He rose from the ravine he'd carved in the ground, launching himself away from the battle as fast as wind aura could carry him. Lindon, who was closest, sent a beam of black fire in his direction, clipping his leg. The leg disintegrated, but immediately began growing back. That was a level of regeneration I'd usually expect from a Herald; he must have possessed an exceptionally powerful Divine Treasure. A moment later, he was far enough from the battle to tear open a portal without interference and vanish into it. No one bothered pursuing, although he was probably going to be more trouble than the other two cultist Sages later.

Redmoon was the next to try and flee, but he was still in the middle of the battle. His attempted escape was cut off by a crescent of rainbow madra, forcing him to swerve sideways. It led him directly into Mercy's arrow, which blasted half his body into red mist. The mist began reforming despite the continued storm trying to rip it apart, but the Herald's will had reached its limit. The potent blood aura detonated as Yerin used her Ruler technique unopposed, and Redmoon simply exploded. The resulting remnant was a twisted, misshapen red blob which disintegrated before it reached the edge of the storm.

"Cowards!" screamed the Thunder Fairy, stubbornly placing herself between us and Shen. Reluctantly, I had to admire her loyalty, although it wasn't going to do her any good. Two final portals opened over each of her shoulders, Shen's greatest weapons. One unleashed a twisting column of blue, gold, and white lightning with enough power to shatter a mountain range. The other released a barrage of orange spikes composed of fire and venom madra, each a living inferno capable of burning entire nations. She struck herself as well, her own golden lightning exploding in all directions.

The Monarch thunderbolt met a mirror of rainbow light. The authority in the technique, an echo of Tiberian Arelius's reinforced by Shen's own, attempted to punch through. It met the authority of the living Monarch and fell short. The bolt reflected back towards Shen himself, now carrying Miara's power as well. Meanwhile, a storm of scarlet dragons met the living inferno and devoured it. Shen's Herald was left to face the techniques of five peers on her own. Black fire, a massive red chrome sword, a storm of arrows, a volley of white stars, and a legion of phantom soldiers converged on her, meeting her lightning with city-leveling force. When the explosion faded, not even a remnant was left, and the final two portals had broken as well.

The rainbow thunderbolt struck Shen with a similarly immense blast. It annihilated what remained of his defenses, but when it cleared, Shen was unharmed. A fading cocoon of deep blue light surrounded him, radiating a sense of absolute invulnerability, and it wasn't madra. An Abidan artifact, it had to be; I hadn't known he possessed one. In the momentary reprieve, he'd prepared one last reality-shattering Striker technique, and I didn't think the Phoenix would be able to survive it.

But only if Shen could land the hit. Instead of a clear shot at the Phoenix, he found himself confronted with my swarm, nearly twenty miles wide. Screaming in fury, he released the technique anyway, at the last place he'd seen the Phoenix. It was a near thing. The technique detonated just behind the Phoenix, annihilating what remained of its tail, but failed to reach its heart.

I saw what Shen's next move would be even before he rocketed forwards into my swarm. Guided by the Strands of Unity, everyone unleashed techniques with perfect accuracy. The same barrage which had annihilated the Thunder Fairy struck Shen, this time accompanied by techniques from the two Monarchs and my own Devouring Swarm. His Abidan barrier flickered into existence again to catch Miara's strike, but now that I'd seen it, I knew he couldn't maintain it for long or use it too frequently. The rest of the techniques landed, ravaging his body.

It was a blow strong enough to kill even a Monarch, or at least deliver a crippling injury. But Shen was more than just a Monarch now. Bloody and battered, he burst through the storm of techniques, leaving nothing between him and the Phoenix. Northstrider attempted to step through space. Shen opposed him. Our combined authority smashed into his, too great to defy, but Shen's mastery over space was unrivaled on Cradle. For a critical instant, he delayed us. With no time to ready a technique, he shot forwards and physically tore his way into the Phoenix's body.

It never would have worked if the Dreadgod had been at anything approaching full strength. No matter how large it was, its body was impervious without first overcoming its authority. The Phoenix screamed, a mixture of rage and pain, directing all of its power inwards to crush the interloper. But its power was weak and broken. I consulted the Oracle Icon, searching for a path forwards, and found there was none. Anything capable of harming Shen would kill the Phoenix first.

Barely a second later, the Bleeding Phoenix simply… fell apart. Blood madra rained down from the sky, turning the craters and ravines that had been carved in the landscape into crimson lakes and rivers. Larger sections smashed into the ground, splattering for miles. From its remains, the tiny figure of Reigan Shen rose into the air, although I could see him clearly. His normally pristine robes were in tatters, but his body had healed… after a fashion. The flesh filling in his wounds was the diseased grayish-white of hunger madra, and it was slowly creeping across more of his skin even as I watched.

For once, he wasn't holding a goblet of wine. His grin was wide, with more than hint of madness in it. "Behold the truth of the Sacred Arts!" he shouted, his voice booming across the devastated landscape. "See what I have sacrificed for power! My empire, my wealth, my people! See what I have gained in return! I have become the most powerful sacred artist ever to live! This entire world will be my new empire! All of its wealth is mine! All of its people are mine! EVERYTHING! IS! MINE!"

Overhead, the image of a gaping maw filled with sharp fangs burst into existence. The sky, which had previously been mostly red, became ash-gray. Everything was leeched of color, the world becoming dull and monochrome. Even from here, I could feel the hunger pulling at my spirit, although it found no purchase.

"So this was your plan all along? Trading your humanity for power?" I asked, my voice tinged with disappointment. "I thought even you would know better. Can you feel it yet? Your identity slipping away from you, piece by piece? No matter what happens next, you've already lost. It won't be you who rules the world. Just a thing wearing your skin."

There was a slight shudder in the pressure he was radiating, just for a moment. Some part of him knew I was right, knew whatever safeguards he'd created to stop the hunger aura from devouring his mind were already failing. But Shen had always been ambitious and greedy, and those parts of his psyche were now overwhelming everything else, even his sense of self-preservation. That, of course, and his hatred of me personally.

"Shadow Sage!" he said, his unhinged grin never wavering. "I'm glad you're here, to witness my ascension. Or are you? It doesn't matter. I'll happily kill you as many times as needed, until I finally tear your revolting soul out of your body and rip it to shreds! And you, Arelius! Fitting that you're here as well, when I owe my victory to you! Will you stand and die with your comrades this time, or run from your failure again?"

"You know, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that killing people never really solves any problems," replied Eithan, idly twirling his shapeshifting Archlord weapon, currently in the form of a broom. "But sometimes it's necessary anyway."

"Enough talk," said Northstrider flatly. "If you believe this stolen strength will be enough to save you, you are mistaken."

"Oh, I've looked forward to this for centuries," said Shen, laughing. And then the battle began.

Space broke as Shen loosed another of his reality-destroying techniques, both faster and more powerful than it had been before. We scattered. I could sense immediately that none of us would be able to teleport; Shen's presence alone was enough to forbid it. But he couldn't either, for the same reason none of the other Dreadgods could. Miara summoned a rainbow mirror in front of his technique, but this time, her authority wasn't sufficient. The bolt of twisted space broke through, shattering the mirror. I'd anticipated it, and a lance of pure madra struck it along with a slash from Yerin. The destabilized bolt detonated early. This time, the technique didn't just shatter space. The mile-wide void it created seemed to actively pull space towards it, distorting gravity and even light. Boulders and chunks of earth from the ground below were pulled upwards, vanishing into it, and it fought back against the world's effort to seal the breach, trying to grow and spread further.

The rest of us went on the offensive. A beam of dark flame struck at Shen from one direction and a black arrow from the other, while a dark mist of dream aura gathered around him. Two portals opened, swallowing the incoming techniques whole, and a moment's effort was enough to dispel the Dream of Darkness. Shen emerged completely untouched. Then Northstrider punched him in the face.

Dreadgod or not, he still went rocketing down into the ground, blasting a crater nearly a mile wide. He shot back into the air an instant later, snarling, but more techniques were already headed for him. The flying swords Victory spun around in front of Miara like a fan, sending a narrow, tightly controlled vortex of golden sand down towards Shen. It was joined by a crimson dragon from Northstrider, and a Final Sword from Yerin. He opened another portal to swallow the incoming techniques, but there was too much power in them for the portal to handle. It broke, leaving behind a web of spacial cracks, and Shen was once again pummeled into the ground.

For all the incredible power he'd gained, Shen was fighting at a severe disadvantage. His entire Path had been based around his arsenal of weapons, an arsenal he no longer had. Now, he had only a single offensive technique, a technique which had been intended as a finishing blow, not a regular attack. He was able to use it as such only because his madra reserves had grown far deeper than even a Monarch's, but it was still slow and clumsy, like trying to swat a mosquito with a sledgehammer. It would almost certainly kill even Northstrider or Miara if they were caught by it, let alone the rest of us, but that was where I came in. Through the Strands of Unity, every one of us knew where Shen was going to strike before he did himself.

Still, power alone wasn't to be discounted. Any one of the techniques Shen had been struck by could have annihilated a city, but he barely looked worse for the wear as he emerged once again. Seemingly realizing the same thing, he began his technique again, simply shrugging off dragon's breath from Lindon and another arrow from Mercy. He charged towards Northstrider, who was closest and also arguably the single largest threat, intending to release the technique at close range.

I, of course, released my swarm. It blanketed the battlefield, blinding Shen and allowing Northstrider to slip to the side. The omnipresent hunger aura immediately began dissolving it, but Shen was still struck by several more techniques he couldn't see coming. Once again, he was sent careening into the shattered landscape.

His scream of rage when he pulled himself out of the ground for the third time shook the world. He was actually taking damage from our attacks, I saw, and the wounds they left behind were being filled in by even more of the Slumbering Wraith's flesh. Now, he used a new technique, one I'd never seen before. Shen's madra was a mutation of force madra which might be called spacial madra, but this technique was pure hunger, a Ruler technique. I immediately saw a similarity with my own Immeasurable Swarm. Millions of emaciated figures with gaping jaws condensed out of the dense hunger aura around us, each one of them a living technique. With a deafening howl, they came for us.

I pit the Devouring Swarm against the hunger technique. There was far to much power in it to overcome completely, but it thinned the legion, destroying maybe one out of every fifteen wraiths. A wave of rainbow madra wiped out countless more, along with a smaller sphere of pale blue. Charity met the legion with her own legion of phantoms, and Mercy skewered thousands with a cloud of arrows. Like my swarm, these techniques were individually weak; even a Sage would need to be hit by dozens before suffering significant damage. But they were also a distraction.

With the pressure on him relieved, Shen went back on the offensive. Again, he went for Northstrider, preparing one of his space-shattering techniques. Northstrider met it with one of his own techniques, along with a rainbow crescent from Miara miles away. It was enough for Northstrider to escape, but he was swarmed by hunger wraiths for the moment his focus was elsewhere. Each one drained a sliver of his madra, soulfire, blood aura, and lifeline. To a Monarch, it was a minor loss, but even minor would add up over time.

The Slumbering Wraith's technique had bought Shen much-needed space, but it hadn't come without a price. The majority of his body was now corrupted by hunger. Through Charity, I could sense his thoughts degrading as well, becoming less complex as the need to consume slowly overwhelmed everything else. I released my swarm again, and this time, I wove illusions. Even with all his power, Shen lacked the appropriate authority to see through them, but if he'd been in full control of himself he would've assumed he was being tricked anyway. Instead, he reflexively charged for where he thought Northstrider was, although he did still at least infuse the hunger aura surrounding him with his will to chew through my swarm faster. It didn't save him from again being hammered with techniques.

Even more than the battle against the Dragon King, this was a battle of endurance. Bolstered by the power of two Dreadgods, Shen's reserves had risen beyond anything Cradle had likely ever seen before. The amount of punishment we were inflicting on him was staggering, to little noticeable effect. It was possible he could actually win this fight without ever landing a significant blow on any of us, just by waiting for us to exhaust ourselves through a combination of techniques and the occasional hit from a hunger wraith. If he did, he would almost certainly be reduced to mindlessness, capable of nothing but searching for rich concentrations of madra and aura to devour. Unfortunately, people tended to live in those places, and I couldn't be sure he wouldn't retain enough of his memories to at least remember where Moongrave was. Better to stop him here.

The battle shifted more and more in our favor as Shen's state steadily degraded, but I was also starting to run low on madra. As effective as my swarm was against him, I had to reinforce it near-constantly to stop it from being eaten away by the wraiths and the hunger aura itself. And even if Shen's mind was near-gone, his power stubbornly refused to break no matter how much damage we inflicted on him. I was beginning to worry that we weren't capable of seriously harming him at all, that he'd simply grown too powerful to be touched by anything on Cradle. Would I have no choice but to call on Hera in the end regardless?

Then I felt fate shift. Smiling, I opened a tunnel from the edge of my swarm straight to Shen. With perfect timing, an arrow shot down it. Unlike Mercy's arrows, this one pierced straight through Shen's chest and out the other side. It still wasn't a lethal blow, or even a crippling one, but Shen roared in pain and fury, the sound far more animalistic than it had been before.

"Well, this is just a sad sight," said Larian, casually nocking another arrow to her bow. "I can't say I ever liked you much, Shen, but I at least respected your sense of style. And also your money. I bet you didn't even think about how much losing you as a customer would hurt us, did you? So selfish."

The attack and the clear line of sight to the Eight-Man Empire instantly grabbed Shen's attention, and he blasted towards them. No one wasted the opening. Techniques slammed into him simultaneously from every angle, so much power that the resulting explosion cracked space like Shen's own techniques. He fell out of the detonation, still not out of the fight, but this time the damage was significant enough that it didn't just heal instantly. His skin was shredded, a large chunk had been blown out of his torso, and one arm ended at the elbow.

Even that probably would have healed given just a few seconds, but those were a few seconds he didn't have. The arrival of another effective Monarch had finally tilted the balance of power in our favor. He created another wave of hunger wraiths, but this time it bought him no breathing room, and the stream of techniques battering him barely let up at all. The damage was mounting up faster than it could be healed.

With a final roar, madra exploded out of Shen, his original madra rather than the Slumbering Wraith's. Space once again shattered, and this time Shen himself was at the center of the detonation. Reality groaned, spacial cracks spreading even further as a fundamental law was forced to give way. "Stop!" commanded Northstrider, but it was too late. Shen was gone, his mastery of space allowing him to rip a portal open even when it shouldn't have been possible.

Slowly, the hunger aura began fading, color seeping back into the world. I let my swarm fade away as well. "He ran?" asked Miara. "I didn't think he could."

"Not easily," said Eithan. "I suspect he just did as much damage to himself as all of our efforts put together."

"He emerged near Iceflower, a few hundred miles off the coast," I added. I couldn't pick out any details from so far, but his portal had been just as violent on the far end.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Larian as she arrived, the rest of the Empire trailing behind her. "He's not gonna finish himself off for us. We'll even give you this one as a freebie, as long as we get first pick of Shen's stuff."

Northstrider gave her a look of contempt. "He is a Dreadgod. Killing him is a risk we can't afford. Not without time to study him and determine exactly how he's changed their relationship to hunger aura."

"Bringing him all the way back here is going to be difficult without being able to move him through space," said Lindon. "Is it possible to contain him outside of the Slumbering Wraith's prison?"

"We don't need to," I said slowly. My mind was racing ahead, pieces falling into place. "We're thinking about this the wrong way. Our enemy isn't Reigan Shen anymore. It's a Dreadgod. Hurt it enough while denying it the chance to feed, and it'll go into hibernation just like any of the others would."

"Apologies, but that's a temporary solution at best."

"A temporary solution is all we need. Time to prepare. Then, we'll eliminate all the Dreadgods at once, and Shen himself will be the tool we use to do it. No, not Shen," I corrected myself, letting the Oracle Icon guide my words. "Not any longer. He claimed the entire world as his own. Let him choke on it. Reigan Shen is dead. The Dreadgod which has risen in his place will be known as the Forsaken Emperor."