As fast as the Abyssal Palace Herald was, Mercy was faster still. She vanished in a flash of silver light well before the Herald reached her, reappearing twenty miles away on the far side of Shen's fleet. The Herald skidded to a stop, searching for her wildly, then rocketed towards her new position the moment he found her. Mercy saw him coming and had plenty of time to prepare, releasing her arrow when he was about five miles away. The power of her technique tore the air and left a shockwave in its wake, but the Herald plowed straight through it without slowing. A moment later, he released his own Striker technique, a ball of jagged stones and sharp golden madra the size of a house. It blasted through the space where Mercy had been barely half a second after she'd vanished.
I wasn't sure exactly how often Mercy could use her Moonlight Bridge, but I knew the delay increased quickly for jumps beyond a few hundred feet. I hoped Mercy had waited to evade until the last moment on purpose, but it was possible she hadn't had a choice. This time, she'd placed herself so that Shen's huge flagship was directly between her and the Herald to buy herself a couple of extra seconds. On the other hand, he'd clearly expected her to teleport away, and had reversed direction the moment he'd released his Striker technique, flying back towards the fleet even as he searched for her.
I quickly assessed our options. All of our Heralds and Sages were engaged with theirs, save for a pair who were still trying to bring down the flagship. Charity was busy beating the Silent Sage like she owed her money, and we couldn't afford to distract her; she was the perfect counter to the dangerous cultist, being immune to most of her techniques. We'd have to handle things on our own.
I darkened the sky and let my swarm loose. A pair of enemy Archlords were caught by the edge of it, but they beat a hasty retreat and I let them go. I had bigger problems to deal with. Again, Mercy cut it dangerously close before teleporting out of the way of the Herald's attack. As I'd hoped, she reappeared in the middle of my swarm, just a few hundred feet away. There was a delay of a few seconds while the Herald figured out where she'd most likely gone, giving me just enough time to reach her.
My swarm opened as I approached. Mercy turned towards me just as I became visible. She had time for a "Hi, Taylor!" before I grabbed her hand and pulled her along with me.
"Move now, talk later."
Behind us, the Herald had flown straight into my swarm, stopping somewhere near the middle. I sensed him readying a technique, noteworthy in that it actually took a full second. Then a sphere of golden force powerful enough to level a small city exploded from him, tearing through my swarm. "Vanish," I said, and my authority clashed with the will in the technique. It didn't stop it, but it weakened it enough that it faded after a bit over half a mile, rather than potentially several miles. Mercy and I stayed safely beyond the edge, barely.
"Here, take this," I said, handing her a sphere of Forged madra to let her see through my swarm.
She did so, glancing back at the Herald behind us. Unable to find Mercy, he'd simply charged off to destroy more of my swarm, fortunately in the wrong direction. "Wow, that guy is kind of persistent, huh? I hope I didn't mess anything up for you by bringing him in here."
"Vanish," I said again as he let loose another enormous shockwave. "No, I was hoping you would. I'm guessing you won't agree to retreat just because a Herald is personally trying to kill you?"
"Nope. Sorry," said Mercy, shaking her head with far too much cheerfulness.
If I'd genuinely thought we couldn't handle it, I would've insisted anyway, but we had about as many advantages as it was possible to have against a Herald. Not only was he willing to charge straight into my swarm, he was also an earth artist fighting a battle in mid-air. "Then I'll keep him off you while you take him down."
"Right," said Mercy, nodding firmly.
We split up. I was more fragile than Mercy in multiple ways, and I didn't want to be anywhere nearby when she drew his attention. When we were about a mile apart, she loosed her first arrow. The Herald had just finished blowing another hole in my swarm, and it was becoming more difficult to negate his techniques. But Mercy timed her own technique to strike just as he was flying back in, giving him no opportunity to defend.
Her arrow struck the Herald with a shockwave that blasted my swarm apart for dozens of feet around. He staggered slightly in the air, showing that he'd at least felt it. But then he was charging in the direction the arrow had come from with no noticeable decease in speed. I frowned slightly. Every Path had its strengths; I was specialized in stealth and misdirection, Mercy was specialized in ranged attacks and mobility, and Abyssal Palace was specialized in physical strength and toughness. At this rate, the wider battle might already be finished by the time we wore him down.
The Herald didn't know exactly how far Mercy had been, so he flew a couple of miles in a straight line before letting loose another shockwave. She was already long gone of course, but my swarm was starting to get noticeably smaller. That problem was easily solved; I simply used the technique again, since no one was in a position to contest my working. A moment later, another arrow slammed into him from behind.
It had become a battle of attrition. If I fumbled a working, his techniques would immediately annihilate my entire swarm. The only question was whether my will would break before Mercy's arrows wore him down, or he simply ran out of madra. As far as I was concerned, that was no question at all.
Three more arrows struck him with relatively little effect before he abruptly sped away and kept going, all the way out of my swarm. I raised an eyebrow; I hadn't expected him to give up so easily, or at all. But then he came to a stop about a mile beyond my swarm's edge, turning and looking at it. After a moment, I realized he hadn't understood the situation. He'd thought the battle of attrition had been about chewing through my swarm, not realizing that I could replenish it as often as needed so long as my will held out. Now, he saw that it was barely smaller than when he'd started, seemingly wasting all of his efforts.
With an audible growl of frustration, he sped back in, taking another arrow in the process. "Be ready," I warned Mercy through my link to her. He might be utterly consumed by the need for revenge, but that didn't make him an idiot. He wasn't going to immediately try the same thing he'd just discovered wasn't working.
At first, I thought he was doing just that. The technique he readied seemed no different than the last dozen he'd let loose. But instead of releasing it, an object appeared in his hands, taken from his soulspace. Visually, it appeared to be nothing but a chunk of dark gray stone. Spiritually, it had the weight of a mountain. It took me only a moment to realize what it must be: A fragment of the Wandering Titan. "Oh, shit," I said as the stone dissolved into golden motes.
The shockwave he unleashed this time was only moderately more powerful, but it carried a sliver of the Titan's authority. The technique combined the power of a Herald with the authority of a Sage; in other words, a Monarch-level technique. It smashed through my own authority like an avalanche.
I activated my shield bracers. A moment later, the Archlord-level barrier shattered like glass. I shook my head, blinking away stars, and drew in a painful breath. I'd only been knocked out for a moment, the barrier having taken the worst of the blow, but I still felt like I'd been run over by a freight train. The technique had sent me flying, and my swarm was gone. Even my scarabs had been annihilated, leaving a temporary hole in my vision several miles wide. It took me a moment to get my bearings, and I immediately saw that things were about to get even worse.
The Herald was coming right for me, correctly realizing that he'd never get a clear shot at Mercy as long as I was in the picture. My Umbral Mantle was still active, so he couldn't see exactly where I was, but he knew where I'd activated my shield, and that would get him close enough. Without my swarm to channel my authority through, another one of those techniques would turn me into paste.
In the few seconds I had, my mind flickered through my options and found only one: Retreat. Mercy wouldn't be happy about that, but the damage she'd inflicted on the Herald had to be adding up even if he wasn't showing it, and he'd also been forced to use an irreplaceable trump card. He'd be easy pickings for one of our own Heralds, or another Sage. I'd be able to convince her she'd done her part. I pulled a gatestone from my soulspace-
Another arrow slammed into the Herald from above, and this one he didn't just shrug off. He was blasted downwards, catching himself only a few hundred feet above the ground. Both of us looked up. Mercy hung in the air, and behind her hung the specter of a regal woman. The specter wasn't a perfect mirror of Malice, but the resemblance was clear. It gazed down on Abyssal Palace's Herald with utter contempt, the weight of its power making even him stagger for a moment. Although the technique carried no true authority, there was at least a shadow of the authority which had been used to make it. The Netherworld Empress was Malice's single most potent technique, the technique contained in the final page of Mercy's book.
The specter floated forward, merging with Mercy, and she blazed with power to match the Herald below. Too much power, even for an Archlady; I didn't think she could keep the seventh page open for even a full minute without damaging her spirit. I could spend that minute trying to convince her to retreat, or I could spend it helping her kill the Herald. Cursing, I put the gatestone back in my soulspace.
The Herald dipped down, and huge chunks of earth tore themselves out of the ground below. Mercy's next arrow was intercepted by a boulder the size of a hill, obliterating it but failing to punch through. He rocketed upwards towards her, another three enormous boulders circling around him. This time, instead of teleporting away, Mercy shot forwards to meet him, covering herself in her armor.
They met in an explosion of force that pushed me back even from hundreds of feet away. The Herald was once again blasted down towards the ground, away from the chunks of earth he'd been carrying. Now Mercy used her Moonlight Bridge, appearing below him and to the side so she'd have a clear shot. Her techniques came together far faster than they had before, another devastating arrow launching out in a fraction of a second. The Herald launched himself towards her, meeting it head on in an explosion of shadow and jagged golden light. He came flying through the detonation, once again closing the distance. This time it was Mercy who was sent rocketing backwards from their clash.
The entire exchange had taken no more than a couple of seconds. I could just about follow the fight, but actually keeping up with it was beyond my abilities. Quickly, I reviewed my options. Bringing out my swarm would reveal my position, and at this range, that would most likely result in getting punched by a Herald. Making enough distance would take at least ten or twenty seconds, and the fight might very well be over by then. All of my other techniques were too weak to make a difference. The only usable weapon I had was my authority. I pushed through the pounding in my head and focused my will.
Again, the Herald attempted to close with Mercy, but this time she teleported away. She loosed an arrow from a bit under a mile away, but the huge boulders from earlier had caught back up with the Herald, and he interposed one of them. I focused on it and said, "Vanish." If the rock had been just rock, I might have been able to make it do just that despite its size. Reinforced as it was by the madra and will of a Herald, it resisted my working. But the power which had been intended to block Mercy's attack was now needed just to keep the rock in existence. Mercy's arrow punched straight through and struck the Herald behind.
He was again blasted back, but still showed no visible sign of injury. All Heralds were incredibly tough by nature, but Abyssal Palace was on another level. Those attacks had to be taking their toll on his spirit, but it seemed as long as his madra held out, he was capable of simply negating injuries through will alone. He didn't know where I was, but he guessed that I must be close. He prepared another of those huge shockwave techniques, and I said, "Diminish." Again, my authority wasn't strong enough to simply override the will of a Herald, but his technique was delayed long enough for Mercy to appear directly in front of him and hit him in the face with her staff.
With masterful control over his madra, he reworked his technique into a directional shockwave and blasted Mercy even as he was flying backwards. Simultaneously, the two remaining boulders came from behind, catching her in a pincer. Caught in his shockwave and with her Moonlight Bridge unusable, she couldn't evade. The three techniques met in a titanic gold explosion, far too close to me.
The shockwave wasn't nearly as strong as a true technique would have been, but this time I had no defense. It felt like a solid wall slamming into me, launching me into an uncontrolled tumble. I managed to right myself after a couple of seconds. Breathing hurt; I coughed a couple of times, which also hurt, and saw a few specks of blood on my hand.
I was less worried about that than I was about Mercy, but thankfully I found her as soon as I looked for her. She'd teleported half a mile away, already launching another arrow at the Herald. Bolstered by the power of the Netherworld Empress, her armor gave her toughness of a true Herald, resisting almost any amount of physical damage as long as her spirit held out. Unfortunately, the spirit of a Herald was the one thing she lacked. I could already sense her power starting to waver as she struggled to maintain her temporary advancement; she couldn't have more than a few seconds left before she lost it.
"Fall back!" I sent her through the link. "You've done enough!"
"Not yet!" she said, before teleporting out of the way of a golden meteor.
I cursed internally, not having the breath to spare for it. This was not a good time for Mercy's stubbornness to rear its head. Worse, the Herald had figured out that the best way to get Mercy's attention was to threaten me, and was readying another shockwave. I was further away now, almost a mile, but that wouldn't be enough to survive in my current state. As he'd predicted, Mercy teleported again the moment she was able, appearing just a few hundred feet away from the Herald, another arrow already on her string.
Could she survive another focused shockwave? Maybe she thought she could, but that didn't mean she was right. I couldn't risk letting her get hit by it, and I couldn't stop it on my own. I would've preferred to test this under more controlled circumstances, but there were no other options. With a thought, I opened my link to Hera, not as far as it could go, but much further than I'd dared so far.
"Diminish," said someone. A corner of my mind insisted that it was me who had spoken, that this was my body, but I didn't have the attention to spare for it right now. My focus was solely on the Herald and his nearly-complete technique. My authority struck him, and he staggered. The golden Enforcer technique which had covered him for the entire battle dimmed and fuzzed, and the incomplete shockwave faltered. He mustered his will against my assault, holding on to his technique, but it was already too late.
Mercy's arrow pierced through his defenses, and a scream tore out of his throat as he finally took an injury which wasn't instantly negated. He let go of the shockwave, a diffuse wave of gold madra which merely buffeted her, as he was forced to focus all his will on keeping his body intact. For a moment, he searched wildly around for the source of the authority crushing him. Finding nothing, he shot straight down, no doubt hoping to hide himself underground.
A second arrow struck him before he made it. His dive became an uncontrolled tumble, and he slammed into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. He still wasn't dead, and he vented madra and soulfire wildly in an attempt to purge Mercy's techniques, but even the spirits of Heralds had limits. The devastating techniques he'd tossed around like confetti and the constant need to resist Mercy's relentless attacks had left him too drained to purge himself in time. The third arrow struck him, and his body dissolved into golden light, reforming into a hulking figure of gray stone with burning golden eyes.
The remnant immediately dived into the ground as though it were water and didn't resurface. I let my working fade, my attention turning to Mercy. Her power was fading too as she finally released the seventh page of her book. She sagged with exhaustion, but aside from that looked unharmed. After a few seconds, she vanished in a flash of silver light, reappearing next to a woman with long black hair hovering in mid-air on dragonfly wings. "Taylor?" she said. "Taylor, are you okay? What's wrong?"
I blinked. I blinked my eyes, looking at Mercy's concerned face. With an effort of will, I forced my link to Hera mostly closed, sending her a short but heart-felt thank you as I did so. That had been an… enlightening experience. I'd still felt more or less like me the entire time, but I'd become disassociated from my body almost instantly without even noticing, treating it with the same significance I gave to any of my hundreds of thousands of scarabs. I'd even let my Umbral Mantle fade, although thankfully the Herald had been in no position to take advantage.
On the other hand, even that small portion of Hera's authority had been devastating, not that far off from what an actual Monarch could bring to bear. And in the end, I'd stayed myself. I'd regained control and closed the link. It would take careful practice, but I was confident I could learn to use it without losing control of my body.
Setting all that aside, I moved forward and hugged Mercy, tightly at first, then much looser when my ribs didn't appreciate that. I held her for a few seconds, then pushed her back and put my hands on her shoulders. "That was stupid," I told her flatly.
She wilted. "I'm sorry. But, we won, right?"
"Only because I did something dangerous to stop his last technique." She didn't respond immediately; I could tell she still thought she was right, but didn't want to argue about it. "Maybe you think your armor could have taken that last hit. Maybe you're even right. But if you had, would you have had enough energy for those last three arrows?"
"I… If I hadn't, I could have just retreated then."
"If you were going to have to retreat anyway, then there was no point in risking that last hit," I said firmly. Again, she didn't answer, and I sighed. "Why were you so determined to fight to the very last?"
"I... just wanted to do my part."
It was an answer which had more serious implications than appeared at first glance. Feeling like you were failing to live up to your Archlord revelation was a good way to guarantee you never reached Herald or Sage. "Listen. There are times when it's appropriate to risk your life. If we'd been standing between him and a city, then I'd probably say you did the right thing. But in this case, the only thing that would have happened if we'd retreated is that someone else would have killed him. He was already on his last legs, because you did do you part. No one expects you to defeat Heralds when you're still an Archlady."
"Don't they?" she asked.
"I don't. And neither does Charity. I expect you to fight intelligently and use good judgment. Skill in the sacred arts isn't the only thing you need to be a good leader."
"Okay," she said, nodding reluctantly. "I'm sorry. I'll try to do better next time."
"You don't have to apologize. You did amazing. I know I can't always keep you out of danger, and it wouldn't be right to even if I could. Just think before you jump into fights like that, and make sure it's really worth it."
"I'll remember," she said, floating forward to hug me. I hissed slightly in pain when she was a little too tight on my ribs. She immediately moved back, frowning. "You're hurt! Why didn't you say something?"
"It's nothing serious," I said, opening my void key and pulling out a healing elixir. "Just a little battered, is all. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Just a little tired, and low on madra and soulfire."
"Good. But I didn't just mean physically."
She hesitated, then nodded. "I'm okay. I feel like… Like I should feel worse than I really do? If that makes any sense."
"It does," I said, smiling sadly.
"I wish he hadn't tried to hurt me, and you. I wish he hadn't become a cultist in the first place. But he did do all those things, so someone had to stop him. I guess I could have tried to take him prisoner instead. Maybe that would have been better. But I was afraid he'd get back up after I had to close my book and I wouldn't be able to stop him, so I just kept hitting him as hard as I could."
"You did the right thing," I told her. "If you'd held back, you would've been putting the people you care about at risk for the sake of someone who wanted to kill you. He made his choices. The consequences are on him."
She nodded. "Thanks. Um, I guess if you're okay, we should go help more, right?"
I gave her an unimpressed look. "Weren't you just telling me that you're low on madra and soulfire?"
"Right, I guess I should take an elixir first."
"You should, and then you should rest for at least a few minutes. Even if we sit the rest of the battle out, we've already done our part and more. No one else has managed to kill one of their Sages or Heralds yet."
It was true, mostly because the other Sages and Heralds had much more concern for their own lives than Abyssal Palace. Shen's forces were, however, once again being pushed back into their fortresses. The Herald of Redmoon Hall, the Sage of Calling Storms, and the Thunder Fairy were fighting against twice their number around Shen's flagship. Elsewhere, the Silent Servant's Herald and the Sage of Red Faith were slowly being driven back by Emriss's Herald, Charity, and the Herald from Ice Flower. The rest of his heaviest hitters had already retreated, and as a result, they'd lost another six ships while Mercy and I had been fighting.
The battle wasn't over yet, though. The fleet had closed the distance with the handful of allied cloud fortresses blocking them, of which only two now remained. Even as I watched, an Akura fortress under heavy fire accelerated forwards, ramming into one of Shen's ships before it could be taken down. Both fortresses began disintegrating, shedding buildings as the clouds supporting them dissolved. The ground-based defenses were beginning to come in range, firing up at the approaching fleet and receiving a few stray shots in turn.
I hadn't expected Shen to immediately go all-in like this. He could have easily drawn this battle out for hours or even days. If Malice or Miara succeeded in driving off the Dragon or the Phoenix and joined the fight against him it would immediately be over, but it was entirely possible that one of the Dreadgods would succeed in breaking through instead. I would have expected him to at least wait and see which direction those fights were leaning before throwing the entirety of his forces at us.
Still, even if his strategy seemed excessively reckless, that didn't mean it was guaranteed to fail. His forces were likely only a few minutes away from annihilation, but they were also only a few minutes away from reaching the Silent King's prison. Would they be able to breach it? The scripts containing the Dreadgod were incredibly strong even when they weren't being actively reinforced by a Monarch, but she also had to contend with the power of the Dreadgod itself. We couldn't risk it.
"Dammit," I sighed. "Looks like they're going to need our help after all."
"Right!" said Mercy, immediately perking up.
I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "I'm leaving now because it'll take me a couple of minutes to get there. I want you to wait at least that long before following, got it? And if another Herald or Sage even looks at you funny, you immediately retreat, no arguments."
She frowned slightly, but then nodded. "Fine. You be careful as well, okay?"
"I will," I promised. "I'll see you in a few minutes." Then I turned and flew towards the battle at top speed.
Our fight with the Herald had carried us quite a ways away, especially because the fleet had kept moving. I was faster, but I was playing catch up. The last defending fortress fell, Shen's flagship rolling through the space it had occupied even as another of their own ships went down under the combined efforts of two Heralds. Even as they were being picked off, Shen's fortresses focused their weapons on the ground-based defenses and the multiple redundant script circles protecting them.
The outer defenses weren't as strong as the prison itself, but they were nothing to scoff at. Even if they'd been thrown up in as little time as possible, the efforts of multiple Monarchs had been put into them. The barrage which slammed into them could have flattened a city in seconds, but the scripts held strong. Still, I could sense the stress the barriers were under, and they wouldn't hold out forever.
I overtook a ship towards the rear of Shen's fleet just as it was coming into range of the outer defenses, a fortress around four miles across. I didn't have close to the power I needed to take it down myself, but I could delay it. Positioning myself a couple of miles in front of the fortress, I darkened the sun and released my swarm, keeping the edge just in front of the fortress's barriers. Huge launcher constructs were firing bolts of silver lightning, Archlord-level weapons powered by thousands of Golds and dozens of Lords. Despite their power, no authority had been used in their construction, and collective weapons like these tended to be poor conduits of will. They penetrated less than a mile into my swarm when I commanded them to vanish.
The fire continued for a few seconds, then halted as they realized it wasn't having any effect. The ship continued forwards, and I moved my swarm to stay in front of it. After about twenty seconds, they managed to get reorganized for a new technique. A conical shockwave of silver light exploded from the front of the ship, the power in it only slightly less than what the Herald had shown. It was almost certainly being controlled directly by an Archlord given the way it fought back against my authority. Still, it destroyed only a small fraction of my swarm before fizzling out.
The fortress hammered ineffectually at my swarm for another half a minute, although if they continued forwards much longer they were going to actually ram the defenses. It ended up not mattering, because two Heralds, a Sage, and fifteen Archlords arrived, smashing the fortress into splinters in less than ten seconds. A few of them offered brief nods in the direction of my swarm before rushing off to destroy the next fortress.
Shen's fleet had been reduced to only nine ships, but they were the largest and most powerful, including the four belonging to the Dreadgod cults. They were now all in range of the outer defenses, hammering them unrelentingly. Before I could reach another fortresses, the flagship fired its main weapon, the beam of light smashing into the barriers from only a couple of miles away. The scripts shattered, a cascading effect that left a gaping hole in the barrier and probably killed thousands of Golds from the backlash.
It hadn't come for free. Firing that weapon clearly required directing power away from its active defenses, and the flagship's barriers were now also on the verge of cracking. But the fleet's combined firepower was now sailing through unopposed, slamming into the Silent King's prison itself.
Too far to make a difference, I held my breath. Techniques of incredible power flashed back and forth as Heralds and Sages on both sides brought out their trump cards in an attempt to protect the flagship or bring it down before it could fire again. The seconds crawled by, the flagship's barriers weakening further and further but not quite breaking. Power gathered as they readied one final shot.
Before they could fire, an enormous tangle of vines erupted in front of the prison, each dozens of feet across and rising thousands of feet into the air. They wove themselves into a wall just as the flagship's lance shot forwards. The weapon scorched a huge hole in the middle of the barrier, but failed to penetrate. Other, lesser techniques from the surrounding ships impacted with barely any effect at all.
I dimly sensed power from the far side of the barrier as well as the Silent King struggled against its prison while Emriss was distracted. For a second, everything hung in the balance. Then the power faded. The prison held strong. I let my breath out. Shen's gambit had failed.
And then reality shivered, the same way it had when Shen's plot had first been revealed. Fate had just been radically altered. I couldn't see how, not without taking the time to look into the future, but I knew with sudden and absolute certainty that everything was about to go wrong.
From the sky above the flagship, a storm of multicolored lightning lashed out, blue and white and gold. The power in it dwarfed everything else on the battlefield, a technique capable of scouring not just cities but entire nations. It crashed straight through Emriss's barrier of vines and into the Silent King's prison. The detonation scoured the ground down to the bedrock for miles and sent even the monstrous flagship spinning away.
The ancient prison still held, barely. One more attack from Shen would certainly tear through it like tissue paper. How had he managed to escape from his own battle and interfere? Where was Northstrider? I knew he wasn't dead, I'd sensed their ongoing battle just seconds before, still hundreds of miles away.
That question was answered barely a moment later. A mile-long crimson dragon appeared from nowhere and struck the prison in the same place as Shen's technique. The enormous wall of trees was blasted apart like so much kindling, and the great script circle snapped.
We'd been betrayed. The Silent King was free.
