The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,148

but a single entity, ripping through the fabric of the world to rewrite history.

Fire pierced the dense mist, spiraling into a pillar so tall and bright that Rin thought it must be visible to the entire world. The clouds that shrouded Mount Tianshan shriveled away, exposing the pagoda against the bare face of stone.

Nezha must have seen. Rin was counting on it. He’d been following her all this way, and now she’d delivered to him everything he and the Hesperians wanted—all the world’s most powerful shamans clustered in one place, open targets trapped atop the mountain.

Here’s your chance, Nezha. Now take it.

One by one, the airships appeared from behind the clouds, blurry black shapes that homed in on her unmistakable beacon. They had been hovering, waiting, searching for a target. Now they had it.

They flew into a semicircular formation, surrounding the pagoda from every angle. Rin couldn’t see Nezha from this distance, but she imagined he was riding in the center of the fleet, eyes trained on her. She raised her hand and waved.

“Hello there,” she murmured. “You’re welcome.”

Then she extinguished her flames and ran, just as every dirigible in the sky turned its cannons toward the mountain and fired.

Booms split the sky. They didn’t fade. They rolled on like endless thunder, growing louder and louder until Rin couldn’t hear her own thoughts. She couldn’t tell if she’d been knocked off the ground; she moved her legs but couldn’t feel anything below her knees except deep reverberations in her bones. She moved like she was floating, buoyed by a numbing shock that muted all pain.

Something pulsed in the air. Not a noise, but a sensation—she could feel it, thick like congealed porridge, a crackling stillness that by now was all too familiar.

She hazarded a glance behind her. Beasts poured out of the pagoda—not the malformed, shadowy entities that Rin had seen Jiang summon before, but solid creatures, infinite in number, color, size, and shape, as if Jiang had really opened the gates to the Emperor’s Menagerie and let every single one of those clawed, fanged, winged, and screeching creatures into the mortal world.

They shifted endlessly between forms. Rin watched as a phoenix became a kirin became a lion became some winged thing that shot toward the dirigible fleet like an arrow, accompanied by the screeching cacophony of its brothers and sisters.

The Hesperians fired back. The rumbling grew so loud that the mountain itself seemed to shake.

Good, Rin thought. Hit them with everything you have.

Let this be the ultimate test. Let this prove that even the most legendary shamans in Nikara history could not stand up to the machines of the Divine Architect.

Can you see this, Sister Petra? Is this vindicating?

She wanted to stand still and watch, to marvel at destruction that for once was not her own doing. She wanted to see, the same way little children ripped down birds’ nests with glee, just how great a scar the two self-proclaimed great powers on this earth could rip into the fabric of the world.

A missile exploded overhead. Rin flung herself forward just as a boulder crashed into the dirt behind her. Shards of debris, still red-hot from impact, splattered the backs of her legs.

Get a fucking grip, said Altan’s voice as she clambered upright, heart slamming against her ribs. And get the fuck off this mountain.

She needed a quicker way down. The missiles hadn’t hit her yet, but they inevitably would; when dirigibles fired en masse they were not discriminate.

She paused, considering the fleet.

The airships weren’t going to land. That would be stupid. But they had to get in close. They couldn’t aim properly at the pagoda from too far away; they had to dip down to get a good shot at the Trifecta.

Which gave Rin a single, obvious way out.

She exhaled sharply. Ah, fuck.

She saw only one dirigible in jumping range, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make that leap. In top fighting condition, she’d have taken it with confidence. But she was exhausted. Every part of her body was battered and hurting. Her legs felt weighed down with anchors, and her lungs burned for breath.

The closest dirigible was veering upward. If it scaled too high she’d never catch it—she couldn’t jump at that trajectory.

No more time to think. It was now or never. She crouched low, pushed her feet against the dirt, and summoned every last ounce of her strength as she took a running leap off the cliff.

Her fingers just snagged an iron rod at