Rieren’s world had narrowed down to the body within the Abyssal and her. How…? She couldn’t even begin to fathom what the corpse of one of Starloper’s retainers was doing inside an Abyssal.

Where Rieren was speechless, the others weren’t as dumbstruck. But they didn’t have the context of what they were seeing. So, it wasn’t surprising to hear Essalina step up and speak.

“Explain yourself, Abyssal,” she said. “That body you stole. Who does it belong to and what significance does it possess?”

“This is a servant of a Banishedborn.”

That silenced them all over again. The others might not know anywhere near as much about the Celestial Realm as Rieren did, but they had enough knowledge to understand how simply the mention of a Banishedborn was enormously significant.

“How did you acquire the corpse?” Rieren asked, finding her voice again, though it was tightly bridled with anger.

That retainer, that poor, dead man… Evos had always been a kindly figure. Strong, responsible, and forever holding his old heart in the right place. In any other circumstance, Rieren would have mourned his death properly. He had been good to her, for what time they had known each other. But more than that, he had been one of Starloper’s greatest friends.

“Ah, so now you seek to redress your ignorance.” The Abyssal did laugh this time. An all too human sound, and it wasn’t impossible to imagine Evos’s corpse throwing open its jaw to guffaw in a mockery of his death. “Then understand this little lesson, liar—the whole world retains knowledge of the past, just as you do. And just as you, they are acting on it.”

Rieren’s face grew cold. “I am well aware.”

“Are you? Do you know that it means that the gods did not simply rest and laze about while you gathered your strength? Not at all. They knew where you ascended. They had a good memory of when and where you first appeared, to the best of their knowledge.”

“They have captured the capital. The imperial court itself. But they will not hold it for long.”

All the Abyssal’s threads seemed to tighten and sharpen around her, as though the creature was affecting a grin at Rieren’s bravado. “The gods themselves could not come down, of course. Instead, they sent their greatest followers. Those who could assume guises that would better fit the Mortal Realm.”

“The Banishedborn.”

“Yes. The Banishedborn. Quite a few of them, in fact, all prepared to act out their masters’ wills. All ready to kill every enemy they found.”

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place in Rieren’s head. Not all the Banishedborn worked for the gods, of course. There were cases where a deity had died, or been destroyed, for whatever reason, but had left behind lordless Banishedborn. One such Banishedborn who worked only for himself was Starloper.

With the gods having sent their own Banishedborn to infiltrate Vanharron, Starloper must have snuck in along with the rest of his kind, likely intending to meet Rieren before the others could.

“The relay of messages,” she said. Just as the Avatar had said on Lionshard’s slopes.

“What do you mean?” Essalina asked.

The Abyssal laughed again. “Do you not understand? What do you think all this cooperation and working together is for? Do you think that the Empire seeks to simply unite all its subjects together just to muster a stronger defence against its supposed enemies? Are you truly so naïve?”

Rieren shook her head. “An excuse to gather information.”

“Correct.” The Abyssal grew in size, more webs encircling its body to expand the space it occupied. “While your little Forborne Emperor was kept happy with the excuse of unity and cooperation, the true purpose was gathering all available information and connecting disparate forces together so that it would be easier to deal with various… undesirables.”

“Which undesirables?” Elder Veylie asked. It seemed the Elders had finally taken note of the Abyssal’s words, though their priority had obviously been the Sect Leader.

“There are many. For instance, do you know of the Matrosk clan? They led an insurgency within the capital itself in the previous timeline. Now, hostages have already been acquired, ensuring their good behaviour for the rest of eternity. Another example—the leaders of the Shattered Children Rebellion have already been captured and imprisoned. Do you wish for more?”

Rieren did know. She had already heard of enough examples from Masked Avatar. Gorint Malloh, the man who had single-handedly caused the destruction of the city of Falstrom, Remis Saran, the woman who had preached what the Archnobles had called heresy to the people of the Elderlands after dissenting against the gods, had both already been taken into custody.

And then there was Auri Ismel, whose family was involved in a plot to stage an uprising in the capital itself, so she had been “taken in” by the Masked Avatar.

“You found Evos,” Rieren said, the anger slowly rising within her like the irrepressible tides of the ocean. “You killed him and took over his body, learned all he had to know. Yet you never came after me. Not directly. What in the Abyss was even your goal here? What did you truly think to accomplish?”

“Come after you? When you are nothing more than a weak little girl? Why would I waste any time on such worthlessness?” Something started happening around them, the webs tightening as though the Abyssal was drawing them all tighter around them. “No, my goals were power. My idea was manipulation. My webs are far greater than you can possibly ever imagine.”

The convoluted web was slowly starting to make itself clear in Rieren’s mind. Things were so interconnected and layered, she had a little difficulty in separating the individual strands and understanding who stood for what and what exactly their intentions and motivations might be.

It was starting to become clear that the Abyssal had nothing to do with the gods. Not really. It wasn’t so much assisting the gods as using their will to further its own gains.

Whether it was the Masked Avatar who had granted Auri the power to summon a Banishedborn through that dew talisman or if she had come across it by some other means, it was this creature before her who had manipulated Auri into using it. That was what had led to Lionshard mountain’s destruction.

And for that, the Abyssal needed to pay.

But it was starting to become apparent the motive behind that summoning hadn’t been to cause Rieren’s death. At least, that would only have been a by-product of its main objective—the destruction of Lionshard mountain, which would then open up its broken slopes for infestation by the Abyssals themselves, likely with the A-Grade Gravemark Puppeteer lording over them.

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The only reason it hadn’t bothered blathering about Rieren’s existence to the rest of the world yet was because it couldn’t care less.

Heartbeats ticked away the time. Six minutes left. Perhaps only five. Rieren was losing track. She hefted her sword closer. “You will not escape here, monster. You are the one who caused the destruction of our home. You will pay for it with your life. You will see what it feels to have your dreams shattered.”

“My dreams?” The Abyssal raised all its arms. “What would you know of a monster’s dreams, little girl?”

Rieren was starting to understand where her anger was coming from. It wasn’t just the way Evos had been killed and disrespected. It wasn’t just at the fact that things could have likely gone much smoother for Rieren so far had she managed to get in touch with Starloper before all this.

No. What had her truly enraged was the fact that the little dream she had nurtured when she had first appeared in her second life, that tiny bubble of hope, had been crushed. Destroyed before it had ever truly begun.

Rieren had wished that she could have made a new home for herself in this timeline, that she could have enjoyed a bit of peace that she had been denied by circumstances in the previous timeline. It was not to be. It had never been a possibility, if this Abyssal’s words were to be taken as sincere. The gods had started acting likely before she had arrived in this timeline.

She froze as another realization struck her. Her delayed appearance… the fact that she had been missing for over a day after the apocalypse had started… had someone prevented her from arriving when was supposed to have arrived, just so she wasn’t caught by a roving Banishedborn?

Someone like Starloper could have interfered to an extent with the transition of time. He had the powers. If he had known what the gods would be up to, he would have tried to head it off.

But the point of the matter was that what little hopes and dreams she had hoped to nurture had been annihilated before they’d even begun.

Annihilated. What had she told Serace? That things weren’t lost? That there were enough of them still living that all hope wasn’t lost for the Sect?

True as that was, none of it mattered for Rieren.

“I know enough,” she finally said. “That your goals are naïve. That your hopes are crumbling to ash even as we speak. That your dream has turned into a living nightmare. And—” She raised her sword high. “And that your death is assured.”

The Abyssal growled, no longer interested in talking. As Rieren used another Enchantment, this time turning her sword into Stormborne Greatsword, the Gravemark Puppeteer acted.

There was a sudden, steely snap, and then violent thunder erupted around the entire chamber. For just a fraction of a second, Rieren thought the Abyssal was using a power it had hidden up till now. But no, the enormous room had cracked simultaneously all over. All the Puppeteer’s webs that had been slung around the room were now being pulled in.

Bringing in a plethora of rocks.

They were all large, even the smallest ones several times as large as Rieren and easily capable of crushing her to bloody pulp. All the rocks shot in with incredible speed.

Several of the others shouted as they sought cover behind their various skills. Rieren stood her ground. While she might have been able to Enchant her sword into the Stormborne Greatsword—a legendary blade that magnified the power of all her skills—her skills still weren’t as strong as they had once been.

Nevertheless, while there were still a few Grades that her current rendition of Heaven’s Arc still had to climb, it was still powerful enough to deal with the Abyssal’s attack.

While all the rocks managed to coalesce in her location, it was a simple matter of stepping back using Silken Passage. Just as the rocks crashed down to her location from a moment ago, Rieren launched Heaven’s Arc in the direction of the Gravemark Puppeteer.

The shockwave launched by the skill expanded outwards in a fast, horizontal arc, taking the rocks and much of her Domain and the ground with it. Unfortunately, the monster was fast enough to leap over it.

But Rieren saw it coming. The Abyssal was in the air, where its manoeuverability was minimal. Perfect for her to finally strike it down.

All Rieren had to do was flash forward with another boost to her momentum using Silken Passage. As she reached her location, all she did was use a tried and trusted move—a quick, but powerful vertical slash. She smiled at the memory of Elder Saygren showing it to her and her fellow disciples. River Serration.

Rieren’s cleaving passage and slash had carved a deep channel through her Domain. At the very moment her upwards swing had connected with the webbed limb the Abyssal had struck down with, her Domain exploded.

A geyser burst outwards and carried away the Abyssal, holding all the power her Domain had been storing. The virulent energy frothing underneath the eater’s surface gleamed like starlight even as the water darkened into a column of storm cloud. A second later, all the dark cloud matter turned into lightning sparked by the swimming, glinting energy.

If Rieren had been present in her previous form, she would have been blinded by the resultant explosion. Hopefully, the Elders and the other disciples had taken appropriate cover.

It wasn’t over, of course. Even through the brilliant explosion that cracked the distant wall, Rieren could spot the flare of bright crimson from the Abyssal. It had likely used its scarlet powers to safeguard itself against the worst of Rieren’s blow.

What was worse, she had begun to feel the first hint of the Temporal Recollector’s effects wearing down. She had three minutes at most now.

In other words, Rieren had to kill that thing now or never.

The Abyssal was pushing itself out of the debris at the far end of the chamber. “This is nothing,” it shouted, the threads around the area vibrating hard. “My dreams are beyond your ability touch, mortal. I am—”

Rieren stopped paying it any mind. Instead, she Enchanted her sword one more time, turning it into Floating Blade. A quick leap took her high into the air, her new sword’s passive ability keeping her afloat over two dozen paces above the ground. Then, she activated Wrath of the Swordwing.

Since Rieren had no more time to dawdle, she would have to throw all her strength and power into one final. For that purpose, there was nothing better than Wrath of the Swordwing.

A vertical halo of molten orange appeared behind her back. Swords began to burst outwards from either side of the circle, like crystal growths on a cave’s wall. Hundreds of blades appeared, all black as night, all in different shapes and sizes, joining against each other until she had two wings spreading from one end of the chamber to the other.

Rieren’s display of power had silenced the others. Even the Gravemark Puppeteer was staring at the enormous, sword-encrusted wings spreading from her back.

The blades began glowing. Her halo’s molten, golden-orange light now covered the swords at her back, making them all appear as though they were about to turn to liquid.

“What lies before you now, Abyssal,” Rieren said, her own voice echoing through the dungeon’s central chamber. “Is nothing but your annihilation.”

The Abyssal didn’t get to reply. Not at first, at least. Rieren flapped her wings once, a simple but quick motion of pulling them back before pushing them forward. Each and every blade making up her enormous wings broke free and rammed straight at the other end of the chamber.

“You can—”

The monster’s words were cut off when the first sword connected with its target. A detonation thundered through the area as it struck, the flash of light, heat, and blistering energy sending out a cloud of dust and debris borne on a rippling shockwave. The rest of the blades followed soon after.

To a random observer, one explosion had been terrific enough. When the rest of the blades connected as well, the entire end of the chamber was simply eradicated. The light that flashed up was brighter than Rieren’s previous attack, the sound so deafening that it seemed to gong in all their minds, and the entire world seemed to be shaking itself apart.

Through it all, the Abyssal’s dying scream was lost in the chaos.

Rieren landed back on the ground when it finally ended. A good thing too, for Temporal Recollector had ceased being effective. She was back to being her old self, which made her stagger a bit at all the differences.

However, the sight of the gargantuan hole Wrath of the Swordwing had carved not just into the dungeon’s side, but into the mountainside as well, kept her standing.

Through the heavy dust, through the still-falling debris from the chamber’s broken roof, the distant sky could be seen with ease. Rieren looked in satisfaction at the short but enormously wide tunnel her power had carved out. It was tall enough that they could erect another little tower for the Sect Leader with ease.

But more than all that, they were finally saved. The last of the Abyssals—the ones that mattered, at least—was finally dead.