Elder Olg took one more step forward, then froze. The sign of his True Summons was burning bright silver on the back of his hand, and a second later, Foxwolf materialized beside him in a flash of flames.
Rieren frowned. How was Foxwolf going to make a difference? Even with the Spirit Beast here—
Her eyes widened. “Elder…”
“What is it this time, Fish-Belly-Pallor one?” Foxwolf asked.
“It is time…” the Elder replied. “For the end, my friend.”
“Elder,” Rieren said.
He held up a hand to forestall whatever Rieren might have said afterwards. She swallowed. Fair enough. Rieren had already reconciled with herself that whatever Elder Olg intended, she would not go against it. She had no right to do so.
“How do you wish to depart, Fish-Belly-Pallor one?” Foxwolf asked.
Frail though he seemed, Elder Olg was still able to point a resolute hand at the distant Banishedborn.
The Spirit Beast growled low. “I see your wish for departure now.”
Elder Olg laughed. “Yes, I believe we will require a great deal of strength.”
“A great sacrifice…”
Rieren’s heart spasmed at that, but like the Elder and his True Summons, she kept her eyes on their enemy. Easier to deal with the turn of events that way.
For his part, Essastior had now turned towards them fully, the cooling corpse at his feet forgotten. Bloody lightning now thundered all around him. Perhaps he had sensed that there might be some sort of danger from the Elder, despite their great difference in strength. Whatever he expected, it was evident that he couldn’t have foreseen what happened next.
Rieren certainly didn’t.
With a quick movement, Foxwolf stood on just her hind legs, turned to her left, and chomped down on the Elder’s head. When she pulled back, there was no spout of Ashflame to quickly heal the Elder. Just a headless corpse falling to the ground, spraying a fountain of blood in all directions.
Batcat murmured a mournful meow as it stepped away. Rieren blinked rapidly as her throat threatened to constrict. She held herself steady, though. Now was not the time for feelings. Not at all.
“It is now time for departure,” Foxwolf said as the Banishedborn’s red lightning intensified.
The Spirit Best’s power was growing. Had been, from the moment she had bitten off Elder Olg’s head. The silvery-white flames adorning her fur were growing brighter and stronger by the heartbeat. When she audibly swallowed the head, the fires turned too brilliantly incandescent to look at directly.
Rieren didn’t need to channel Essence into her eyes to sense the storm of power roiling around the Spirit Beast. The final sacrifice of Elder Olg, his very life, had imbued Foxwolf with unimaginable strength. Perhaps just enough to overcome Essastior.
She managed to find her voice as Foxwolf prepared for the confrontation. “Where will you now go?”
The Spirit Beast glanced at her. “I suppose you cannot conjure limbs at a moment’s notice, can you, cat-wrangler?”
“Cat-wrangler?” Rieren looked down at Batcat, who seemed to be ignoring most of the proceedings to stare at Essastior. Unfortunately, her perk was nowhere near the stage where she could regenerate entire limbs, and even when it was, it wouldn’t be in mere moments. “I am afraid not.”
“Then I shall go and find a new host whom I can consume, bit by bit.”
That sounded rather parasitic, which was far from what Foxwolf’s relationship with Elder Olg had been, but their little chat was cut short when Essastior finally acted. Crimson wings unfurled off his back, and he was climbing higher into the air as a scarlet thunderstorm flared to life around him.
Foxwolf was ready, however. With an earth-rending howl that tore into Rieren’s ears, the Spirit Beast threw itself into the air, aiming directly for the Banishedborn.
The shock of the noise had made Rieren clamp her hands over her ears. So, she wasn’t prepared for the blast of the Spirit Beast’s launch to throw her off her feet and send her hurtling backwards. She was able to right herself quickly enough to catch sight of Foxwolf’s imminent impact with Essastior. The sight was something to behold.
Streaking like a moonlit meteor, Foxwolf slammed into the Banishedborn with the full might that Elder Olg’s sacrifice had provided. Essastior tried to protect himself with his lightning and by covering his body with his red-feathered wings. It wasn’t enough.
The collision between Foxwolf’s flames and the crimson lighting set off an explosion that rocked the world. Rieren was once more thrown to the ground as the shockwave reverberated outwards from the point of impact, the sheer volume of the blast and intensity of the light shattering her senses.
Through the tiniest slit in her eyes, she managed to see how the brilliance of Foxwolf’s fire interacted with the Banishedborn’s lighting. The entire area around them was shattering, the air itself tearing apart at the impact.
For a moment, Rieren wondered why they seemed frozen in the air. Then she realized that Essastior’s wings were acting like a shield against the Spirit Beast. She considered if she was going to have to step in to provide the final blow against their enemy, but then the fires on Foxwolf turned up a notch.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
If they had been blindingly bright before, now there was no difference between looking at them and looking at the sun itself.
Rieren was forced to close her eyes wholly. No matter. She heard the Banishedborn’s scream all too well, even through the hands covering her ears. A scream that was now dwindling. Opening her eyes to another little slit revealed how the force behind Foxwolf’s meteoric blow had finally overcome Essastior’s defence and sent him flying backwards.
The Spirit Beast shot away from Lionshard mountain like a fiery comet, bearing the Banishedborn with her. They collided with a different mountain several leagues away, so far across the mountain range that Rieren didn’t see where they finally landed.
She did see the explosion, though. The resultant blast from their distant impact set off a flash that overtook the rest of the world’s colours and released an earthquake rumbling across the land. Rieren was forced to cover her eyes against the brilliant light for a few moments before it finally died.
Batcat nudged her leg. She looked down and found that her vision had gone blurry. It was done. She was finally free.
It took longer than Rieren would have liked to get moving again. Even then, her motions felt mechanical, as though she was a mere puppet being controlled by someone else. Her thoughts still hadn’t settled on the aftermath of the ferocious battle.
Elder Olg was dead. Gone. No longer a part of her world. It shouldn’t have been a depressing, mournful recollection. He had departed on his own terms, having succeeded in his final wish to take care of the enemies of Lionshard Sect. There was no better way to die for a cultivator of his stature.
Yet it still left Rieren hollow. A cold that seeped out from her core and filled her entire being. Ah, so that was why her eyes were blurry. Tears.
Batcat nudged her leg again. She sensed some urgency from the cat.
“Yes,” she said. Her throat was so constricted, it was an achievement in and of itself that she had managed to speak. “We will need to move.”
Batcat was right. They had to get going. Besides Essalina and her entourage coming back to check on things, and even besides the threat that those within the dungeon might soon scout out to see what the commotion was, there was also the danger posed by Essastior. Powerful as Foxwolf’s blow had been, Rieren couldn’t be sure that the Spirit Beast had killed her target.
She couldn’t move just yet though. Right next to her, the Elder’s corpse was still bleeding out. Rieren swallowed as she looked down. It wouldn’t do to leave him behind like this. She bent down to pull the corpse into her storage ring.
Next, she had to quickly take care of the Anachrons beside her. Her Receptor sword came in handy. She was able to cut through Forest’s body without too much difficulty, before extracting the Anachron’s Beast Core. It was a small, amorphous amber blob shot through with deep green vines and glowing as though it was still alive. Maybe a part of it was.
While she let Batcat eat it, Rieren turned her attention to the other Anachron. Mountain would have been more difficult to pierce, but her battle with the boulderlike monster had left a deep wound that reached straight into the cavity that stored the Beast Core.
Unfortunately, she still had to take some time to chip away at the surrounding rocks before she was finally able to pull out the Beast Core. Batcat had long finished the first one. At least that had given the kitten some time to keep an eye out for any interruptions.
When Rieren finally pulled out the other Beast Core, she found it was cracked. Had to have happened during her battle with Mountain.
Batcat didn’t seem to mind. When she placed the Beast Core down before the cat, it eagerly began eating just as it had done to the one before.
At any other time, Rieren would have been oddly amused by the scene. Who would have assumed that such a fluffy, adorable kitten—albeit with bat wings—would be such a carnivorous devourer of the hearts of monsters?
But all she could see was the cost those two Beast Cores had come at. A price that sank straight through her soul.
Regardless, Rieren and Batcat needed to move. She was about to pick up the kitten and get going, but she froze. They weren’t alone. It seemed Batcat’s eagerness had made it fail in its lookout.
The Avatar was crawling towards them.
Her consternation fell by several degrees when she properly took note of the state he was in. Burned, blistered, cracked, and ruined, Rieren barely even recognized him. The lower half of his body was gone entirely, a trail of blood turning into a dark river in his wake. He was crawling forward by pulling himself ahead bit by bit with his arms.
This man was no danger to anyone. Maybe that was why Batcat hadn’t bothered warning her about him.
Rieren shouldn’t have cared. She had places to be, things to do, people to leave behind and journeys to begin. But she stood still. There was one little thing she had forgotten. If the Avatar truly had joined with the Gravemark Puppeteer she had thought she had killed in the dungeon’s main chamber, then there was one more Beast Core she could obtain.
An A-Grade Beast Core.
“You must…” Appraiser said haltingly as Rieren approached with her sword drawn. “You must… listen… before…”
“I have seen your memories,” she said. “Your very soul. There is nothing you can tell me that I do not know.”
“Not me.” The Avatar’s voice changed all of a sudden, turning somewhere between a hiss and a gurgle. Weak still, near death’s door, but undoubtedly different. Monstrous. Abyssal. “Me.”
“Speak. Before I end your miserable existence once and for all.”
Laughter was her initial answer. “Mine puppets are too numerous for death to come so easily, ye young who are yet olde.”
“Is that all you intended to speak of? Gloating?”
“Nay. I wished to speak of thy journey.”
Rieren frowned. “You know nothing of my journey, Abyssal.”
“Thou hast revealed much of thy former life in our last encounter. Tis a small matter to… observe the threads of fate and choices. The ruling centre of this realm is thy destination, is it not?”
“And what of it?”
“Join in mine effort, ye young who are yet olde. None of the gods shall stand against us.”
“I have no need to join anyone. I have brought down the gods once before.” She couldn’t prevent her lip curling. “This time, I will ensure that they cannot arise again.”
“Thou mayest believe so, but forget not that the gods had thy measure for a long while. They know thou art out there, and they shall not rest till all thy kind cease being an issue.”
Rieren considered for a moment. “I will need some time to think on it.”
“Think not for too long. Thine—”
Rieren stabbed her sword into the Avatar’s mouth. He—or rather, the Abyssal continuing to possess him—tried to keep talking despite the blade that had cut through his tongue, but all that came out was some wet gurgles.
She bent down so that her head was closer to Appraiser’s. “I hope you can hear me, Appraiser. You have done enough. I have seen all. Rest assured, I will not fail where you did.”
Pulling her sword free from the Avatar’s mouth, Rieren headed off with Batcat in tow. There was a while to go before she could get to the capital itself. Frankly, she wasn’t at all strong enough yet. And the way the Abyssal had been talking, it sounded as though she wouldn’t have much time to get to the level of strength she deemed necessary to tackle the gods.
But she knew how she had to get there. There was no point in hesitating. Rieren would have to work towards it to the best of her abilities.
As Lionshard mountain fell behind her, as her heart twisted once more at the prospect of leaving behind all those she loved, Rieren resolved to find her lost strength as fast as she could.