There was no time to waste. Rieren hurried on her cloud towards the second battalion of Abyssals that had headed straight forwards.

The Mortal Realm map she had obtained through one of her achievements came in handy. Now she could determine her route better. With the map in hand, Rieren determined her exact location and figured out how exactly she needed to set the Dawn Cloud’s course so as to meet the monsters in ideal time.

As they zipped across the land, the highlands were giving way to rolling plains. Daybreak wasn’t too far off. The way the night had darkened suggested that dawn wasn’t more than an hour away, which was both good and bad.

Best to finish things quickly.

It didn’t take her too long to reach the rear line of the monsters farther ahead. But unfortunately, it seemed as though they had been indeed warned of her arrival.

As soon as she neared the first line of monsters, she was immediately dragged into an ambush.

The first sign of it was the noise. There was a telltale scuttling in the area she passed over on her cloud, a rustling of the grass that wasn’t just the wind and the wake of her passage. All it took was a quick look through her Essence-infused eyes to confirm that there was Abyss-Aspected Essence swirling powerfully nearby.

As the Abyssals leaped at her from the grass, Rieren quickly dispelled her Domain-summon. This made her immediately fall towards the ground, evading the jumping monsters with ease, while also releasing all the pent-up water in the cloud with an explosive burst.

As the Abyssals landed around her in disarray—they were no more than weak Armistice Enforcers—Rieren used Water Dancer Blade to coat her sword in the steam she had turned the water into. Then she immediately launched into Gale Blade, killing the monsters with quick, efficient slashes.

Unfortunately, those weren’t the only creatures she was going to have to deal with.

A tremendous growl went up from somewhere in the distance. She narrowed her focus to that specific location, holding her sword at the ready. The sound was unfamiliar, suggesting an Abyssal she hadn’t met yet.

Worse, the storm of Essence her eyes were suggesting gave her the feeling that this was going to be a powerful Abyssal, not one to be taken lightly. In fact, as the monster got closer with thumping steps that lightly shook the ground, Rieren started to get the feeling that this was a B-Grade Abyssal.

“Ah, so you are the killer attacking us from the rear?” the monster said. Its voice reminded her of a hammer striking an anvil, the end of every word like physical blows falling upon her.

“Are you the one leading the monsters?” Rieren asked back.

She could feel the Abyssal’s power in the air around her. Just its presence was twisting and corrupting the Essence. She had seen powerful monsters do that before, where just being in their vicinity made the world distort and twist.

“’Tis not fair to answer a question with another question.”

It had her there. “I am the killer of all your kind.”

“Excellent. Then I will enjoy dismembering you to quivering bits of meat and viscera.”

“And after that? What will you do next? Linger around waiting for the next hapless person to come across and wipe out one third of your little army?”

The monster barked out a jagged laugh like a plethora of broken bells gonging at the same time. “I will then proceed to wipe out your kind from the face of this world to make a path for mine and mine alone to take their rightful place.”

“Do you truly believe you wield that sort of power? You, a mere Abyssal hiding in the dark? Do you truly think you can best the greatest and most powerful that this land will throw at you?”

At that question, the approaching Abyssal paused. Rieren wasn’t unaware of her surroundings just because she had started a conversation with her greatest danger here. There were more Abyssals all around her, surrounding her and ready to hem her in. The only reason they hadn’t attacked directly yet was because they didn’t want to get in the way of their leader.

But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try to interfere in some other way. As such, she had to keep her guard up.

“There is much going on in these lands that your puny mortal brain would never be able to comprehend. Cease your worrying. It will not matter when you will be one of the first corpses to herald the fall of your wretched kind.”

With that, the Abyssal announced that it was done talking by charging straight at her. How kind. It gave her a good look at what exactly she was facing.

The monster was reminiscent of Blightmane Lykans in its part-canine, part-man appearance, and at least a couple of paces taller. Its torso and limbs were spread about like a man’s but its head was somewhere between a wolf’s and a crocodile’s. Finlike projections jutted out of its spine, tail, and limns, while scaly spines had grown out of its shoulders.

Rieren prepared herself for a furious onslaught, but just before the monster reached her, it disappeared. She blinked, her heart stuttering. The Abyssal had dived into the ground, as though it was made of thin air, which Rieren had only caught for her Mind stat had been high enough.

Cursing, she quickly turned the steamy Domain around her back into water to cover the ground. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.

The Abyssal’s fist burst out of the earth. Rieren reacted instinctively, drawing her leg back and jumping away from her immediate location. The ground didn’t rupture as the monster pushed itself out. With wide eyes, she noted that the land was indeed like nothing more than a hallucination to the Abyssal. What a strange power to phase through solid matter with such ease.

She swallowed. Did that mean it could phase through her sword too? If no solid matter worked on it, she might not be able to land a blow with her blade.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Times like these were when Rieren was glad she had a powerful Domain with techniques like Water Dancer Blade. As the monster charged at her once more, a groaning roar making the water of her Domain explode at the force of it, Rieren gathered the steam still left in the air around her Receptor sword.

Of course, it disappeared again. Rieren blinked. Too fast. This time, she hadn’t even been able to catch it diving into the earth. Maybe her Mind stat wasn’t high enough, as she had mistakenly thought earlier. All her instincts were screaming that the earth was the only place she had seen the creature dive, so that had to be it. Rieren held herself at the ready.

The monster did come out at the exact spot she had suspected it would, except with a key difference. It had also expected her to be ready.

Instead of an arm bursting out to grab her, what exited the earth was its tail ramming at her life spearhead. She was barely able to deflect it away, before cleaving her sword downwards to cut off the tail entirely, only for a monstrous arm to burst out and catch her blade.

With a quick jerk, the arm pulled her in and slammed her into the ground. But Rieren had managed to get a knee between herself and the earth. Wasting no time, she kicked herself back up and away. Just in time. Yet another limb of the Abyssal had burst out, intending to crush her midsection, but only managed to land a glancing blow. It still hurt, but the injury wasn’t severe.

At the same time, Rieren managed to note the exact state of the arm holding her sword in place. She needed to get away from the ground, but the Abyssal was keeping her trapped with its grip. Thankfully, she now knew just how to break free.

With a growl, she swerved her foot to land a vicious kick right on the inside of the limb, where she could clearly see some veins sticking out.

The grip slackened a tiny bit. That was enough for Rieren to pull her sword free with a powerful tug, then finally jump upwards. She didn’t land back on the ground. That was too troublesome. Instead, her Dawn Cloud had materialized at her summons, and she landed on the white puff which had begun to draw in her Domain water.

Rieren could finally let her clamouring heart calm down. She was beyond the monster’s reach, for the moment.

That little exchange had highlighted quite a few key notes in her matchup against the unknown Abyssal. It was fast. Faster than her Mind stat could keep up with. Powerful too. A quick touch to her stomach area where the glancing blow had landed came away with a good bit of blood. Divine Resilience was fixing the wound already, but still.

In an overarching and intriguing sense, it had also mentioned something about taking over the Shatterlands. That this was part of a larger plan of conquest and occupation, not a random beast horde attack. That it was being coordinated, likely by even more powerful Abyssals, and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, even if this army was defeated.

But for now, the most important thing was that it would be too difficult to fight on level ground. She would need to draw the monster out, and then attempt her best to land one major, fatal blow. A battle of attrition wasn’t going to help her one bit.

It took a while for the Abyssal to emerge from the ground. All the while, the other Abyssals all over their impromptu battlefield were screaming and hollering, shrieking at Rieren to come down and fight properly. She didn’t mind. Where they thought they could batter her spirit, all they really accomplished was alerting her to their exact positions.

Rieren urged the Dawn Cloud to start flying between the Abyssals still standing on level ground. The cloud began swerving over the heads of the Enforcers and Reachers.

As the cloud shot over them, she focused on Tidal Summons and slashed her sword accordingly. Waves burst out of the little cloud and all the compressed water it held. They crashed into the Abyssals with slicing force, crushing their limbs and heads, taking off tails and appendages.

Rieren felt a smidge ridiculous riding on a cloud and swinging her sword at virtually nothing, but the effects were undoubtedly strong. The Abyssals were falling fast.

They couldn’t retaliate either. As Rieren swung over them, they futilely tried to reach her with their overlong arms. The Reachers tried to extend their serpentine bodies to get within striking distance, but even when they managed to do so, her Dawn Cloud moved past far too quickly to let them get close.

If only she had recalled some other techniques. Rieren was certain there were some specific moves that would have made this even more effective, some tricks and tips that would have enhanced her use of the Dawn Cloud even better. Ah well. This was powerful as it was.

A few more passes and she would have crushed nearly half the army. With the B-Grade Abyssal unable to reach her from its underground prowl, she was safe as well.

She jerked around when she heard a telltale groaning roar. The Abyssal she had just decided not to worry about was emerging from the ground at the far end of the battlefield. It didn’t stop once it was back upon the earth.

Instead, it kept on rising into the air.

Rieren’s eyes widened. She didn’t stop the Dawn Cloud’s motion. That would just allow the weaker Abyssals to get close and get a better chance of killing her, but she made sure it wasn’t moving any closer to where the B-Grade Abyssal was climbing higher and higher into the air.

“I can smell your fear from here, mortal,” the Abyssal shouted, a clangor of discordant crashing bells. “And you are right to be afraid. Behold, my majesty. You fooled yourself into believing that you would be free from me while airborne. But not so.”

With a howl, the monster charged at her. Rieren could only allow her shock to take root within her for a fraction of a heartbeat. It was charging across thin air, as though there was an invisible platform under its feet.

In the next second, she got moving.

“Go!” she yelled at her Dawn Cloud.

The little cloud burst into motion. Rieren doubted that she herself was fast enough to match the Abyssal’s incredible speed. But in the air, her cloud was more than a match for the monster’s incredible pace. Nevertheless, the movement was too fast for Rieren to get a proper grip on things. She couldn’t position herself into a proper angle to use Tidal Summons.

She swung her sword anyway. It didn’t connect. At times, she came close to striking the monster’s flank, but the Abyssal got close to hitting her too, and the waves she let loose never hit their target.

Rieren grimaced as they got some space between them and the onrushing monster. She knew what was wrong. To take down something that powerful, they were going to need to take a risk.

“Cloud,” she said. “Come to a stop.”

As if it was alive, the cloud quivered.

“I know what I am doing. And you will need to do exactly what I say. So, listen closely.”

They executed their little plan. With the monster pursuing them closely, growling and roaring as it raced over the air on their tail, everything had to be timed perfectly.

“Now!” Rieren yelled.

The Dawn Cloud came to a sudden stop. Rieren had already prepared herself for the inevitable momentum of the motion to fall upon her. Despite the cloud’s halt, she was pulled forward anyway. But that was good because as the cloud had stopped, it had also expanded itself, and Rieren fell right into it. Just what she needed.

A moment before her head submerged into the cloud, she caught sight of the monster opening its mouth wide as it dived straight at the cloud. Rieren smiled as she was fully pulled into her cloud.

She twisted and pushed herself back a little. The Dawn Cloud was filled with her Domain’s water, making it act like a floating pool. It continued expanding, but it could only grow so big before the time came. All it took was a single heartbeat before the B-Grade Abyssal burst into the Dawn Cloud.

Rieren had already prepared herself. The monster’s incredible momentum made it flash past her after she had reoriented herself. Being within the cloud, the Abyssal hadn’t been able to see the change in her positioning, and as the monster was carried by her thanks to its momentum, Rieren swung her sword with as much strength as she could muster.

The Receptor sword dug into the Abyssal’s waist as it flew past. There was a dull clang where her sword hit the monster, but even submerged in the cloud’s liquid interior, Rieren was able to hear how loudly her enemy screamed.

She had done it. The accursed Abyssal had been hobbled.