Rieren’s thoughts were cavorting too quickly through her mind for her to properly grab and analyze them. Much as she told herself that now wasn’t the time to be frantic, her brain had no intention of listening. There was just too much to consider.
The meteorite reminded her of the one she had faced in the dungeon with Mercion and Kerolast. That had to have come from the gods as a response for her cutting the Gravemark Puppeteer’s webs, which had alerted the divine puss-breathers that she was there.
As such, they had sent a meteor to destroy the location she been, just as they had done by sending their personal retainer over to Lionshard mountain.
Hadn’t they?
It wasn’t impossible that it had been a coincidence. That the meteor had in truth been an Aetherian coming down into the Mortal Realm. The timing could just have been eerily similar. After all, the last time the gods had tried to kill her, they had sent a Banishedborn to destroy everything around her.
A Banishedborn who had been happy to let her go in return for answers to his questions.
For another, her power wouldn’t last long. Meteors signalled the arrival of powerful Aetherians, usually B-Grade or higher. She could handle those, just not easily if the timer of Batcat’s ability ran out.
Could she rise into the air and strike it away from its intended target destination just as she had with the last meteor? Perhaps she could send it careening to a location she wouldn’t need to worry about. Though, that made her wonder what had happened to the one she had bashed away near the dungeon, and it made her wonder if Mercion and Kerolast had met an Aetherian.
All such thoughts were eradicated from her head when the meteor decided to explode overhead.
Rieren stared agog at the detonation far above in the heavens. Had someone interrupted it already? She hadn’t sensed any other powers gathering nearby. They were still some ways off from populated lands. Even a determined, powerful cultivator would need some time to get here.
But no. She squinted. It looked more like the meteor had… split itself? Instead of one giant fireball heading in Rieren’s general direction, there were now several smaller chunks shooting in every which way. She didn’t pay attention to how many burning pieces there were—more than she would have thought—though, that was mostly because one was heading to her.
Rieren prepared to stop it. She had destroyed meteors before. This wasn’t going to be anything impossible. But before she could think of how best to approach it, things turned even weirder.
The wounded Abyssal leaped straight at it.
If the monster wished to dive in a burning meteor’s path, and thus destroy itself in the process, then who was Rieren to stop it. But it didn’t look that simple. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, the meteor was headed to the Abyssal’s location. The monster had simply jumped higher to meet it faster.
When the meteor collided with the Abyssal, a brilliant flash of light erupted. Rieren was momentarily blinded and forced to look away. By the time the light faded enough for her to see again, she found that the meteor had disappeared and the monster had landed back on the ground. To be specific, it had landed on her Domain.
And it was eating its fellow dead Abyssals.
Rieren involuntarily swallowed at the grisly sight. There was already something strange about the wounded Abyssal. No. Not wounded any longer.
It had been healed.
In a fashion. Despite the distance, she could make out that the wound was now covered by some strange substance. Upon closer inspection, it looked like some kind of glossy material dotted with little glints here and there. Rieren froze. She had seen that kind of material before.
The Amorphic Nebulae she, Kervantes the dungeon guardian, and Elder Veylie had fought. Its body had looked exactly the same.
And its true power had been to combine with another of its kind to greatly raise its strength. In fact, the monster’s power had grown by a whole Grade, going from C-Grade to a powerful B-Grade.
Something this Abyssal might be attempting too.
Rieren growled, then shot over the water towards the monster. But she wasn’t fast enough. It had finished gorging on both the corpses of the Blightmane and the Shadeborn, and it was already standing tall, chewing on something. The starry, gelatinous substance covering its wound was wriggling like it was alive.
She came to a pause before it, noticing that its entire body was changing. The fur was growing paler, the fins turning longer and sharper, its whole body turning leaner and more humanoid. Even the head was more angular now than bestial.
Worse, the way Essence was twisting around it confirmed that it had grown greatly in strength. It had been B-Grade before. Now, Rieren was certain that it was at least A-Grade.
“You are no Abyssal now, are you?” she asked.
The Abyssal grinned at her, baring its bloody teeth. “I once was, perhaps. But now, I am…” It spread its arms out wide. “A Starfall Arisen.”
“How?”
“With all the cores now mine, I—”
Rieren wasted no time attacking. It was pointless to give the monster more breathing room. She had already let it go on far too long. Things could be figured out later, after she subdued her enemy.
If the battle against the B-Grade Blightmane was ferocious in their exchange of blows, this was a hundred times more intense. Rieren had thought to take the A-Grade Abyssal by surprise, she was disappointed at its preparedness. The self-named Starfall Arisen was quite the match for Rieren.
For every slash she threw at it, the monster matched with its a swipe of its claws. There was no space to look for an opening. If she hesitated for even a fraction of a moment, the Arisen threatened to take advantage. She couldn’t even think of trying a different strategy with most of her mental power focusing on keeping up with its ferocity.
Their furious fray took them all over Rieren’s summoned Domain. Water flew everywhere as every contact between her sword and the Arisen’s claws sent little shockwaves bursting through the local area.
Was she exactly as powerful as A-Grade Abyssal? Or Aetherian? Was it both now?
She couldn’t think too hard on it. Despite the greater part of her instinctive focus bent purely on keeping up wither her adversary, there were other details Rieren took note of, such as the dark energy coalescing around the monster.
Corrupted Essence. She could tell without even a moment’s thinking. But the sheer power… Essence wasn’t normally visible to the naked, uninfused eye unless it was supremely concentrated, at a level that was devastatingly powerful. And the Arisen seemed to be doing it naturally, unless it could focus on other things besides the physical altercation with her.
In which case, Rieren might be in greater trouble than she had at first assumed.
No. She had begun this battle with victory assured in her mind, and she was going to make it happen.
Hints of weariness were blooming in the back of every motion. At the deepest parts of her joints, at the tips of her tendons. She couldn’t keep this up for long.
Rieren had to move.
Letting her use of Earthfall blade turn fully instinctive, Rieren bent a moment’s focus to her Domain. A section of the water under her turned to steam. Since she had held it back from coming out naturally, it exploded outwards when the pressure became unbearable.
That interruption was enough for them to be forced apart. Rieren wasted no time pulling herself back, boosting her backwards motion with Silken Passage.
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Her heart hammered at the prospect that the Arisen might give chase, but it stayed put. Maybe it was all the dark energy concentrating around it. Most of its form was now entirely obscured by the concentrated Abyss-Aspected Essence around it.
The Essence flared. Glints of Divine-Aspected Essence, the one the Aetherians channelled, now glowed within the dark energy’s depths.
Rieren wasn’t surprised at all when all that bursting energy coalesced into several tiny orbs, one of which then cannoned towards her. Silken Passage made it easy to evade, of course. But as Rieren was about to surge forwards, the dark orb with a glowing golden centre shattered.
The resultant explosion occurred far behind her. It had been thrown with such power and momentum, missing her meant it flew a good distance before finally detonating.
But even then, the shockwave from the explosion threatened to throw her off her feet.
“Monkey’s—”
Rieren didn’t even get to finish her curse as another of the orbs flew at her. Quickly righting herself and willing her heart to return to its regular pace, she dodged that one too, and made sure to prevent its shockwave from affecting her with Earthfall Blade.
But if she had thought that was it, then the Arisen proved her woefully wrong. It was creating even more orbs as more energy flared to life all around it.
This was getting ridiculous. The monster was trying to keep her on the back foot. Even now, as she tried to move to a better position from which she could attack for a change, the Arisen had already created several more orbs. This time, it fired them altogether, shooting them with a slight delay to catch her even if she dodged the first one.
Of course, Rieren deflected the one that would have struck her after evading the first one with Earthfall Blade. She even turned around for a heartbeat to deflect away the resultant shockwaves shooting from behind.
That had the unfortunate effect of making her blind, if only for a fraction of a second, to what the actual monster was doing.
When she turned back to face her enemy, she found that it was rushing at her like a comet. Literally. The Arisen had enwreathed itself with the dark energy with a core of gold, cutting over the water with enough power to make it all evaporate.
Thanks to her Mind stat, Rieren’s reaction time was barely fast enough to use Earthfall Blade to deflect the onrushing comet of power off to one side.
Now, her mind screamed. Now was the chance.
Growling, Rieren took full advantage. She swung her blade in an upward arc, pouring Essence into the motion. River Serration, just as Elder Saygren had shown. It sent a rising column of water shooting at her target, turning into a cloud and a lightning bolt at the end. Basic. But at her level of strength, it could work wonders, as it had upon the Gravemark Puppeteer.
The cometlike monster was able to dodge it though, bursting in an arcing motion over the ground. Its manoeuverability surprised Rieren. As though the physical laws of momentum and whatnot no longer applied to it, the Arisen was able to twist around in short order to face Rieren once more.
But instead of charging at her as a comet again, it concentrated all the energy into a single point of focus, then fired it at her in a powerful beam. The horizontal column of energy cannoned over her Domain with such vicious power, the water sizzled to nothing in a fraction of a second, and even the ground began melting.
Rieren couldn’t deflect it. Streams of energy like that were the one weakness of Earthfall Blade. As such, she was forced to use Silken Passage to shoot to her left and hope to dodge the gleaming geyser.
The Ascendant had no trouble twisting its head to the side to make the long beam of energy follow Rieren, though.
Cursing, she kept up Silken Passage to keep moving to her right, even as the deadly, horizontal column of black-and-gold power followed her unerringly. Her heart thundered in her chest. It was catching up. She wasn’t fast enough. Soon enough, she’d be hit and—
Just a moment before the beam of terrific energy did reach her, Rieren twisted. Mustering all the strength she could on one leg, she kicked off and jumped in the opposite direction she had been dodging so far.
The sudden change caught the monster by surprise. Its head continued twisting to the right for a precious second or two.
In a battle as furious as theirs, that was acres of time.
Even before Rieren landed on the other side of her beam, she was already moving to attack. The concentrated energy’s passage had destroyed much of her Domain, and summoning it back took up some of a few heart-wrenching moments.
Nevertheless, Rieren was still able to launch another slice following the motion of River Serration. Her technique sent a column of rising column of water bursting towards the Arisen, turning into clouds and lighting at the far end.
Unfortunately, it never reached its target. Rieren had needed too much time. The Arisen was able to turn its head back in her direction.
Before her attack could reach the monster, its beam collided with the rising column of water. At least the lightning in Rieren’s column of water made the beam explode. The detonation destroyed another enormous swathe of her Domain, not to mention throwing Rieren farther back with a heavy shockwave.
Of course, she wasn’t about to take it passively. Even as she fell back, she pulled her sword back before slashing it in a wide crescent to launch another Heaven’s Arc.
Rieren was forced to squint in the brilliance. It was impossible to see the monster through the chaos of burning light and blistering steam, and impossible to tell if her attack had landed. But one thing was for certain.
She needed her Domain to have a chance against the Arisen.
Rieren was already summoning her Domain again when she caught sight of her enemy. The monster had risen high using its ability to climb thin air. More dark energy had gathered around it to nearly obscure its entire form. It was about to launch an even more devastating attack.
When it fired its next beam, Rieren wasn’t taken aback. Though, the power behind it certainly alarmed her for a moment.
She had thrown herself back as the beam came at her. The Ascendant didn’t twist its head to follow her motion as before. Instead, it weaved the beam around in a zigzag motion through the Domain.
Rieren grimaced. Wherever the beam passed, its immense power burrowed beneath the Domain and into the ground farther underneath. Then it made everything explode. Wide acres of her water turned golden-white beneath the concentrated energy, before exploding and sending stinging rocks and spray everywhere. Rieren was being cornered.
That was it. The time had come to end things.
With the last of her Domain remaining, Rieren turned a large section of it into steam, keeping it trapped for a moment under the water’s surface. As before, the pressure built until it could no longer be contained, which caused a geyser to rocket out of the water, taking Rieren along with it.
As she rose with the storm of exploding water, Rieren focused on the Aspects she could control. Wind, lightning, cloud, rain, and of course, water. There were a few others, but those weren’t necessary for the time being.
This time, she used Heaven’s Cleave.
Taken high into the air by the power of the rising geyser, Rieren focused on her position and all the elements surrounding her. The Essence whirling around was growing to such an intensity, she could almost begin to see it with her natural eyes just like with the Arisen’s. But instead of using the Essence directly, she poured it all into controlling all her Aspects.
It took mere heartbeats. All the water rose and began revolving around her like a cyclone. The wind picked up to a storming pace, the steam turned concentrated enough to make the very air sizzle, and sparks of lighting stitched the whole destructive contraption together.
At the peak of her technique, Rieren had a long, continuous bolt of lightning connecting her the tip of her blade to the sky, an inverted mountain of rapidly rotating water reaching for the heavens with the gale twisting fast enough to slice off rocks.
As the Ascendant raised its head to strike its beam from below, Rieren sliced down.
She was well aware that it might not work. That this multi-Aspect-infused Heaven’s Cleave might simply collide with the monster’s concentrated blast of energy and explode to nothing, just as her last attack had done.
But Rieren had already summoned her wings. Wrath of the Swordwing once more created two wings filled with glowing swords.
Before the monster’s beam could rise high enough, Rieren lowered her wings beneath herself, before curling them upwards and cupping them together. This effectively formed a shield below her while still keeping her rooted to her location from which she could land her blow.
Just as she had planned, the Ascendant’s beam connected with her swords and exploded far enough below her so as to not to interfere with her own attack. Rieren wasn’t bothered by the heat and the blast ripping through her robes and her legs.
All she could focus on was landing Heaven’s Cleave.
Sometimes, she wished she could see her techniques landing from a distance. Its area of effect was so enormous, it was impossible to appreciate the full majesty of it from so close. Nevertheless, the sight of its landing bloomed bright and vivid in her mind’s eye, even if the immediate sight before was nothing but a catastrophic vortex of water.
The Arisen screamed as it was struck. Its beam was quickly interrupted as Rieren continued her downward slice. Heaven’s Cleave slammed the monster all the way to the ground.
The explosions before had been tremendous, but they all paled in the face of the detonation caused by Rieren’s technique. A halo of light and superheated water burst outwards covering enough space to enshroud a mountain, lighting flickering through the cataclysmic miasma.
While the circular radius of destruction was limited, Rieren’s technique was still long. It carved an enormous trench a league long on either side of the immediate point of impact.
By the time it all faded and Rieren had fallen to the ground, there was nothing but a steaming crater that could have housed the lower half of Lionshard mountain, and a canyon stretching outwards from it whose depths were lost to darkness.
New Achievement!
First great monster defeated! You have overcome your first B-Grade Abyssal. Your strength progresses at an astonishing pace.
Rewards
* 1 Level
* 1 Skill point
* 1 Credit
* 1 Enchanter’s Wand
New Achievement!
First higher spirit defeated! You have overcome your first A-Grade Arisen. Though, you did cause quite a ruckus in the process.
Rewards
* 1 Level
* 1 Skill point
* 1 Credit
* 1 Arisen Beast Core
There were far too many questions crowding Rieren’s head just then, but the important thing was that she was done here. She pocketed the strange Beast Core and the Enchanter’s Wand into her storage ring. Good rewards. Exhaustion warred with the feeling of triumph, but as soon as she had recovered the rest of the loot from the area, she would need to head off.
The second achievement was right. She might have caused enough of a commotion to draw unwanted attention. Rieren couldn’t afford to be distracted now.
Not when she had a good deal of cultivating to do.