Tired though Rieren was, she did her best to collect all the loot she had found for herself. Wouldn’t do to let all those corpses go to waste.
Of course, in the course of the extended battle, a lot of the weaker Abyssals had fled. As many as she had tried to kill, the arrival of the other B-Grade monsters had put a stop to that. But that didn’t mean the entire battlefield was littered with Abyssal corpses Rieren could plunder.
There wasn’t enough space in her storage ring to carry so many spoils of war. As such, she was forced to sell them all to the System Shop as quickly as she could.
It was good seeing the number of Credits go up, but she wished she’d had more time to pull the Beast Cores apart from the actual bodies and sell them separately. That had the curious effect of giving her a greater number of Credits in total than just selling the Abyssals’ bodies, Beast Core and all, directly.
Sadly, there wasn’t time for that. Rieren needed to obtain what she could as fast as possible and then get out of here before any further interruptions appeared.
When Rieren boarded her summoned Dawn Cloud along with Elder Olg and Batcat, she was relieved to finally be off. That battle against the Abyssals had taken far longer than she had thought. It had left her a great deal to think about as well.
She also made sure to channel her Essence to release steam as the cloud flew, dissipating her Essence through it. That would prevent anyone from following her trail.
“I could not believe my eyes when your true battle began,” Elder Olg said, sounding rather excited. “A glimpse of the true strength you achieved in the last timeline. Incredible.”
Rieren realized it was the first time the Elder had witnessed her power. He hadn’t been there in the Sect when she had fought the Gravemark Puppeteer. And when she had turned to a more powerful version of herself with the very first application of Batcat’s power against Essalina, it had been significantly weaker.
Against the Arisen, she was almost as strong as she would have been had she used the Temporal Recollector.
“That was not my real strength,” Rieren said, unable to hold her little smile back. “Far from it, in truth.”
“I should have figured that. A strength to take on the gods themselves would have been even more… awestriking.”
Rieren did her best not to let her face flush. This was why she had wished to see Heaven’s Cleave striking down on the Ascendant. The sight was incredible. Just not as much from her point of view at the back.
She stroked Batcat, which was once again sleeping on top of her head. “I must thank this little kitten for all that it has done for me.”
“Yes. A great blessing that you came across your little Spirit Beast… on Lionshard mountain, was it? I wonder what it might have been doing there.”
“Searching for me, most likely. Or someone like me.”
“Why? And how could you possibly—oh, did you happen to see the cat’s memories?”
Rieren nodded. She explained how a memory of Batcat that she had observed a while ago had revealed a severely wounded Spirit Beast somewhere, one that had sent out the little winged kitten in some sort of mission. Apparently, that mission included finding Rieren.
She wondered if she was supposed to meet this greater Spirit Beast that Batcat had come from. Not that she had any idea how to go about doing so, or what the purpose might be. She very well couldn’t heal a Spirit Beast.
“I cannot recall any location like the one you described,” Elder Olg said.
“Perhaps Batcat will.” Rieren finished stroking the kitten and let it enjoy its sleep in peace. “One day.”
“But this does make me wonder about the chain of events, and not just for this Spirit Beast. Even here, we’ve had Abyssals invading, meteors showering in the from the heavens, Aetherians conjoining with Abyssals.” He attempted to shake his head, and finding he couldn’t, he cursed. “I don’t know what’s worse.”
“Do you know what these Arisen are, Elder?”
Rieren hadn’t met any of their kind in the previous timeline. Back then, while there had been some occasional cooperation between the Abyssals and Aetherians, there hadn’t been anything as strange or seemingly impossible as an Aetherian physically joining an Abyssal. There hadn’t even been as much overt cooperation between the two monstrous races.
“I have heard some scattered legends of them,” Elder Olg said. “Well, of Spirit Beasts joining together, combining their powers. Abyssals and Aetherians formed during the apocalypse, along with Anachrons, so I am uncertain if there are any records of them.”
Rieren nodded. “But they are formed from Spirit Beasts, which means their capabilities would translate to those of the Abyssals’, Aetherians’, and Anachrons’.”
“Exactly. To get back on topic, some powerful Spirit Beasts could combine with their own kind to become even stronger. This often had the side-effect of causing a schism-like ripples in Spirit Beast communities.”
“Ripples in communities? I would not have guessed they had such a thing as communities.”
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“Well, don’t take my words literally. But essentially, Spirit Beasts that could normally be seen working together in such cases like Beast Tides would no longer do so.”
“So, it sounds like that the other Spirit Beasts didn’t like the powerful ones combining together.”
“It was a strange phenomenon, rarely observed. Not all accounts could be trusted. But it is worth noting the time when the last remaining Abyssal you killed performed the deed.”
Rieren pressed her lips together. He was right. The timing might have a lot to do with it. The Abyssal had been desperate about surviving, about beating her, and had been stalling until the meteor bearing the Aetherian had arrived. Only then had they combined to become an Arisen.
And that was after Rieren had killed every other monster in the vicinity. There hadn’t been any left to witness the Abyssal’s transformation. No one to carry word back.
“Were there any records of whether this transformation could be split up again?” she asked.
“Are you considering whether the Ascendant would have turned back to an individual Abyssal and Aetherian had it survived the battle against you?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, I cannot recall any such documentation. However, it was noted that such events could also cause a ripple in Essence, if the Aspects of the conjoining Spirit Beasts’ different greatly. It did not sound like a reversible process.”
“I see.”
Rieren tried to think if she could have found a way to discover more about the Arisen during the battle. Everything had been going on so quickly. The Essence had concentrated enough to become visible, dark Abyss-Aspected Essence combining directly with Divine-Aspected Essence.
Would pulling the Nebula-like substance from its wound have separated the monsters into their original, weaker forms? Rieren wouldn’t be able to find out now.
“I am also curious about the meteors,” Elder Olg said. “They do not bode well for the Shatterlands.”
His voice had grown grim. Rieren shared his misgivings. She looked up to see the stars twinkling innocently overhead. Down below, they flew over the rolling grassland without any seeming disturbance. Wherever the last third of the Abyssal army had gone, it wasn’t on their path to the Enlightenment Locale.
“We received more than enough proof that the Aetherians are working with the Abyssals directly in the dungeon,” Rieren said.
Back in the dungeon, she had fought the last Nebula she had encountered after it had come through an Abyss Rent, a portal that came from the Abyss. As the name would suggest, it was used solely by Abyssals to the best of Rieren’s knowledge. That an Aetherian had been through the Abyss had been quite the intriguing turn of events.
“I am curious if they are localized to this region, or if they are appearing all over the Elderlands,” Elder Olg said. “If they start increasing in strength and ferocity…”
Imagining how a shower of great meteors could devastate the Elderlands didn’t take much effort. Thankfully, there were all sorts of powerful cultivators all around the empire. However, there was no guarantee how many of them would act to prevent such a catastrophe.
Not with the way the imperial court was trending.
“It will not be good,” Rieren agreed. “Especially if the Emperor is involved.”
“The Forborne Emperor?”
Ah, of course. Elder Olg had seen the Avatar turn corrupted in the Abyss, but he likely hadn’t learned what Rieren had. So, she began explaining how, under the influence of the gods, the Forborne Emperor was apprehending all the Elderlands’ enemies, including Rieren.
“This is… you understand how it is difficult to believe, yes?” he said.
“Of course. I did not wish to believe it when I heard either, and I doubt I will know the proper truth until I see things for myself. But we have seen how the Avatar acted.”
He couldn’t deny that.
The Aetherians were direct tools of the gods. By extension, so were many of the Abyssals and even the Anachrons. After all, the Gravemark Puppeteer was assisting them by conducting surveillance all over the empire, and she had seen how some Anachrons such as Mountain and Forest had been taken in by the gods’ reasoning to kill Rieren.
All these incidents occurring all over the Elderlands suggested that the gods might have a hand in the current incident as well. That they might be the ones orchestrating these various invasions.
Not good. Rieren had hoped to end their influence by assaulting the capital once she grew in strength enough, but would she be fast enough? Unlikely.
There was also the fact that Appraiser, the Masked Avatar who had sought to cause them such harm for his seemingly beloved Emperor, had performed a desperate about-turn. He had combined with a powerful Abyssal to direct his aggression against the imperial court—short-lived though it was, thanks to Rieren herself.
It felt convoluted. Twisted.
But perhaps, it was just a reminder that things weren’t supposed to be simple. Like people in general, no group was a monolith. Even the Banishedborn was proof of that.
After all, Starloper had been one of her greatest allies in the previous life. The names of those Essastior had demanded weren’t the true identities of those who had helped her, but there had been gods who had assisted in one way or another. In fact, Essastior might actually find them without a great deal of trouble if he investigated the ones she had named.
It made sense, therefore, that the Abyssals and the Aetherians weren’t monoliths either. Even individuals among them might have multiple allegiances and changes of heart. The world didn’t intend to be simple.
Sadly, questions were all they could conjure with the information they had so far, and there was only so far that conjecture would carry them. Instead, Rieren focused on cultivating as she recovered her energy and prepared for the true cultivation she would need to perform soon.
Dawn came and passed and the sun began properly climbing into the sky when the first Enlightenment Locale became visible in the distance.
“We must be wary,” Elder Olg said. “There might be others in the Locale. I doubt we wish to meet them just yet.”
“Yes,” Rieren said. “I would very much like to not meet anyone at all, if it were up to me.”
The daylight illuminated the Enlightenment Locale with brilliant colours. It was the site of an ancient battle between supremely powerful cultivators. The fight had gone to such lengths that the Essence hadn’t simply concentrated into visible spectrums of energy, it had actually crystallized into permanent, solid form.
This had a strange effect in the local ecosystem that had tried to claim the land after the cultivators were done turning it inside out via their tremendous battle. It was certainly an interesting sight.
The trees in the Locale had barks of dark grey metal, their leaves made of literal red fire. Instead of earth, they grew out of sand that was white as salt, something that reminded Rieren eerily of the land she had experienced in the Abyss. The rivers in the area were pure black and flowed in midair, weaving this way and that like endless serpents.
There were even more strange sights to behold, but Rieren could only take in so much before losing focus of what she had come here for.
“I think I already sense some,” Elder Olg said.
Rieren could too. Somewhere in the distance, there were other pinpricks of swirling Essence. She and the Elder weren’t the only cultivators here.
She had expected it. After all, it was one of only a handful Enlightenment Locales in the entire region. Of course, there were others also trying to progress through the Enlightenment realm, same as her.
“You are right, Elder,” Rieren said as she angled the Dawn Cloud downwards. “We will need to be wary of the others. But—” she smiled “—I am ready to begin making some proper progress.”