Rieren considered hiding or running. She could surely find some other location where she wouldn’t be as obtusely visible as she was in her current spot. Even if she was under a burning tree, anyone approaching would be able to see her rather easily.

But something gave her the feeling that the ones heading towards her were looking specifically for her. There would be no point in hiding. Since she had only sensed them once they were close enough, the incoming party had to be armed with techniques or skills that could have rooted her out no matter where she went. They had only let themselves be known because she couldn’t get away.

Her hand went to the Temporal Recollector in her robes. If worst came to worst, she could certainly make them regret having come after her.

However, the same sense that had told her that running was futile also told her that fighting wouldn’t be necessary. Well, not so long as she intended to cooperate with their wishes, which she suspected weren’t going to be anything outrageous.

What appeared before Rieren from the distance was a giant flying lizard. She had thought it was a bird at first, and she had wondered if it was Essastior in his avian form. But no, the flapping shape had resolved into an overgrown green lizard with batwings sprouting from its shoulders, little claws growing out of the wing tips.

Three people were upon its long back. They had hunkered down to keep their centres of their gravity low, but as the lizard approached the ground, they began to stand up.

Rieren frowned. Cultivators. A couple of powerful ones.

She blinked. And a weaker one that felt familiar. She recognized his form as the group drew closer. That was Mercion. Oh, so that memory she had seen of him had been him preparing to travel to her.

Another burst of momentary panic clouded her mind. She found herself feeling glad that he had survived the meteor she had ended up summoning at the slime dungeon. At the same time, she was curious if the fiery meteorite had brought in an Aetherian with it. She doubted he would have survived had that been the case, but she was curious all the same.

More importantly, now she was wondering if he had come here with some strange notion of revenge. It wouldn’t be wild to imagine an affronted cultivator journeying across half a region just for their supposedly injured honour.

Then again, as he and his party landed about twenty paces away, Rieren felt no malice whatsoever. If anything, Mercion looked a tiny bit anxious, like he had come to court her instead of yelling that she was courting death.

“Good to see you safe, Rieren,” he said, raising a hand in greeting. “I imagine you are surprised to see me here.”

“To an extent,” Rieren said. It was a little difficult to let her guard down enough to not appear she was ready to kill him at a moment’s notice. She recalled how the Elder had glared at her for nearly being rude to Silomene, so then added, “My Lord. Pray tell me what you wish of me. It must be something important indeed to bring you all the way here.”

Mercion turned to motion at his companions to come over. They seemed a little hesitant at first, but upon finding Rieren observing them, they began to hurry over at a quick pace. Wouldn’t do to appear weak in her eyes, after all.

“Yes, there is some business we need to clear up and attend to,” Mercion said. “Something you might be able to assist us with.”

Before Rieren could ask for clarification, the other men joined up. Neither were Kerolast. Rieren would have recognized him earlier had he been among them.

There wasn’t much difference between them. Both were pale, tall, sported long hair kept clean and tied back. Even their scars were similar, both slashes across the lower parts of their face in place of any beards.

Both men were obviously strong cultivators, wearing white armor decorated with a crest that showed crisscrossed lightning. The Ordorian insignia, no doubt. Mercion’s clan. Their armour was maintained well and expensive, as were the weapons they carried at their waist.

“What is the exact reason for your visit, my lord?” Rieren asked.

“You must have seen first-hand the monstrous armies roaming our lands, yes?”

Rieren nodded. Mercion had told her about the troubles faced by the Archnobles and all those who lived in the Shatterlands. But this sounded closer to an insinuation, as though they knew that she had personally encountered—and annihilated—an Abyssal army over a month ago. “Are you recruiting cultivators to your cause?”

“Well, yes. We cannot turn down any help. But tell me, Rieren.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice a little. “Were you the one who killed the Abyssals due southwest from this location?”

“What exactly are you speaking of?”

Mercion looked a smidge annoyed at having to explain himself. “A few weeks ago, one of our scouts found the site of a massacre of Abyssals about twenty-three leagues from this Enlightenment Locale. The location wasn’t where any of us had ever been, and there were no settlements anywhere nearby.”

“So among all those you might have suspected, you believed it might have been me?”

Mercion’s eyes sharpened. “It seems like we are both harbouring some secrets, yes?”

Rieren did her best to keep her expression neutral, though she supposed she had gaffed as much as she had tried to take advantage of Mercion’s unintended admission. In her attempt to find out how exactly they had decided to come after and find her, she had also admitted her knowledge that there were others here who might fit the same criteria.

Criteria only Rieren and a few others fit.

“I believe you have me at a disadvantage, my lord,” Rieren said. “Why did you seek me out specifically?”

“Because you are the only foreigner we know of heading in that direction. Because the sense of your strength I got in the dungeon suggested you might be heading to the Enlightenment Locale. Because, ultimately, however strong you are, you should not be capable of what we witnessed in the site of massacre.”

Rieren supposed she had left a rather overt sign of her prowess there. That last Heaven’s Cleave to kill the Arisen had left an enormous canyon and an equally gigantic crater in the earth. She ought to be surprised it had actually taken them this long to locate her, though she suspected they had been busy protecting themselves from the other Abyssal armies.

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“And what do you wish of me now, my lord?” Rieren asked.

For just a moment, Mercion looked unsure of himself. Then, at a slight cough from one of the other men, he straightened and stared resolutely at Rieren. “To come with us and join us!”

“Join you… in what?”

“You’ve been playing coy for a long time, Rieren, but it is more than clear that you know a great deal of what is going on. The Abyssal armies, the Avatars, the brink of destruction everyone here is teetering on. Don’t you think that’s something worth having a hand in? Something you might wish to do something about?”

“So, you are intent on recruiting me.”

“If that is how you take it, then yes. The whole world has turned topsy-turvy, and we must gather all the help we can in order to survive this onslaught.”

Rieren didn’t answer. Instead, she did her best to think this through. There was a tremendous amount to consider here.

Mercion seemed to recognize that. “I understand I might have sprung something strange at you at an awkward time. You might wish to consider the offer.”

“You have not offered me anything in exchange for helping you, my lord.”

The other cultivators bristled a bit at that, and even Mercion’s eyes widened. But he held up a hand. “Of course. My apologies. I will be frank—we are trying to find as many able-bodied people as we can to recruit to our cause against the Abyssals, and anything the imperial court might throw against us.”

“So you are now taking a direct stand against the Emperor?”

“It has come to our attention that the court has been compromised by the gods. It has likely been so for a while now, considering the strange reactions we have garnered. But I suspect you’ve known that for a while now,” Mercion added.

“And your offer in return?”

“Ah, yes. We are inducting all those who assist as officially recognized members of the Stannerig and Ordorian clans. Both clans, yes. Of course, as you may assume, with this induction, all of the clans’ various services and connections will now be open to you. I believe that is more than fair recompense.”

Rieren couldn’t help but stare at the man. That was a strange reward, no doubt, and also rather valuable. Should they all survive. Becoming a fully-fledged member of any clan without any bloodline connection was considered a great bestowal of honour, an accomplishment few achieved in their lifetimes, especially when it was an Archnoble clan.

To make it so readily available no doubt diluted the prestige. Perhaps that explained why Mercion was leaning more on the material gains one would obtain.

Though, this whole business stank of desperation.

“You are correct, my lord,” Rieren said with a little bow of her head. “I will need to think things over. Will you grant me some time to do so?”

“Of course. Take as long as you need. We will return shortly, and if you have not made up your mind by then, we will depart and you will need to make your own way over to us.”

Rieren nodded at the arrangement. “One moment, my lord. May I ask how you determined my location?”

“We received word that you were here. But besides, it wasn’t a difficult supposition anyway.”

That made Rieren frown. Received word… from someone who was keeping an eye on her, or had noted her presence? She didn’t want to be watched.

“What happened after I exited the slime dungeon?” She added the next question so that it sounded a little less like she was asking only for her own benefit. “Were you able to successfully safeguard the dungeon core, my lord?”

“We were! Thank you for asking, and for redirecting the meteor. I was afraid you had been hurt in the attempt and had gone off somewhere else to recover, but I am glad to see that you are well.”

His tone was fully sincere. It sounded like that meteor had been just that—a flying, fiery rock that would have caused great destruction on its own. Not a ride for a monster.

One of Mercion’s retainers coughed into his hand.

Mercion nodded. “I would ask about the meteor itself, considering all the other troubling things we’ve seen, but we must be going. Please let us know your answer as soon as you can, Rieren.”

“Of course, my lord,” she said.

That last bit from him confirmed that there might be more meteors coming down upon the Shatterlands. Worse, they likely bore more Aetherians with them too.

With nothing further left to say, Mercion and his companions left her at that.

After they were gone, Rieren really did decide to sit down and think things through. She had already made the basic decision during the conversation with Mercion, but there were little details she needed to pore over. Thankfully, Batcat and the Elder decided to pop in and join her with the thinking.

“Wonderful of you to join me after our guests left,” Rieren said.

Elder Olg glared at her. “What, you would have preferred them asking questions about a winged cat and a disembodied head?”

“I was not being sarcastic, Elder. I was being sincere.”

“Could have fooled me,” he muttered, then raised his voice. “Are you certain you wish to go with them?”

“I have not said I will,” Rieren replied.

“You look as though you might.”

“Well, there are benefits to doing so. I just need to compare them to the drawbacks and see if it would be worth it.”

“Yes… an inductee into not one but two new clans, especially Archnoble ones. That is certainly nothing to scoff at.”

Rieren agreed with a tight press of her lips. If she could truly become a member of both of those clans, her access to potential resources, such as ingredients for cultivating, better storage rings and armour, scrolls for techniques and so on, would all grow tenfold.

She could access all that now, but it required her to collect a great deal of Credits. As an honoured clan member, they still wouldn’t be free, of course. All the resources were precious and weren’t doled out willy-nilly. But the sheer number of Credits Rieren would have to gather by killing monsters would decrease drastically.

“There is also the political side of things to consider,” she said.

Elder Olg nodded sagely, as all Elders tended to do. “Correct. With them, you might be able to gain some protection from the inquisition of the imperial court. An enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.”

“I am not certain how universally applicable that is.”

“Be that as it may, it certainly appears applicable now.”

He wasn’t wrong. In the end, after the Gravemark Puppeteer had revealed the truth about the imperial court and how it was under Divine influence, Essalina and the Arteroth had seemingly denounced the Emperor. However, Essalina’s long-standing feud with Rieren prevented them from working together.

So much for the enemy of her enemy being her friend. Then again, once more, she wasn’t sure just how much enmity the Emperor truly bore her, even if his imperial court was rotten to the core.

“In the end, the next Enlightenment Locale lies that way,” Rieren said.

“Oh? Are you headed to the tunnels then?”

Ah. It would seem Elder Olg was well aware of what lay beneath the great city of the eastern Elderlands.

“Yes,” Rieren said. “That is where I must go, regardless. If I feel as though I ought to assist the locals along the way, I do not see it being a hindrance to my goals.”

“So long as you aren’t overly sidetracked. And if they can even be trusted.”

That was true. Rieren couldn’t fully trust Mercion just yet, despite the experiences they had shared. There were many good reasons for her to place her faith in him. Yet, blindly going in would be foolish. Rieren would, as ever, have to remain wary.

“What about you, Elder?” Rieren asked. “Do you intend to come along?”

Elder Olg looked away, deeper into the Enlightenment Locale. “I do not think my path lies in the same direction, sadly.”

“Abandoning me, finally?”

“Not abandoning. Just taking a different path, for now. I do not wish to… appear before others in such a condition.”

“You appeared before Silomene.”

“Which I realize I shouldn’t have.” He spoke louder when Rieren was about to open her mouth and argue, bowling over her. “That is my final decision. I will certainly meet you again, Rieren, and I am proud of how far you have come. It filled me with great joy to see how much of your potential you realized, when I saw you fighting that Arisen.”

“Do not try to divert the subject with sentimentality, Elder. I will not be happy when you are gone.” She crossed her arms. “Did you know that I actually mourned you after leaving Lionshard? I performed a remembrance ceremony and everything.”

At that, Elder Olg finally looked chastened. Depressed, even. And that made Rieren feel worse. She hadn’t meant to upset him. Monkey’s balls, she wasn’t even sure why she was feeling this disappointed at his impending departure.

The Elder was supposed to have left by now, anyway. He would have done so, if he’d had a body.

But maybe it was that which bothered her. Maybe it was the fact that she had done her best to be open and truthful to him about all she had gone through and experienced. Yet, here at the end, he was still hiding things from her, for some reason.

Still. She couldn’t be angry at him.

“Then I shall see you again soon, Elder.”

“I will see you again, Rieren. No doubt about that.”