El was slowing down as their destination grew in the distance. Rieren couldn’t help but grimace a little at the sight.

What remained of the little town looked relatively new. The paint on the still-standing structures was fresh and lacking dirt or grime, and many buildings were still surrounded by the tools that had been used to make them. Some of them weren’t even destroyed, just half-built and then abandoned when calamity struck.

She had seen this coming. Meteor showers were inherently destructive, and since these were being controlled by their enemy, they would make sure to fall where they could cause grievous harm.

“Look!” Silomene pointed at the ruined gates. “Survivors!”

She was right. Men and women stood near what remained of the barricades they had erected, though a great deal more had been laid over the ground and covered with shrouds. A few were walking among the corpses, and Rieren was a little relieved to notice that some on the ground were still moving. Not dead just yet.

Once El landed, they all quickly got off and hurried towards the destroyed settlement, though one of the retainers stayed with the Spirit Beast.

Behind them, the lizard shuddered and quickly returned to its original form. Rieren had to wonder if maintaining the overgrown state was costly for the creature. Intriguingly, Batcat was also paying attention to its fellow Spirit Beast now.

Rieren’s focus was pulled back to the situation at hand.

“A meteor fell?” Mercion asked.

“And a monster with it,” the heavily-armoured man standing guard said, bowing his head a little. “Greetings, young lord. We are glad to see you have brought help.”

“I wasn’t even aware of the situation here. We only stopped because we saw it in passing.”

“Ah.”

“What are the casualties like?”

Mercion asked further clarifying questions about the specific situation there, and Rieren did her best to pay attention. Something told her this was her first real objective under her new… employment.

She frowned. The idea that she was hired didn’t sit right. It felt like flirting with a different life, as though she could give in to the naïve wish she’d come to this timeline with. Not possible. Not when she had such an enormous goal to achieve. Rieren couldn’t waste too much time and effort here. The capital was calling.

Nevertheless, this had the potential of being a good stepping stone for her rise. It also wouldn’t hurt to put a dent in whatever plans the gods had for the Shatterlands.

Something she ought to bring up to Mercion and Silomene, but with the Avatars running lose, it was difficult to say where exactly they lay on that matter. It would be more prudent to see where they lay on it before revealing anything.

But the man’s answers caught her off-guard a little. As expected, the meteor had borne with it an Aetherian, and by the description, she quickly learned that it was an Amorphous Nebula. It had sought to wreak quite the havoc after the crash of its vessel had already thrown the little town into disarray.

Initially, it had been pushed back by the various defenders, but then they had been attacked from the rear by a vicious horde of Abyssals. The pandemonium had been tremendous. It was all they could do to keep the monsters off their backs and survive.

“And when all was said and done, we found out that some of us were… missing,” the man who had greeted them said.

That made them all pause. Rieren could feel the slow creep of horror tugging at the back of her mind. Missing people suggested that they had been taken by the invaders. By the monsters.

There was no reason for people to be kidnapped by Abyssals or Aetherians. Encounters with them had always been dangerous and deadly, but they had always been final, in a sense. The monsters didn’t take prisoners. Why would they? All they wished for was the removal of all humans entirely so they could occupy the same spaces.

“Did you find any of them?” the man asked one of the healers tending to the wounded.

The woman didn’t even bother removing her cloth mask. She only shook her head morosely. That confirmed it. Some of the people here really had been taken away by the Abyssals.

“But why?” Mercion asked, voicing the question in everyone’s mind. “Why would the Abyssals capture anyone? It isn’t as if they feed on people, either.”

“We do not know, young lord. But now that you are here, perhaps we can find out.” He started getting a little… not excited, so much as fervent. There was an angry light in his eyes, burning with zeal. “Perhaps we can rescue them and show those monsters not to take what isn’t theirs.”

Mercion rubbed a hand on his forehead. He must have had some other plans, or perhaps some timing he had to stick to. Logistics couldn’t be discarded with heat-of-the-moment decisions. “I will need some time to think. Please show me around the settlement. I want to meet everyone.”

Rieren had no wish to do the same. There might have been some clues here and there, some intriguing tidbits of info she could have found out from the locals. In truth, she was raring to go out and search for the missing people.

“I will stand guard and keep lookout,” she said. “Let me know when we begin the expedition to recover the captured ones.”

Mercion didn’t argue, only nodded in acquiesce. Strangely, Silomene also declined from going farther into the settlement, and instead, joined Rieren outside the gates.

“I don’t think I could stand the smell for long, I’m afraid,” she said.

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Rieren raised an eyebrow at her. “I do not recall asking why you decided to follow me.”

She perhaps shouldn’t have been so cold, but at the same time, it was difficult to feel anything positive towards one who tattled to others. Rieren wouldn’t have been found my Mercion if Silomene hadn’t informed him of her location. Not that she minded going along with Mercion. It was more of a principle thing.

“You weren’t curious?” Silomene asked. “At all? Not even the slightest bit?”

Rieren held back a sigh. The woman’s eyes had grown large and pleading. “Fine, yes, thank you for informing me.”

Silomene looked like there was more she wished to say, but Rieren got busy. She roused Batcat off her head and waited as it woke up properly in her cupped palms. The kitten yawned. Rieren smiled at its sharp little fangs.

“Can you go out and see if you can find a trail, Batcat?” she asked it quietly.

The kitten just looked blankly at her. If it was annoyed at having been woken up, it was hiding it quite well.

“Some Abyssals visited the area and took away several people,” she said, ignoring how Silomene was staring slightly agog. “We need to find them. I do not know if anyone in the area has the ability to track them down, but in case not, you may be our only hope, kitten.”

Batcat yawned agani. For just a moment, Rieren wondered if it was pretending to be dumb just to punish her by making her look silly in front of Silomene. That would never work. Silomene looked like the kind of woman who would only be delighted at apparent silliness.

As was proven when Silomene asked, “Can I talk to it too?”

“Go right ahead,” Rieren said.

Silomene thrust her silver-haired head at the kitten and gave it a broad smile. She kept her hands respectfully to herself. “Hello, pretty kitten.” She had affected her voice a bit like what doting parents used on their newborn infants. “Are you still feeling sleepy? Or are you hungry and want some food?”

“It is a Spirit Beast. I doubt it has ever been truly hungry. Eating is just a pleasure to it.”

“Is Rieren here annoying you? You could always come to me, and I’d let you sleep in my hair forever and ever!”

At that prospect, the kitten yawned again, yowled a little once, then jumped off Rieren’s hands. It scurried off into the town as soon as it landed near Rieren’s feet.

“I always have such a profound effect on animals,” Silomene said. Rieren couldn’t tell if she was joking or if she was genuinely sad at Batcat’s reaction. She felt a little moment of sympathy. That had been quite rude from the winged cat… not so different from her, she supposed. “It is why I was forbidden from getting a Spirit Beast of my own to bond with.”

Rieren declined to point out that profound was not how she would have described Silomene’s effect on Batcat. “I hope that didn’t leave you lonely at your Sect.”

“I had some friends. They were nice. Fun to spend time with. Strong cultivators in their own right, as well. But I don’t know if… if they survived.”

“You weren’t there when the Sect was destroyed?”

“No, I was already on my journey to gather Enlightenment when the apocalypse struck.”

Rieren glanced at her. “Are you at Late-Enlightened, then? Or Peak, perhaps?”

“Mid still, actually.” Silomene tried for a brave smile. “It has taken me a while to get to it, but I am almost nearing the point when I can break through to the next stage. Though, even when I reach the peak, I suppose getting a tribulation isn’t going to be easy any longer.”

“You could always try shooting down the meteors.”

Silomene laughed at that. “What about you? Are your friends still doing well at your Sect?”

Rieren didn’t want to have to go through the memories of her friends. Of the people she had known.

She ought to have been happy that the people she cared the most about were alright as far as she was aware. Amalyse and her father Atelen were both doing well enough when she had left. She had even found Elder Olg alive and well. Those were good reasons to be generally happy about the state of things.

But then she remembered… not the others. Just what she had written down about them on that little paper. Names and slight details. Eneyra, Auri, Nidelin, and Folend, and Serace. Two had tried to directly kill her, one of whom had kickstarted the downfall of Lionshard Sect itself in a last, desperate attempt. Eneyra, stalwart to her cause till the end. Auri, lost and depressed.

Two more had died in the battle against the Abyssals. Nidelin whom Rieren hadn’t even seen pass away, and Folend sacrificing himself for his little brother’s sake. Then there was Serace, who had turned into some strange amalgamation of human, tree, and beast after ingesting a dead Anachron’s beast Core.

“They are alright, last I had heard.” Rieren bit the inside of her cheek against the lie. They came so easily to her, at most times, but now they felt outright disrespectful. “It has been a while, though.”

Silomene clasped her hands earnestly before her. “I am glad that your friends are safe, and I pray mine made it out before the Sect’s destruction. I dearly hope to meet them again.”

Rieren would have wished her good fortune with that, but even that felt like a cruel statement. “You have been in the Enlightened realm a while, have you not?”

“Hmm?”

“The apocalypse began over two months ago now. To get to Mid-Enlightened realm, one needs only one Enlightenment.” With all the resources she had needed to gather with her Credits, Rieren had still required well over a month to get one Enlightenment. And that wasn’t counting all the time she had needed to prepare. “How long have you actually been at this?”

“A little while…”

That didn’t add up. Silomene had said she had been working on the Enlightened realm since before the apocalypse. As such, it was taking her longer than two months. Considering the resources she likely had available from her clan—they were rich, or Lord Malloh wouldn’t have been her retainer—she was taking far too long.

“Why?” Rieren asked. “Though, if you have no wish to talk about it, you can forget that I asked.”

Silomene blushed. “You’re smart, aren’t you.”

“Depends on who you might ask, I think.”

Her laughter didn’t make her embarrassment go away. “I suppose your deduction merits an answer. You see, I… do not wish to advance too quickly. My family has plans for me. They have mapped out my entire life for me because they think I will not be able to live it fully on my own… and I do not want to act according to what they think is right. Not for everything.”

Rieren stared at Silomene. Those were much the same thing Amalyse felt, the same motivation that drove her closest friend. It hadn’t risen as much in this timeline because they’d been too busy tackling the apocalypse, but still. She had seen the undercurrent of it when she had met Lady Arraihos in the Arteroth camp outside Lionshard dungeon.

To think that mild-mannered Silomene shared the same rebelliousness as Amalyse.

Batcat returned then. It deposited itself on Rieren’s head. She quickly channelled her Essence through the cat as she dragged in the memories the kitten had collected.

Rieren wasn’t surprised to see any of it. The recollections revealed a group of Armistice Enforcers carrying away several unconscious people. They were wounded, and some seemed to be bleeding enough to make most Rieren doubt they had survived the trip.

“East,” Rieren said after pulling herself out of the memories.

“What?” Silomene asked.

“We need to head east if we wish to find and rescue those who had been captured.”

“Do you have some sort of mental connection with your strange cat?”

Rieren shook her head. “No. I simply look through its memories.”

“Oh, wow! That’s very intriguing.”

Before Rieren could agree that it was, Mercion returned with several of those in the settlement in tow. He looked resolute. Fierce, almost.

“We have determined where we must go to find the captured,” he said.

“So have we!” Silomene said brightly, before her expression quickly turned grim. “Eastwards.”

Mercion blinked at that but it seemed he had decided there were more important things afoot than asking how they had arrived at the same answer. “Yes, eastwards. Further into the Shatterlands. There is a dungeon some distance away from here, and we believe the monsters might have both originated there and are likely holding their captives there as well.”

Rieren nodded. “Then perhaps we should get going.”

“Yes.” Mercion looked back at the people who had gathered behind him. “We must all get moving. Let us proceed!”