The chamber was large, round, and little different from the ones she had visited previously. Though, this one unsurprisingly held a great deal of water. Their feet were splashing and sending up little droplets everywhere.

But that wasn’t the real issue here. What had claimed all of Rieren’s—and everyone else’s—attention here, were the enormous monsters taking up nearly the whole chamber.

“Life Stiflers,” Silomene said with an academic astuteness. “Gigantic Abyssals made of deadly smoke. They move and interact physically with the aid of enormous skeletons that they commandeer. They—”

“Yes, I think we can see all that for ourselves,” Amalyse said.

True enough. The Life Stifler before them certainly wasn’t hiding anything.

It was just as big as Rieren remembered from her time in Lionshard Sect. The tip of its huge skull brushed against the dripping ceiling, while its smoky body was so wide, it prevented them from seeing most of the chamber.

Thankfully, it didn’t look like an overly powerful one. Just the same C-Grade variety Rieren had killed so long ago. Now, it should no longer pose a threat to any of them here.

Batcat had grown alert on top of Rieren’s head. The gentle press of its paws onto her skull alerted her that the kitten was ready to take action against the monsters too. Not that she wanted it to. These were weaker ones she could handle by herself. She had more than enough Essence to do so.

“There, the bodies.” Amalyse was pointing to a spot farther into the chamber.

Rieren squinted into the gloom. She could barely make them out. A few figures had been laid out underneath the monstrous, smoke-wreathed figure of the Life Stifler.

Figures who were being injected with the smoke.

Mercion growled. “That monster. Is it attempting to take over the bodies? Are—are they even alive any longer?”

Rieren recalled how the Life Stifler back then had possessed the corpse of one of the dead disciples. “I have my doubts that any of them are alive any longer.”

“We’re too late?”

He sounded a little too devastated at that notion. Now wasn’t the time for despair, however. The Life Stifler had noticed their entrance and was slowly bearing down towards them. It was time to fight the monster.

“Step aside,” Rollo said as he dragged his feet and pushed through to the front of the group. The spears of golden-white light were once again in each of his hands. “I can take care of them. The rest of you can go find whatever’s happened to that sorry lot.”

The Life Stifler roared at them. Rieren decided not to ponder how it could make vocal noises like that with no physical body.

Rollo stepped forward to throw both his spears of light at the creature at the same time. They were quite effective. Divine-Aspected Essence, forged into a technique passed down by the Sect Leader himself. Batcat had enwreathed Rieren’s sword with the same kind of Essence when she had fought the Abyssal, and it had been just as effective then too.

The monster roared again as the light spears ate through its smoky body, Generally, defeating Life Stiflers could become troublesome as their incorporeal forms were hard to strike down with normal weapons.

Not so with Essence. For disciples who hadn’t broken through to the Awakened realm and couldn’t emit Essence outwards, Life Stiflers were quite the bane. Now, however, when they had all advanced decently far into their cultivation, throwing their Essence at the creature would have destroyed it rather easily.

Which is what happened when Rollo threw his spears at the monster. The Divine Essence seemed to make the smoke catch fire, golden flames beginning to flicker all over the Abyssal’s body.

“We still need to strike down its heart, right?” Amalyse asked.

“We do,” Rieren said. “But it should be easier to do so now.”

While Rieren and the disciples were busy tackling the Life Stifler, Mercion, his retainer, Silomene, and the healer had rushed ahead to recover the bodies. Rieren did her best not to pay attention to them. She had a monster to kill, first. Keeping it busy would also ensure Mercion and the rest of them weren’t put in any needless danger.

“I see its heart,” Silk said. “Allow me to strike it down.”

Rollo’s shoulders sagged a bit as he stepped aside. “Be my guest.”

Silk flicked out her dagger from somewhere in her robes. The strangely curved blade glinted with a dull blue light, with a strange plant wrapped around its hilt. Leaves and flower petals extended outwards to form what gave the impression of wings. They even flapped a little as Silk threw it in the air and let it fly at the heart of the revealed heart of the Life Stifler.

But before the knife could connect, the heart splintered.

Batcat growled, and Rieren’s eyes went wide. There was no other way to describe the phenomenon. It was as though the heart had been blocking the view of a bunch of other hearts, all of which were lined right behind the one Silk wanted to kill.

“What in the world?” Silk muttered. Her knife came flying back into her hand.

“How does one Life Stifler have so many hearts?” Amalyse asked.

The answer came to Rieren all too quickly. “There could be more than one, all hiding together under one smoky cover.” She wrenched her gaze down to the floor, trying to peer through the gloom. “See if there are more bones. That will indicate if there are more Life Stiflers as well.”

“Stop sounding so scared,” Rollo said. For a few moments, he sounded like his old self again—pompous, arrogant, the world bending to his will “If there are more of them, we’ll kill them all. It isn’t any trouble.”

Rieren begged to differ. She had seen not one but two separate instances of monsters combining with each other to form powerful beings. If these Stiflers could do the same, they might actually be in trouble.

“Let us not wait a moment longer,” Rieren said. “Kill all the Stiflers that you can.”

She didn’t wait to see how the others reacted or what steps they took to kill the Abyssals. Her priority was ensuring that the monsters couldn’t join together, and the easiest way to do that was by killing them all.

Rieren summoned her Domain as she ran. Water jumped and frothed to life around her, as much forming out of her Essence as being pulled in from the surroundings. She barely paid any attention to Mercion and the others trying to revive the fallen people. Her focus was bent purely on the nearest Abyssal, and how quickly she could end its life.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Another Life Stifler was indeed forming before her. There were more large bones than they had thought at first. They rose up, controlled by the dark smoke.

Rieren cared little for it. She paused at the required distance, then sent waves of Tidal Summons crashing into the oversized Abyssal. It wasn’t just water, either. She had turned much of her Domain into steam and was sending them with her waves to strike down the Stifler.

The waves’ potency had grown so much as she had cultivated. Techniques didn’t improve by gaining levels and points that could be spent on them. Instead, they only grew stronger through cultivation and through continued use. This was why when her technique struck, it hit with a tremendous force and power, thanks to Rieren being in the Enlightened realm.

The Abyssal fell back, though its smoke was dying against Rieren’s onslaught. Excellent. It took only a few moments before a cavity had opened up.

Revealing the monster’s dark heart.

Rieren wasted no time taking it down. With a yell, she shot towards the Life Stifler, boosting her speed with Fray Passage. An aimed leap took her straight within striking distance of the monster’s heart, and then she was slashing down to cut through the black sphere.

With a shattering sound, the Abyssal’s heart broke apart. The monster roared as it fell to the ground, desperately trying to keep itself alive. But now that it was grounded, Rieren’s stormy Domain was tearing it apart quite well.

She tried to see if the others were having similar luck with the rest of the Stiflers.

Amalyse had once more summoned her crimson greatsword, though it was even larger than normal. On the other side, Rollo was burning through monster after monster with his Divine-Aspected Essence. He certainly had an appetite for destruction.

But of them, it was Silk who had the most important role. While the others created openings via their own means, Silk would dart in to take advantage with her glowing knife.

Good teamwork. Rieren was almost jealous of them. But there were other things she had to take care of, which she was reminded of by a timely growl from Batcat. The winged kitten yowled at something, and Rieren turned to find out what.

Another Stifler was rising off the ground. Except, this one was far larger than the ones they had fought. It was incorporating multiple sets of bones too. When Rieren peered closer, she found that it was absorbing several of the dark orbs the monsters had for hearts to conjoin them into one black mass.

Batcat warned her again with a loud yowl.

“Yes, I know,” Rieren said. She raised her voice so that the others could hear her next words. “It is combining to become stronger.”

Amalyse stared at her. “Combining?”

“It has to be at least a B-Grade Abyssal, now.”

That was going to make things more complicated. Rieren could perhaps deal with some weaker B-Grade Abyssals. With Reaver Stance, she could even stand against powerful ones like the Life Stiflers. The others might have more trouble, but together, their combined strength ought to be enough to win too. But that wasn’t the case.

The monster was too fast in its growth to be stopped by the others. Amalyse’s weapons had little effect on it, and it was using much of its smoky self as a barricade to stop Rollo’s spears of light. Silk found no openings at all to take advantage of.

“We need to concentrate our powers into one location,” Rollo said.

He summoned his next light spears and threw them both at one spot. At the same time, Amalyse focused on the same location. Her sword had now turned into a crossbow that was big enough to be labelled a ballista. The bolt she fired could easily have been used as a spear.

Their concentrated attack did break through the monster’s barricade. But unfortunately, the Stifler had already reached the peak of strength it was aiming for.

Just behind the smoky shield, it had now erected a wall of pure bone. This, being much sturdier, blocked the next attacks from Rollo and Amalyse with ease. Even when Silk joined them with a ranged ability of hers—a silvery flash flying in behind the golden spears—it had little effect. The cursed monster’s defences were too powerful.

“We’ll need to find some other way of taking it down,” Rollo said.

He looked past the monster, but before he or any of them could figure out a different approach, the Stifler counterattacked. It had raised a multitude of large, bony claws into the air, controlled by all the smoke it now held. Then it slammed them down.

Thankfully, Rieren was far enough away from the attack to not need to worry about dodging like the others. All she had to do was use Earthfall Blade to deflect away some of the flying debris and the shockwave, before she could refocus on defeating the creature itself.

Rollo had the right idea. Big and buffed though the creature seemed, it was unlikely that it could provide the same level of defense from all directions.

In other words, they simply had to go around and surround the Abyssal.

Then Rieren saw the impossibility of that plan. As the Stifler shifted around, she found that there were more of the bony protrusions and shields all over the creature. All of which were moving. As the creature had grown in both power and size, so had its capability to control more with all its smoke.

Maybe they’d have to find some other means of taking it down.

A thunderbolt struck the Abyssal’s side. It left a large gash, but the wound was only annoying, not truly damaging. The monster roared at Mercion for daring to attack, then retaliated with a bony spike the size of a battering ram. He dodged it easily.

But even if his attack hadn’t worked, it had kick-started an idea in Rieren’s head. An idea that was now rolling down the hill of actualization.

“Lord Mercion,” she said loudly. “Can you hear me?”

“What is it?” he asked back through the dusty gloom.

“I will create an opening for you. Make sure to use all your lightning when you next attack.”

“Go ahead!”

As Rieren dashed towards the Stifler, she heard him telling the others to step back and assist his retainer with the bodies they had recovered. It was a good indicator that Amalyse, Rollo, and Silk had survived the last attack by the Stifler.

Batcat meowed softly in warning from its perch atop her head.

“Worry not, cat,” Rieren said as she began slowing down while the Abyssal turned its attention to her. “We will not be attacking directly.”

Batcat didn’t seem that satisfied with her answer. It dug into her hair and nestled deeper.

Rieren didn’t pay it too much attention. Instead, she summoned her Domain and let it expand as far and as fast as it could. The stormy water bounded and leaped outwards, soon covering an enormous swathe of ground that even went well under the Abyssal.

Meanwhile, the Stifler raised several of its claws and other appendages to attack her directly. There was a warning shout from behind for her to watch out. Some of them even attacked the monster to take its attention off her. Rollo’s spear and another lightning bolt from Mercion struck in but had little effect.

Rieren ought to have appreciated their efforts, but her focus was entirely on her enormous enemy. The timing had to be just right.

As Rieren had come to a stop, she had turned much of her Domain into steam. But, as she had done often, she kept the bubbling vapour trapped under the surface of the liquid part of her Domain. The pressure was building all over the lake she had created.

Just as the monster’s attacks were about to land upon her, Rieren released it all.

An explosion of steam and water burst upwards. Dozens of geysers columned into the Stifler, making it shriek and roar. But the important thing here was all the water being thrown everywhere, the droplets covering nearly every single bit of the monster.

“Now!” Rieren shouted.

The Ordorian scion wasn’t waiting. His lighting had already been crackling, and now, he launched it all in several gigantic bolts raining down from above.

Rieren had already jumped back, using Fray Passage to boost her rearward momentum. She was at a safe enough distance to observe the ensuing massacre take place without being harmed.

The bolts tore through the Abyssal as though any defence it might have mustered amounted to nothing at all. Smoky arms holding bony appendages fell and shattered. Other bony constructs were burned or broken by the bolts directly. All the water Rieren had thrown over the monster made its whole body conduct the lightning.

It normally wouldn’t have worked. Rieren’s Domain summoned pure water, and at that consistency, water was actually an inductor against lightning. Far from letting lightning run amok, it would have stopped it from working effectively.

However, when Rieren had used her steam to throw up the geysers, she had also taken a good section of the floor with it. This resulted in the water being inundated with impurities, resulting in a pathway for Mercion’s vicious currents to flow through.

With a scream, the Stifler finally began to fall towards the ground.

“Is it dead?” Amalyse asked.

They didn’t approach the creature to find out. Not that they needed to. Mercion’s lightning was still sparking all over the creature’s body, sending little bolts shooting everywhere.

Much of its smoke had already dissolved. As they watched, the rest of the Stifler’s smoky body soon evaporated to nothing, leaving behind several burned and cracked bones. Big bones, but dead ones, nevertheless.

The Stifler had finally been defeated.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mercion said gruffly.