The first blow from the gigantic monster was unsurprisingly another salvo of golden bolts. Rieren and Mercion had already settled on the proper defence against it.

She summoned her Domain, an equal mixture of stormy water and erupting steam. As a geyser burst to life around them, Mercion sent a few lightning bolts hurtling into the sky. Thunder and lightning crackled among the climbing spray of water. They formed a net that combined with the wide geyser which blocked the monster’s attack.

The golden bolts exploded above them. Rieren grinned. Their defence was working. Well, against the Essence-based attacks.

Now the monster was charging at them with its arms held wide and its mouth open to gobble them up.

“Move!” Mercion said.

They all hurried away. Rieren was already using Fray Passage to evade the monster’s swiping path. She had moved far enough, but when the Arisen struck down, its claws covered an enormous area, entirely destroying the Domain she had summoned. Rieren swallowed, glad she had dashed away a good distance.

She couldn’t tell if the others had survived. There was too much dust and flying rocks clogging the air.

But a part of their plan had worked. The monster had passed right through the area she had summoned her Domain, so now it was wet. Perfect conditions for getting struck by lightning. Which was what proceeded to happen.

Rieren grinned as more bolts flashed somewhere in the distance before striking the passing Arisen’s flank. It screamed out as yellow-white sparks overtook its body, crackling and burning across its hole-ridden torso and making its limbs twitch all over.

That also had the unfortunate effect of making its wings disappear. They flickered as the lightning erupted across its body, almost as though Mercion’s attack had interfered with whatever process the enormous monster used to summon them into being.

Rieren didn’t get to wait to see what was going on with them. With the Arisen’s wings no longer effective, it crashed into the ground hard, creating a deep trench and sending up more dust into the air. She had to position herself just right so that the tremors from the monster’s landing didn’t throw her off her feet.

“Now, Rieren!” Mercion shouted.

She was already resummoning her Domain. Water burst around her in waves spreading far outwards. Since she was in the Mid-Enlightened realm, she could send it quite far indeed.

Far enough to reach where the Arisen had fallen.

By the time her water reached the monster, it was beginning to rise. Thankfully, Mercion was quick with his lightning as well. Crackling bolts pummelled into the monster from above, and her water assisted in conducting the current through the Arisen’s body. Rieren had ensured that her steam had dissolved some impurities into the summoned liquid.

Unfortunately for them, the monster turned out to be far too powerful. Despite being pinned down by the constant hits by Mercion’s lightning, it still rose back to its feet.

“Lord Mercion,” Rieren shouted. “Pause the lightning for now.”

He didn’t listen. Even as the monster kept rising, he kept pelting more bolts at the Arisen. But whatever effect they’d had before was decreasing. The monster had risen onto two legs now. Rieren’s eyes went wide. She had seen first-hand just how big the creature was, but now that it was standing on two feet, she gained a newfound appreciation for just how long it was.

Paying no heed to their desperate attempts to bring it down, the Arisen threw several dozen bolts of gold into straight into the air vertically above it. Then it leaned forward so that its long torso was stretched out over them all.

“What is it doing?” one of the retainers asked.

Rieren didn’t get to answer. It revealed itself to them all in the next moment.

The monster had aligned itself so that the falling bolts of gold were now passing right through the various holes in its torso. As each one shot through, it exploded into a dozen individual bolts each as large as its predecessor. But instead of just gold, they were now fiery yellow wreathed in black flames. Just like those the first Arisen had attacked Rieren with.

“Don’t move,” Rieren said. She summoned her Domain around her and spread it far outwards.

Rieren might not be able to see Mercion or his retainer just yet, but she could stretch her protection to over them all. He had to be close enough for that. Then she made the steam bubble up from beneath the water’s surface to erupt upwards and outwards. Mercion’s lightning crisscrossed through the rising water, forming the same net they had constructed before.

It didn’t work anywhere near as well as it had the last time, unfortunately. The spray of black-and-gold bolts exploded across the net of water and lightning. But there were too many of them. The first explosions tore Rieren’s and Mercion’s defence to shreds.

Opening the path for the rest of the monster’s bolts to fall among them unimpeded.

Rieren did her best to maintain her own defence. She had Earthfall Blade active and kept deflecting away the falling bolts from the Arisen.

She could only send them to the side though, and at the rate that they were falling, she couldn’t evade their subsequent blasts. As soon as she pushed off one of the shooting orbs, it struck the ground near enough that the resultant shockwave was enough to throw her off balance.

And that was enough to ruin her stance. Rieren missed the next deflection. The only reason the consequences weren’t as deadly as they could have been was because the missed orb struck near her feet instead of directly. This resulted in an explosion which sent her flying, the shockwave ripping through her with painful force.

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Desperate, her heart clasping tightly in her chest, Rieren twisted and reoriented herself in mid-air to face the monster. She was vulnerable. The monster could attack her, or simply swallow her whole. She had to use—

But the Arisen never made full use of its advantage. Instead, it had turned away to face a new threat to its rampage.

Another contingent of cultivators was arriving. Their reinforcements. Men and women were rushing in, shooting at the monster with all their techniques and skills. Well, mostly techniques. These were older cultivators still entrenched in all that they had learned over their decades, having not really adapted to the system yet.

Rieren fell to the ground while the others did their best to distract the monster some more. She had summoned her Domain again, to soften the landing, and all the water was doing an excellent job of keeping her steady. Divine Resilience was also healing all the wounds she had been forced to take in.

In the chaos of the ensuing battle, Rieren first tried to find Mercion. The dust was clearing and since the monster was rampaging elsewhere now, she could bend her efforts towards finding what had happened to him.

She found him soon enough, thankfully. There was a lot of Essence churning in the air, but Rieren focused some into her eyes and did her best to identify the various strands she was seeing everywhere. After a moment of searching, she found Mercion being helped away by both his retainers.

Rieren grimaced. So he had overworked himself again. Not good.

“How is he?” she asked as she joined the little group, heading towards the settlement, away from the rampaging monster.

“I am alright,” Mercion himself said.

“The defenders should have evacuated by now. We can get going.”

“If they really have evacuated.”

The doubt in his voice was strong, but they would only get to see once they found themselves at the outpost. Rieren and the others hurried along. But Mercion’s doubts soon proved to be true before they even reached the gates.

Those who were supposed to have retreated were all actually attacking the monster.

“This is insane,” Mercion said. He pulled himself free from the others and tried to stand on his own. “I told them to get going!”

“We cannot force them, my lord,” one of the retainers said.

“They disobeyed me.”

“Is that what you are truly concerned with?” Rieren asked, eyes hardening.

He turned to her with no small amount of fury in his eyes. But it wasn’t an arrogant anger as his words might have suggested. No. Mercion was truly concerned for the wellbeing of the defenders. He had ordered them all to leave just so he could be sure they would safe, had purposefully put himself in harm’s way so they got the time and space they needed.

And now, they had all squandered it. All so they could join in on the effort to tackle the monster directly.

“Look,” one of the retainers pointed out. “They’re making some headway.”

Rieren trued to see if that was actually true, or if the man was simply trying to cheer up his lord. The truth turned out to be more complicated.

The Arisen was indeed moving away from its current location. All the attacks by both the reinforcement cultivators and the extra firepower provided by the settlement’s residents were focused on one specific area of the large monster. While they were individually not strong enough to leave even a scratch on the Arisen, their combined attacks were having an effect.

They were forcing the monster. So far, it had been free to attack however and whenever it wished. Nothing any of them could do had hurt it much.

Now, however, that wasn’t true. If it didn’t protect itself properly, the combined might of all their strength would actually deal some harm to the Arisen. The monster couldn’t have that. As such, it was now attempting to get away from the agony.

One of the things Rieren had noted after fighting so many kinds of monster was that few of them ever had any true defensive capabilities. It was of their greatest weaknesses. She was certain this was true for this Arisen as well. For all the tremendous power it could use to assault its enemies, it had precious little by way of defensive measures.

But then, it proved the age old saying true—the best defence is a good offence.

Jumping back with a sudden backwards leap, the monster summoned its dragonfly-like wings once more. They materialized like panes of golden glass stitched together. It pulled itself back until it was standing on its hind legs again, the wings pulled even farther back.

Rieren’s eyes widened. She recognized that stance. It was the same one she used for Wrath of the Swordwing. A rearward pull of the wing before launching it at her enemies.

The Arisen proceeded to do exactly that. Its wings shattered into a thousand individual pieces, each still as big as a person’s head. They flew towards the gathered group of cultivators and defenders in a meteor shower of tremendous power.

Of course, there were people with powerful defences. Barriers sprung up. Some were made of ethereal energy like the silver dome, while others were more solid and tangible, like walls of earth enclosing them in a protective shell.

For a second, Rieren’s heart lurched, wondering if it would be enough to stand against the Arisen’s massive power. Her companions had all also gone still in anxiety.

The explosion was massive and bright. Rieren was forced to avert her eyes, and her ears rang painfully at the noise. For a few heavy, heart-wrenching moments, she was certain they had all been annihilated. But then she heard movement. When she could see again, she found that they had indeed survived, for the time being. That combination of barriers had saved them.

Relief flooded her. It was intriguing to see that one of the barriers was also a silvery one, much the same as the one that had been protecting the little settlement. Now that it was reinforced with other barricades and defensive measures, it had been able to stop the Arisen’s devastating blow.

But that didn’t mean the monster’s attack had failed. Just past the gathered group, the rest of the Arisen’s barrage had fallen upon the settlement itself.

Which no longer existed.

The monster’s broken wings had eradicated the outpost from the landscape. Where once there had been several hastily constructed structures, there was now nothing more than a burned and blistered wasteland. Hopefully, there hadn’t been anyone in the outpost itself, which was likely given that the silver barrier had joined the group rather than staying over the outpost.

Rieren’s heart spasmed. She had sent Batcat into the town. Knowing its powers, she was hopeful it had survived, but the nagging worry made her heart beat far too fast.

“We cannot go on like this,” Mercion said.

He staggered forward, ignoring his retainers trying to assist him. Meanwhile, the monster was already attempting to launch another attack. Thankfully, the more powerful cultivators in the little group of defenders stepped forward and tried to draw the Arisen’s attention in different directions.

That was good. Smart of them to realize that while huddling together afforded them greater defensive capabilities by reinforcing each other’s abilities, staying separate ensured the monster couldn’t kill them all in one blow.

Despite the utter annihilation of the town, several of the original defenders were about to join the cultivators. But then Mercion reached them.

“Enough,” he shouted, the force behind his words rooting them in place. “Didn’t I tell you all to retreat?

They hesitated. Farther ahead, the cultivators were keeping the monster at bay. For now.

Lightning flickered to life on Mercion’s arms. “I said—”

“We will begin moving, my lord,” said the older man who they had first spoken with in the outpost. He turned to those around him. “The young lord is right. We cannot hope to fight this altogether. We will only get in the cultivators’ way. It’s time we accepted defeat and moved on.”

The words were true enough, which the rest of them grudgingly realized and accepted. It still looked like some of them wished to protest, but Rieren cut it off.

A sudden hiss from Batcat had made her look down. The cat had survived! Rieren’s momentary happiness was cut short, however, when she found what the winged kitten was hissing at. She looked up to see distant dark shapes crossing over the ground at great speed. The Abyssals were coming.