There weren’t many considerations for Rieren to take note of before the battle began. She had never faced this kind of Anachron before. As such, there were no memories for her to rely on.

So, the best thing for her to do would be to lure out all that it could do.

Rieren dashed headlong at the monster. There were warning signs that it wasn’t the best manoeuvre, of course. The Anachron had emitted a rainstorm around itself, hundreds of watery pellets twisting and circulating around it to form a protective cocoon of rotating rain. Then there were the blasts of gale-level winds and random forks of lighting shooting through the mess.

In essence, Rieren wouldn’t be able to attack it directly with ease. Then again, attacking it directly didn’t seem like a good option in the first place, considering its entire form was made of clouds. She couldn’t exactly hurt it with either her sword or her water-Aspected Essence.

Steam was a potentially damaging candidate, though. But that still required her to get close enough to land a bow enveloped in steam, which would be difficult.

Regardless, Rieren’s main intention was drawing out the monster’s capabilities so she could glean out every morsel of information about its movements and techniques. The first part of winning any battle was knowing one’s enemy.

Blitzing lightning focused in each fist of the gigantic humanoid before Rieren. She halted herself just outside its cocoon of circulating rainfall. With good timing too.

The monster’s fists flashed at her with surprising speed. Still, it was girthy. Bulky. Rieren was more than fast enough to dodge away from the first blow without even needing to use Fray Passage.

Her dodge should have taken her out of the range of the other fist too, but it seemed the monster was capable of extending its limbs. The cloudy arm extended rapidly, the lightning-wreathed fist zooming at her, quickening with every moment.

This time, Rieren did need to use Fray Passage to get some distance. The Anachron groaned out, likely in frustration at missing its target.

Rieren frowned. It seemed the creature was intelligent too. Whether it had correctly predicted she would be fast or not, it had still laid a good trap. The speed of the first fist had been deceptively slow, with the second meant to catch her unawares and end her. Only the use of her skill had prevented her from turning into a lightning-fried stick of meat and bones.

She grinned. So it was testing out her capabilities too, in a sense.

When Rieren made to dash forward again to test more of the Anachron’s power, it kindly obliged. Before she could even get close this time, the monster joined both its fists together into one large conjoined stormy blob, the lightning now flashing bright enough to blind her if she looked directly at it. Then it came hammering down.

Rieren was right to use Fray Passage once more to grant herself a good distance from the point of impact.

As soon as the Anachron’s hammer blow struck down, a miniature lightning storm erupted outwards from the location. Rocks went flying in every direction, each big enough to crush her no matter where they struck.

But that was a big enough move that the monster would need a moment or two to recover. Granting Rieren the perfect opportunity to strike.

She lanced forward, boosted by Fray Passage to take advantage of its recovery window. The lightning sparking all over the point of impact hadn’t even finished flashing everywhere. Rieren shot past and bared her blade.

Rieren had already channeled up her Domain and brought up steam. Now, her sword was wrapped in a tight sheath of burning white, armed with her new technique, Water Dancer Blade.

But she couldn’t get close enough to land the blow. The cocoon of spiralling rainfall she had been wary of before now activated its defensive mechanism to keep her at bay. Just as Rieren was about to strike at the monster’s legs, the storm intensified. Rain focused harder near her target area, wind turned the air solid, and even a lightning bolt flickered out to greet her.

It was all Rieren could do to use Earthfall Blade to deflect any damage that might have struck her directly. Then she fell back faster as the monster righted itself, readying to attack once again.

Apparently, forget effective, a direct attack like her normal ones wouldn’t be possible in the first place. Rieren was going to have to find some other means of dealing with the Anachron.

From somewhere in the distance, Batcat meowed what sounded like an insistent reminder.

Rieren couldn’t exactly look back to see what it was trying to tell her. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. The Anachron had shown her a lot of tricks, but for all she knew, there were far more up its sleeve.

When the monster tried to attack with its fists again, whether singly or by joining both together, Rieren kept herself far enough away so that she was never in any real danger.

But that incited the Anachron to use yet another move set. Instead of attacking directly with its limbs, the monster turned them into an outright storm. Rieren didn’t see it coming. One of the Anachron’s cloudy arms dissolved into volatile mixture of compressed wind, relentless rain, and crackling thunderbolts.

All of which shot out like a geyser in Rieren’s general direction far too quickly.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Attacks like these were the main weakness of defensive skills like Ground Truth and even Earthfall Blade. It wasn’t a one-off blow that she could push off, repel, or redirect elsewhere. No, this was a focused stream of power with a wide area of effect. That meant Rieren had no counter at all to that kind of attacks.

Even Fray Passage wasn’t enough to get her out of the blast area. She was well and truly caught by the stormy blast, which sent her tumbling down the mountainside.

At least the lighting that came with the attack was minimal and easily avoided by the very momentum that the rest of the storm imparted upon her. She was thrown off her feet, which resulted in the lightning hitting where she had been standing moments ago.

Rieren groaned when she finally came to a stop. She got back up a little unsteadily. The Anachron’s attack had left several shallow wounds all over her, and a few fractures when she had gone tumbling down the mountainside. Thankfully, Divine Rejuvenation was already healing her up. Shouldn’t take too long. Especially since there was some space from the monster.

It was actually a good thing her enemy had thrown her so far back. She could use the distance to circumnavigate around the Anachron and carry out a different tactic.

Now that it was clear that direct attacks wouldn’t work against the Anachron, Rieren needed to try a different strategy. She summoned her Domain again, once more applying the Aspect of steam. The jumping waves reduced in their intensity, much of the water shifting to roiling vapour that began spreading outwards.

Rieren couldn’t tell what the Anachron thought of the development. It had pulled in all its fog and mist to make itself more powerful, yes, but at the same time, to ensure it had a clear line of sight. She figured that it needed to see in the conventional sense.

Of course, it still likely had other senses that would alert it to Rieren’s presence. But Rieren had a little counter to that.

Her recent advancements with her Aspect pillars meant that she could control the properties of her Aspects to a greater degree. One of the recent properties she was aiming for was the ability of water to refract and diffuse. To change the way it could be experienced by the world.

And this was what Rieren needed to make use of.

All the steam she was summoning was taking her Essence and spreading it out. It didn’t stick to the bounds of her Domain. Steam, as a gas, was much less restricted than a solid or even a liquid Domain like her water. Of course, that didn’t mean Rieren could contravene the bounds of Domains. All the steam exceeding her Domain’s outer limits was totally out of her control.

Nevertheless, they still carried her Essence, and with it, they carried the signature of her presence. This meant that anyone or anything sensing her location via her Essence would be stumped.

As proven by the way the Anachron had come to a halt. The monster had been climbing down the mountainside in an effort to reach close enough to launch the rest of its attacks. But now that it could no longer be sure of her exact location, it had stopped stymied for the moment.

Perfect for Rieren. Lowering her profile and minimizing any and all noise she made, Rieren crept to the side and around the stormy Anachron. Her Domain kept up with her, but since most of it was steam, it didn’t make enough noise to alert the creature to her presence.

She had realized that direct physical attacks, even with the boost by her Domain, wouldn’t be enough. There was no easy way to whittle down the Anachron. No, Rieren would have to target where it was most vulnerable in one, all-powerful blow. That meant she had to get herself to higher ground and launch herself with the perfect angle and momentum.

Straight at the monster’s Beast Core.

Thankfully, the Anachron didn’t detect her. A part of her felt rather wonderous at such obvious displays of her growing power. It was a good thing that Rieren wasn’t simply increasing her strength via her cultivation. There were the other things that she was growing her prowess in, other inherent abilities where her proficiency was rising steadily.

One of these was the various ways she could use her Aspects via her Domain. She could use them to fight and unleash techniques directly, of course. But then there were the supplementary abilities, like obfuscating her presence.

She was honestly waiting for when she could attain the more powerful abilities her various Domain-enhanced Aspects would allow her to wield. Imbuing her very body with water, floating high in the sky upon her own clouds, and even allowing her control over the water within others, so long as she formed the proper connection within her Domain…

All powerful abilities she could make great use during battles, of course, but also just powerful tools in her arsenal for a great variety of uses. She would attain them, before long. Of that she had no doubt.

It didn’t take long for Rieren to reach higher ground above the Anachron. The monster had opted to root itself in place back where it had stopped pursuing her. Rieren thanked fate and climbed up the nearest tree with quick jumps. The creaks of the boughs and snaps of the twigs and smaller branches made her wince, but it couldn’t be helped.

Unfortunately, it did alert the monster. Maybe she ought to have given greater credit to its hearing. Regardless, it snapped what passed for its head in her direction and began moving towards her.

Just what Rieren wanted, of course. The Anachron needed to get in range. As it got closer and closer, Rieren placed herself higher up the trees until the branches would no longer bear her weight.

“What trickery do you conceive of now, mortal?” the monster rumbled at her.

Rieren was sure it wouldn’t hear her, but she replied anyway. “I am ending this.”

The spiralling rain around the Anachron had intensified, as had the stormy winds and the flashes of lightning. Clearly, it was taking precautions just in case she did intend to create and land some sort of devastating blow against it.

Rieren couldn’t really care. Once it got close enough—but still too far to attack her—she launched herself from the tree with all her might.

Her sudden motion made the Anachron freeze in alarm. Perfect. That just made her aim even more accurate.

The Anachron was preparing to do something, but Rieren didn’t pay attention. As soon as she passed peak of her flight’s arc, she activated Fray Passage to boost her momentum. Just to ensure that she moved fast enough, Rieren added Gale Blade on top of that too.

Whatever the Anachron intended to counter with, she never got to see. Rieren zipped into the monster so fast, the world itself blurred. She crashed into its cloudy form, thrust herself through its body, and burst out the other side with the Beast Core wrapped in her hands.

By the time she had rolled and righted herself, Rieren noted through the corner of her eye that the monster’s cloudy form was collapsing.

Only to attempt to reform around her and the Beast Core she had in her hand.

There wasn’t even any time for Rieren to check what the core even looked like. All she had the time and space to do was hold the core against the ground, summon her Domain of restless waves around her, and stab her sword violently into the Beast Core.

The crack was loud. With a lightning-like flash, the Beast Core turned fully dark, and all the clouds that had been trying to materialize at her exact location dissolved into water to add to her Domain.

Rieren held herself still for several breaths. It was only when she heard Batcat’s insistent meow cut through her thoughts that she had to admit to herself that victory was finally hers.

She had won against the blasted Anachron.