The fight wasn’t going to go in Rieren’s favour. Not alone, and not if she confronted her opponent directly, of course. Someone in the Ascendant realm would wipe the entire estate with her corpse by the time the battle was done.

Thankfully, she had a little help in the presence of Gorint Malloh.

Considering how off-putting and nearly antagonistic he had been before in their meetings, it was the greatest surprise that she was working alongside him. But as they said, the enemy of an enemy made a friend, even if temporarily. It was going to be a tough fight. But this was doable. Winnable.

Rieren rushed over to attack the former Clanmaster from behind. He was aware of her, of course. Advanced and powerful cultivators possessed senses that told them when someone was attacking, no matter which direction they came from.

As such, it was no surprise to see him twisting around to face her with incredible speed. She had no response to his manoeuvre. He was too fast and too powerful.

But Gorint Malloh did. As soon as the former Clanmaster wasn’t facing Malloh any longer, another shimmering barrier materialized between Rieren and her opponent. This forced them both to come to a sudden halt. But it also created a strange circumstance where the mirror was attacked from both sides.

From what Rieren knew of these cases, it depended entirely on the strength of whichever side was attacking. The mirror would shatter as always, of course, but it would do so in the direction of the one attacking with greater power.

Rieren’s blow was fierce and strong, but at the same time, she couldn’t match an Ascendant realm cultivator’s technique. Which was why, when the mirror broke under the former Clanmaster’s all-powerful lightning-Aspect technique, all the shards flew into him again. He screamed once more and fell a single step back.

She wasted no time taking advantage of the opportunity presented by Malloh. A quick thrust of her sword sought to skewer her opponent right where he stood.

Except for the strength of a powerful cultivator coming into play. Even as he was blinded and shocked by the storm of shards heading his way, the former Clanmaster managed to stomp his foot hard. This threw up a violent lightning bolt crackling along the floor, one Rieren couldn’t stop for two reasons. Her water had vaporized before and it was too fast.

The bolt burned through her boots and crackled up her body. Shock coursed through her, sizzling her skin, singeing her hair, and trying to force her consciousness to flee the sudden pain.

Even worse, the former Clanmaster had recovered enough to resume his assault upon her. He reached for her again, growling and determined to finally end her. The only reason he didn’t get to kill Rieren was because of a chunk of the ceiling crashing down upon his head. A shimmer in the upper corner of her eye confirmed that Malloh had interfered.

It was Rieren’s turn to recover and counterattack. The brief lightning had taken its toll, leaving too many wounds and too much pain to pay attention to. But though her body was jerky and was having difficulty responding, though her mind and reflexes had been slowed—curse the effects of an Ascendant realm cultivator’s power—she was able to act.

Rieren threw herself at the former Clanmaster just as he tried to rise free from the debris Malloh had dropped on him. At the same time, she activated Gale Blade.

The nice thing about classes and advancing along them was that skills could be grown quickly. It allowed one to catch up to more powerful cultivators without a great deal of time investment, something that was inherent with growing in cultivation.

As such, it was no surprise that Gorint Malloh’s skills could give even an Ascendant realm cultivator pause. In the same manner, Rieren’s Gale Blade was effective too.

Her first, supremely quick slash took her past the former Clanmaster’s left side faster than he could react. The world blurred. When Rieren had come to a momentary stop past her opponent, her Receptor sword had cut off her enemy’s left arm.

She only paused for a fraction of a second. Resuming the skill on its second slash, Rieren made to slice through the former Clanmaster’s right arm.

The unfortunate thing about facing a powerful cultivator was their ability to overcome surprise, shock, pain, and all that to react quickly to a sudden change.

So it happened that Rieren’s second slash never connected at the exact location she meant to hit. The former Clanmaster had enough presence of mind to turn his entire right-hand side into lightning. It wasn’t a surprising technique by any means. Powerful cultivators who focused on advancing their communion with their Aspect could turn parts of themselves into the Aspect.

This of course had the unfortunate effect of forcing Rieren right through a literal column of sparking, blitzing lightning. The only thing that helped was the fact that Gale Blade made her motion incredibly fast.

Rieren zipped right through the former Clanmaster’s lightning-fuelled side. She was shocked again, burned and with her very mind crackling at the application of virulent electricity.

But it was brief enough to survive. Brief enough for her to quickly regain her posture and launch her third strike.

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It was difficult to look at her enemy even for that tiny fraction of a second before their collision. He had turned too much of himself into a mass of sparking and jumping electric arcs, glowing like a new sun come alive. But Rieren knew that one addition of her Domain would be enough to halt whatever he intended to do next.

So, as she used the third slash of Gale Blade to quickly close the distance, her Domain water sprung up around her. It never connected.

Gorint Malloh had summoned another mirror between them.

Rieren had never fought directly against Malloh. While she had seen his powers in action and had learned how they worked to a great extent, she had never felt them being used against her so directly. Therefore, when her sword struck the mirror, she was taken aback at the resulting sensation.

It felt like the exact same sword had struck her own with twice the force she had used and in the opposite direction. This had to be a separate skill, related to one where the mirror itself shattered, but not exactly the same. The current one focused more on directly returning the attacker’s strength back upon them.

Rieren gasped even as she was thrown back. The power was almost the exact same as the legendary blade she had used against the Gravemark Puppeteer in the dungeon. The one that coalesced her opponent’s power to a single point and threw it all back.

It reminded her that the location of the next relic she needed to obtain was nearby.

She crushed the thoughts. Now was not the time for that. Rieren refocused on her current predicament to find the former Clanmaster having suffered similarly, though in a much worse capacity.

Like her sword, the Clanmaster’s attack had been flung back at him. Except where Rieren’s reflected blow had landed harmlessly on the very blade she had attacked with, his power had hit a more dire location. The former Clanmaster had tried to burn Rieren with his lightning of course, but instead, it had rebounded right into the open stump of his left arm.

In normal cases, cultivators who had progressed to the point of turning their bodies into elements had refined and physically cultivated their whole body to accept the Aspect. That meant Essence ran in careful conduits through every organ, vessel, nerve, bone, all of it.

However, just as a grievous wound cut through a body’s regular structure, it also severed the regular pattern of conduits. In a case where a whole limb had been severed off, the cut ends of the Essence meridians turned sharp, jagged, and volatile.

Far, far from being suited for turning the body into an Aspect.

In the former Clanmaster’s case, this was especially bad. Lightning was a peculiarly destructive and volatile Aspect already, worse than fire or ice and many others besides. Even a slight loss of control would be devastating for a cultivator seeking to control it.

For someone who could turn into lightning, having a gaping wound get struck by it would ravage them in an unimaginable manner.

That Gorint Malloh not only knew this but had taken advantage of it in the heat of battle spoke volumes about his prowess. One didn’t simply need to be powerful to win a fight. Without the proper presence of mind… Rieren wondered just how high Malloh’s actual Mind stat was.

Focus. This needed to end, especially now that the former Clanmaster was down. She approached her fallen foe, her sword raised high to strike him down.

Only to meet another mirror stopping her.

“Why do you hesitate, Malloh?” Rieren asked. “Now is the moment to end it.”

When Rieren had come to a stop before the mirror, she found that Gorint Malloh had already reached their assailant. He was squatting before the older man’s head, holding a thin dagger against his bearded neck.

“I’m not hesitating,” he said. “I just have no wish to kill him.”

“Even when he sought to kill us?”

“Be that as it may. We cannot afford the death of someone this important in the hierarchy.”

“You were on the verge of killing one of them yourself.”

He looked up sharply at her, though his knife dug just a bit deeper into their captive’s neck. Clearly, he had no intention of giving the former Clanmaster any room for foolish hopes.

“And I should have gone through with it.” Gorint Malloh looked down at the former Clanmaster with the most disgusted look he could summon. “Craven bungholes who put their own worth above the welfare of the entire clan do not deserve to continue living.”

The Clanmaster opened his mouth to speak, despite the motion clearly making the knife dig deeper into his neck to draw blood. Malloh had no intention of hearing anything he had to say, however. With seemingly unconscious will, a box of translucent panes formed around the former Clanmaster’s head, trapping any sound he might have made.

“But you refuse to kill him now,” Rieren pointed out.

“I was given unwitting lessons in diplomacy.”

“And your version of diplomacy requires sparing the life of one who would have killed you?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. But when Rieren took a single step, he tensed and looked up, finally spilling everything he was unsuccessfully trying to hold back. “You do not understand, Arianaele.” At the mention of her name, the former Clanmaster reacted, but Gorint Malloh quickly pressed his dagger deeper. “Quiet, you!”

“What do I not understand?” Rieren asked.

“No one has been truly harmed yet. Their target of assassination has long flown her nest. The Clanmistress is safely ensconced away elsewhere. Imagine what would happen when the only corpse to come out of this debacle is this odious man’s. Imagine what the leagues of his followers would think.”

Rieren was tempted to answer that all they should think was the clear lesson of what happened when one tried to kill their Clanmistress. Malloh had a point, however. “What of Lord Mercion? Silomene mentioned that he was being held back by your old friend. Is he alright?”

“He should be. I do not think the former Stannerig Clanmaster would kill the second scion of the Ordorian clan.” He looked down at their captive. “I do not know what plans they’ve made, but from what little I’ve gathered, it seems his whelps were supposed to live through this… which makes me suspect what their true intentions with the Clanmistress were.”

“We could try to question him.” Rieren gave their captive her brightest smile, showing nothing but teeth. “I am sure there are ways we can convince him to grant us his wisdom.”

“There is no point. We can determine what we wish to know ourselves, with a little time and effort.”

Rieren was trying to think what her next step ought to be. It didn’t feel right to leave this altercation at this juncture. Shouldn’t she be trying to achieve something more?

Just then, a glowing little Spirit Beast messenger arrived.

“Is that…?” She stared at the little squirrel-shaped monster gleaming with a soft, blue light.

Malloh frowned. “That is the message Lord Mercion sent. That it got here only now means that the Clanmistress didn’t move because of the warning. Then why and where has she gone?”

Rieren couldn’t tell either. But her mind was moving faster and faster. The first dregs of an idea were taking shape in her head.

Even if they didn’t kill the former Ordorian Clanmaster in cold blood, and besides the fact that what he had done was reprehensive, this was an opportunity she couldn’t let squander. A way to remove the thorns that might plague the Shatterlands to its doom.

Rieren looked down again. Then she smiled. “I think I have a plan.”