The former Clanmaster of the Ordorian clan gurgled out his last breaths with blood bubbling around the wound in his neck. Rieren’s sword had punctured right through his vital artery, and his food- and windpipes. Poor man couldn’t even cough.

New Achievement!

First Ascendant-realm cultivator killed! You have vanquished a powerful foe, one who stands even mightier than yourself. Bow to your reflection in pride and subservience.

Rewards

* 1 Level

* 1 Skill point

* 1 Credit

* 1 Perk Point

Ah. That was interesting. Rieren didn’t need to look at her [Status] to know what rank her perk was at. With the new Perk Point, she had crossed an important threshold.

Namely, Divine Resilience would now be able to regrow entire limbs.

She refocused on her surroundings. Yonvig’s eyes had narrowed at the scene. He hadn’t reacted, hadn’t bothered trying to stop Rieren. He wouldn’t have been fast enough to prevent the fatal blow, and he didn’t look like the kind of cultivator who could miraculously keep someone with a fatal neck wound alive until a proper healer could be found.

Alas for those who disparaged the system and never made use of its true potential. He might have found something worthwhile in the System Shop if he had bothered to look.

Oh, and if he had bothered to earn Credits too, she supposed.

“You have taken a grave step too far,” Yonvig said.

His stance had changed. Where before he had seemed on the verge of acting however he deemed fit, now, tension rode his shoulders and he was poised to lash out. On the cusp of striking Rieren down for killing his co-conspirator.

“Have I…?” Rieren asked. “Or have you?”

“I have killed no one.”

Rieren looked down at the cooling corpse. “No one at all?”

“That is not my doing.”

Rieren bent down and started pulling off the ties binding the dead man in place. As she pulled each rope loose, she sold them to the System Shop. She also made sure to gather up the confetti and the little glass shards of the Prison Balls around the body and discarded them into the System Shop as well.

Nice thing about the shop was that she could sell items and materials back to the system. It didn’t return her the full purchase price in Credits, of course, not after they had been used. But it was still good to recoup some of her expenditure.

Or in this case, getting some free Credits since it was Gorint Malloh who had bought the ropes. Interesting, though. Rieren would have to make a note of these. They could come in handy later.

“Enough,” Yonvig said. “You have done far too much already. I suggest that you try not to antagonize me any further, or you will regret it dearly.”

“How could I regret it more?” she asked.

“If only I could kill you and be done with it.” He took a step towards her, but then paused. “Or perhaps, killing you would be ideal.”

Yonvig attacked. Rieren had thought she could continue their conversation, but perhaps she had been a tiny bit over-reliant on her talking abilities.

The still-alive former Clanmaster’s next step was too fast. All Rieren managed to do was act on instinct, throwing herself back and pulling her sword into a defensive stance. It wasn’t enough.

Yonvig’s technique came bursting out with the same speed that his step had come in with. A serpent with scales that gleamed as bright as the sun and with eyes red as rubies shot at Rieren faster than a bolt fired from a ballista.

She tried to use Earthfall Blade to deflect the blow. But the serpent took advantage of the skill’s main weakness. Rieren couldn’t block anything that had a continuous input of power. Rieren’s stats were high enough to bring her blade to the right position to block the serpent’s head. But that was all she managed.

Even as the head itself was pushed aside by her deflection, the force imparted by the body struck her hard. Rieren was flung off her feet, striking the wall a few paces behind her.

Pain flooded her back. She was able to bite through it and react fast enough to bash away the next gleaming serpent, but that was all she managed. The first serpent had wound itself around her left limbs. With a sudden jerk, she was pulled away, smashed into the wall beside her, then dragged along it faster than she could think.

If the pain of striking the wall had been bad, this was far worse. Much of her robes and the skin beneath it had been torn right off, leaving a trail of blood, fabric, and bits of herself along the cracked wall. Rieren was certain her upper arm bone had fractured, and the entire right side of her face was violently scratched and covered with blood and debris.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Awareness hadn’t faded, though. She tried to raise her other arm, but the second snake had grabbed a hold of it. Even in the haze of pain, Rieren knew if she resisted too much, the former Clanmaster could exert enough power through his technique to tear off her limbs entirely.

But the worst part was that Rieren was now trapped. Nullified. Without any mobility, she couldn’t use a single one of her skills. She had already summoned her Domain with some kicks to throw out waves thanks to Tidal Summons, but it wasn’t enough. Two more serpents materialized over Yonvig’s shoulder. They crashed through her waves to strike at her.

Rieren was certain the force and power behind them would be fatal. Her Mind stat was high enough to allow her to think with the speed of lightning in such situations. A solution arrived like a bolt striking down. The only way she could save herself.

A quick opening of the System Shop and then hurrying to the item she needed—

She wasn’t fast enough. The two newest serpents were just about to reach Rieren and crush the life from her, when she was saved.

A mirror circulated into being before her. Too small to hit the serpents keeping her trapped, but large enough to stop the ones coming straight at her. They crashed into their reflections, then burst apart in a storm of light shooting in all directions.

“Enough, father,” a familiar voice said.

Rieren was able to turn her head just enough to see the Clanmistress walking into the area. She didn’t look like she was prepared to fight.

The same couldn’t be said for Gorint Malloh, who had his knife out and held a shimmering mirror before Avathene. Some of the Clanmistress’s other cultivators were there as well. Rieren caught sight of the one she had made the acquaintance of. What was his name? Oromin. Right, that was it.

Yonvig had turned his glare to his daughter. “I am simply dealing with the dung heap who has dared to spilled blood on our lands.”

“What blood?” Avathene asked.

The former Stannerig Clanmaster stepped a little to the side, while still keeping his serpents on Rieren. It was enough to grant the Clanmistress a view of the corpse staining her hallway.

“Are you saying she did that?” Avathene asked.

“Why else would I kill her?” Yonvig said.

Rieren met Gorint Malloh’s eyes for the briefest moment. His look was unreadable, but she got that he wasn’t pleased that the man he had left in her care was now dead. Then again, he was never pleased.

“Are you insinuating that a lowly Sect disciple killed a former Clanmaster?” Avathene asked.

“She had him trapped,” Yonvig said. “With some strange ropes and other materials. Some backhanded trick. A scummy one.”

“A trick allowed a former Clanmaster to die?” Avathene shook her head. “Release her, father. If she indeed killed someone in my estate, then I will conduct an investigation, carry out a trial, and dole out the appropriate punishment.”

Yonvig stared hard at her. “You would release a criminal?”

“You dare talk back to your Clanmistress?” Oromin said, quiet but with the hiss of impending violence. “Do not make her repeat herself.”

Yonvig’s eyes flared at the tone. But before he could dig his grave deeper, Gorint Malloh finally stepped forward.

“I was here before this began,” he said. “I met Rieren Vallorne here, where we were both investigating an attempt to kill the Clanmistress. We found that it was the former Ordorian Clanmaster after the current Stannerig Clanmistress’s life. Thankfully, the Clanmistress was never here, so she never fell in harm’s way.”

“Merolk had to leave urgently,” Avathene said. “A call came from the southwestern frontier, asking for immediate assistance against a dangerous foe. A call that his brother, Mercion, should have been answering. He is missing, however, and the urgency of the call made the Clanmaster take direct, personal action. So, I left to bid him farewell in person.”

Thanks to Divine Resilience taking care of much of Rieren’s pain, she could finally think properly. What a strange turn of events that had made the Clanmistress leave her premises in time to evade an assassination attempt. The time of night indicated that most of her attendants would be gone, and the few cultivators guarding her would have gone with her when she left.

That explained why everything was dark and empty when Rieren and Silomene had arrived. It also suggested that the call had come recently. With Mercion running after his father to prevent the assassination attempt, Merolk had rushed off to reinforce the frontier.

Rieren almost laughed. Mercion’s letter might not have got here in time, but his action had caused a rather quick chain of events that had saved the Clanmistress anyway.

Though, considering the sensation of power coming off Avathene, she might have been able to save herself anyway. Especially if she had her dedicated cultivators nearby. Although… she was known to be rather weak physically, thanks to the repercussions of her failed advancement.

“What occurred next?” Avathene asked Gorint Malloh.

He grunted. “We found no one. Nevertheless, I left Vallorne here and ran off to inform you of our suspicions, and now we are here.” He turned his frown onto Yonvig. “I suspect he came in and killed the Ordorian man, but he doesn’t wish to be implicated in the death of a former Clanmaster. Someone needs to be punished for it. The easiest pickings is the girl.”

“A gross misrepresentation of the facts,” Yonvig yelled. Despite his anger, he had stayed his hand. If he did kill Rieren now, it would be tantamount to admitting that Malloh’s accusations were true, that he was preventing Rieren from corroborating the truth. He glared at Malloh, likely all the angrier for having been put in such a position. “You dare lie to me?”

The Clanmistress rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Release her, father. We will settle this with decorum after understanding everything that has happened in a calm and rational manner.” She met his eyes, her look steelier than even his. “Now.”

For the first time, Rieren sensed the true scope of the power the Clanmistress held. Shimmering scales, like the ones that her father’s serpents were clad in, now covered much of her skin. Like the serpents, her eyes had turned ruby-red as well. Power made the air twist and contort around her.

It seemed that if the former Clanmaster had no intention of acceding to her demands, then she wouldn’t be averse to using force. Even if it wasn’t at the level of strength that an Ascendant-realm cultivator possessed, it was mighty still.

For a moment, Rieren actually wished it would come to blows. A part of her wanted to see a battle between powerful cultivators take place.

But that would have been disastrous. Something everyone in the vicinity seemed to agree to.

The serpents keeping Rieren trapped disappeared. She would have fallen to the ground had it happened a little earlier, but Divine Resilience had healed her enough that she could stand on her own two feet without trouble.

Avathene nodded her head at Oromin, whose face twisted in disgust as he walked over to the former Clanmaster to take him away. Yonvig stood his ground resolutely for a few seconds, then followed with surprising docility.

The Clanmistress stopped before Rieren. Avathene regarded her from head to toe. “Follow me.”

Rieren grunted, then followed the older woman through the destroyed corridor. It seemed her night was not yet done.