Rieren’s original intention had been to end the battle before her enemy’s summons could come into the picture again. She had hoped to overwhelm and kill him, thus dispelling the enormous serpent entirely.

But the strength of his defence had been unanticipated and it had taken too long just to deal some damage. Now, the enormous Domain Summons charged out to rejoin the battle.

Rieren’s raised Mind stat slowed time just enough for her to redirect Gale Blade’s next slice to avoid the serpent’s fatal lunge. Instead of aiming the skill at the cultivator, she threw it at the large snake’s head.

She shot past the enormous fangs that would have skewered her. Her first blow tore through its neck. Of course, the serpent was too large for a slash like that to actually sever the head right off. But Rieren was already launching the second strike, this time arcing over its body to cut through too many of its scales to leave another deep, bleeding gash.

Unfortunately, she never managed her third slash. The cultivator’s smaller limb-snake rushed at her like a horizontal bar.

Rieren couldn’t deflect it or dodge it easily, not while she was in the middle of Gale Blade. She was forced to halt the skill and quickly activate Earthfall Blade. It was enough to block the smaller snake and send it careening to the right.

But while the snake had been stopped, the cultivator’s attack wasn’t done. His sword came sprouting out of the littler serpent’s neck. Rieren never saw it coming, couldn’t even begin to react. He had well and truly caught her. His sword slipped past her flimsy guard and stabbed into her lower guts.

Pain spiked into her midsection. Rieren bit down on a scream. Serpents. That meant poison. She could already feel the muscle beneath her diaphragm turning rigid. A paralyzing agent. Of course. That would make her a far easier opponent.

“Enough scampering,” the cultivator said. “Now you die.” His eyes narrowed. “I will grant you a more peaceful end than you deserve if you choose to answer my questions, girl.”

“Why would I ever accept such a deal?” Rieren asked, biting through the growing pain.

He stared at her as though she was speaking a different language. “Because you are about to die?”

“Is that so?”

Before he could react, Rieren summoned her geyser. All the while the battle had been ongoing, a part of her had been pulling in her Domain into water around her, churning the bottom to steam. And now that her enemy was fully focused on her, there was no better time to release the pent-up pressure.

Rieren’s geyser had sent the other cultivator flying into the air. Needless to say, the sword stabbed into her guts was pulled free. The pain was still vicious and Rieren was certain she was losing a good deal of blood, but she ignored the sensation for now. She had faith in Divine Resilience healing her up in time.

For now, Rieren focused on her real task. With the cultivator now gone for the moment, she had a small window of time in which she could accomplish her real goal.

Freeing Silomene.

Killing the cultivator had never really been Rieren’s intention. It was good to test the extent of her strength, to see how far her skills could carry her. She might even have been able to eke out a win. Sure, her enemy had countered her moves and pushed her back, but if she got too injured, Reaver Stance would have provided a significant boost.

Nevertheless, it was clear that she needed to get stronger. It was also clear that she had to relearn greater techniques and find more of the legendary swords for her Enchantments. Fast.

At the moment, Rieren hurried over to the nearby pit. She was right. There, at the bottom, Silomene was trapped. Dozens upon dozens of the smaller versions of the golden snakes filled the hole, and only Silomene’s face and hands stuck out from the wriggling mass. Rieren cringed at the sight. At least the other woman was unconscious.

The cultivator was already falling back down. Rieren zipped down into the pit, freed Silomene with a few expert slashes of her blade, then jumped back up to run away as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Thief!” the cultivator shouted. Behind Rieren, he landed with a heavy thump, the impact of him coming back down onto the ground sending up a plume of dirt and dust. “You cannot escape. I will find you, and then I will feed you piece by piece to the eternal serpents.”

Fat chance of that. Rieren had already resummoned her Domain and turned it into steam, letting her presence vanish within the billowing vapour. Silomene’s unconsciousness meant she wasn’t channelling any Essence, so she couldn’t be tracked either. They had a decent opportunity to make their escape. Rieren just hoped Batcat could do the same.

Behind her, the sounds of the cultivator cursing and desperately trying to find her faded. The steam was interfering with all his senses.

Once Rieren was well enough away, she turned around and tried her best to circumnavigate the outpost’s exterior, keeping out of the likely range of the cultivator’s sense. She shifted Silomene so that the woman was easier to carry around. Soon enough, Rieren was behind the position where she’d been hearing Batcat doing its best to distract the others.

She waited a while. It took a few minutes for the winged cat to appear. Rieren had been considering whether she would need to find the kitten herself, which would have been complicated in the mess it had gotten itself into.

But she didn’t need to worry. Batcat appeared before long, preternaturally sensing that she was waiting for its appearance.

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“Thank you,” she whispered. “Come, let us leave. I am afraid you will need to wait before you can return to my head.” She paused. “Actually, I have another task for you, Batcat.”

The kitten didn’t look pleased at being handed another job, but it was important. Once Rieren was done explaining, it quickly flew off.

They hurried away upslope. No doubt the others were looking for Rieren. In fact, she sensed greater use of Essence than before. Certain overloud slithering sounds suggested they had set their serpents loose to cover more ground.

It faded soon enough, however. Especially once Batcat returned.

With it came Oromin on El.

“Ah, you found her!” the cultivator said as he and the flying lizard landed. “How in the world did you manage?”

“Long story.” Rieren walked past him to settle Silomene on El’s back in such a way that flight wouldn’t chuck her off. That wouldn’t be good. “Thank you for coming.”

Oromin was looking past her into the steamy mist. “Your pursuers are fleeing.”

Rieren had finally released her Domain. She had suspected that the dissidents wouldn’t dare stand up directly against someone like Oromin. “Cowards.”

“I agree. If they weren’t craven, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

They mounted up and left quickly afterwards. Rieren sat behind Silomene, keeping one hand on her while she slept through whatever malaise her captors had inflicted on her, while Oromin guided the Spirit Beast.

Now that Rieren didn’t need to worry about immediate danger, she could take care of the one that was slowly killing her. Likely Silomene too. Poison.

It wasn’t difficult to procure an antidote from the System Shop. She wasn’t certain what the exact venom she was contaminated with. Certain toxins had specific antidotes that needed to be used.

Thankfully, those who worked on antidotes had the foresight that discovering the exact type of poison would be impossible for a great majority of people. This was why they had developed a special universal antidote that focused more on using someone’s Essence to expel the toxins rather than chemically counteracting it within the victim’s body.

It was a little expensive. A good chunk of Rieren’s Credits vanished with the purchase. Necessary, though. Rieren took in a mouthful from the little thimble and immediately felt the Essence within her start to swirl and change.

Rieren also fed some to Silomene. She realized she hadn’t even bothered checking if the other woman was alive. For all she knew, the venom might have finally worked enough to kill its unconscious victim outright. Thankfully, it looked like the antidote was working its little miracle. Silomene woke up, then coughed and almost fell over.

“Ahh—!”

Her scream was cut off when she jerked in Rieren’s grip. She wasn’t falling to certain death that easily.

“Wha—where am I?” She looked around wildly. “What’s going on? El?”

“You’ve finally awoken,” Oromin said. “Welcome back, Silomene.”

“Uncle?” Silomene turned around to finally meet Rieren’s slightly bemused expression, and then nearly fell off the flying lizard again. “Rieren? Will someone explain what’s going on?”

Oromin laughed. “Since Rieren is the one who rescued you, I will let her do the honours.”

Silomene looked at her with more expectation than gratitude. Rieren smiled. She proceeded to tell her story about using Batcat and fighting one of the cultivators while the kitten distracted the rest of them.

“So you see,” Rieren said. “It was actually Batcat who rescued you.”

The winged kitten meowed loudly off the top of her head as though to hammer the point home.

“What happened with you, Silomene?” Oromin asked.

“And what of Mercion?” Rieren added. “Have you found him?”

Silomene took a deep breath. She needed some time to rest, to get acclimated to the fact that she was free. They were patient. Oromin wasn’t flying El so fast that they would arrive at their destination before Silomene could finish her story once she started.

“They took me from the estate,” she said, after first explaining how she had come to Rieren for assistance with the debacle of the Clanmistress’s assassination. “The poison debilitated me. It almost felt like I was going to die.”

Despite Oromin having his back to them, his whole body seemed to grimace at that. “Their toxins can be very dangerous. I know variants that can interfere with your Essence and shatter your very meridians.”

“It wasn’t that bad at first. I still had my consciousness when I finally arrived where they intended to keep me captured. But I still resisted. I even demanded them to tell me where they had kept Lord Mercion. I found nothing, and worse, they injected more poison into me to keep me quiet. That was when I lost consciousness.”

No one had anything to say to that, though Oromin did mutter a curse. At the state Rieren had seen of Silomene, it wouldn’t have been incorrect to assume that she might have died under the terrible influence of the poison, had Rieren not arrived in time.

Oromin might think that they wouldn’t be so callous as to kill a scion of the third most powerful clan in the Shatterlands. But then, they’d just received proof that they had no compunction against murdering a Clanmistress. What was one little scion of a clan who couldn’t match up to Archnobles against that?

“I am glad you are safe now,” Rieren said.

Silomene smiled at her gratefully. Then she reached up and embraced Rieren, who stiffened at first, but then returned it. “Thanks to you.”

“Where do you intend to go now, Rieren?” Oromin asked from where he sat near the head of the lizard.

“To the peak of the mountain, if you please,” she said. “I must continue my cultivation and see what I can do about the Aetherians.”

“The Aetherians?” Silomene asked.

Rieren explained what she had told the Clanmistress. “There is not much time.”

“I see.” Silomene looked concerned, but it felt as though there was a different matter troubling her.

“And what about you, Silomene?” Rieren asked. “I hope you will take some time to recover.”

“Yes,” Oromin said. “Once I drop you off to your destination, I will take Silomene to her clan.”

Silomene glared a little at Oromin’s back. “Our clan. But no, I don’t wish to go there just now.”

Rieren could sympathize. Everything she had said about her family made it sound like the last place she would want to be to recover from a deadly ordeal.

“Why not?” Oromin asked. Rieren wondered if he was oblivious as to Silomene’s feelings. Most likely, yes. “Your parents are worried about you. They can take care of you while you recover.”

“I am not a child, uncle. And I have already recovered a good deal, thanks to Rieren’s antidote. I must find what became of Lord Mercion.”

“I understand you are concerned about Lord Mercion’s safety,” Oromin began, though he didn’t get to finish. “How—”

“No, uncle. I frankly don’t care what anyone else is doing, and yes, I know what argument you were about to use. This is about me and where I choose to put my efforts.”

Oromin’s whole posture had gotten tense, and Rieren suspected that he wished to argue some more against his niece, but he held himself back. Maybe it was because of Rieren’s presence. Her own thoughts on the matter were simple—Silomene was the ultimate arbiter of what she would end up doing, though Rieren did hope her friend would stay safe.

They arrived near the peak of the Stannerig clan’s mountain soon enough. Rieren got off the flying lizard and waved farewell to Oromin and Silomene, the latter of whom promised to stay safe.

Batcat meowed as she made her way towards the stone tree to restart cultivation. An alert meow, the one it used when there were people about.

Rieren peered forward to see what had it excited. Ah. Amalyse and Rollo were there.