“I’m not even going to ask where you got that thing,” Amalyse said, staring with wide eyes at the little brooch in Rieren’s hand. “Because I’m certain you can’t just buy it off the System Shop no matter how many Credits you have.”

Rieren nodded. “You are correct. One cannot have a Banishedborn at their beck and call so easily.”

“And yet you have one,” Rollo said.

“Are you thinking…” Amalyse dragged her gaze back to where the possessed Clanmaster was trying to eradicate their allies. “Of summoning a Banishedborn to help against that? Would they even do such a thing?”

That was an excellent question. For all Rieren knew, the Banishedborn would simply extricate himself from the battle and leave them to fend for themselves. In fact, even if Rieren got away, Essastior might just get angry enough at being summoned to face a monster that he might target and kill her next.

“Unless you can compel the Banishedborn somehow,” Rollo said. He frowned at Rieren. “You can do that, right?”

“I cannot,” Rieren admitted. “However, I think I know a way we can make a Banishedborn serve our needs.”

“How?”

“By giving him no choice but to fight.”

“How in the world are you going to do that?” Amalyse asked.

Despite the tenuous situation and the great possibility that they might all end up dead sooner rather than later, Rieren found herself grinning. “Why do you think the Dreadflood possessed the Clanmaster? Why do you think it channels its power through him and uses his body primarily over anyone else’s?”

The answer wasn’t difficult to arrive at.

“Because he’s the most powerful person in the Shatterlands,” Amalyse said.

Rollo tutted. “No, the former Clanmasters are.”

“Yes, but the Dreadflood never got to possess any of them. It came close with the Ordorian one, but they managed to recover his body before it could do so.” Amalyse turned back to Rieren. “So you’re saying it’s attracted to power? That means it’s going to try to attack the Banishedborn. But still, the Banished could just fly away or something.”

“That is where I come in,” Rieren said. “It is simply a matter of positioning.”

More thunderous explosions made the world tremble. The last major blast had already reshaped the landscape so it was no longer recognizable, and the Clanmaster’s subsequent attacks, if weaker, were still powerful and dangerous. The defenders weren’t going to last long.

Rieren and her friends charged in as unlikely reinforcements. Amalyse and Rollo were to divert the Abyssal’s attention if it landed upon Rieren. Meanwhile, she was going to get as close as possible.

While the Dreadflood had pulled in the majority of its dark flood into the possessed Clanmaster’s body, there was a great deal still left outside. A lot of it was lying on the ground. Where at first the monster had tried to use it like a shield to repel anyone from getting too close, it had found that the Clanmaster’s speed made that unnecessary.

So, here it lay, nearly unforgotten. Just where Rieren needed it.

Unfortunately, the Abyssals saw their approach.

“Ah, monkey’s balls,” Amalyse muttered.

They were faced with overwhelming lightning. At least it wasn’t too difficult to look at. At the intensity that the bolts were sparking to life around the possessed Clanmaster, regular lightning would have made things too bright to see properly. It would have severely limited their ability to make out where they were going and survive the oncoming attacks.

Not so here. The furious spray of lightning bolts were dark as deepest night. Rieren caught sight of every fork, every jagged twist.

Of course, Merolk didn’t exactly need to hide them. It wasn’t like any of them were fast enough to evade lightning bolts. But still. They had counters. Ones that would work at least long enough for Rieren to do what she needed. They wouldn’t have rushed in otherwise.

“Ready,” Amalyse said. Her Domain started acting up around them, red light blooming over the dark flood and the surrounding areas. “You’ll get about three seconds. At best.”

Rieren nodded tightly. “More than enough.”

“What in the Abyss are you all doing?” the stringy man yelled from behind. “You’ll be killed!”

“We’ve got a great plan,” Amalyse shouted back. “No time to explain, just cover us.”

That was no small ask, considering they were almost a field’s length apart. Thankfully, that wasn’t too great of a distance for cultivators. Well, maybe for reaching their destination before an enemy shot down lightning, it was perhaps too long. But Domains could expand across that length in no time at all.

The stringy man’s silvery mist bubbled into existence just as the first of the dark bolts landed down among them.

Amalyse yelled out. Her Domain brought forth a turtle formation of greatshields over them, keeping them temporarily protected. It might not have worked, but the silver mist added a reflective property to the shields, combining well with their already great defence. Rieren almost got five seconds before the first of the glowing crimson shields started to shatter.

More than enough, just as Amalyse had stated. Rieren reached her destination—about a dozen paces away from the edge of the dark flood—with incredible speed, then halted herself completely. At the same time, she flung the Banisher’s Brooch as hard as she could.

Almost all her momentum was transferred to the brooch. Rieren knew just how the item worked. One couldn’t simply chuck it and expect a Banishedborn to materialize where it fell.

No, the brooch had to be thrown with a great deal of force and power. It wouldn’t allow anyone to use it. There was a small section on the Banisher’s Brooch that caught fire if it flew fast enough. One had to channel the strength of a powerful cultivator for it to do so. Or, as in Rieren’s case, have a high enough Body stat.

She threw it with all her inner strength and with all the momentum of her run. The Banisher’s Brooch caught fire just a second after leaving her hand.

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And then it sank right into the dark flood.

The turtle formation of shields over them cracked and fell apart, but no lightning rained down to devastate the area. In fact, it looked like the Abyssal had frozen in mid-air. They could have tried to take advantage of its petrified state and get some good blows in, but then all the lightning around it started zapping around and flying haphazardly.

Rieren and the others retreated as quickly as they could. While the lightning didn’t seem to be targeting anyone specifically, their random flight meant they were all still in danger of being struck.

Until the area underneath the monster exploded.

Thankfully this wasn’t as bad as when the Abyssal had slammed down two of the Clanmaster’s enormous lightning bolts. They were able to get back quickly as the explosive burst of red power grew outwards, colliding hard with the dark flood and black lightning.

Only after Rieren got back far enough did she proceed to gawk at the result of her actions.

The Banishedborn was doing his best to rise from the murk of the Dreadflood’s body. It was proving difficult. Even for a being who was well into the Fated realm, who arguably had enough strength to overcome an S-Grade Abyssal without too great a difficulty, the monster was proving a challenge.

Rieren couldn’t focus on any one thing. The Banishedborn’s blood-Aspect manifesting to push away the Abyssal’s dark flood. His own red lightning striking the dark ones flung by the possessed Clanmaster. The sheer power swirling in the air and twisting the light.

Though, his main body constantly trying to climb out of murk while the flood attempted to keep him trapped as though the murk was alive was certainly a sight to behold.

“What in the world did you do?” the green-robed woman asked as she came to a stop next to Rieren. “Is that an Abyss-cursed Banishedborn?”

Rieren nodded, not taking her eyes off the struggle. “It was the only way I could come up with to stop the Abyssal.”

“Why do you have the ability to summon Banishedborn?”

Amalyse took the woman’s side in the matter. “I’d like to know that too, if you don’t mind.”

“I doubt there is enough time to explain the full story,” Rieren said. “We need to be prepared in case it does not work.”

Another cultivator walked in, shaking his head. “That’s a Banishedborn we’re looking at. How could even one of them fail against this monster?”

Rieren didn’t have to answer. The proof that even the Banishedborn was struggling was right before them. Try as he might to extricate himself from the S-Grade Abyssal’s clutches, its corrupted, liquid hooks had sunk in too deep. Essastior couldn’t free himself so easily.

“Who dares,” he shouted. His voice echoed over the area, so loud that Rieren winced, suppressing the urge to clamp her hands over her ears. “Arianaele! Is this your doing? I can sense you nearby. You will not escape when I have finished—”

The Dreadflood interrupted his little enraged speech. Apparently, understanding that the dark flood alone wasn’t going to be enough to keep a Banishedborn contained, the Abyssal had decided to use other tools in its repertoire. Namely, the body it had possessed.

Two bolts of black lightning shot from the undead Clanmaster to hammer into the Banishedborn. He sank into the Dreadflood’s surface again.

“Is that actually a good idea, though?” Amalyse asked. “Consider that the Abyssal might just end up possessing the Banishedborn… then what?”

Rieren did consider it. “It would be terrible.”

“We’d be screwed all the way to the Abyss, Rieren.”

“You are giving not enough credit to a Banishedborn.”

Amalyse stared back at the continuing struggle between the Banishedborn and the Dreadflood. Well, former struggle. After being smashed by the bolts from the possessed Clanmaster, Essastior hadn’t risen again from within the dark flood. He was taking a little too long, in Rieren’s opinion.

“I do not like this,” someone muttered from behind.

Everything was too still. Rieren couldn’t tell if the Abyssal had actually managed to overcome its opponent somehow or not. Its possessed body was still floating overhead, and it looked like it was having trouble deciding whether to continue its efforts.

The mountainous bolt that crashed in from far above signalled that Essastior was far from defeated.

No one saw it coming. Rieren certainly didn’t spot it forming, much less striking down with the fury of a wrathful god. The crimson bolt that materialized far overhead was easily twice as big as the watery cyclone created by Heaven’s Cleave. This lightning was certainly bright. Unbelievably so. Even when Rieren closed her eyes in time, she was half-blinded by its ferocity.

Of course, they had all flung themselves back. They needed to get farther away. It was now more than obvious that Essastior was far from defeated and that the furious battle between the Banishedborn and the S-Grade Abyssal was only going to get worse.

Good news for Rieren since she was still waiting on the meteor shower. Once the Aetherians finally decided to show up, they would hopefully wipe out both the Abyssal and the Banishedborn.

They tried to plan what they were going to do, but that failed when the chaos of the battle expanded outwards. For the moment, they were too busy trying to get away.

Rieren ran, unsure of which direction she was heading so long as it was not towards the fight. She couldn’t tell who was accompanying her, or if anyone was nearby in the first place. The light and noise of the fight were overwhelming everything else.

She couldn’t blindly run away too far, though. Almost as though it was acting with a will of its own, her hand pulled out the old relic she had recovered from within Mercion. The dull, cracked blade still glimmered with a faint, reflective light.

If this little sword got too far away from this battlefield, the Aetherians’ meteor wouldn’t land in the right location. Rieren would have to remain somewhat close by, ideally.

She looked back once, just to ensure the Banishedborn or the Abyssal weren’t heading in her direction. That would have been a little bit insane.

It was hard to tell, in truth. Essastior had apparently fully freed himself from his initial binds within the Dreadflood’s clutches. His enormous lightning bolt had left a depthless pit where it had struck, wide as a small lake. No longer stuck in one place, the Banishedborn was giving the Dreadflood a taste of its own medicine by zipping everywhere.

Essastior was almost too fast to see. Rieren channelled Essence into her eyes, taking better note of his Essence signatures through the air.

The Dreadflood was trying to keep up, of course. It flung Merolk’s body this way and that in pursuit of the Banishedborn, who always kept away far enough to pelt lightning and sprays of sparking blood at his onrushing pursuer.

Rieren couldn’t help but stare. The sight of their battle was awestriking. Red and black light collided with brilliant little bursts. Essastior’s glowing blood was a powerful contrast against the dark liquid of the Abyssal. The crimson lightning crisscrossing and colliding with the black sent out showers of brilliant sparks that would almost have been pretty.

Had it not been riddled with mortal danger.

Rieren understood she had to keep increasing the distance between herself and the two ferocious fighters. But it was hard. At one point, it looked like Essastior and the Abyssal were quite literally jousting against one another with their lighting acting as swords. The clash was too bright for Rieren to be certain.

A sensation she wasn’t expecting pulled her back to reality. There was a small but ever familiar meow, then an insistent tug on the hem of her robes.

Rieren looked down. “Batcat?”

The kitten stared up at her with surprising intensity.

“Where in the world have you been, cat?”

As if in answer, Batcat pulled on her hem again. Something told her the kitten had found something important. Rieren glanced back at the battle for a tiny second. Things were still too bright and ferocious, but for now, it looked like the battle would last a while. Essastior might end up with the upper hand eventually, but the Dreadflood wasn’t an easy opponent.

“Alright, lead on,” she told the cat.

They hurried away. But instead of leading her farther away from where the two overwhelmingly strong beings were on the verge of destroying everything, Batcat was heading towards them.

“Cat,” Rieren said, coming to a pause. “We cannot head that way.”

That would lead them to head straight into danger. They were all trying not to get caught in that death trap.

But Batcat was insistent. Rieren was unable to prevent herself from being pulled forward. Her hesitation broke down at the kitten’s continued tugs. She wasn’t being dragged to some random location by the cat. This was important.

As Rieren followed, she caught sight of the others here and there. Rollo and Amalyse had taken cover behind one of her shields. They were still a little too close to the main battle. One of the defenders wasn’t too far from them, slowly making his way backwards.

There was no time to check on the others. Batcat had already come to a stop. Apparently, its destination wasn’t too far from where they had begun. Rieren looked down to see that it had stopped before the corpse of a Blightmane. She was about to ask what exactly was so special about this Abyssal when she froze. The body had moved.

Or rather, something within it had wriggled around. Something inside the dead monster was still alive.