Rieren wasn’t conked out for long. Divine Resilience never allowed pain- or injury-related bouts of unconsciousness to last longer than a few minutes at best.
Long years had taught her that it tended to heal the body enough so that resuscitating the mind wouldn’t cause it to fall back into a fainting stupor. Once it had performed its regenerative healing, it focused on bringing the mind back into full function, which included rejuvenation from any unconsciousness.
When Rieren blinked back awake, gasping hard and cringing at the violent agony coursing all over her body, she needed quite a few moments before her thoughts settled. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had felt pain to such a degree that it overwhelmed her other senses this much. Rieren was forced to lie on the ground for an agonizing minute.
In the end, she forced herself to get up enough to see what was going on and wonder why she wasn’t dead yet. Though, her own condition made her pause first.
Essastior’s kick had ruined her top half. Half her robes were gone, the binding across her chest burned to crisp, as was the flesh underneath. Much of her torso was blackened to a point where it wasn’t even oozing blood, though the sheer torturous feeling worsened higher up her body.
Rieren brought shaking fingers to just beneath her chin. She didn’t find any burned skin there, nor any wet, bleeding flesh. No agony coursed through her at what she did touch.
Bone.
The realization of just how deeply the lightning-punting bastard had damaged her made her freeze. No. She couldn’t afford shock at the moment. The battle was still ongoing. Elder Olg needed her. Rieren was alive and that was all that mattered.
Breathing techniques. The battle-hardened part of Rieren’s mind recalled that the best way to get over shock was using her breathing techniques. She used the Rennervating Patient breathing technique to steady herself. Long, deep breaths that felt more like someone was blowing air into her than she was inhaling and exhaling by herself.
By the time she felt healed enough—or well, the pain had reduced enough—to sit up properly, she noticed the furious battle had come to a pause. A distant part of her had sensed that the aggression between the restored Elder and the injured Banishedborn was slowing down.
It wasn’t because one side was about to claim victory over the other. No, someone else had arrived to bring the battle to a grinding halt.
Rieren dragged herself closer to hear what was actually being said. Pain spiked all over her torso, but she did her best to bite through it. Wouldn’t do to appear too weak.
Not when another Banishedborn had appeared.
“…I think,” the newcomer was saying. There was something familiar about him, and it wasn’t Rieren’s memories of the past. The sensation was a lot more recent. “I would say you have a few minutes at best. I’m actually surprised that it has taken this long.”
It took a moment for Rieren to understand what the newcomer meant. And that was partly because of her finally recognizing where she had seen the Banishedborn before. That bastard had been there at the tavern, where she had stopped Gorint Malloh from killing the former Stannerig Clanmaster. He’d been that odd, Abyss-cursed barkeep.
That left far too wild implications in Rieren’s mind, but for now, she focused on the importance behind his words. Only a few minutes at best…
She looked up, eyes widening. In place of the overcast sky, it looked like a strange mixture of dusk and late afternoon had appeared. Thousands of stars glimmered through a canvas that was shaded from the vermillion of a dying sun to the deep blue of the night sky. Several of the stars were growing larger too. Far too large.
The Aetherians were almost here.
“Retreat?” Essastior said. He looked at his new companion. “You would make me retreat, Worsted?”
“Well, unless you wish to be inundated with meteors… you do realize these weaklings were waiting exactly for that, yes?”
Essastior growled but didn’t answer. Worsted simply looked over at Elder Olg with a small smile peeking through his heavy beard. Unlike his fellow Banishedborn, he certainly didn’t look ready for battle, still dressed in the everyday garb of a barkeep with splotches of drink over his heavy apron.
Then his eyes fell upon Rieren. “Well, the architect of our demise has finally returned. How fare thee?”
Elder Olg glanced back. For all that his face was covered with the Abyssal’s corruption, deep concern marred it still. “Rieren, are you… no, you aren’t alright at all.” He must have noted her condition, which was frankly rather terrible to look at. “Stand back and allow me to deal with them.”
“There will be no dealings,” Worsted said. “We are done here. Should you go on to survive, which I doubt, we will deal with you at a later date. Well, Essastior will. I wouldn’t want to interfere with his vengeance.”
Essastior nodded viciously. For all that he had seemed almost amicable before, he was filled with nothing but wrath now. It was hard to imagine him as the man who had played so wholesomely with Batcat months ago. “Of course, they’ll survive. How else am I to teach them their true place?”
“They might survive the meteors. In fact, I’m certain they have a plan for it. But I will place no bets on them getting past the ones the meteors are bearing down upon them.”
Rieren glanced up again, this time with greater alarm. The stars really had grown larger. Some of the nearest ones were almost close enough to appear as though they were flaming, like comets about to strike the Mortal Realm.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Worsted was right. Each of those, as the Banishedborn had said, bore down an Aetherian with them.
“Come, Essastior.” Power swirled around Worsted. Essence turned into magma, with which he crafted a strange, large hammer. “It is time we departed.”
Essastior glared at Rieren and Elder Olg, and she couldn’t but stare right back. It felt dissatisfying to let the battle end so inconclusively. Then again, the rational part of her realized that she was fortunate to come out of it alive.
Rieren took a staggering step forward anyway, but then Worsted struck thin air with his hammer. There was a gonging sound, before a crack appeared in the middle of nowhere, the world itself crumbling away to reveal a portal to some other fiery plane of plane of existence.
Both Banishedborn stepped into it, Worsted leaving with a parting smile while Essastior glared on. There was a momentary look of disappointment on the latter, as though he had intended to find something and had failed to do so. A part of Rieren wondered if that was her fault for summoning him without warning inside an Abyssal’s belly.
Ah well. Desperate times had called for desperate measures. They were alive for the time being, and that was what truly mattered.
“We will meet again,” Essastior said. Apparently, he was determined to get the final word out. “I cannot say how long it will be, but when we do, we will finish what you began here, Arianaele.”
Rieren tried to reply, but then pain flared and she coughed, which only made things worse. She did manage to raise her sword in time to promise that she would be ready for him when the time came.
Elder Olg was silent for a while after the Banishedborn disappeared. Maybe he was as subtly surprised as Rieren that the battle had ended just like that. It was rather anticlimactic.
“We cannot escape the meteor shower,” Elder Olg said.
Rieren agreed with a nod. She cleared her throat carefully and when she tried to speak this time, words came out a little haltingly. At least it didn’t hurt. Much. “We cannot. We must not. The Aetherians need to be dealt with.”
When Rieren had first planned to direct the Aetherians’ meteor shower onto the Dreadflood, the monsters would take care of each other. With the Aetherians’ devastating landing, the Abyssal would be grievously wounded at the least. If it survived, it would be mad enough to take down the Aetherian.
And if it failed, then the cultivators and defenders of the Shatterlands would have a better chance against Aetherians who would normally have been at C- or B-Grade. A-grade at worst.
“The others have left,” Elder Olg said. “You must get going too, Rieren.”
“And what will you do, Elder?” she asked.
“I will end the threat posed by the Aetherians. I have already done so for the threat of the Dreadflood.”
Rieren shook her head, though only slightly. It hurt to move it too much. “The Aetherians’ arrival will end you. Even if you survive the landing, do you truly think you can win again so many monsters by yourself?”
“I am not alone, Rieren.”
The dark flood was spreading outwards from the Elder’s feet. Rieren looked around as fast as her wounded body would allow. The black liquid grew outwards until it started touching the bodies in the distance, both the monstrous corpses and the dead cultivators. They started rising again. The Elder was channeling the Abyssal’s resurrecting power.
Batcat growled and quickly floated on top of Rieren’s head. The dark liquid was lapping around her feet. It seemed Elder Olg wasn’t concerned about her touching it.
“I will stay here and help you fight,” she said. “My body is already healing. It should be back to its regular state by the time they arrive.”
Elder Olg shook his head. “I cannot protect you from them.”
“I do not require protection.” She moved her arm experimentally, twisting it around to feel the pain. It was a good deal less than before. Divine Resilience had done well. “I can take care of myself.”
“Perhaps. But you have an important duty elsewhere, do you not?”
“What do you mean?”
Elder Olg looked back at her with growing sorrow. “You’ve succeeded in saving this land, for now. You protected it, and you made certain it didn’t easily fall into the clutches of our enemies.”
Rieren frowned, swallowing slightly. “Our enemies?”
“The Abyssals and the Aetherians. The gods. Take your pick. They will not have the Shatterlands.”
She had never heard him take such an overt stance against anyone before. Perhaps it was a result of their experiences. He had fought an Avatar after all, and only just now, he’d been forced to take on a Banishedborn.
Still, she couldn’t help but think if there was some of the Dreadflood’s influence acting on him. He wasn’t normally so volatile in speech.
“And what about them?” Rieren asked.
“You must ensure the Shatterlands continues to stand against those who would see it destroyed in a heartbeat if it suited their purpose,” he said. “They’re meeting soon. Not far from here, I believe.” He smiled, but it held no mirth at all. “A meteor shower is quite the spectacle, after all.”
Ah. So that was what he meant. Rieren—well Elder Olg, if she was being honest—might have ended the Shatterlands’ existential threat, but that didn’t mean things had settled down yet. The political situation was still fraught. How Rieren’s presence was going to solve it, she had no clue. But then, doing nothing might be worse when she didn’t know the specifics of the circumstances.
“Even if I had a different duty to attend to,” she said. “I do not think I can get away fast enough.”
Rieren looked up as she said so. The stars were much closer now. They looked like actual meteors, falling like fireballs with a smoking comet trail. Impact was imminent. Even at her fastest speed, Rieren wouldn’t have been able to get away from the meteors’ radius of impact.
“You can, actually,” the Elder said.
She frowned at him, at the hint of a teasing expression on his face, though it quickly dissolved to grimness. “How so?”
“By using Abyss Rents, of course.”
He made it sound like the most natural thing in the world. Simple and easy. And for good reason too, considering where his eyes trailed to.
Batcat was pawing its face when it realized it was the subject of both Rieren’s and Elder Olg’s attention. It looked up at them and meowed rather adorably. At a nod from Elder Olg, it suddenly went rigid. Then it started coughing.
Rieren looked back up. “Elder, I cannot channel corrupted Essence. Without Abyss-Aspected Essence—”
“But I can,” he said. “And that will be enough to get you out of here.”
“How?” She stiffened. “What are you going to do?”
“Do you trust me, Rieren? After everything that has happened?”
That was a difficult question. The very fact that she paused to consider, that she didn’t answer affirmatively right after he finished speaking was an answer in and of itself. But Rieren considered anyway, if only for a short while since the incoming meteors wouldn’t allow her to do it for long.
“I do,” she said, before adding with a mutter, “Besides, we have no other choice at the moment.”
“There is the disciple that I know and cherish.” He smiled briefly again. “This is farewell for now.”
“What happens when you survive this encounter, Elder?”
“I will reroute this Abyssal body towards the capital.”
“You weren’t so determined to act against the Emperor before. What changed?”
“The Emperor?” He laughed. “No, I don’t want to go to the capital just to stop the Forborne Emperor from tearing the Elderlands apart.”
“Then what is it?”
“What I truly want is access to the Celestial Realm.”
Before Rieren could ask what in the world he meant by that, her foot slipped and she was suddenly tugged backwards. She yelled out as she fell, her every instinct screaming at her to fight back. The Dreadflood rushed into the little Abyss Rent Batcat had created, and Rieren splashed hard into the black liquid before being pulled into absolute darkness.