It was unfortunate that Rieren couldn’t yet modify the exact contents of the water she summoned. Basically, she was still summoning pure water, which resisted lightning instead of conducting it. That was why the salt had been necessary. It would ensure the trap constructed from her new Aspect would ensnare her targets properly.

As the Domain crashed upon the three young cultivators below, Rieren channelled her Essence to produce lightning Aspect, passing it through her Receptor blade into all the water around her.

Her landfall produced shocking results. The trio screamed and yelled out. Rieren landed safely, using her water to cushion her impact. All the lightning had vaporized the water, turning much of her Domain into billowing, furious steam that scalded and tore off anything it touched, further adding to the wounds she had inflicted upon her enemies.

Though… Rieren frowned. There was significant channelling going on before her. All that lightning-imbued water and the resultant pain should have interrupted whatever channelling the trio would have performed.

Rieren tutted. Since the channelling was still ongoing, they must have been able to safeguard themselves against her landing at the last moment. How unfortunate.

Those shouts must have either been ones of surprise and shock, or they were meant to confuse Rieren. Shadows were swirling within the gloomy steam, as though they truly were intending to befuddle her before attacking.

Well, little chance of that. Paltry tricks. Rieren hadn’t landed here to hesitate. She pulled her sword behind her into an attacking stance and activated Rippling Blade. The blade turned white with power and extended for over a dozen paces behind her. At the same time, Rieren kept channelling lightning Aspect into the Receptor sword.

She swung her sword in a large, sweeping arc.

The blow was as fast and sharp as a thunderclap. None of them should have seen it coming, nor should they have been able to summon any adequate defence in time. A piercing scream confirmed that at least one of the trio had been hit. But that still left two more.

Rieren’s fast swing had also cut through her steam. The motion of her blade and the heat coming off it had further dissipated the boiling, misty cover, clearing up the little battlefield to reveal her opponents’ moves.

Crows. Tons of them. Rieren had been expecting such a move already, however, and had prepared a counterfoil.

Her Domain had already been re-summoned, including the suppression of steam underneath the water’s surface. The crows were already close enough to start detonating, but Rieren was faster. All she had to do was release the pressure. A powerful geyser churned skywards all around her, taking the dozens of crows with it.

Of course, the accursed birds still exploded, throwing everything into a disarray. This led to more steam pilfering through the area. Water shot everywhere like liquid bolts fired in every direction.

But just before the explosion had occurred, Rieren had taken note of her opponents’ position. Her sword had stuck one of the trio right across his chest. It was satisfying to note that it was Morel, the knife-wielder. His robe had been slashed open, the armour beneath crumpled and blackened. The blow had actually sent him flying back towards the edge of the clearing.

That meant one of them was down. Rieren would just need to handle the other two.

Said other two had immediately acted. One was midair, as if he had jumped, though that didn’t feel likely. The positioning was too awkward. Rieren’s Mind was high enough for her to get some time to think and realize that he must have popped out from one of the crows. If one could throw out an arm, there was no telling what else might be possible.

The last one was the most intriguing, however. This fellow was standing on the ground, seemingly unfazed and unbothered by the lightning-imbued water Rieren had flung down.

She blinked. Fire. That must be the one who had used fire-Aspected techniques before. He must have used his fire to shield himself, boiling away Rieren’s water before her lightning had any chance to act. Smart. And dangerous.

This next round of steam borne from the explosions was going to grant her opponents cover that they no doubt would seek to use. But it was predictable enough.

Which meant Rieren’s course of action was clear.

Instead of preparing herself for any sort of combat, Rieren jumped as high as she could. Her leap cleared her through the cloud of steam. She summoned the Dawn Cloud again, landing upon it to provide herself a temporary platform from which to survey the local area.

She was proven right to take note of her surroundings. One of her opponents was rushing away in the direction Kalvia and Amalyse had run. Just as she had thought.

It was a simple matter to chase after him on her Dawn Cloud. The others wouldn’t let her chase him so easily, of course. The crows came flying in a second later, dashing hot on her tail. Several fireballs were burning like comets at Rieren too.

She dodged them all without trouble. Having advanced far enough, Rieren could now extend the application of her skills onto Domain Summons. As such, the Dawn Cloud made liberal usage of S-Grade Fray Passage to zip through even the smallest gaps to evade danger.

Not that it was easy by any means. The crows were determined to pelt her with fiery detonations, though that wasn’t all. Several opened their mouths to reveal arms chucking knives, while others extended the fireballs that had been lung at her. Her Dawn Cloud was fast and used Fray Passage quite effectively, however, keeping Rieren safe with little trouble.

“Why you—”

Rieren’s target whirled around, summoning his blood-red wire Domain again. Ah, so he was that one. She wondered if this was Stade, or if that was the fire-pelting one’s name.

Her quarry’s Domain sought to trap her, and it would have succeeded too, if she’d remained aboard the Dawn Cloud. Despite possessing Fray Passage now, her Domain Summons was simply too big to make use of the tiny gaps between the enemy Domain’s wires.

Not so for Rieren.

Her heart pounded with blood-boiling battle-frenzy to see the man’s eyes widen. Rieren had just used Fray Passage to evade through the gaps between his wires.

He wasn’t defenceless, sadly for her. All of a sudden, his form blurred, and he rushed at her with incredible speed. Rieren was surprised, but not so shocked she couldn’t make use of her Mind and react accordingly. Earthfall Blade deflected whatever skill her opponent had used, redirecting the force past her. He was unfortunately too quick for her to land a counterattack on.

This wasn’t enough, of course. His Domain wires had wrapped around his fist. Then he punched her from a distance.

Stolen novel; please report.

Bolts of compressed air or some other kind of force flew at Rieren. She was only able to note them coming because of the Essence channelling in her eyes. Earthfall Blade took care of the worst of the attacks, but it couldn’t stop them entirely. The blasts still left a residual force upon her, forcing her back pace by pace with every hit.

“That’s far enough!”

The yell came a fraction of a second before the enormous fireball. Rieren had to give the fire-wielder credit. He had summoned his attack at a moment’s notice.

Not that it worked. Rieren had her Domain handy. Summoning her stormy water around her again, she made it rise once more, protecting herself from both the blasts of compressed air and the fireball the size of a large hovel.

The result was more steam. Rieren was able to stave off the explosion from doing any harm to her, but her visibility was impaired again.

Something her opponents intended to make full use of.

Morel, the knife-wielder, burst through the cloud of hissing, sizzling steam like he was immune to the heat and pressure. And as far as Rieren was able to see in the moment before he reached her, he was immune to her Domain’s steam, for some reason.

And then he was upon her. She deflected him easily with Earthfall Blade, redirecting his onrushing momentum in the direction the compressed air punches were flying in from. That didn’t stop the blasts. Rieren’s frown of confusion was cleared up in the next when a second Morel appeared, right in the path of the first and flying at Rieren with even greater fury.

No time to think. She deflected him too, sending the second Morel crashing to the other direction. A third one appeared, right behind the second, fast enough to drag all of Rieren’s concentration upon him. Earthfall Blade sent him careening to the side as well.

She was a tiny bit shocked at the lack of a fourth one, but then, her electroreception went off. Rieren turned just in time to notice the Domain-user bursting through the misty gloom with a blood-red-wire-enlarged fist smashing through her steam.

“How’d she see me?” he screeched.

Rieren had already raised her sword in time to deflect that blow too. It worked, but so did the Domain user’s true intention. She deflected the power behind his blow into the ground next to her, but at the same time, the red wires wrapped around her sword, trapping it in place.

“Doesn’t matter!” the true knife-wielder yelled as he burst through the gloom, his face set in a fatal rictus.

Ah. So the three versions of him before had been some sort of projection. A powerful skill, most likely. She could finally see the effect of the vicious blow she had landed on him earlier. His armour was partially crushed and blood dashed his shoulder. But it wasn’t impeding him. Not enough to prevent him from shooting at Rieren with blurring speed.

She had time for a defence. Her past form’s elixir field had recovered just enough for her to create a glove of concentrated Essence around one hand. Rieren’s Mind was high enough to catch the exact specific of Morel’s motion.

“What in ever-living Abyss?” he screamed as Rieren’s hand stopped his knife cold.

The force behind the blow was strong, of course. Rieren hadn’t been able to make the Essence as concentrated as she would have preferred. Nevertheless, even after the glove of hardened Essence dissipated at the strike, it reduced enough of the impact so that all she suffered was a light graze on her palm.

It had also allowed her to grab hold of her opponent’s weapon.

“The tables have turned,” she said, summoning her Domain underneath her.

Morel’s ferocious grin didn’t waver. “Is that right?”

“Now, Stade!” the other one screamed from Rieren’s left.

A brilliant orange light flared somewhere on her right. She turned just in time to see a gigantic fireball heading at her like boulder crashing down a mountain. There was no time to wonder if the two cultivators near her had chosen to sacrifice themselves or not since that fireball would consume all of them. All Rieren could do was send her Domain rising in a geyser again.

The fireball’s impact set off a powerful explosion. Rieren was able to keep her footing, deflecting the shockwave away with Earthfall Blade. She couldn’t make out what had happened to her two closest opponents, though.

That was fine. Rieren acted fast, leaving them no room to manoeuvre and revert the momentum of the fight in their favour. She channelled Essence into her Receptor sword, using Water Dancer Blade simultaneously. In an instant, the technique pulled the majority of the steam to wrap around her blade. She used Rippling Blade to increase the sword’s effective length too.

Pulling away the sizzling vapour had revealed enough of her surroundings to show where she had to strike. Rieren’s slash was as powerful and fast as it had been with the lightning-Aspect-infused use of Rippling Blade earlier. Fast, hard, and potentially fatal if it hit.

Just as before, her enemies didn’t have enough time to react as well as they would have wanted. Unfortunately, they managed to evade the worst of the blow.

“Watch out!” one of them shrieked.

The fire-user, Stade, had a shield of flames that protected him. Rieren’s skill was at a higher grade, punching through his barrier, but the technique on top of it was on par with whatever he was using. Her steam couldn’t break through his fierce flames. Even the extension of her blade that did manage to strike him was stopped by the armour he had on.

Interesting. She hadn’t expected that. Considering he liked to fight from a distance, Rieren had supposed he would be less bulked up with defences than his companions.

Rieren continued her circulation. The Domain-user had already ducked enough to evade her blow. He was also fast enough to throw himself in the opposite direction of her swing.

That only left Morel. Like the first time, she had just about caught him again. He was mid-leap away from her location, in no position to dodge anything she might throw at him. Her extended blade would make short work of the flimsy defence he was hoping to erect with his knife.

Except, a crow was behind him. The bird exploded just as Rieren had begun to rotate. By the time she had circulated around to slash Morel, the blast behind him had propelled him out of the path of her combination of abilities.

He flew past her, landing in between his two companions.

“Now,” the Domain-user shouted. “While she recovers!”

Rieren twisted around with a grin. “Is that so?”

At the same time that he used the skill that hastened his speed, she activated Gale Blade. The attack she had used earlier had been carefully aimed to ensure they all fell in essentially one direction from her. This ensured that one use of Gale Blade would be enough to take down all three of them. She couldn’t afford to let the surprise go to waste.

Which was what proceeded to happen. Fast and strong though the Domain-user’s skill was, Rieren’s was significantly stronger and faster. She flashed past him, her sword slicing across his waist.

He went down with a scream and a heavy spurt of blood. Rieren didn’t get the time to check the effectiveness of Gale Blade on him. There were two more to take care of.

They had only just finished reeling from her previous attack. It was all too easy to redirect her momentum with a simple step and aim her second slash at the knife-wilder. He tried to protect himself with his knife, his eyes widening at Rieren’s speed and strength. It mattered little. Rieren’s slice sliced across his hand and tore open his leg.

His agony-riddled shriek pushed her onwards to the last of them. Stade had just finished re-establishing his fiery defence around himself.

Useless. However hot fire or anything else might be, it still needed time to apply said heat. Rieren was too fast for the flames to do anything but minorly scorch her, especially since advancing Gale Blade created a forcefield of compressed air around her. She crashed through Stade’s defences and slashed through him.

His leg went flying in one direction, the rest of him in the other, blood fountaining out of the wound.

Rieren whipped her sword to rid it off the accumulated blood. She took a quick look around. All three of her opponents were down. Two were continuing to scream through their injuries. The other, the Domain-user, was slowly attempting to pull himself back up.

She was behind him in an instant. Her sword was raised high, ready to end this bout for good.

He whirled around, biting through the pain. “Please, wait!”

“Wait?” Rieren asked. “Did you wait when the ones you killed asked you to do so?”

“We gave them an opportunity. We told them that if they truly wished to bring no dishonour to their Sects, then they should cooperate with us. Are we not deserving of the same mercy?”

Rieren’s sword didn’t dip. Mercy was for fools. Those who wished to survive in this madness couldn’t afford to take its treacherous slopes.

Being of use, on the other hand…

Rieren’s decision was snatched away from her. She was so focused on the three idiots trying to kill her that her vigilance on the rest of their surroundings had fallen.

Which was why the voice booming out from above took her completely by surprise. As did the spear following it.

“What a magnificent battle,” someone yelled from far above. Rieren twisted around, heart in her mouth, to check the skies. The figure was too distant for her to make him out properly. “Truly deserving of my participation!”

The floating man was smart enough to have already fired said spear. Rieren got no time to react. The blazing shaft of light struck the area and sent up an explosion that spanned half a league.