For all that Rieren had landed a devastating blow to the monster, it couldn’t last. It was already almost too good to be true. That she had managed to pierce through its incredible defences all while mostly avoiding its furious, overwhelming attacks was an incredible accomplishment in and of itself.
This was an overwhelmingly strong B-Grade Aetherian, after all. Potentially even A-Grade.
As Rieren had pierced the monster’s chest with her extended sword, the compressed thundercloud twisting like a ripping whirlpool, the Aetherian had reacted with a new ability.
The monster’s thread went insane. Every single string set itself alight with auric flames burning along its length. Over half of those unwrapped from their positions on the monster’s body and lashed out in a storm of whipping tendrils.
Rieren had foreseen something of the like would come about. After all, she had just damaged it, something every other opponent hadn’t even come close to doing. Since her sword itself wasn’t buried in the Aetherian’s chest—only the extended length, thanks to Rippling Blade—it was no great matter to extricate herself and throw herself back.
Her armour of concentrated Essence would have protected her, but she didn’t want to use it up needlessly. Already she had burned up almost a third of it simply trying to hold back the Aetherian’s blistering spear.
“Unbelievable,” the Aetherian said. It retracted all its burning threads back to its body, touching the writhing wound on its chest. “Unbelievable. To think there exists such a one who could leave such an injury upon myself while taking nothing in return.”
Rieren shook her head. “Did you truly think there were none here who could harm you, monster?”
“It seems my estimation of this competition of yours was poor to begin with.” The Aetherian straightened. “Forgive me for calling your earlier efforts pathetic. It seems you are capable of more than you let on. In fact, I would hazard you are capable of even more that you are yet to unleash, for whatever reason.”
“I will need nothing more to end you.”
“Is that so? Then come prove who is the true monster here, liar.”
Rieren’s heart spasmed. What? No, this creature couldn’t possibly know about the corrupted Essence from the Abyss, the one she had hidden so carefully in her head. How could it have…
“What do you mean, monster?” Kalvia said from farther back.
The Aetherian, thankfully, looked like it had no intention of answering someone who had run from it. All it did was set its ash-and golden-thread constructed legs, then charge straight at Rieren.
Maybe that little turmoil had been meant to throw her off balance, though that didn’t feel right either. This monster wanted to prove its superiority in the truest of manners.
A matchup of pure battle prowess and nothing else.
Nevertheless, Rieren’s concentration had been shot through. As the Aetherian rushed her, she faced it head on. She was using her sword to deflect away the blows from its golden weapon, which had had now turned into twin longswords, one in each hand. Earthfall Blade was pushing away every blow from utterly annihilating her, though the same couldn’t be said for the battlefield.
A kick nearly hit her midsection but Fray Passage took her far enough away from the monster’s range. She counterattacked, but the translucent aura protected her opponent as ever. Rieren was forced back into desperately defending herself. The few opportunities she received to strike back did nothing against its irrepressible shield.
This face-to-face confrontation was pointless. She had already determined that. Why in the Abyss was she bothering to fight on the monster’s terms when she already knew her victory wouldn’t come in this manner?
Rieren disengaged. She allowed the monster to position her in such a manner that her block of its following attack still pushed her back, creating some distance between them.
“Come now,” the Aetherian said with its many voices. “Surely there is more fight in you. We have only just begun. I know you can keep going. So, come.”
A taunt. One Rierne had no wish to give in to. No, there was no point in wasting her strength. Her path to victory lay in how best she could use her speed and manoeuverability against the Aetherian, exploiting its weakness to deal one more blow. A final blow.
After all, the damage she had dealt with the last one was still wreaking havoc on its body.
Where her stormy strike had landed thanks to Rippling Blade, the chest had broken down. A combination of dark water and a storm cloud still churned where she had hit the monster. Occasional flickers of lighting burst out as well. The entire combination was slowly but surely eating away at the Aetherian, crumbling its chest to nothing.
“Are you so desperate to end me before you fall?” Rieren said.
“Ha!” The Aetherians’ many voices laughed in unison, a sound that almost made Rieren’s ears hurt. “So you are aware of how to taunt as well. I was under the impression that all you could concentrate your mind on was how best to best me. It appears as though I was incorrect! How full of surprises you are. Care to share your name?”
Rieren hefted her sword. “You shall not live long enough for my name to hold any significance to you. Were you not clamouring for a fight? Then why wait?”
“It’s waiting for reinforcements,” Amalyse said from behind. “There’s more of them coming in this direction.”
Rieren didn’t dare face away from the Aetherian. She was surprised that Amalyse, and likely Kalvia too, were still here. But if they were right, then there was no reason for them to go anywhere to haul in more monsters for Rieren and the other two strongest members of the Shatterlands to kill. They were coming here anyway.
She grimaced, though. That didn’t seem right. Rieren was by no means a great judge of character, but everything about this creature before her had given her the sense that it was indeed honourable about its intentions when it came to battling her.
The monster truly wanted to fight her one-on-one. It wanted to prove that it was the superior combatant. To call upon its allies and claim victory that way wasn’t how it would want to conduct their confrontation. That was, unless she had misjudged it completely. It wasn’t impossible to be taken in by a monster’s lies.
But the Aetherian seemed surprised by Amalyse’s addition. It stood straighter, its posture loosening. It even ignored Rieren to look back, the golden threads all around wriggling this way and that.
“Truly?” he said. “I believed I had come forward enough. I suppose I could have taken too long with this battle. What a shame.”
Rieren hefted her sword closer, her muscles tensing. “Pay attention.”
She was about to charge at the monster, but then, another voice cut through the area. One that made even the Aetherian take note.
“Rieren,” Oromin said, his words ringing over the battlefield and thrumming with power. “Let’s take this one together. Quickly.”
Ah, so he had sensed the other monsters coming in too. Rieren let the urgency take root within her. It would be ideal if they could kill this Aetherian before more of its kind joined the battle. A protracted battle with multiple powerful monsters wouldn’t be to their benefit.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Another challenger!” the Aetherian said. It spread both of its arms wide, its golden longswords sizzling even brighter than before. Maybe it sensed that Oromin was even stronger than Rieren. “Good. Excellent. You can sate my curiosity before it is too late. Come, come!”
As Oromin landed on the battlefield, the Aetherian charged at him. Rieren’s eyes widened. That monster was even faster than she had thought. Had it been holding back too? Her Mind-fuelled eyes could only just keep with its motion. Then again, there had been no need for it to move that fast when facing Rieren, not over the long distance it covered to get to Oromin.
The new challenger was a match for the monster’s new speed. As he shot towards the Aetherian, the ground churning in the wake of his passage, silvery mist sparkled to life around him. Oromin was more than ready for the battle.
With a bellowing war cry, the Aetherian launched a furious volley of blows with its longswords. Its golden blades fell on Oromin like a storm. An explosion of golden light and power, Essence concentrated enough to both see and feel from a distance, detonated to life and sent out shockwaves of power.
None of it reached Oromin. He was a practitioner of his clan’s powerful techniques. The silvery mist he had erected around himself was reflective against nearly anything thrown against it. All the power unleashed by the Aetherian simply bounced off Oromin, much of which hurtled right back against their original wielder.
Of course, none of them touched the Aetherian either. His golden threads were constantly summoning his translucent, auric shielding auras. All the reflected attacks were deflected by the shields.
Not that it mattered for Oromin. His main intention hadn’t been to overwhelm the monster with its own attacks in the first place. All he had hoped to do, so far as Rieren saw, was keep himself safe and create an opening for his true attacks.
One that used a technique Rieren was intimately familiar with.
Oromin was attacking directly. It took Rieren a second to realize that he was creating an encasing of concentrated Essence around himself, a second skin much like the armour she often kept crafting with the help of the extra elixir field. With the help of the empowering Essence, Oromin attacked physically to overpower the monster.
So that was his main fighting style. Much of his Essence went his silvery mist, a technique that no doubt consumed a great deal of Essence. That had to leave very little Essence for any other extravagant abilities. So, crafting concentrated Essence armour was Oromin’s best choice.
“What strange powers you have,” the Aetherian said after the combatants had separated for the time being. “A living, breathing mirror.”
Oromin took a moment to collect himself and regain his composure. At the same time, his power seemed to increase, his misty cloak sparkling ever brighter and the Essence coating his skin turning concentrated enough to become visible as shimmering white covered over his entire form.
They both charged at each other again. Rieren tensed, ready to dive in at the right moment. The looks on both faces had proven that they had assessed each other’s powers and were ready to execute a move that would end the other.
It was a tossup which way the fight would resolve. Rieren would just have to rely on her high Mind to be aware of every single moment of the battle.
They met with the same outcome at first. The Aetherian’s blows seemed even more furious than before, but they all bounced off Oromin’s enhanced cloak. Meanwhile, Oromin struck harder than ever with his fists and legs but couldn’t get through the monster’s shield.
It was the Aetherian who executed the first new manoeuvre. A quick kick threw it backwards while setting the entire battlefield ablaze with golden patchwork.
When the ground erupted with an explosion of auric power, Divine Essence more concentrated than anything Oromin could have summoned up went flying up all around him. Oromin’s defence was more than ready.
But that was exactly what the Aetherian had been counting on.
Rieren’s eyes widened as Oromin’s misty cloak reflected back much of the rising golden power back downwards, straight at the ground. Unlike the Aetherian, the earth had no shields to protect it. As such, it crumbled away under the twin onslaughts of the Aetherian’s power, then the same ability being reflected back upon it once more.
Oromin fell. His footing was entirely lost from him as the earth was shattered to nothing in a golden burst. Rieren rushed after her companion as he began plummeting.
Unfortunately, the Aetherian was faster. Of course, Oromin wouldn’t fall to such a trick. Not so easily. While the Aetherian capitalized on its opponent’s unbalanced state to launch an overpowering blow, Oromin hadn’t lost all his bearings.
Just as the monster hammered down with the mighty axe it had constructed with its sizzling Essence, Oromin was still able to both stop the blade and grab hold of it.
In the same manner Rieren had done when she had landed a more permanent blow.
“Now, Rieren,” Oromin shouted.
The words echoed up the crater that the combination of furious powers had created. But Rieren didn’t need them. She had already been moving as soon as Oromin had begun his plummet. By the time the monster had reached him with its axe, when her companion had grabbed onto his opponent’s weapon with an unbreakable grip, Rieren was already in position.
Her Domain was quick to summon at the edge of the enormous crater. Even quicker was the use of Water Dancer blade to wrap all three of her Aspects around her Receptor sword to wreathe it in a compressed storm cloud.
As the monster turned to face her, still stuck in its spot thanks to Oromin, Rieren launched herself. The aim and trajectory had to be right. They were falling. Not as still as she would have preferred. But that was fine. The monster wouldn’t be able to block her no matter how many of its shields it tried to use at the same time.
Gale blade took her to her target in less than a fraction a blink. At S-Grade, the skill’s speed was nearly as instantaneous as teleportation. Only those with extremely high Minds would have been able to stop it. And those who weren’t trapped by their opponents.
Maybe the monster had expected Rieren to come crashing down onto its seemingly exposed back or some other such spot. That would have been futile, thanks to its golden thread creating shields all over it.
Everywhere except for right where its fist was holding onto that gigantic axe made of compressed, concentrated, and coruscating Divine Essence.
Rieren’s sword had already expanded thanks to Rippling Blade. She struck it with as much force and power that her Body could provide. The blade crushed through the monster’s arm, stabbing in through the limb. The roiling storm cloud smashed the threads and the ashen limb to smithereens before going on to hammer the monster’s chest again.
Of course, the monster had realized Rieren’s true intention as she had struck down. As Rippling Blade tore through it, the Aetherian summoned another its spear in its other hand.
Rieren and Oromin both threw themselves back with blistering haste, disengaging from the monster. Just in time too. The rotating blow the Aetherian slashed out with its new spear sent off an explosive wave of gold in every direction. Rieren would have been caught by it, considering there was no way for her to dodge mid-flight, but Oromin came to the rescue.
He had let go of the monster just so he could pull Rieren behind him. The rest of the defence was performed by his misty cloak, though the eruption of force still threw them all hammering to the ground.
While Rieren had been protected against the monster’s counterattack, the impact with the crater’s bottom still shattered several bones and caused a few too many grievous injuries. The pain that wracked her was bad enough to make dark spots flicker in her vision.
No. Now was not the time for unconsciousness to claim her.
She forced herself to get back up, keeping her eyes open. All Rieren had to do was outlast the pain until Divine Resilience fixed her right back up.
It was a good thing Oromin hadn’t been too hurt from the fall. His strange silvery cloak had protected him against such blows too, aside from his greater resistance to such impacts just by virtue of being in the Ascendant realm. The same couldn’t be said for the monster. While the fall hadn’t done much to it, the damage Rieren had dealt had been severe.
Her last blow had shattered its arm entirely. An even greater chunk of its chest was now missing too, though she had sadly struck a spot where her original infestation of stormy water and lightning-imbued clouds had been broken. Still. The monster was essentially half destroyed. That it was still standing was only due to its incredible innate strength and power.
“Enough, Higher One,” a loud voice rang out.
Rieren’s senses spiked. She looked up at the lip of the crater. Another monster was standing there, an Abyssal this time. One with a familiar shape. That was a Blightmane, but unlike any she had seen in this timeline.
Her experiences from her previous life informed her that it was a B-Grade Blightmane Lykan. One that was powerful and intelligent enough to talk.
“That’s the one I was warning you about,” Amalyse’s voice rang out from somewhere farther behind. She and Kalvia weren’t anywhere near the crater though, which was good. They didn’t need to get caught up in this any further. “Be careful.”
The monsters paid the cultivators no mind. With a posture of clear annoyance, the Aetherian had turned to face its fellow monster.
“Leave me be, Abyssal,” it said. “I have nearly deciphered their truths. It will take mere moments for me to secure victory.”
“We have secured victory already,” the Blightmane said. “Do you not feel it? The plan has come to fruition.”
“What plan?” Oromin asked. “Speak, monster, before I end you where you stand.”
For someone in the Ascendant realm, the threat was more than credible. B-Grade monsters couldn’t match the strength of an Ascendant realm cultivator. Not over an extended period, at least.
Which once again reinforced in Rieren’s mind that the Aetherian they’d been fighting was closer to A-Grade than B-Grade.
The Blightmane bared a vicious grin down at them. “You should be feeling it soon. Seeing it and hearing it, as well. Experiencing it, in fact. It is almost time.”
Rieren waited, her breath froze and her heart warbling in expectation. Nothing was apparent at first. But then the shaking began, and with it appeared the distant roaring. Several ones.
“Fellserpents,” Amalyse shouted. Despite her best efforts, a quaver of fear laced her words. “A dozen of them. And—and they’re all behind us. Far behind. They’re attacking the braziers!”