Rieren rushed the Blightmane Lykan. As a B-grade monster, its fur was more white than grey and its eyes glimmered a deep red of a dying sun. It was clearly a powerful creature, its very presence making the air twist, its every motion setting off little shockwaves. Incredibly powerful.
But Rieren was more than a match for it.
As soon as the monster’s trick had been apparent, they had decided to end this confrontation. That was the only way they could salvage this and counteract the monsters’ plan.
A part of Rieren understood that it was rather ingenious of the Abyssals and Aetherians to have come up with this. Too ingenious. Of course, there was already strong proof that someone or something was directing the monsters from even higher up. After all, there were teams of monsters consisting of both Abyssals and Aetherians working together.
Someone must have decided that the best way for the monsters’ to progress was to work together.
It was almost funny that the same realization had struck the human competitors around the same time. A mirroring epiphany. Or an understanding that had come from the same—or at least, somehow related—source. A source that stood high in the human hierarchy as well.
A source that was equivalent to the Forborne Emperor or his imperial court.
Of course, if Rieren aired the thoughts revolving around her mind currently, she’d be decried as some sort of paranoia agent sowing chaos at a time everyone in the Elderlands ought to be working together. No one would dare believe her, much less make the effort, regardless of her experiences and knowledge.
But those thoughts mattered little right at this moment. The monsters had successfully executed a clever plan that took advantage of their presumptions. It was up to Rieren, Oromin , and the rest of them to clean up the mess and counteract the Abyssals’ and Aetherians’ move.
As such, Rieren unleashed her full fury against the Blightmane.
The monster possessed incredible might. Its blows swiped fast enough to blur in the air, its metallic claws landing with enough force to release little shockwaves with every impact. But Rieren’s Mind was high enough for her to catch its every motion. Her increased Body stat let her deflect every strike with her sword without even needing to resort to Earthfall Blade.
She kept up the pace without trouble. The problem was that the monster’s attack rate was too fast for Rieren to find an opening to counterattack. She needed to land a blow of her own to end this battle.
The Blightmane had come to the realization that it wasn’t going to get past Rieren’s defence with its current pattern of attacks either. They both needed something new.
It was no surprise, then, that the monster disengaged, throwing itself back by several paces. There. That was the opening Rieren needed. She pulled her sword back and used Rippling Balde to extend its length. She summoned her Domain at the same time, compressing all three Aspects on the Receptor sword to turn it into a storm cloud.
But before Rieren could attack, the Abyssal roared out. Curse the gods, Rieren should have seen it coming. The very noise itself was infused with virulent, corrupted Essence. Her ears cringed at it, her muscles cramping, and the rest of her body shutting down at the vicious noise. Even her heart slowed down and her breathing grew more ragged.
Aside from the effect on her physical self, the monster’s roar had also shattered the Essence around her Receptor sword. The storm cloud dissipated to nothing.
A red ballista bolt flew in from behind and hammered into the Blightmane’s head. It was wreathed with brilliant flames. The impact of the oversized bolt immediately set off a firestorm that pushed Rieren backwards.
But better than all that, it had shut that accursed monster’s screaming.
She was going to have to thank Amalyse later. And Kalvia too, of course. Amalyse wouldn’t have gotten a good platform to get her shot off if not for Kalvia’s Domain tree.
There was no time to waste. Rieren rushed forward, summoning her Domain once more, this time keeping it on the ground for the time being. As the flames began to clear and the monster barrelled out to attack Rieren directly, she set off a powerful wave with Tidal Barrage. The surge forced the monster’s arms up above its head, exposing its weak spot for Rieren to attack.
Rieren rushed forward, using Rippling Blade to stab into the Blightmane’s midsection. It wasn’t that simple, of course. Blightmane though it might be with the weak spot right at its lower guts, it was also more advanced than the rest of its kind. At B-Grade, it had constructed a mesh of spiky fur around its entire midsection, effectively armouring its fatal vulnerability.
Her sword clanged into the monster’s stomach with fiery spray of sparks, quickly dampened by all the water. Still, the force behind Rieren’s blow hammered the Blightmane back almost thirty paces.
“Enough!” the monster screamed, unleashing another roar that ripped through the very fabric of space.
Amalyse had flung another one of her fiery ballista bolts at their enemy from her distant perch. Unfortunately, the Blightmane’s roar ripped through it and made the arrow explode into another firestorm long before it reached its target.
Rieren herself was impacted the same way she had been before, but she was ready for it this time. A quick release of the steam-borne pressure she always built under her Domain’s surface raised the water around her in a powerful geyser.
The water was enough to dampen the monster’s ferocious roar. With the liquid warbling the sound, the corrupted Essence carried by the spiky vibrations lost their debilitating effect. Within the watery walls of her geyser, Rieren was perfectly fine, protected from both the ripping noise and the fiery fallout of Amalyse’s fire-laced ballista bolt exploding too early.
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She was also perfectly positioned to counterattack and take advantage of the Blightmane’s roar.
Rieren used Rippling Blade once more, extending her sword’s length and wrapping her three Aspects around it to form a storm cloud again. Then she thrust forward.
The sword burst through her geyser’s walls and stabbed into the Blightmane’s fang-filled maw that was gaping open in its roar. Normally, a Blightmane’s most infamous weak spot was considered its lower guts, where the monster’s skin and flesh itself was weak enough for blades to deal enough damage.
But the mouth and eyes were potential candidates for fatal damage too. They were normally just more difficult to reach, considering the monster’s sheer size and the inherent nature of all living beings to be more careful about their faces.
It wasn’t as effective as Rieren had predicted. The monster was fast and powerful, after all.
As Rieren’s blade pierced through the water and into its mouth, the Abyssal snapped its jaws closed. It still dealt significant damage. Dark blood had burst out of its maw at her strike, and she was certain she had seen a few fangs pop out too. Plus, her Aspects were now wreaking havoc, especially if it had accidentally swallowed any of it.
Rieren sought to take advantage of the monster’s disorientation, unleashing another wave to unbalance it and strike at its guts again. A few more powerful blows and she could break through the armourlike fur there.
Except, the Blightmane had no intention of hanging around any longer than necessary. It ran.
Rieren cursed, then gave chase. She saw why the monster had chosen to charge off. Amalyse had flung another ballista bolt from a distance, and the monster had hared off towards her location to take care of the ranged threat since Rieren wasn’t about to be stopped so easily.
Fast. That cursed creature was too fast. But that was fine. Rieren’s feet might not be able to accelerate that quickly, but she had something else that could work.
Rieren summoned her Dawn Cloud and let it carry her over the battlefield. It sped up rapidly, soon matching and even outpacing the Blightmane’s acceleration. Her last Doman point had really raised her Domain Summons’ power as well.
The Blightmane rushed at Amalyse and Kalvia’s location like an animal. Amalyse had continued pelting her oversized arrows at it, but none of them hit the mark. The monster was too fast and too erratic in its motion. Even when she attempted to predict its positioning and aim there, the Blightmane would simply swerve in a completely unexpected direction.
Even Kalvia was having little luck. The Empress attempted to summon a miniature forest to stymie the Blightmane’s rapid approach, but the Abyssal’s pure strength let it crush directly through the summoned line of trees.
Thankfully, their attacks still slowed down the monster. Amalyse’s bolts were still forcing it to take a more roundabout path than was ideal, and Kalvia’s trees erected barriers that decreased the monster’s furious speed, even if it was temporarily so.
It allowed Rieren to catch up with the monster just in time.
The Blightmane reached the main Domain tree that was acting as the platform from which Amalyse was flinging her flaming ballista bolts. Kalvia shouted a warning that was lost to the wind rushing by Rieren’s ears. This was why they didn’t talk during the battle.
Amalyse jumped off, turning her large crimson crossbow into an even huger greatshield. As she and the Blightmane collided in mid-air, Rieren reached the same spot and leaped off her Dawn Cloud. At the exact moment that the monster and Amalyse met, the Abyssal’s claws shattering the scarlet greatshield, Rieren’s momentum carried her to the Blightmane’s neck.
Where a powerful kick sent the monster plummeting to the ground before it could claw Amalyse herself.
The fall was still a little too high for Rieren. She didn’t recall her Dawn Cloud, though. That was to help Amalyse land safely. All Rieren needed was a quick resummoning of her Domain, the rising water cushioning her impact with the ground. Between the two cultivators, the Blightmane had crashed down hard enough to leave a small crater from which it didn’t rise.
“Sometimes,” Amalyse said, her voice a little shaky but the grin on her face a little feral as well. “I forget how exhilarating this can be.”
Rieren shared a brief grin with her. That was enough of an agreement, enough of a display that she shared much of the same feelings as well.
But they had a more important issue to deal with. Namely, ensuring that the Blightmane was killed for good. Rieren rushed over to the fallen beast, which had begun struggling to rise. But it was trapped. Kalvia had thrown up roots from her tree to rise and entrap the monster.
It was too strong to be kept down for good, of course, by Kalvia’s roots at least. The Blightmane was going to break free at any moment.
Rieren reached it before that could happen. “Time to die, monster.”
The Blightmane couldn’t look up at her. Some of the roots had trapped its head too so that its bleeding was partially stuffed into the ground. “You think your perpetual killing of your own kind will set you apart.”
Rieren froze. “The Abyss do you mean?”
“When you stop committing this abhorrent crime, destroyer?”
“That’s enough out of you, foul Abyssal.” Kalvia was descending with her tree. “We’ve dealt enough with your kind.”
“You dare call me a monster when you chum around with our kind?”
Rieren stabbed into its head. Sparks flew off the fur, but the edge of her blade sliced across the Abyssal’s eye, making it shriek in pain. “Ah, missed by a fraction.”
She had been aiming to stab into its brain through its eye socket. Her sword might have been a tad too big for that, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. It wouldn’t hurt her, that was.
“Your actions will not wipe away your sins,” the Blightmane cried. “It will not remove the truth of your soul, the imprint of your identity in this world you seek to claim for us in your own means.”
“Enough blabbering.”
“What in the Abyss is it talking about, Rieren?” Amalyse asked.
“’Tis a monster, Amalyse. Nothing it says is worth heeding. All it seeks is to waste our time and perhaps buy its freedom some way.”
“You lie,” the Blightmane growled out. “As you always do. As you’ve always done. Do not deny your heritage. Do not decry your true deeds. Were you not the one who destroyed the world before this one to remake it anew? Is that not what all you call monsters seek to do in the end.”
“That is a vile twist of the truth. A truth that everyone knows. There are no lies here.”
“No? Then explain how you are an Abyssal in truth.”
“I am no such thing.”
“Explain the corruption that lives in your soul just like mine.”
Rieren froze. How? How could this random monster from who knew where know about the Abyss-Aspected Essence within her—no, there was no corruption in her soul. She had sealed it away, kept it trapped around her mind with a web of artificial meridians that channeled her true Essence, with Aspects that she wanted to use. Not one she had been forced to channel through the Abyss.
But her silence was a mistake. Amalyse was staring at her. Kalvia’s eyes had grown hooded. They were waiting for her response, but even if she answered now, the truth was already out. Her hesitation was an answer in and of itself.
Which meant that if the one of the monster’s insinuations could be true, then so could be the rest of his bevy of accusations.
Rieren turned her head up to look her companions—her friends—in their eyes. “Surely you will not take this monster’s words for truth.”
“Lies and secrets,” the Blightmane said. “That is all you ever deal in. How long must pass before you accept your true self? Before you cease fighting your identity? Have you not already been working towards its fulfillment all this while?”
“Cease prattling, Abyssal.”
“You need to cease deflecting and let me prove it.”
Rieren was taken aback again. “There is no way you can do such a ridiculous thing.”
Despite the Blightmane’s mouth mostly facing the ground, the grin baring its surviving fangs was all too evident. “No?”
Kalvia suddenly turned tenser than she had already been. Her eyes widened, staring behind Rieren. A golden glow was approaching.
Rieren didn’t even need to turn to see that the Aetherian was attacking them directly again.