Rieren hurried onwards to the main battle. It wasn’t far from where she had been assaulted by Cerill, the same position where the Avatars had confronted her.
Where the Gravemark Puppeteer had granted her the opportunity to join the battle in the first place.
Distant thoughts tried to stray back to the incident. That the Abyssal was ready to control its entire contingent comprised of all other monsters said a great deal of how high it held Rieren in its estimation. Or rather, how much it needed her to participate and be successful in this tournament. In other words, Rieren was playing into the monster’s hands.
Just as Elder Olg had said they’d been doing all along.
It irked her, no doubt, but the frustration was faint. Another thing Elder Olg had said was to stick to her beliefs and her goals, which was exactly what Rieren was doing.
Though how long one was supposed to do so while continuing to further the manipulator’s goals, Rieren had no clue. Perhaps the thoughts weren’t as distant as she had at first believed.
She decided to focus on the fighting ahead and what her intent would be. After a little moment of vacillating, she summoned the Dawn Cloud again and rose high into the air upon it. As usual, the cloud was tearing itself apart and reforming at the same time. She really needed to address that as soon as she could.
For now, Rieren tried to gauge out the rest of the battle, at least so far as she could see from her current position. She ensured the Domain Summons stuck close to a tree, weaving between its branches as it climbed higher. That would help prevent her from sticking out too much as she had done with Cerill, which was what had led to her being spotted in the first place.
Several hundred paces away, the monsters were being harried by the cultivators from all directions. The battlefield was a mess of monstrous corpses mixed in with a few unmoving human bodies here and there too.
As for the actual battle, the fighting was fierce. For the most part, the human competitors were focused around the multiple brazier locations. Their main goal was to prevent the Abyssals and Aetherians from submitting the tokens and taking up the humans’ spots in the next round.
Strange how quickly their priorities had shifted from taking the fight to the monsters in the rest of the forest to desperately defending their enemies’ main targets.
The monsters themselves weren’t committing as well as they could have. They probed here and there, but if they focused on any one point to try to overwhelm the defences, the human defenders would bunch up and repel them quickly. They couldn’t concentrate because the many cultivators possessed area-of-effect abilities that could wipe out too many of them at once.
As such, they were forced to conduct pitched battles in an attempt to draw away the defenders from the crazier locations.
Several had willingly obliged. More than one fight raged at random locations all over the battlefield. A few were even close enough that Rieren could have jumped in to assist with one leap. Cerill had to have been one of those. She could even see a Malomen Shifter’s corpse nearby.
An impasse. Sort of. Rieren would be entering the battle at a moment when things were balanced a little too tightly for her liking. Maybe the Puppeteer thought she was supposed to change the monsters’ fortune for the better. Well, fat chance of that.
She was here to ensure her progression to the next round, not anyone else’s. And her original team’s too, she supposed. And perhaps the rest of the Shatterlands’ contingent.
Rieren owed Avathene that much for sticking up for her.
She understood how difficult that decision must have been for the Clanmistress. Pressured from all sides by the other rulers of various clans, struggling with her own hesitations thanks to what had happened to Mercion, she had still stuck by Rieren and her words. She had still let the truth rule the day instead of her own biases.
Rieren frowned where a monster went down to a cultivator wielding white flames. According to the Puppeteer, a few of the Abyssals and Aetherians had already submitted their tokens successfully. From what Rieren could see, it really had been a small handful who had progressed past the first round. The vast majority were still in the midst of their battle.
Another interesting point was that most of the human competitors were still on the field of battle. That meant the majority of them hadn’t yet recovered many tokens. At least, not enough for their whole contingent to qualify, if they were all working together much like the Shatterlands’ contingent.
Rieren released her Dawn Cloud and dropped to the ground again. That look had been enough to map a route through the fray.
Of course, there would always be the danger that she might be confronted by others along the way. Monsters might accost her, other cultivators might spot her and try to end her. Both sides were a danger to some extent. She supposed that had been the case before too.
Rieren pulled out her Comm Shell. For all that she could reach her destination, she had to ensure her friends would be capable of doing the same as well.
“Amalyse,” she said into the little abalone shell, holding it close to her mouth. “Kalvia. Can you hear me?”
It took a few moments before Amalyse spoke up. “Who is this? What have you done with Rieren?”
“It is Rieren. Listen—”
“Tell us the truth, monster.” There was real anger in Amalyse’s voice. Almost a desperate anger, a need to know that she hadn’t been able to address in the chaos of the ongoing battle. “What have you done?”
Rieren was silent for a moment, standing next to the tree. She needed to get moving. Simply standing her was dangerous. She would be spotted soon enough at this rate. Whatever she might have looked like before, she was certainly more eye-catching now.
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“Will you let me speak, Amalyse?” she asked.
“Go on.”
“It is still me. Still Rieren. Even if I do not look or sound it any longer. You must believe me. I am still the friend who cares about you more than any other.”
Amalyse swallowed. It could be heard even through the Comm Shell. Of course, that wasn’t the only noise coming through their communicators. Rieren could hear shouts and the faint cacophony of battle as well. Amalyse was in the midst of a fight, but thankfully, she sounded like she wasn’t in immediate danger. Rieren wasn’t distracting her.
“Am I to just take you at your word?” Amalyse asked.
Rieren smiled in relief. There. The first crack in her best friend’s stiff refusal. Not that it was surprising. Amalyse of all people wanted Rieren to be alive, to still be her unshakeable, unassailable friend. Even as a monster.
“No,” Rieren answered. “Take me not at simple words. Trust the memories that I want to share with—”
She was interrupted a by a furious explosion of white flames not far from her location. The blast was so loud, Rieren temporarily couldn’t even hear herself speak. She frowned. The fires were spreading fast too. She couldn’t stay in one spot. The battle was sprawling out to her location, just as she had feared.
Rieren got moving. She kept her eyes on the field of chaos ahead of her, making sure she wasn’t relocating to any specific area that would put her in greater danger.
After all, she had a conversation of greater importance to attend to.
“Amalyse,” she said as she continued moving. The words weren’t smooth, but they would suffice. She was simply thankful that Amalyse was still connected to the call. “Listen to the memories we shared. Hear the moments that bonded us. These are the evidence that proves my identity.”
Rieren went on to quickly but clearly regale her friend with recollections of some of the key memories they had shared. The time when they had tried to find their hidden attacker at Lionshard Sect only to become gravely injured. Right afterwards, Amalyse had needed to carry Rieren back to the Sect’s main grounds, only for the Sect to be invaded by monsters.
Specific details solidified the story in Rieren’s favour. The exact wound she had suffered thanks to the slice of wind coming at her, the way Amalyse had cradled her all the way back to their dormitories, the exact trap Rieren had hoped to execute.
She recalled other memories too. The time they had flown across a chasm in the dungeon underneath Lionshard mountain on floating slabs of stone, the time they had all entered the Abyss together and used a Corruptor Necklace to escape with the help of Elder Olg, the time Rieren, Amalyse, and Rollo had fought together against the Dreadflood invading the Shatterlands.
The time Rieren had met and received approval from Amalyse’s mother.
And those were just the memories of this timeline. With her current life done, Rieren had begun to pull out the memories of the previous timeline.
But first, Rieren had needed to take a pause as a Shadeborn and a Malomen Shifter had seemingly appeared right before her, with two cultivators in tow not far from them. She’d been forced to withdraw to a different location, thankful that none of the competitors, neither monstrous nor human, had seen her. That would have been awkward.
Even Amalyse was interrupted at times. Someone shouted something at her, which Rieren couldn’t decipher through their connection for it was too faint. But it sounded like she was being reprimanded for talking instead of taking part in the battle.
Thankfully, Amalyse berated off whoever it was. She still had time to listen.
“And then there was that time,” Rieren continued, “when I found out you were receiving special heated pads from your mother for your time of the mo—”
“Alright, alright,” Amalyse interrupted. Rieren grinned. Even through the Comm Shell, it was obvious Amalyse didn’t know whether to be annoyed or exasperated. “I get it. Monkey’s balls.” She laughed. A laugh of relief, and genuine pleasure. “I should have known the great Rieren Vallorne wasn’t going to die that easily. Even if…”
“Even if I had to become a monster to escape death?”
“You didn’t choose this. I—I don’t understand what exactly happened, but I do trust you, Rieren. I know there’s a method to whatever madness you’re involved in.”
“It is all as I explained. An effect of surviving through the Abyss that I thought I had dealt with, but one that has been pulled out of me by force. The monsters seek—”
She had to stop. Both Amalyse and Rieren were interrupted then. A shout passed through the Comm Shell and Amalyse disappeared for a while.
Meanwhile, Rieren was finally interrupted by a battle she couldn’t evade. Not when a monster nearly shot into her directly. She wasn’t being attacked. That would have been simple enough to deal with.
No, someone had smashed that monster in her direction.
Rieren barely dodged out of the way. The monsters struck the ground nearby, though it began getting up quite soon again. Ah, it was a Blightmane. Of course. Physical trauma wasn’t something that existed in a Blightmane’s dictionary. At least, not a higher-Grade one’s. Not with that thick, metallic fur.
The Blightmane wasn’t alone. It had been fighting a small group of human competitors with several other monsters. The rest of them hadn’t spotted Rieren. She could still—
“You have arrived!” the Blightmane said as it began to rise.
For a second, Rieren wondered if this was the same bastard that had allowed that Aetherian to mess with her meridians and draw out the corrupted Essence from her head. A quick but proper look denied that possibility, however. This one was B-Grade too, but it lacked any of the damage she had dealt to its mouth and guts, and its voice was different to boot.
“I have no intention of bandying words with you, monster,” Rieren said. “Leave me be.”
The Blightmane fell to its knees and held its hands together in a pleading posture. It had even twisted its face in an attempt to appear more pathetic.
“Please!” it said. “We cannot get through this obstacle without your assistance.”
“What in the world makes—”
Rieren was interrupted by another blast behind her. Her attention was dragged to the battle. Black-and-gold flames. Those were familiar. Faint panic arose in her mind, quickly dampened by the ever-present corrupted Essence in her head. She knew the panic’s source, though. Those flames indicated someone from the Arteroth clan was here.
Most likely, Essalina Arteroth herself.
The blast had allowed the monsters engaging in the fight to pull back and head towards Rieren’s location. Monkey’s balls, she was caught now.
“Rieren,” Amalyse’s voice burst through the call. “Are you alright? I hear more monsters, I—”
“I will speak with you later, Amalyse,” Rieren said. “I must deal with my enemies.”
“Monsters. Rieren, please don’t tell me…”
Of course, Amalyse must have heard what the Blightmane had said. In fact, she might think this was the exact same Blightmane from before. Essentially, the change in her situation made everything she had said earlier sound utterly false. Why would a non-monster be called upon by Abyssals as though she was their saviour?
A sudden impulse to silence the cursed Blightmane permanently with her sword made her grip her blade’s hilt tightly. But even as she did so, the impulse died like almost every other emotion she had experienced.
In its place, all that remained was a keen focus on her goal. A way to see her to the second round. One that made use of these monsters who wanted to use her in turn.
“It is not what you think,” Rieren said. “I will explain as soon as we meet. At the black smoke brazier, understand? We will meet there, just as we were supposed to.”
Without waiting for Amalyse’s confirmation, Rieren cut off the call. Too many monsters were gathering around her. There was no time to converse with her friend while dealing with all the Abyssals around her as well.
But worse than that, her other fear was materializing out of the flames as well. Essalina Arteroth was indeed here, and she was headed straight for Rieren.