“I must admit, that was an excellent trick,” Essalina said. “I recall you using lightning in our last encounter, but certainly not with that combination of skill use or manipulating your Domain from range.” Her grin seemed to make her shiver. “It seems I’m not simply fighting the Rieren Vallorne I knew. You’re the sum total of the Rieren who survived far longer than I did.”

Rieren held her sword at the ready. She was trying to piece together how exactly Essalina had come out unscathed. She didn’t have trouble believing that an Ascendant-realm cultivator would survive a lightning blast. But to do so with no injury or mark at all, even after Rieren had torn down her defences, was a hard pill to swallow.

Then she caught it. Essalina’s sword. It was touching the ground. Digging into it, in fact, carving a tiny trench. Ah, of course.

“It is funny, isn’t it?” Essalina said with a little laugh. “How certain abilities can be reduced by nothing more than a good understanding of the laws of the world.”

Correct. She must have channelled a bit of Essence and allowed the lightning to conduct through her metallic armour and her longsword and harmlessly into the ground.

The monsters had gone silent at seeing Essalina walk out unharmed. But now, they jeered. Their arms were raised in fury, several threatening to barge into the battle itself as though they would reinforce Rieren’s attempt at cutting down her opponent. It was almost like being in the second round already, where there was sure to be an active audience.

“Now.” Essalina gripped her sword tighter, making Rieren tense a little. “Die.”

The blow didn’t come in the same fashion as before. Where Essalina had attacked directly in previous instances, this time, she opted to use her Domain. The ground ripped apart under her combination of erupting Abyss- and Divine-Aspected Essences.

A furious explosion of the Arteroth’s black -and-gold flames came in next, like a volcano of darkness and light bursting at once.

Rieren was ready for that too. She summoned her Domain, her water absorbing the brunt of the blast so that she wasn’t affected much. What happened next wasn’t anything surprising either. Essalina followed it up with a furious salvo of attacks that left no doubt about her intentions. She was here to annihilate Rieren utterly.

If her sword blows had been overwhelming before, they were now obliterating. Rieren’s Mind could barely keep up. All that allowed her to stave off being sliced apart or slammed to nothing was a combination of instinct, muscle memory, and ceaseless uses of Earthfall Blade.

But the blows weren’t all she had to worry about. They alone were more than enough, of course. Rieren was certain she would falter sooner or later, allowing Essalina to take advantage and deal a devastating strike. Especially considering every strike was empowering the Arteroth scion’s might more and more.

At one point, even just blocking was rupturing Rieren’s skin and sending agony-riddled tremors that surely left tiny fractures in her bones. Fractures that would soon turn into giant cracks.

But as though that alone wasn’t enough, Essalina brought her Domain into play. Both of them had summoned their Domains. The ground was covered in swirling dark water, but beneath it, the fissures ran all across it, spewing flaming spikes of Essalina’s Aspect combination.

Rieren might have activated Tidal Summons, but she wasn’t moving enough to give rise to powerful waves. None of the surges of water that arose at her motions bothered Essalina. Not when she was moving with such speed and force.

In turn, Essalina was using her Domain’s property of pulling out black-and-gold flames anywhere and everywhere all at once, in any shape and consistency that she preferred.

It was a menace, to say the least.

Rieren could barely keep up with Essalina’s direct, physical attacks, could barely throw herself back so that her opponent’s growing strength didn’t become crushing.

There was a timer to the ability that empowered Essalina through consecutive strikes. About a second and a half. If Rieren could create enough distance between herself and Essalina, such that Essalina wasn’t able to strike at her for that duration, then her compounding strength reset to more normal levels. Well, normal for an Ascendant-realm cultivator with high stats.

All that protected Rieren—or at least, kept her from being eviscerated completely in a second—was her concentrated Essence armour. Rieren had unconsciously applied Aspects to the armour too. Her Divine and Abyss Aspects had come out to reinforce her concentrated Essence armour, turning it pitch black but with a shimmering golden outline.

While she didn’t appreciate looking like a discount version of Essalina Arteroth, she had to admit the concentrated Essence armour was doing a wonderful job of safeguarding her against the similar Aspects her enemy was flinging at her from everywhere.

Fireballs pelted upon Rieren. She thwacked them away with one hand while using Earthfall Blade against Essalina’s sword strikes with the other. That wasn’t all.

More black-and-gold fires shot at her. Some came shooting like bolts fired from crossbows, some zigzagging to strike at random locations like lightning. Yet more floated at her in a flurry of small sparks like a swarm of corrupted fireflies. Then there were the continuous ruptures from beneath the ground as well. Little eruptions went off at random without surcease.

Her Essence armour was up to the task. It was strange. Unlike her previous iteration of a static concentration of Essence, this one seemed alive. Acting with wills of their own, the Abyss and Divine Aspects seemed to lash out whenever one of Essalina’s Essence attacks landed.

Strange as it was, Rieren didn’t mind. She barely noticed it, at first. Being too busy trying to prevent herself from being crushed tended to take up most of one’s attention and focus.

Still, when she did notice, her surprise was overtaken by the effect. Her Essence was strong enough to repel Essalina’s, someone who was an entire realm above her. In terms of pure strength and prowess, Rieren’s transformation into an Arisen was turning out to be an enormous benefit.

A similar confrontation would have required a completely different approach in the past. In fact, it would probably have revolved around delaying any actual confrontation.

Rieren had to hand it to Essalina. If nothing else, she was proving exactly why there was a reason she was the one who had led the entire norther region of the Elderlands against their Abyssal infestation. Her strength was incredible, even among other Ascendant-realm cultivators.

The entire battlefield was being destroyed under the influence of their powers. Essalina’s continued shattering of the earth, followed by Rieren’s stormy water digging in everywhere combined to depress the whole area for several hundred paces around the centre of the main battle. Rieren couldn’t even see the monsters in the gaps between her fight.

Everything had sunk so much that they were surrounded by walls of earth and rocks over a dozen paces high.

The mistake came unbidden. At one point, Essalina used the skill that created several impressions of her sword to attack with the entire bunch all at once.

Rieren knew defending against that skill was currently impossible for her. Fray Passage took her back, but it led her to a spot where she was entirely swathed with Essalina’s Essence attacks all over. Her Essence armour protected her yet again, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Besides, Essalina was going to take advantage of her blinded state with a follow-up blow.

As such, Rieren let her water rise in a geyser to take her into the air. That was her mistake.

Essalina might not have been able to reach her, but the fiery cape certainly did. Rieren was slammed down a second later. Instead of attacking as it had done so far like another weapon, it wrapped sinuously around Rieren’s leg after she had deflected it away.

She had taken that deflection to be final, forgetting for just a moment that Essalina’s flaming cape was capable of something like that. Devious woman. She had withheld from using it like that just to surprise Rieren. And it had worked too. Rieren crashed down to the earth hard enough to shatter the Essence armour on her back completely.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Essalina was already dashing forward to take advantage of it. She had turned into a comet of her black-and-gold flames again, compressed together so they burned fiercely enough to scorch the ground in the wake of her passage.

Rieren had no choice but to use Earthfall Blade. There was no time for anything else. She had just managed to rise to her feet as the comet reached her.

But even as her Essence-imbued sword connected with the attack to send it careening to the side, Rieren found she had missed the real threat. Essalina hadn’t approached with the comet. Instead, she appeared right behind it, a pace out of range from Rieren’s sword swing and fully prepared to take advantage of the little trick she had pulled. After all, Rieren was completely open.

Essalina’s actual blow came with as much power and force as was expected. Rieren’s Mind was high enough to note how the very air shrieked, if for a fraction of a second, as the overlarge longsword cut through.

Despite the grin on Essalina’s face, there was a way to avoid it. Rieren’s arm might be swinging in a different direction, but she threw herself forward into the direction of the strike.

And immediately used Fray Passage. She was too disoriented for anything else, in no position to simply bash aside her opponent’s blow with Earthfall Blade.

The skill got her moving just in the nick of time, shooting her behind—

She never managed to reach the position she had aimed for. The skill simply stopped working for some reason. One moment, the world turned blurred as Rieren began moving with impossible speed. The next, she had fallen to the ground behind Essalina, about a pace off from the spot she had been seeking to reach, from where she could counterattack her adversary.

“You’re not the only one with powerful skills, Vallorne,” Essalina said.

In the next heartbeat, before Rieren could gather herself or re-prepare her Essence armour, Essalina took advantage. The kick from her armoured foot crushed Rieren’s lower back and sent her crashing to the other side of the little depression their Domains had hollowed out.

By the time Rieren had come to a stop, she was a little amazed that she was still breathing. The relief faded instantaneously.

Pain claimed her soul, threatening to force out a scream. It was as though little explosions were continuously going off in the lower half of her body. She couldn’t move either of her legs, nor could she move her right arm more than a fingerbreadth at a time.

The more she thought about it, the more Rieren realized that Essalina might just have crushed a good chunk of Rieren’s spine entirely.

A nullifying skill of some sort. Rieren had faced those types before. Certain skills could stop the use of other skills entirely, rendering those who depended upon them entirely helpless in battle. Of course. Rieren hadn’t seen it coming because Essalina hadn’t possessed it in the last timeline, just as she hadn’t possessed the ability to create several versions of her striking sword.

But the injury wasn’t a complete loss. After all, Rieren had Reaver Stance.

Apparently, Essalina was well aware of it. She had appeared to stand above Rieren in a flash, refusing to give her even a moment of breathing space, fully aware just how dangerous that would be. Arrogant Essalina might be, fool she wasn’t.

She raised her longsword into the air. Her eyes had changed quite literally. They burned, the flames in them fiercer than anything Essalina had summoned till now. “I’ve waited for this moment for so long.”

Even with Reaver Stance coming into play, Rieren couldn’t instantly dodge an attack. Not in her condition. However, the skill did empower Rieren entirely, including her natural defences and toughness.

Essalina’s sword crashed down on her guts. There was Rieren’s concentrated Essence armour to stop the worst of the hit. It seemed to jump as impact with her enemy’s blade became imminent, as though it would strike out first and crush the longsword before it could land.

Thanks to the boost from Reaver Stance, it even worked to some extent. Concentrated black and gold Essence jumped out like a ravaging maw. Essalina’s power was too great to be stopped fully, but her longsword was rebuffed enough so that the sword only stabbed into Rieren’s guts instead of obliterating everything around the point of impact to bloody mush.

“What the—” Essalina stared up from the point where her sword had sunk into Rieren. She frowned when she caught Rieren’s eyes. “This skill—gods curse you!”

The Arteroth scion pushed Essence through her longsword into Rieren directly. Too slow. Essalina had gotten in close. Close enough for Rieren to return the favour and kick her opponent hard. Essalina and her sword were both sent hurtling back.

“Impossible,” Essalina growled as Rieren rose. “I broke your gods-blasted spine.”

“You should remember how,” Rieren said. “Do you not recall our last encounter?”

As Reaver Stance had come to life, Rieren’s channelling had grown several times her original capability. If she had been pulling in a river’s worth of Essence before, she was now drawing in an entire sea of world’s natural energy, which quickly took on her Abyss and Divine Aspects.

Besides her direct channelling power, Reaver Stance had also granted far greater control over where exactly her Essence went. She could control the flow of her Essence through her meridians to the minutest degree to the point of having multiple Aspects running through the same meridian, each in a different direction.

So, while she had sent a flood of Essence to her concentrated armour around her guts, she had also sent a good deal of water-Aspected Essence to her spine. It needed healing first.

Which didn’t take long. Reaver Stance had also enhanced her perk. Divine Resilience—no, Eternal Beyond, she was really going to have to get used to the new name—had become several times faster too.

It was at odds with Reaver Stance’s boost, of course. Even at S-Grade, the skill continued to maintain the limitation that it was most effective when Rieren was most hurt, with its efficacy decreasing as she returned to perfectly uninjured condition. Thankfully, healing her spine just enough to use her legs didn’t wipe away too much of the skill’s benefits.

Essalina yelled and charged. She was upon Rieren in a blink. A blink still too slow, what with her advanced stats thanks to Reaver Stance’s boost.

When Essalina’s blade fell, Rieren let the sword push her back just enough. But instead of deflecting the blow, she pushed back and overpowered it. Then she struck with her own strike.

“What—?” Essalina growled as she was hammered back a few paces.

She wasn’t done, of course. It seemed she was intent on using her passive skill, lashing out with multiple blows in quick succession to build up her own power and overcome the boost Rieren had gained.

But Rieren was too powerful now to allow that to happen. Essalina never got to launch the flurry that would have empowered her in the manner she sought. Rieren simply overcame her opponent from the very first strike. She met the Arteroth scion’s blade with her own, stopping it cold before gathering her strength and slashing downwards, striking Essalina’s Essence armour hard.

Once more, Essalina staggered back. Her yes had grown wide and wild. She couldn’t believe it.

Rieren couldn’t blame her would-be killer for the reaction. After all, she herself was grinning madly too. This power enlivening her—roiling like a storm and burgeoning to lash out as though Reaver Stance had incarnated it with a will of its own—was amazing. She knew of those who ingested certain pills to experience epiphanies over and over. This feeling was no different.

Never one to be forced back for long, Essalina yelled and charged again, She recognized the futility of her approach, though. Which explained why, as soon as she reached Rieren once more, she used the skill that created multiple copies of her blade striking at once.

Rieren’s grin stretched wider. Just what she had been hoping to face.

One more thing Reaver Stance had greatly boosted was her concentrated Essence armour. Not only did it regenerate several times faster than before, the alive-ness of it—Rieren had no other way to describe the sensation of it feeling like a thousand trapped beasts over her skin and clothes—had risen in intensity by the same amount.

So much so that Rieren could rip herself free from the armour, leaving it still maintaining itself in her former position just a pace to her left.

The Essence armour not only kept itself alive, it continued to grow and thicken. Both the Abyss and Divine Aspects threatened to burst out in spikes of blackness and pure golden power, even while remaining restrained in the general shape of Rieren’s form.

As planned, all of Essalina’s blades crashed into her disembodied Essence armour. Rieren’s Aspects lashed out as soon as they were struck, violently ripping into the swords—all the ethereal versions and the lone real blade—like a thousand monstrous jaws clamping onto their prey. Essalina was stuck.

Perfect for Rieren since she was about to counterattack.

Not with her sword, though. Essalina had recognized Rieren’s ploy with wide eyes. To stop Rieren, Essalina had flung her cape next, seeking to decapitate her entirely. That was where Rieren’s Receptor sword went, barely pushing away the cape from her neck.

But just because she was attacked from a different source didn’t mean Rieren’s plan to retaliate had been foiled. All the while the entire fight had been going on, she had begun redirecting her water-Aspected Essence to her injured shoulder. The feeling in her numb right arm had returned.

Enough for her to concentrate as much Essence around the fist as she could. Half her arm turned pitch black, encased in solid darkness that gleamed like jet. At the tip of her hand, golden claws had materialized as well.

All of which Rieren pulled back to hit Essalina right on her head.

The other woman hadn’t realized that Rieren’s seemingly useless arm had been repaired in short order. Her reactions were on the level of an Ascendant-realm cultivator, however. Rieren had aimed for her head, but all she hit was the arm Essalina had pulled free from her sword to block Rieren.

Abyss and Divine Aspected Essence combined together in a miasma of sparking black and auric power. A tie. Neither power could overcome the other. Except…

Rieren didn’t understand the instinct guiding her, but she bent all her focus on the point where her arm had met her opponents. There, she honed in on the Divine Essence specifically, narrowing it until it was string-thin, turning it into fine, familiar strands.

Her eyes widened as they dug into Essalina’s armour. This was—

The resulting explosion threw both warriors far, far apart. A thunderous bolt of black-and-gold Essence erupted between them, filled with the entire concentrated fury that both Rieren and Essalina had unleashed.

Shot off her feet, Rieren collided with the distant wall of the depression. She wasn’t aware of much, but an instinctive reaction to pull up her Domain had prevented the collision with the wall from destroying every single bone in her body. The impact had made her carve a trench through the wall.

Despite the pain riddling her body, she couldn’t help but grin. Essalina had been flung back too. There was no sign of the Arteroth scion getting out from her trench. All the monsters were cheering. She really had won.

A Blightmane looked down from the crack over a dozen paces above Rieren’s head.

“Victory is ours,” it growled, its monstrous grin reflecting Rieren’s own. “Destroyer!”