Credit to the monsters, for all that they had appeared easy to rile up, they held enough of their minds to be able to execute their predetermined plan almost flawlessly.

It was the Abyssals who charged into battle first. Rieren gave the appearance of following them into the fray, but she held back just a little. Her time would come. The first part of their plan relied on the monsters putting up enough of a fight to make their opponents’ concentration focus entirely upon them. It worked too.

The two Blightmanes attacked with the speed and ferocity their kind were known for. They slashed in with their claws and ripped at Ledorne with their fang-filled jaws.

She wasn’t having it from either of them. Her strength and speed were more than a match for both monsters. Her blade danced with practiced power and precision, keeping both monsters at bay without difficulty.

Farther off, the Limbthief had engaged Falvain who had sought to investigate whether the fallen Life Stifler’s body contained any tokens he could loot. He had no such luck.

Astosind was kept busy by the Shadeborn and a Shifter working together. The Shifter’s wings allowed it to avoid the worst of Astosind’s gravity manipulation, while the Shadeborn kept up a direct physical onslaught. It wasn’t going to last long. Since Astosind could reduce his opponents to invulnerability with a mere touch, the monsters were soon debilitated.

In other words, Rieren had to end this.

She rushed in Ledorne’s direction. Gaining enough momentum for one final blow wouldn’t be impossible with a simple dash, considering the speed and power she could manifest now. But Rieren wanted to be thorough. So, she activated Fray passage, forcing the skill to take her to target in a single heartbeat at a speed that made the entire world blur.

She had to first get close enough so that the skill’s use wouldn’t run out of the ground it could cover. Her approach was foretold, of course, for the monsters at least. They both leaped backwards to give her some space.

Meanwhile, Fray Passage made Rieren too fast for Ledorne to prepare. Her eyes went wide when Rieren pulled the skill to a halt just over Ledorne. Slow though she might have been to erect a proper defence or simply dodge away, she still managed to bring her rocky sword around.

But Rieren was too fast, her Mind high enough to know what she needed if a simple sword blow was going to be blocked.

Moving in mid-air was difficult, but Rieren had a contingency planned. Enchant had allowed her to summon Floating Blade. With its grace, she repositioned herself so that instead of her transformed sword, her foot lashed out in a vicious kick.

One that landed right on Ledorne’s head.

Rieren had believed the momentum behind her blow would be enough to crush her opponent’s skull entirely. Apparently, that was not to be.

Ledorne had crafted her rocky armour over her face just in time. The power behind Rieren’s kick still managed to break the face armour to shrapnel, the blood spurting from Ledorne’s mouth proving that at least her jaw had to have been shattered.

Rieren’s momentum carried her to a tree. She reoriented and repositioned her flight with Floating Blade so that her feet crashed against a tree, cracking its trunk in the process. Then she landed on the ground.

The result of her devastating blow to Ledorne was just as she had planned. Astosind and Falvain forgot about their opponents, especially since the monsters weren’t posing them any serious danger—on purpose, as Rieren had planned. Instead, they rushed to their fallen comrade before either Blightmane could think to take advantage of her condition.

“Now!” Rieren shouted.

The monsters knew the signal. As one, they pulled back. Rieren joined them, rushing past their enemies’ position while summoning her Domain.

As expected, as soon as Falvain and Astosind had seen them retreat, they had perked up, perhaps even hoping to give chase. Despite Ledorne’s state, they couldn’t simply let the all-important tokens escape their grasp.

Rieren’s zipping motion setting off a multitude of waves with Tidal Summons put a rest to any such notions.

“Incredible,” the first Blightmane was saying as they all rushed away in the next part of the adjusted route Rieren had planned. “You broke them utterly, Destroyer.”

“Do not get too excited,” Rieren said. “There are more enemies are still ahead of us.”

The monsters turned grim. It wasn’t that they’d actually been happy before, but all creatures felt morale to a certain degree. Still. They couldn’t afford to get distracted by a single, favourable result. The battle might be won, but the war was still raging.

By the time they reached their next obstacle, they had begun to gather some attention. At least it was monstrous at first, which Rieren was thankful for.

None of the ones accompanying her explicitly gone out to gather more Abyssals and Aetherians to their specific cause, nor had they started yelling their intention out over the battlefield. But the monsters still arrived to join them. They had seen their progress. They had decided that they would throw their lot in with Rieren’s group, as the best chance to gain victory.

That didn’t draw in the other competitors as quickly as Rieren had at first feared. The monsters joining them were Abyssals and Aetherians who had hung back from the worst of the battles so far, the ones who had to be holding the majority of the monstrous contingent’s tokens.

As such, the competitors had to first get past the monsters they were fighting before getting to Rieren’s group. Nevertheless, the sheer size of group did draw eyes.

Which was when she met her next obstacle.

It was an alliance of cultivators heading for them, hot on the heels of an injured Aetherian retreating from a battle. Perhaps its pride prevented it from stating anything out loud, but there was no doubt it was expecting assistance from Rieren’s little monstrous regiment.

Even if she was disinclined to start helping random monsters all over the battlefield, she couldn’t very well ignore cases such as this. Aside from losing some trust from the ones who were following her, she also didn’t need several cultivators coming down hot on her tail too. They needed to be dealt with. Fast. Just as she had done with Ledorne’s group.

“Same plan, Destroyer?” the Limbthief asked, failing to hide its glee as all its limbs clapped.

“Yes,” Rieren said. She raised her voice. “You know what you must do. Go!”

The new additions to their squadron had been briefed by the other monsters on how they were to tackle such situations. Hopefully, they wouldn’t make a mess of things.

As before, Rieren hung back a little as she let the rest of her cohort engage in battle first. She took a moment to quickly survey the human competitors. There were about ten of them there. An odd number, considering the three-member teams. Most she didn’t recognize, though some techniques reminded her of ones she had seen before.

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But Morel’s group stood out like a sore thumb. Leave it to those three bastards to complicate matters for her.

Rieren’s focus locked onto the battle ahead of her. It was time for her to act.

Like before, she had to rely on blinding speed. Fray Passage allowed her to boost her momentum to blurring levels.

She shot in behind one cultivator fighting a Blightmane with shimmering strikes of navy light. The poor boy didn’t even get to see Rieren’s face. Even as he twisted around at her sudden appearance, her sword swung at his head. With a spurt of blood, he fell, left senseless from the power behind her blow.

That caused a little panic among his closest compatriots. One even got unhinged enough to kill the Shadeborn entirely. Not good for morale, but this was a battle. Casualties were expected.

Besides, Rieren wasn’t going to stick around. As two more cultivators tried to gang up on her, she quickly used Fray Passage to get out of the vicinity and reach her next target.

This one was using a Domain that summoned lava. It forced the Malomen Shifter to remain in the air, failing to get close enough to be any real danger lest it be burned down. Though, the monster did try to resize its tail to take swipes at the cultivator from a distance.

Rieren’s counter was simple. Her Domain rushed out with the same stormy ferocity she had imbued in herself.

The cultivator never saw it coming, not with how fast she was moving. Rieren’s water rushed in and sizzled against the lava to begin cooling the entire field down to solid rock. The billowing steam was only to greater benefit for Rieren.

She burst through it with Fray Passage, aiming to hit this one’s head just as she had done with the last. Unfortunately, he was fast enough to dodge her. Fortunately, however, Rieren had a quick follow up. Channelling her Essence allowed her to condense all the steam into an actual storm cloud, one she immediately converted into lightning.

The blast flashed bright and struck the competitor hard. He was sent flying across the solidified lava, burning and twitching under all the electricity.

Rieren didn’t waste any time checking the aftereffects of her interruption. She moved on to her next target. With how many little battles between monsters and humans had broken, she needed to end as many of the fights as quickly as possible.

It proved no more difficult to take care of two more cultivators. One she attacked by using a Shifter’s overgrown bulk as cover. With the other, Rieren simply overwhelmed him with a wave from her Domain, letting her water nearly suffocate the poor cultivator. She didn’t stick around to see if he had drowned or not.

Especially since her next target turned out to be Morel.

Rieren attacked him with the same speed she had used so far. He failed to muster any significant defence. She wasn’t intent on killing him, however, so hadn’t exactly bothered hiding her approach.

Still. Morel’s knife slashes missed her by a wide margin. Rieren let his momentum carry him past her before she raised her knee. It dug hard into his guts, driving out all his breath with a spittle-flecked cough. Rieren grabbed his head by his hair and pulled it back, ensuring that he was staring right up at her.

“Morel,” she said.

Speaking his name made him stop struggling. Not that he was doing a good job of it, especially after she had hit him.

“Listen to me.” Rieren didn’t give him any time to talk. He didn’t need to. “This is Rieren. You do not need to believe me and you do not need to waste time thinking. Just understand this—if survival is important to you, stop running after the monsters. Find another way to get your tokens. Understand?”

Morel started talking but Rieren had no intention of listening in turn. She threw him bodily away. It was perhaps a bit rude of her, but she was doing her best given the circumstances. Pleasantries could wait until after the battles were over.

With the devastation Rieren had wrought among the cultivators, the monsters had already pulled back. She joined them. They restarted their journey to the brazier. She had to adjust their route once more. Their group had grown once more, and they would no doubt catch the attention of more monsters and human competitors seeking to claim their tokens.

Rieren hung back a little. She couldn’t afford to lead the entire group at the front and become the target of every competitor who saw her. Not if she wanted to reach the brazier.

She was an odd presentation, of that there was no doubt. Bad enough she had strange shimmering hair, glinting lines of gold running across her dark skin, and a mane of horns jutting from the back of her head. She was also a monster wielding a human-made weapon and wearing the clothes of a human cultivator.

As such, Rieren let some of the monsters take the lead. One of the newly “recruited” Higher Aetherians was more than happy to lead the charge.

“Destroyer,” the first Blightmane said after another round of fights against more human competitors. They had successfully executed the same strategy against them, coming out mostly unscathed. “Those who have recuperated are targeting us from the sides once more. What if we need to stop? Can we continue using the same plan?”

Rieren had been afraid of that. The same idea wouldn’t work on their enemies a second time. Of course, they wouldn’t need to worry about it if her plan worked and they managed to reach the brazier quickly enough.

That looked unlikely, however. With how many monsters had joined up with her original group, they couldn’t not attract more and more attention from almost every other competitor in the vicinities they passed through. That they weren’t being harassed from every direction already was a big blessing, though Rieren was certain it wasn’t long now before it began.

Besides, there was no guarantee they could reach the brazier at this rate. If Rieren was in the cultivator’s shoes, they would have realized the monsters’ ultimate goal.

To prevent it, they would set up their main defence at the very location of the brazier. Well, perhaps right before it, since she wasn’t sure the tournament officials would allow fighting right at the brazier’s spot.

“We cannot,” Rieren said, as an answer to the Blightmane’s original question.

“Then what are we to do?” the Blightmane asked. There was a subtle shift in him. It took a moment for Rieren to understand it as anticipation. “Do we take a stand at the very end?”

Rieren was glad the monster had come to that conclusion on its own. “That may be our only option. We must not let the tokens fall into the humans’ hands.”

“But is there a point in protecting the tokens if we only end up dead?” the second Blightmane asked.

From farther back, a Nebula barked out a laugh. The sound had an ethereal quality to it, like a dozen little voices speaking at once, similar to the Aetherian that had caused Rieren’s current circumstances. “Are you afraid, Abyssal?”

“I merely ponder how far must we go if we are only doomed in the end. As always.”

“Not always,” a Shifter barked from overhead where it flew past them. “Recall the success upon shard of the lion’s mountain. We can win. We must.”

In the past, Rieren would have reacted differently to that statement. That these creatures were using their violent conquest of Lionshard mountain as motivation, that they were reveling in the destruction and mayhem they had caused, should have filled her with enough rage to cut them all down at that instant. In the past, she had executed so many others for far less.

But this Rieren couldn’t hold onto the feeling of anger. Even when she attempted to retain it on purpose, even when she yelled at herself that they were speaking of desecrating her gods-damned home.

Their conversation was cut short, however, when the brazier came into sight. Rieren was almost as surprised as the gaggle of monsters around her. She hadn’t realized they had already come this close. The smoke had faded to almost nothing during their run.

But just as Rieren had feared, it was guarded.

“There is just one of them there,” the first Blightmane said. “Who does he think he is, thinking he can stop us all by himself.”

Rieren frowned. There was something familiar about the blond man standing all alone about a dozen paces before the brazier. But that was the thing. He wasn’t truly by himself there.

Not when the other cultivators were nearly upon them.

They were closing in from all sides but the front. Their powers were bared, fire and lighting, wisps and auras of every possible colour, and so much else Rieren was in no position to note. The human competitors knew it as well as she did herself. This was it.

“It would seem we have been pincered into one position,” the Higher Aetherian said without sounding the least bit troubled by the fact. “This shall be a glorious battle.”

They understood that attacking the lone man all together would not go down well. Their enemies wanted them to do so, which suggested that he possessed one or more abilities that could wipe out entire groups in a matter of heartbeats.

Rieren didn’t know about glorious, but it was certainly looking like the final stand. The moment when everything came to a head. The point where everything was balanced upon the edge of a knife.

Success or failure, separated by one small mistake.

“Fight,” she said. “Do not surrender. You have the strength. Among you, together if need be, keep fighting. Do not lose your tokens. I will clear the road ahead, and once I have done so, join me at the brazier. Now, go.”

With a yell, the monsters charged to meet the cultivators closing in on either side. For a moment, the battle rush caught Rieren as well, but it faded soon. Leaving a cold focus on her true goal—killing their final obstacle, the man who barred her way. A man she now recognized.

For a spear of pure light had come alive in his right hand. A spear distinctly similar to the one that had been flung at her just after her fight with Morel’s group.