Rieren had been looking forward to meeting her friends again. The yearning was a distant sensation, but its echoes were still there, its imprint unmistakable. As they had discussed in previous calls, she was to have left them to tend to their side of the tournament’s first round while she herself focused on her goal—reaching the brazier. A goal she had now accomplished.

In essence, while Rieren reached the source of the smoke signal where she could submit her token, Kalvia and Amalyse simply needed to survive. They had succeeded in their goal too.

Rieren wondered how their mindset had reacted when she hadn’t reappeared immediately after the Fellserpent had attacked her. The talk with Amalyse had revealed that they hadn’t truly thought her dead—well, Amalyse had held onto hope—but they weren’t dumb.

They would have attempted to secure themselves a token to replace the one that Rieren’s death might have potentially lost them. In their shoes, Rieren would have done the same.

It was no surprise, then, that they likely had mired themselves in the ongoing battle. Where else could they secure themselves a token except from the monsters who were hoarding dozens upon dozens of them?

Rieren smiled when her friends finally came into view. Though, before they could reach her location, it was her other, precious friend who got to her first.

Batcat scampered across the ground, right between the two surprised Karlosyne brothers to charge at Rieren.

The cat didn’t even hesitate. It didn’t care that Rieren was now apparently a monster. It gave not a fig that she had to be filled with the stench of Abyssals that the winged kitten hated so much. Disregarding everything else, Batcat ran over and jumped into Rieren’s arms.

And Rieren, Arisen that she was, could summon no feeling at all.

The motions she went through were almost mechanical. She cradled the kitten, petted its furry little head, stroked it gently just the way it preferred and felt her a little smile work onto her face.

But despite it all, her heart refused to change its rhythm, if it was even beating anymore. She certainly could no longer sense it. With no need for air either, her breaths hadn’t changed at the sight of the cat too. The smile she had automatically summoned was only skin deep, not a reflection of any true emotion.

It broke her. For all its power, for all that this new body had allowed her to do, if this eternal unfeelingness was all that it would allow her, then she…

She couldn’t even detest it as much as she wanted it to. Abyss cursed madness.

Goals. Rieren continued to gently stroke her little not-actually-feline friend. Whatever else this body did or didn’t allow, it did not affect her desires and wants. Perhaps she couldn’t feel why she wanted those desires as much as she ideally ought to have, but the reasons behind them weren’t gone.

And regaining her ability to feel the warmth of Batcat all the way to her soul was definitely going to be Rieren’s next goal.

She held herself still as the kitten climbed up to its perch on top of her head. Batcat appeared a little miffed that some of its spot was taken up by all the horns. It even meowed in discontent for a moment.

Well, that settled it. Rieren was certainly going to have to find more compromises with this new body of hers. Regaining emotions and trimming her horns. Her new goals.

“Is that you… Rieren?” Amalyse asked as she arrived.

She looked a little battered from the battle. One of her arms was wrapped in heavy bandages, and she moved with a slight limp. Faint trace of blood had left a crimson impression at the corner of her mouth. Her auburn hair had long ago fallen into disarray.

But it was still good—or should have been—to see her again. To know for certain that she still lived.

Rieren nodded. “It is me.”

“What…” Kalvia arrived next, coming to a stop next to Amalyse with wide eyes. She was much better off than Amalyse in the looks department, still as pristine and perfect as ever. Fighting mostly from range likely helped. She appeared even more tired, though. “What happened to you?” Her voice was a little weak. “Amalyse told me a little, but…”

Rieren tried to sigh, but there was no breath in her lungs to expel. Curse this body of hers, truly. “It is a long story. I can explain, but I will need time.” She turned a little though, indicating with just that little motion the matter of true importance. “But first, we should be done with this. The brazier—”

“Rieren, I need to know what you—what happened to you.”

Kalvia’s fists were balled to her side. Her eyes had a look ferocious enough to put Rykion’s battle-face to shame.

“I do not have time for this,” the Karlosyne heir said. “Why do you all know each other?” He faced Rieren with a glare. “Who in the Abyss are you?”

“I have already said who I am,” Rieren said.

Kalvia expanded it. “Rieren Vallorne. A disciple of Lionshard Sect. The saviour of the Shatterlands. The one who turned back time to return us all to the beginning of the apocalypse again.” She paused, her eyes hardening. “A monster.”

Amalyse snapped her head around to glare at the Empress-to-be. “Kalvia.”

“Am I wrong, Rieren? What is the meaning of this?”

Rieren’s first intention was to claim that there was no time for this kind of talk. But her part in all this was done. Rieren did have time for this insanity. “Tell me, why does it matter?”

“What do you mean why it matters? Have you seen yourself? You look something that both the Aether and the Abyss spit out because neither wanted something like that among their ranks. Do you understand what it would look like if I decided—”

Kalvia bit her lip and stopped herself. It was too late, though. Rieren had finally understood what was going on. Honestly, she was a fool to not have understood earlier. This wasn’t Kalvia standing before her.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Rieren was speaking with the Empress of the Elderlands.

All this time, Kalvia had been building herself up as the true heir to throne of the Elderlands. She was securing allies, creating a strong core group of followers from both the disciples who she had trained with and everyone else she was meeting on her journeys. Strength wasn’t all that Kalvia needed. She needed powerful backing, the right allies.

She needed to appear as the truest candidate to take over the reign of the Elderlands from her father.

Rieren was supposed to have been one of the cornerstones of her following. Kalvia had never been joking when she had said she meant to prop Rieren up as her official bodyguard. The Empress needed someone powerful to watch her back, someone with both experience and the might to complement it. Who better than a cultivator who had once claimed the peak?

Except, Rieren had gone and ruined it all by becoming a monster.

Kalvia couldn’t even be seen with Rieren any longer. Legitimacy was such a precarious thing. All this time, she had been building her claim to the throne as something her father was failing at. She needed to stand out against the Forborne Emperor, which meant taking a stand against many of his decisions.

One of the main decisions Kalvia no doubt intended to criticize, or at least not seem to fall along with, was his ruling to allow the monsters to participate in the Trials of Ascendance. She was doing her part to eradicate all the participating Abyssals and Aetherians, after all.

If Kalvia was seen working together with any monster, even Rieren, she would deal a grievous blow to the kind of support she had been drawing to herself all this time. Forget working with her, the very fact that she knew Rieren personally would go on to harm her. One of the easiest ways to kill political momentum was displays of outright hypocrisy.

Politics was a mire. Rieren was starting to recall why she had never bothered with these sorts of responsibilities in her last life.

While Rieren had held her silence, Amalyse was unable to contain herself any longer. She rounded on the Empress, her eyes flashing. “Are you insinuating what I think you are about to, Your Majesty?”

Kalvia’s eyes flickered between Rieren and Amalyse. She looked conflicted for just a second, before she sighed and steeled herself. “I call upon your oath, Amalyse Arraihos.”

Amalyse’s eyes widened. “No. Wait!”

“As the Empress you swore fealty to, I command you to stand silent and act only as your Suzerain directs. You will watch and observe, nothing more, till I say so.”

Amalyse’s mouth snapped shut. She looked livid, her mouth working like she was swallowing down every word she would have loved to pelt at Kalvia.

But in the end, Amalyse stood by the oath she had made. She remained silent.

“Such drama.” Rykion Karlosyne summoned another spear of blitzing light. “I grow weary of it.”

“Rollo Karlosyne,” Kalvia said without missing a single beat. The whip of her voice made both golden-haired men tense up. “Withhold your brother from acting. You are to do nothing outside of your Empress’s command.”

Rykion growled. “You upstart harlot.”

His anger had made him take a step towards Kalvia, almost fully switching his ire from Rieren to the Empress. Rollo stuck to his oath too, however. He placed himself between his elder brother and Kalvia, his own spears of glinting light in his hands.

“You are losing what little goodwill you carved out, empress,” Rykion said. For a second, the vein pulsing on his forehead seemed about to precede more violence, this directed at his fellow human competitors. But then he let his spears dissipate, realizing that Rollo was indeed taking his oath seriously. “And you, brother, we should have never let you besmirch our name.”

Rollo looked like he wanted to reply in kind, but Kalvia spoke over him. She was looking at Rieren, however, not the older Karlosyne brother.

“It is time I secured myself a true token,” she said. Her face was set, but despite the distance, Rieren was certain she saw the Empress’s eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “May fortune favour your steps so that you do not meet the judgment of my blade.”

“Kalvia—”

“Speak not my name, monster.” Kalvia turned around, hiding her face from them all. “Astern was right all along. An Empress must be bereft from all attachments.” She began walking away. “Follow me. We have the rest of the monsters to kill.”

Amalyse and Rollo were unable to not comply with the clear order. But before they were gone, they both faced Rieren once last time.

Rollo’s expression wasn’t readable. Rieren had never been close enough to him to tell what a simple glance from him was supposed to convey. Nevertheless, she wondered if he could understand the gratitude she briefly felt toward him for his actions.

Probably not. What small emotion attempted to niggle Rieren in the back of her head felt like outrage at the seeming betrayal. One that faded to nothing in short order.

Amalyse’s look was a lot more meaningful. She also didn’t speak, but the stubborn determination in her eyes more than made up for a vocal admission that she was going to stick by Rieren no matter what. Just as she had always done. With a hard nod, a proof that this was far from over, she followed Kalvia and Rollo back towards the raging battle.

The only one left was Rykion Karlosyne. He looked at the three former disciples of Lionshard Sect, then back at Rieren. “You might be right. I would be wasting my time trying to kill you right now, monster. Instead, let us hope that we meet in the ring of combat once the next round begins. You shall not escape me then.”

Rieren finally found her voice. For once, a sensation pervaded through the block of emotionlessness—surprise. “You are truly leaving me alone? I did not hear the Empress ordering everyone to spare my life.”

He grinned, his eyes alight with devious light. “Exactly.” Then he frowned. “Besides, your little pet is creepier than you are. A Spirit Beast bonded to a monster…” He shook his head. “What is this world coming to?”

Batcat hissed in affront. With the unsaid promise that Rykion was only allowing Rieren to go because he intended to use her against Kalvia in the not-too-distant future, the Karlosyne followed in the footsteps of Rieren’s friends. Well, that battle wasn’t about to last long at this rate, even with all the monsters turning to Arisen. Not when every single cultivator had joined in.

Once more, Rieren found herself temporarily miffed that she couldn’t sigh at the recent chain of events.

Her goal was still there, though. It was calling her, almost, a lure that sang in her ears with a promise that nothing else mattered so long as she succeeded in her endeavours. Perhaps not even the promises she had made to herself, of the goals beyond her immediate objectives she had tried to find and set for herself.

The poor tournament official looked ready to pass out. That she had stuck around despite the imminent battle they had been about to face spoke a great deal about her bravery.

Or perhaps, she was sure she would be annihilated for dereliction of duty if she ran.

All this, after she had been kidnapped by a monster. In fact, Rieren was certain that many of the human competitors thought her complicit in the ploy to get the monsters into the competition in the first place. After all, she had run to the monsters on her own two feet.

Though, Rieren hesitated to call it her own volition. She knew full well how manipulative and directly controlling creatures like the Gravemark Puppeteer could be.

“How did you survive?” Rieren found herself asking.

The woman knew what she meant. “The—the monster didn’t kill me.”

“I can certainly see that.”

“No, I mean…” She hesitated. “I remember it telling me specifically that it didn’t intend to harm me, so long as I didn’t resist. Strange, for a monster, but I didn’t want to give up my life.” The woman briefly looked up to meet Rieren’s eyes before looking away hastily. “Was it your influence?”

Rieren blinked. “No. That was before…”

“I see.”

“Here is my token,” Rieren said, pulling out the little piece of the runic formation. “I—”

Rieren had been finally about to qualify for the next round. She had almost done it, almost gotten past this blasted first round that kept on twisting and turning into new shapes.

And then the token itself attempted to fly out of her hand.

Rieren’s grip was strong. She kept a hold on it. But the token was experiencing an even stronger tug, and her arm was pulled back, reoriented so that it was pointing in the direction she had come from. For just a second, Rieren, the official, and even Batcat watched, rapt by a token seemingly moving by itself.

Then, Rieren’s concentration snapped back into place. She focused Essence into her eyes. A string was leading away from the token into the distance.

A string of pure gold.