Starloper looked nothing like what she remembered of him. No brilliant wings, no long, glossy hair, no skin that looked like crimson marble. He was as ordinary as possible. A façade as far from his true self as the stars lay from the world.

He knelt down, critical eyes observing her wound. Raising his voice, he said, “Are you still well enough to compete?”

“How long are you going to keep up this charade, Star?” Rieren asked, in a more normal tone. “How long will you ignore me?”

With a little more time for consideration, Starloper slowly got back to his feet. He turned to face Naviel. “It appears your opponent is still capable of fighting. This match is not over yet.”

So, he wasn’t going to open up just then. He had never been the conspiratorial, sneaky type. Never one to circumvent his rigid mannerisms ingrained within him by his deceased god in a way that would make his actions appear even slightly improper. Apparently, masquerading as a cultivator judging a tournament match didn’t count.

Nevertheless, Rieren wasn’t about to let go of the opportunity so easily. She might not be able to get any real answers right that moment, but there was one thing she could still attempt to verify.

“Alright then, Star, have it your way,” Rieren said. “But before you go, tell me just one thing. Are our goals still the same as they were? Is our ultimate target still what it has always been?”

For a second, it looked like Starloper would ignore that too. He had turned away from both competitors, about to walk back to the usual post of the match official. But just before he left, he answered Rieren’s question.

With a single, almost imperceptible nod.

Grinning to herself, Rieren took her time to rise to her feet. Her wound was still bad. Eternal Beyond would need a bit of time to heal it completely, but that was for the best.

Rieren had planned for this exact scenario.

“Why do you smile, monster?” Naviel asked as he stepped forward, brandishing his frozen-flame sword.

At the sight of Rieren getting back to her feet, the crowd had redoubled their hate. Now they were flinging vicious wishes of destruction and defeat upon her, hoping Naviel wouldn’t just teach her a lesson, but would annihilate her utterly.

It almost made Rieren laugh. So worked up after simply getting a little wet.

“I smile because I have secured my victory,” Rieren said.

“What—”

Rieren activated Reaver Stance. With her wound partially healed, the boon from her skill wouldn’t last that long. She would need to end it quickly. But that was alright. As power filled her and pushed aside the pain with ease, as a crimson aura erupted off her skin, Rieren gripped her sword tightly and charged.

Naviel fought back with his own roar. His speed and strength were still great. That was all too evident in the blows they exchanged.

But it was fading, fast. Rieren had extinguished the flames of his subordinates. They were no doubt attempting to rekindle all the black-gold fires, but that was just another temporal factor for Rieren to take into account, just as her own healing counteracted her increased boost to her stats and abilities.

This time, Rieren gave Naviel a taste of his own medicine. She wasn’t simply using her superior swordsmanship skills to outmanoeuvre him.

Rieren was also adding her own raised might behind every blow. Her attack speed had risen too, overwhelming him in seconds and forcing him back step by step as he lost control of the fight. She drank in the look in his eyes, the rising panic as he knew he couldn’t defeat her. Naviel had nothing to counter her with.

This time, it was Naviel who tried to carve some space between them. He put some distance, then tried to summon his Domain, letting the free-form, destructive flames push back Rieren.

Sadly for him, Reaver Stance raised the efficacy of Rieren’s techniques and Domain too. A quick wave via Tidal Summons doused his fires with ease. Rieren rushed through the resulting explosion with nothing held back, her powerful, Fray Passage-boosted blow hammering Naviel back all the way to the arena’s wall against the stands.

He kicked himself off it, then used a skill. Rieren frowned. She had been about to end the battle with a well-timed Gale Blade, but that skill…

Naviel had let his flaming sword go. It thawed into pure, flickering fire, one that wreathed his body in a heartbeat and immolated him. His scream cut through the crowd’s cheering like a knife through water. At first, it sounded horrifically pained, but then the note turned.

Into ecstasy.

“You think I was unaware of your little trick?” he yelled at her through the fire engulfing his body. “I knew about your battle against Lady Arteroth. I know the little ploy you used to trick your way to a victory over her. It will not work on me!”

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The flames turned intense. All the darkness turned so black, it was like staring at night, with the golden bits conversely turning bright as sunlight.

Then Naviel flashed at Rieren like a burning meteor.

Rieren threw her Domain at him in another tremendous tidal wave. She imbued Divine and Abyss Aspects into the water too. None of it stopped Naviel’s burning charge. His meteoric thrust carved a hole right through the water, the explosions due to the mixture of Essence Aspects barely hampering him.

Still, he didn’t hit her. She had already used Fray Passage to get out of the way. But Naviel changed direction quickly, rushing after her with relentless precision.

Rieren could feel no pain in her guts anymore. Eternal Beyond had almost healed her to completion, which meant Reaver Stance was moments away from fading. She had to end this. Now.

This time, when the fiery comet around Naviel rushed at her, she didn’t dodge. Not yet. Everything had to be timed correctly. With a little focus, Rieren was once again able to summon those little golden threads emanating from her hand, the same ones Demargo—no, best to keep the Aetherian nameless—had used against her. The same ones she had used against Essalina.

Just as Naviel reached her location, Rieren used her sword with one hand to deflect his charge. It wouldn’t have been possible normally, of course, but she had Earthfall Blade to rely on. That skill could deflect nearly anything.

At the very moment that she redirected Naviel’s momentum with one hand, Rieren twisted to thrust her hand at the passing meter of black-gold flames. The thin threads shot into the fiery blast, burrowing through the fire to strike at their true target—Naviel himself—and shattering the balance between the Divine and Abyss Aspects to turn the mixture destructive.

Before Naviel was past her, everything exploded.

Rieren was, as she had expected, flung back like she had been thrown from a catapult. It was too fast, too hard. She struck the ground even worse than when she had from her opponent’s devastating blow.

The only difference was that the combination of calling forth her Doman and her concentrated Essence armour saved her from the worst of the impact. There was no devastating mix of Essence aimed directly at her. All Rieren’s rising water and armour had to do was safeguard her against the force of the explosion. She had taken a gamble. One she had survived.

Well, mostly. The hand with the threads hadn’t managed to come out of the blast unscathed. It had been too close, the Essence armour around it shattered so that her fingers and palm had all become twisted and broken.

Rieren bit through the pain, though. Eternal Beyond was already righting things. All she had to do was confirm that her plan had worked.

The dust cleared as Rieren got to her feet, her eyes trained on the spot where the blast had erupted. Everyone else was just as hushed as her, waiting to see the outcome. Waiting to see if Naviel had somehow survived that detonation as Rieren had.

No. Rieren grinned. The dust cleared enough to show her opponent on the ground, unmoving. Naviel hadn’t survived. At least, hadn’t survived it enough to continue fighting.

She did hope he was still alive, however. His death would complicate matters too much.

Starloper was already running towards Naviel. He knelt beside the Arteroth’s commander and checked over the body. It didn’t look good. Rieren noted the way Naviel’s breastplate had dented and cracked, the way his leg was twisted and all the blood pooled around his body.

Starloper raised a hand.

“The fight is over!” the commentator said. “Our winner—Rieren Vallorne!”

The crowd’s jeers slammed into Rieren in an auditory tidal wave. She waited for just a moment. The healers were already rushing over, and Starloper was stepping back from Naviel’s body to give them space to carry out their practice.

For just a second, Rieren considered walking up to him. With the match over, she could speak to him.

But that was foolishness. Now wasn’t the time to accost Starloper in the middle of the arena with thousands of people clamouring for her immediate execution. She would need to corner him later, by some other means. Perhaps Mercion’s path would eventually bear some fruit.

For now, Rieren walked away, the crowd’s vitriol pushing her onwards like a wind at her back.

New Achievement!

You have defeated a commander and his entire force on your own. Bad odds have never been an obstacle for you.

Rewards

* 1 Level

* 1 Skill slot

* 10 Credits

* 1 Profession Point

Rieren smiled. There it was. The achievement she had been hoping for. Just as Amalyse had said, Naviel had been the true commander of the Arteroth forces, and Rieren had defeated both him and all the lackeys he was using to empower himself.

Her rewards were interesting too. A new skill slot and a new profession point. That would allow her to enact better Enchantments going forward. Rieren could now summon more of her legendary swords. The only problem was locating more of them to craft the enchantments first. She would get to them eventually.

There was a tournament to win, first.

“Where is my Spirit Beast?” Rieren asked in the antechamber where the competitors waited before their matches.

The cultivator standing inside looked around lazily. Above their heads, the disgruntled steps of all the attendees leaving the arena made the whole room shake a little. “I don’t see it anywhere. Did you actually leave it here?”

Rieren was tempted to demand a better answer but that wouldn’t be fruitful. She was pretty certain he wouldn’t have been able to do anything to Batcat. The little Spirit Beast was too powerful, too wily.

Too adorable as well.

“Never mind,” Rieren said, leaving the chamber behind.

Just as she stepped out, Batcat appeared, padding over from the distance. A little scroll was in its mouth.

She knelt down to accept it. “Are you a messenger Spirit Beast now, kitten?”

Batcat meowed with some dissatisfaction as though it didn’t approve of its task. As Rieren began reading the letter, it jumped up and settled on her shoulder. Briefly, she wondered if it was sad that it could no longer nest on her head as it used to do before.

The letter was from Mercion. Rieren smiled. She had been right to ignore that impulse of hers to charge at Starloper and demand a conversation then and there.

Rieren would be getting her opportunity to converse later, for Mercion had secured a little meeting.

“I see why the missive was so important, it needed you to carry it, Batcat,” she said.

She petted the kitten gently as she headed off towards her glen. It was time to prepare for her meeting with Starloper in two days. There was so much Rieren had to ask, so many answers she was waiting for. She knew she wouldn’t be able to satisfy all her curiosity, so she had to make the time count. Rieren would need to be efficient.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t hold back a glimmer of excitement rioting through the barren land of her sensations.

“Star,” she said to herself. “Here I come.”