After her battle against Silvas was over, Rieren wanted to find out where exactly the monsters had all gone. She wasn’t sure she trusted them to stay out of her sight for that long and cause no trouble. It made her pause. She was starting to think of them as unruly children.

Something was terribly wrong with her.

Nevertheless, she did want to know what had become of them. But running around all over the grounds would have been inefficient.

Instead, she requested Batcat find some trace of them. The kitten would be faster at locating their presence, thanks to its senses and its ability to fly and reach all sorts of nooks and crannies. Not that Batcat appreciated such a task, but Rieren promised to recompense the little Spirit Beast with as many biscuits as it wanted once she had some more Credits again.

While the winged cat hunted down the monsters, Rieren waited in her little grove. She had been too busy training and preparing for her battle, but now she could afford to relax a little. It was why she had finally decided to find the monsters.

Her rest was interrupted before long, however. Silvas came to visit her once again.

“Good thing I decided to remain here,” she muttered as he walked in.

“What was that?” Silvas asked.

“Nothing of consequence.” Rieren offered him a brief smile of greeting, her glance lingering on his shoulder. On the shoulder she had injured. Though, it didn’t look that injured any longer. “I see the healers have done an excellent job.”

“They took some time with it.” Silvas moved his left arm with a little wince. “And it’s not completely better yet. I’m to keep it relaxed for at least a week, apparently.”

“Did you come here seeking an apology?”

“We both know you’re averse to apologizing for anything, Rieren.”

She decided against correcting him. The only times Rieren didn’t like saying sorry was when she was facing arrogant pricks, and sadly, a cultivator’s life was filled with those. Silvas himself had no small amount of pride, though he was still much better than most riffraff.

“Then I shall assume you came here for more important matters,” Rieren said. “Judging by that look on your face.”

He nodded. Making himself comfortable against a tree just like their last conversation, he looked at Rieren with a serious expression. “I want to know everything you suspect. Not the things you told me last time, about the Emperor. Soon, you said. What’s happening soon?”

Rieren was partly glad she wasn’t going to have to reiterate much of what she already knew. Silvas was already aware of it all, thanks to his own sources. “The Emperor isn’t the only one who seeks to ascend.”

“The old Emperor has already ascended.”

“Yes. And now someone intends to follow him in, as his Banishedborn. Something that the other Banishedborn are intending to help with. That is their ultimate conspiracy.”

“I know that much…” He frowned off into the distance, facing the direction of the tournament grounds. The direction he had come from. “But are you suspecting the Emperor’s Banishedborn will come from here?”

Rieren didn’t see the problem with that supposition. All the powerful cultivators in the Elderlands were here. Though, why ascend here was indeed worth pondering.

Silvas frowned for a while before his eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought it would be done here, but it makes sense now.”

“How so?” Rieren asked.

“Simple. They want to use residual Essence to empower the ascension.”

Rieren’s thoughts froze. “Oh. Of course.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It wasn’t easy, by any means, for anyone to make use of Essence that had already been used up. When cultivators channelled Essence into techniques or skills, the spiritual energy that passed through their elixir filed and their meridians turned into a version of Essence often termed as residual Essence.

Residual Essence normally assimilated back into the environment’s collection of natural energy, slowly reforming into Essence that once again held the spiritual potency that cultivators could draw in and use for their own purposes. This form of Essence had no energy in the form cultivators could generally use. Abyss, it wasn’t even perceivable by most cultivators.

But there were some ways it could be utilized. Special runic formations, a few rare techniques, they all required the use of residual Essence.

And since they were at an area where everyone had been using Essence on and on, in vast amounts to drive impressive skills and techniques, there was a ton of residual Essence in the area. Potentially enough to drive someone’s climb through the ranks of cultivation even at higher stages, if one could make use of residual Essence.

“We simply need to find how exactly residual Essence would be made usable in this case,” Rieren said.

Silvas nodded. “It won’t be an easy setup, and I don’t think they have enough residual Essence yet. Not enough to empower someone for ascension to the position of Banishedborn.”

Rieren recalled well the past few battles. Then there was the first round. Everyone had been throwing out a great deal of Essence-fuelled abilities. “On the contrary, they may already possess enough residual Essence.”

“Either way, we need to find out where exactly they intend to do their ascension ritual.”

“You need to. I cannot personally hunt around, though I will make some efforts.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Silvas looked at her strangely for a moment, but then he shook his head. “And here I thought things would be simpler if I could simply focus on my real objective of getting into Vanharron.” He smiled sadly. “But that’s been shattered now, thanks to you.”

“You can still come with me.”

“As the entourage of a monster?”

“Perhaps.”

Silvas laughed. “Well, at least I have a new goal I need to accomplish.” He looked far away again. “And I need to figure out what to tell everyone…”

That was fair. He had a lot of people counting on him and his ability to achieve what he had set his sights on. The Sword Saint of the East was the de facto leader of the East, at least when it came to getting everyone in the eastern region of the Elderlands to work together on something. They would be seeking a new direction from him, no doubt.

Silvas got to his feet to take his leave. “When the time comes, I will be ready.”

Rieren nodded. “I know. I only wish I could say the same for Ceraline…”

She was another one of those who had been a key part in the battles against the imperial court in Vanharron in the previous timeline. Another ally, Rierne had counted on, to an extent. But where her intentions might lie in the current timeline was anyone’s guess. Ceraline was even more inscrutable in this life than she had been in the previous one.

“I have tried speaking with her too,” Silvas said. “But she has been taciturn and cold. I don’t know what has happened in her corner of the world.”

“Well, things are different this time.”

“Mm…”

Waving a farewell, Silvas finally disappeared back into the growing darkness of dusk deepening into night. Rieren waved back. She realized there was a smidge of gratitude buried somewhere within her, peeking its head through the unfeeling murk.

Gratitude at Silvas’s temperament, at his openness, at the fact that he was still on her side, in the end.

Gratitude at the fact that she could still feel gratitude.

It wasn’t long before Batcat returned. Rieren thought about peeking through any memories the winged kitten might have to share, but it chose a different approach. Batcat led her physically along the edge of the tournament grounds to where the monsters were apparently situated.

“I am surprised you found them so soon, cat,” Rieren said. “Good work.”

Batcat purred a little at the compliment.

The kitten had led her back to the area of the first round, in that free-for-all team competition with the tokens. Rieren supposed it made thematic sense in a way. This was where the monsters had first entered the tournament as participants.

This was where they had found a way to obtain legitimacy in the Elderlands.

Rieren wasn’t certain what she was expecting when she eventually reached the exact location where the monsters were situated. She definitely wasn’t expecting a horde of monsters just… sitting there, doing absolutely nothing.

The sight even made her hesitate about whether she actually ought to enter and disturb whatever strange reverie was going on here. But then she spotted the Darkstalker standing at the forefront.

“Greetings,” Rieren said as she walked up to the monster.

The Darkstalker turned to face her. She couldn’t pick up any emotion from it just by looking. That battle against Essalina had ruined the monster’s face, though it wasn’t like it had been expressive as a human face before anyway. But the monster didn’t seem to mind particularly. It was treating the stump of its arm and the splint against its leg as natural parts of its body.

“Ah, Destroyer,” the Darkstalker said. “Congratulations on yet another victory.”

Hearing such a normal statement in a situation like this almost made Rieren falter in her steps. But she had enough grace to nod in gratitude.

“Thank you.” She took a peek at the other monster. “I came here to see what was going on. No one was at the arena during my match. I was simply hoping that everything is alright.”

“Nothing is alright,” one of the monsters cried.

“We are doomed,” said another. “Doomed.”

Several more growled in agreement.

One even went so far as to say, “All has fallen for us. So we must make all elsewhere fall as well.”

Rieren took a short look around the area, before returning to face the Darkstalker. “I see you have been keeping things… under control.”

“I have made some effort, yes.”

She supposed it was all the Darkstalker could do to keep the monsters contained in the area and not cause any further trouble. It would probably have been impossible to make them attend matches none of them truly cared about. Even Rieren’s. Not that she was so vain that she needed them to attend her fights.

It just would have been a nice display of camaraderie.

Rieren stepped forward. “What do you all wish?”

It wasn’t a productive question. The surviving monsters weren’t even sure what they wanted. A lot of started answering with various wishes, but she ignored them. Rieren wanted them to think, to recall what exactly they were all here for in the first place.

Thankfully, when the Darkstalker arrived at the real conclusion, none of the other monsters argued against it.

“We were here to claim victory,” the monster said. Injured and beaten up though it appeared, its voice was resolute. “And we can still do so.”

The easiest rebuttal to that would have been the pointed fact that all the monsters had been eliminated already. But that wasn’t really true. Rieren stood before them, still in the tournament and determined to claim her victory. Much as they hated the fact that none of the original monsters were no longer in the Trials of Ascendance, they couldn’t discount Rieren.

Not after they had formed a pact for this very occurrence.

“You can,” Rieren said. “And you will. Because I am not about to lose. No matter who stands before me.”

“But what are we to do in the meanwhile?” one of the Abyssals asked. A Shadeborn, sitting on its haunches. “What are we to do after you’ve won, Destroyer? Can you truly secure a land for us to inhabit without risking the ire of those who held it before?”

That sounded too normal, coming from a monster. She doubted she had ever heard a monster so… doubtful.

First time for everything, Rieren supposed.

“You all have an important task.” She wasn’t sure where the answer she supplied them came from, but as she uttered it, it felt right. Proper. “Aside from just continuing to support me, that is. You must start preparing for my victory and what that means for you.”

“What does that mean for us?” a different monster asked.

“Think of what you fought here for. A home, yes? A land of your own, as has already been mentioned. That is what you must prepare for. A place where you will no longer need to take anything from others. Where you’ll be responsible for your own well-being. But you here are the only ones who know about it properly, yes? So that means you need to spread the word.”

Several of the monsters raised their heads higher at Rieren’s proposition. They glanced at each other, slowly shaking off their earlier torpor.

Rieren had a niggling suspicion that it shouldn’t have been this easy to convince them about a new purpose. But maybe she deserved something easy after her last battle, after all the difficulties she had to handle by the time the tournament came to an end.

“You will need to find your fellows,” Rieren continued when the monsters still looked a little unsure of themselves. “There are monsters who are still fighting, who are still locked in dangerous struggles for the same cause that we possess. You will need to make them see reason, convince them to join you in your new homeland.”

They looked more resolute about that. Surer of themselves and what they had to do.

“An undeniable truth,” the Darkstalker said. “Our brethren are still locked in deadly combat against our enemies, but there is no need for them to do so any longer.”

“So long as the Destroyer wins,” one of the monsters grumbled.

“I will win,” Rieren said, at the same time the Darkstalker echoed her.

She offered the Abyssal a nod of gratitude. Something told her this would have been anything but easy if the Darkstalker hadn’t been here.

“Are you prepared for your next match, Destroyer?” the Darkstalker asked.

Rieren shook her head. She wasn’t even sure who she would be facing. But that did remind her there was an interesting match coming up soon. One she had to attend. Essalina was to face Ceraline next. Rieren smiled. The Arteroth scion would have no clue what hit her.