Before Rieren put her plan into action, she met up with all the monsters. She could see her intention starting some sort of betrayed panic among the remaining Abyssals, Aetherians, and Arisen. How dare she turn back to a human? Was she now abandoning all those she had formed a strong bond with over the course of the Trials of Ascendance?

Best to head it off before something like that happened. Of course, they weren’t going to deter her from her ultimate intentions, but it was better to be open about things from the get-go.

“You intend to… turn back?” the Darkstalker asked. She was glad it had spoken first. It was a lot more reasonable than the rest of its kind.

“Yes,” Rieren said simply. “I have a way of regaining my true form. At least, I believe I do. I intend to see if it works. If it does, then I will no longer appear as I do now.”

“You will no longer be an Arisen, then?”

“Not to the same extent I am now, currently.”

“I see…”

Despite its reasonableness, Rieren could still sense that it was troubled. Which meant that the rest of the monsters in the clearing were far worse. Several had risen to stand with concerned looks, others looking anywhere between fearful and angry.

Rieren headed off their initial impulses before they could take root. “Understand that this is not a fundamental change in the connection we share. All I will be doing is regaining my old mentality, my true sensations. My ability to cultivate and grow. The pact we have established, the experiences we have been through together, all of those will still remain.”

“With the same importance as before?” a monster asked, stepping closer. “Will you honour them even when you’re one of them?”

Rieren stared the Arisen right in the eye. “Do you doubt the veracity of my words?”

There it was. The challenge she was throwing right in their face.

“No,” the monster eventually said. “But you yourself stated that your mentality will… revert. That comes with the possibility that your priorities will shift. You will be dealing with new mental sensations, and those can make other things take greater importance, yes? I simply don’t want us to fall to the wayside.”

“You put your faith in me while I remained as one of you. Can you not do the same once I return to who I truly am?”

The monsters didn’t answer. Not the one who had brought up the concern, not the rest, not even the Darkstalker. They were all afraid Rieren would change for the worse, when it came to them, at least.

And yet, Rieren didn’t mind. Already, she could see the progress they had carved out over the course of the Trials. Before, she would have fully expected them to react in greater outrage and anger, perhaps immediately resorting to insults and brazen accusations. Not so now. Things had… mellowed, to some extent. Even their fears came from a logical place.

“This is important to me,” Rieren said. “Personally. Emotionally. All this time I have been an Arisen, I have missed a great deal of what I could have enjoyed and experienced. Most of all, I miss being able to feel things. So far, I have done everything I do because I believe them to be correct, because they must be done. Not because I hold any strong feelings about them.”

“And that makes these goals of yours worthless?” the Darkstalker asked.

“Not necessarily. All it means that I lose a vector of motivation that would help drive me ever onward. Imagine for a moment, where instead of being bound together by some pact we formed, I actually felt something for your plight. Imagine if I could truly empathize with you, with all of you. Difficult as the notion may be to grasp, emotions are a powerful tool.”

“And so, you wish to reclaim it?”

There was a lot Rieren wanted to reclaim. But at the heart of it, that was the answer in the end. “I wish to stop being a near-mechanical construct driven to one thing only.”

It hit her then, what the issue was with the monsters. Their single-minded drive for certain things was only possible if their sensations had been weaned and narrowed by their creators to make them serve their purpose with greater accuracy. A true depth of emotional variety would be distracting from destruction, or from any other singular task.

The gods didn’t want to replicate more humans. They were problematic enough as they were, even when their emotions could be manipulated. No, all they wanted was some near-mindless monstrosities who would not stray from the paths they had been set.

And thus, the monsters were born. Singularly animalistic creatures only intelligent enough to accomplish singular goals.

But it couldn’t be contained, now could it? In most cases, the more powerful and intelligent the monsters got, the more their personas developed. Rieren could already see how that occurred among the ones she had come to know.

“I ask that you put your faith in me once more,” Rieren said. “My intentions will not waver. Not for what I want for myself, nor for what we have all decided for you.”

It was, once again, the Darkstalker who converted first. With a little shake of its head, it stepped forward and bowed just a little before her. What a strange gesture. “You have my faith.”

In time, the rest of the monsters came around. They reciprocated their de facto leader. It was strange, but Rieren noticed that none of them called her by the title they had given her. Destroyer. Was she no longer worthy of it?

Or perhaps, it was the fact that she was no longer destroying them.

A prickle of gratitude and satisfaction and more she wasn’t able to decipher just then pervaded through her senses. It was nice the monsters had come around to the idea so quickly and so well.

Rieren went back to meet with Elder Olg next. Batcat accompanied her this time. Maybe it was excited that it could hopefully regain its regular perch on top of her head when her hair turned back to normal.

“You’ve discovered what, now?” Elder Olg asked as he bubbled up from under the Dreadflood’s depths.

“A way to turn myself back, Elder,” Rieren said.

“…to what?”

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Rieren blinked. “To being human again?” She didn’t understand why he was being obtuse.

“Ah. I see. Hmm.”

“Is something the matter?”

“Well, I’m not certain if this is a good idea or not. And it is quite sudden, so you’ll have to forgive my reaction.”

“Why would it be a bad idea, Elder?”

“Think about it, Rieren.” He pointed past her, back in the direction she had arrived from. Back to where the tournament grounds lay. “All this time, you’ve been acting as a monster. As an Arisen, you became a finalist in the tournament and can win it too. As a monster, you were the one to heal Rykion Karlosyne, one of the most powerful people of the next generation.”

“What are you getting at?” Even as she asked, however, she was starting to understand his angle.

“As a monster,” he continued. “You’ve built a strong rapport with the other monsters. Think about what it would mean if you continued to wield all the influence you have garnered, not as a human, but as a creature whose kind is generally shunned all over the Elderlands.”

There it was. The implication that she had been avoiding. “So, you are saying that what I want is less important than what I can achieve for others?”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” He looked away, a little troubled. “As a cultivator, such a thought process would be tantamount to a betrayal of our very way of life. We prize our own success first, that of our sect, our clan, and our family next. That is why, in the end, Rykion Karlosyne will face little to no backlash despite conceding to you. Because he was true to himself.”

“But that is not the case for monsters, in your opinion?”

“Of course not. Think back, Rieren. Cultivators stand out against the test of time as individuals. But when you think about monsters, do you think of any individual creature that has performed any specific deed, or do you think most of Abyssals, Aetherian, and Arisen as a whole?” He smiled wryly. “And no, this Dreadflood of mine is the exception to the rule.”

Rieren lowered her face. Elder Olg did have a point. Monsters, strangely, were a more communal bunch than cultivators were in certain measures. They acted as one in a way even humans didn’t. She had seen it for herself.

“It is part of their experience and their…” Her mouth twisted a little. “Their design, if you will. They are relegated to the corners of the world and forced to act together simply to survive. If they could enjoy the freedoms that normal humans could, if they could develop the same feelings that people could, things would be greatly different. Individuality could flourish.”

“All true, no doubt. But theoretically so. We must deal with the reality of the situation itself, no?”

Rieren closed her eyes. When she opened them again, took in Elder Olg sitting on the stretch of pure black liquid with the pockmarks and pustules covering his body, with the depthless gaze of his dark eyes, with no flicker of his regular Ashflame upon him anywhere, she knew her answer. “No.”

“No?”

“No. You may want to deal with the reality of the overall circumstance, Elder. I do not. I want what is ultimately the best for me first, then others. That is why I am here. That is why I seek your assistance. Because in the end, you assume that I cannot accomplish what you and everyone else want me to, while I am my true self.”

Elder Olg looked more troubled than before. In fact, she was pretty certain she was seeing the first hints of anger on him. Something she hadn’t witnessed in ages. Not since when she’d been quite young in her old life. Abyss, she couldn’t even recall it properly. Had that been part of one of the memories she had fed Batcat?

“Do you not agree that your action as an Arisen will hold greater impact for other monsters?” Elder Olg asked.

“I agree.”

“And yet you still refuse?”

“I do.”

“Do you not see how selfish that is?”

“I do.”

Elder Olg stared at her silently. He was losing ground, and she wasn’t about to give him any space. “Then perhaps I should review my estimation of you, Rieren.”

“You forget, Elder, who I truly am. I am not simply the Rieren Vallorne you trained and taught.” She took a step forward, narrowing the distance between them. “I am the sole reason you are here. I am the one who climbed higher than anyone else. I am the one who reverted the timeline so that we could all make this life a better one. I am an Abyss-cursed god.”

They stared at each other for a while then. Elder Olg didn’t cower from her unrelenting glare, and Rieren didn’t look away either. This wasn’t a simple test of wills.

Elder Olg finally laughed a little. “Gods and goddesses. It’s all a matter of faith, isn’t it?”

“Ultimately? Yes.”

“Fine, then. I do have faith in you, Rieren. Perhaps I simply needed a stronger reminder.” He smiled at her, back to his old self. “Let us begin. I hope you know how to go about it.”

“Of course, Elder.”

They settled down a little bit away from the Dreadflood, where Rieren and Elder Olg sat opposite each other. She had summoned the golden threads again, intertwining them around both their hands. Elder Olg didn’t mind that they were digging into his skin, poking right into his meridians.

“Do you think you’ll retain these after you have transformed back?” he asked.

Rieren looked down at the shimmering strands. “I cannot say for certain. We shall see.”

The process was the same as before. But instead of pulling in the corruption and the temporal blockage using Essence as a medium, she was pushing all that she held within her out. Elder Olg was there to receive it all.

A part of Rieren was worried that it might have some sort of deleterious effect on the Elder. Would pushing all her corruption within his meridians turn him even more monstrous?

They discussed the issue beforehand. Elder Olg didn’t seem to mind. He was confident he would retain his sensibilities, his intentions and his ideals, and that was enough for him. When she asked him if he was prepared to lose his emotions like she had, he had been noncommittal about it. Rieren could proceed.

The same part of her that was worried about him also underwent a minor hesitation born from a little nibble of guilt. She was potentially sacrificing her Elder for her own gain. Hadn’t she determined that no one should have to go through the same emotionless state that she had suffered through? And yet here she was, about to delegate the same fate to Elder Olg.

With a little encouragement from him, however, she forged on. Elder Olg wanted this. She wasn’t forcing anything upon him. Maybe she wasn’t completely in the right here, but she wasn’t going against his wishes.

“How does it feel?” Elder Olg asked. His face was a little twisted.

“It feels as though it should hurt more,” Rieren said as she continued pushing out the corruption through her meridians. “But the pain is distant and muted.”

“Like someone else is experiencing it instead of you?”

Rieren nodded. “Exactly.”

They quietened and continued. Rieren was relieved that she was facing no obstruction to the procedure. Her Essence continued to push the blockage in her spiritual channels out of her body. Cycling ensured that she was making her entire spirit circulate all her Essence, so that all the corruption within her was brought to the point where she was connected to the Elder.

The sensation of relief was starting to grow. It actually felt strange, almost like she was waking up after a long slumber.

“I think it is working,” Rieren said. She sounded surprised. This was more miraculous than she had expected.

Elder Olg stared at her with a little smile. “I believe it is.”

What she wouldn’t have given to look at herself through his eyes just then. Surely, as she was turning back, she would be changing her form too. In fact, her hair did feel different. Less rigid, softer as it used to be. The world itself appeared a little strange to her eyes, like she was wearing new spectacles and her perspective had shifted just so.

Rieren focused. It was taking a long, long time to get through all the blockage her monstrous spirit had accumulated. This wasn’t a case like Rykion’s. Her transformation had been complete, and she had been a monster for a while.

Another worry arose. Even if she succeeded in her current endeavour, who was to say that it wouldn’t somehow regenerate back? She recalled well how she had trapped the Abyssal corruption with the Abyss-Aspected Essence in a separate network of meridians that didn’t connect to her main route of channels. Could she attempt something like that again?

No. the Aspects of Abyss and Divine were rooted too deep within her spirit now. Her current attempt was simply ridding her spirit of the corrupting influence they held. She needed to be able to grow again, to stop relying on oddities like Batcat needing to use Call of the Past to take her to her former self. She needed to expand her elixir field and make her spirit ascend.

That was the true blockage Rieren was dealing with. The fact her stalled growth coincided with her monstrous transformation wasn’t a coincidence.

One was causing the other.

So, if Rieren rid herself of one, the other ought to be fixed as well. That was her goal. That—

Elder Olg cried out. Rieren refocused on her old mentor, alarm ringing through her. A second later, his skin split and black fluid of the Dreadflood exploded out of him.