Reaver Stance was at such a high Grade now that Rieren’s power was boosted several ranks above what she could normally claim. She might have been Late-Exalted in truth, but with Reaver Stance active, the power from her boosted stats would allow her to face down even Early- to Mid-Ascendant realm cultivators without great difficulty.

And these mooks were certainly not Ascendants.

Rieren clashed against her first adversary. The one that had delivered the blow which had allowed Reaver Stance to come into play in the first place. His large cleaver was still coated with her blood. She tutted at it.

It seemed he was like Ledorne. A cultivator specializing in earth Aspect. Bits of the ground were attaching themselves to his body and his oversized blade, armouring and empowering him. He struck out at her with another wide swing. The movement of his blade seemed to make the very earth twist and contort to follow along.

Rieren swept the blow aside with a simple Earthfall Blade. In the very next instant, she struck back. A simple swing of her sword to bash his ribs.

The man grunted as he was sent staggering back. He stumbled, nearly losing his footing, but quickly regained his balance, his eyes wild. Rieren had left a crack on his earthen armour. It hadn’t been hard. He knew it, had felt it. That was part of the reason behind the sudden trepidation on his face.

Rieren didn’t give him a single moment to reevaluate his approach. He had played his card, and now he would be dealt with. She charged with blinding speed to deliver another blow. This time, she would put some real force in there, make sure her strike would be fatal.

The man reacted by summoning a rock in between them. An instantaneous Domain Summons, one Rieren didn’t get the time to react to.

Her rush was stopped by the misshapen boulder between her and her target. She collided with it, bashed it aside with no trouble, but her momentum was gone. Just what her opponent was looking for.

“Kill that bitch, already!” one of the other cultivators yelled at the man.

He growled, then swung at Rieren. But he wasn’t alone. The others had reached their location, their powers resolving into deadly forms that would no doubt prove somewhat tricky.

Rieren, however, was already gone. A quick leap boosted by her Domain’s geyser had taken her high in the air, well beyond their reach. As she reached the peak of her ascent, she used Rippling Blade to extend her sword’s length, combining it with Water Dancer Blade and her mixture of Aspects to turn her sword into a storm.

Then she crashed down on them all.

Most of them were smart enough to see the sheer power Rieren was bringing down. They scattered before they were struck, choosing to evade instead of defend.

But not Rieren’s main target, who was all she cared about in that little moment. The cultivator using earth Aspect solidified his defence even harder, choosing to take whatever Rieren threw down head on. Apparently, his pride was on the line.

He should have figured that his life was on the line too.

When Rieren crashed down, she brough her storm-wrapped blade down upon the man. All the swirling storm clouds turned into not just lightning. Rieren had two more Aspects to call upon. She mixed Divine- and Abyss-Aspected Essence in there too.

The contact between her sword and her target resulted in a deadly detonation. Rieren herself was pushed back by over a dozen paces by the shockwave, her concentrated Essence armour protecting her from the worst of the blast.

Her opponent fared much, much worse. The blow had broken through his armour, just as Rieren had intended. If he had left a grievous wound on her side, she had practically torn him apart. His shoulder was mashed to bits of blood and bone, his right arm was gone entirely, and it looked as though his abdomen had been partially crushed too.

Well, one could never accuse Rieren of not being through.

She couldn’t relax, of course. The other imperial court cultivators still posed great danger. And as much as the fight was calling to her, as much as she wanted to make them all taste the bite of her blade, there was an actual goal she was here to accomplish.

“Get your fellows,” she shouted at the monsters. “Hurry! I will keep the others busy. Go.”

Perhaps Rieren ought not to have laid out her plans so publicly like that, but she was beyond caring. If the rest of her enemies were smart, they would stop worrying about what the monsters were doing and focus on the real threat here—her.

Rieren’s gambit worked. When she attacked her next target, the rest of them all converged to meet her as one. The monsters weren’t worth their attention.

She was.

The first cultivator nearly gored Rieren through with a strange spear—it looked like the vertebra of some unfortunate beast—but she deflected it aside just in time. In fact, she had been waiting to make sure he was committed to the blow. As soon as she had pushed aside the spear, she struck with her sword.

Too bad the man was both fast and had strong Essence armour. Her sword was delayed just long enough so that it never ended up hitting his flesh, even if Rieren did managed to crack through his Essence armour.

She couldn’t get off a follow-up strike. The other cultivators were almost upon her. No. It would not do to get ganged up on.

So, Rieren once more called forth her Domain in a rising column of blistering water.

She didn’t climb high with it this time, however. Rieren had a different plan. Under the veil of the steam and overheated water flying everywhere, she moved swiftly until she had found Kalvia again.

The heir to the throne was actually helping the monsters free the rest of their kind. It took Rieren by minute surprise that they weren’t done yet. She had to remind herself that the battle had only gone on for mere moments. The stronger cultivators grew, the more it felt like a great while had passed during battles in the same period of time.

“Kalvia,” Rieren said. She hid nothing of the urgency in her voice. Already she could hear the shouts of her enemies, the steamy mist dissipating. They were looking for her. “Do you trust me?”

Kalvia stared at her for a moment before rising. “Must you ask?”

“Thank you. Now, stay still.”

Rieren acted fast. She pushed Kalvia so that she fell to the ground, a little surprised. But the Empress-to-be remembered Rieren’s words. She didn’t move. Not even when Rieren’s water started cocooning her. Though, that was likely because Rieren herself was being cocooned at the same time too.

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It took only a breath before Rieren looked exactly like Kalvia did. Then the mist cleared and the battle resumed. Her timing had been perfect.

They saw her, of course. The nearest cultivator, the one with the spear Rieren had struck, caught sight of her. But his eyes glazed over Rieren like she was part of the landscape. Kalvia might have killed one of them, but in terms of raw power, she wasn’t a real threat. Despite her performance in the Trials, they still believed she was too far beneath them.

It was Rieren who could kill them all, given the chance.

Which she went on to prove when his glance slid away from her. There was a shout from behind, a warning as soon as Rieren began moving. She was probably rushing too fast. Kalvia would never have accelerated at such a lightning-fast pace.

But she had to take advantage of the opportunity. So, Rieren activated Gale Blade as she neared her unwary target.

The man turned out to be not as unprepared as she had assumed. Of course, he hadn’t become a powerful cultivator without honing his instincts properly. So, as Rieren reached him with her skill, his Essence armour thickened around him till it was visible as a shimmering red shell encasing his body.

The sad part about Gale Blade was that it could easily overwhelm opponents like monsters. For stronger cultivators with surer defensive capabilities, it couldn’t take them out.

Such was the case here, where Rieren sashed around her target in a bladed storm. She left deep grooves and cracks but didn’t manage to pierce through his defence. He might have been reinforcing it with an Aspect she hadn’t seen him use properly yet.

But it didn’t matter. When Rieren reached the final slicing motion, she didn’t attack her opponent. Instead, she halted her skill and used Heaven’s Arc instead.

What a wonderful blessing that she had taken the time to actually learn it after receiving the scroll.

Rieren pulled her sword back, gathered Essence at the tip of her blade, then swung. As she did so, she imposed her will on the strike. She needed the man to be dead. She needed to win. This will was on the level of the divine. A mandate of the heavens that she had reached.

Heaven’s Arc sent a curving slash of pure white, Aspectless Essence streaming at her target.

He sensed it. Dodged it even, by jumping just in the nick of time. Or, he appeared to dodge it.

In truth, Heaven’s Arc wasn’t so easy to avoid. Rieren wasn’t simply blasting out a crescent of energy at her target. This technique was imbued with her very will on what she needed it to carry out. And so, it would do just that.

Even as the cultivator jumped to avoid the blistering white arc, he was dragged along with it. Streams of white energy trailed in the arc’s wake, the air rippling, even space itself contorting. He was caught in the rush of air following close behind Heaven’s Arc, dragged along with it so that it was like he had been hit anyway.

Both man and arc went flying several dozen paces before crashing with a furious explosion of white in the distance. Rieren grinned. Success.

All carried out in mere heartbeats. Enough to spare her from the attention of her other enemies while she dealt with her main target.

But now they were upon her again. A glowing fist fired in from her right. An orb of flickering golden energy wrapped in blue lightning crashed in from her left. Somewhere a little farther off, Rieren’s ears picked up someone else summoning up some sort of skill or technique that needed a longer activation time, but surely meant some kind of bad news.

There was even a translucent crimson barrier around her location. They were trying to hem her in, prevent her from escaping their combined abilities.

Rieren used her Domain’s geyser to avoid them all again. She let it shoot her straight up, away from their reach. It was somewhat surprising they hadn’t formulated a counter to it yet, considering how often they must have seen it by now.

She cursed as she reached the peak of her ascent. They were sticking too close together. She wouldn’t be able to pick the remaining three off one by one.

This was no longer just a matter of pride. They wanted to live.

They wanted her to die.

Speed. That was what Rieren would have to use to her advantage. If she couldn’t get to them, she would make them come to her. They would most likely move at different paces, which meant she’d get minuscule opportunities to tackle them one at a time.

Rieren kept up her Domain even as she landed. She was churning the water up into a stormy froth, however, adding her lightning, Divine, and Abyss Aspects to the mixture. With Tidal Summons, she sent wave after destructive wave crashing towards her opponents.

They reacted just as she had hoped they would—individually. One of them summoned his own Domain, a strange amalgamation of skeletal purple limbs. It blocked her waves, then returned fire. The limbs broke apart, then flung themselves in Rieren’s direction like they were ballistae bolts.

A second cultivator dodged around her Domain’s effective area and attempted to circle around Rieren to hem her in from the other side. May fortune favour his steps.

The third was sticking close by the first. He was the one with the long-activation-time ability. That golden orb with the crackling blue electric sparks was expanding, growing ever larger every second.

Rieren flashed out from her current position to meet the cultivator trying to circumnavigate her Domain. They collided with a furious clang of blades. Her Receptor Sword met his shorter straight sword, one that was artfully carved. If they hadn’t been enemies, Rieren might have taken some time to appreciate the design, and whatever power lay embedded in it.

Reaver Stance was starting to die out. The evidence came from how evenly matched she was against her opponent, when she should have overwhelmed him with ease. She was slowly pushing him back, though.

But there was no time to take advantage of anything. The huge golden orb was now shooting her direction.

Rieren continued fighting her current foe head on. It seemed he meant to keep her trapped until the orb was near enough, then possibly make his getaway while Rieren took the brunt of the impact.

She played into his hands. Rieren pressed her opponent, pushing him back even further and even scoring a few hits, though they didn’t get deep past his Essence armour. But then the crackling sphere of golden energy was upon her, its lightning cage already singeing her arm and hair. The man pushed against her with surprising force, then threw himself back, grinning.

Rieren grinned back. Just as the orb reached, she twisted her sword around and used Earthfall Blade. The deflection sent the gigantic orb of energy, easily ten times as big as Rieren herself, careening to her right.

Straight at the cultivator she had been facing heartbeats ago.

His eyes widened at seeing the attack redirected at him. He probably had some defence against it, though. Somethng to protect himself with.

Rieren didn’t get to see it. She turned her attention to the other two.

Her attempt to close the distance only partially succeeded. The man who had flung the orb quickly retreated to maintain the same distance. However, the one with the strange Domain held his ground. He had even started attacking from a distance, pelting broken pieces of his enormous summoned skeletal limbs at her.

Rieren bashed them away without difficulty. Earthfall Blade took care of them all. Even the smaller orbs that the third cultivator was flinging from a distance.

It was minorly annoying, but she could get over it.

The real problem was that she wasn’t going to be able to hit her target directly. That Domain of his was expanding in anticipation of fighting Rieren directly. She could use her Domain to counter his, could summon a storm that tore apart whatever he was using.

Instinct told her she would be doing what he wanted through that route. Going along with what he wanted. She couldn’t have that. So, Rieren paused herself well before getting close.

Then she unleashed another Heaven’s Arc.

It was successful, just as she knew it was going to be. That Domain tore apart, the skeletal limbs crumbling under the sheer power she had sent forth. What happened to the cultivator in the middle of it escaped Rieren. She was too busy haring towards her last target.

Lucky for her, he wasn’t running away his time. He rushed to meet her head on. The reason behind the decision appeared a second later.

The first one she had thought potentially taken care of had reappeared. They attacked her together. Rieren was forced to defend herself against both of them at once, her offensive momentum quickly turning into a fray about making sure she didn’t get hit.

Then the third one joined. Now, Rieren was forced to fend off potshots from range too. What a pain.

Cursing, Rieren did her best to create some distance. They were on her like a pack of hyenas, determined to press their advantage with superior numbers. The bonuses from Reaver Stance were almost out, which was part of why Rieren was faltering back. But at this rate, she’d be hit again, and then she’d have another opening to use Reaver Stance.

Provided she wasn’t fatally struck, of course.

Rieren fended off one ball of golden energy, fended off several sword swings, attempted a counterattack of her own, but had to turn it into a deflection for one of the skeletal bits flying at her.

They were wearing her down. Bit by bit, they were dragging things out so that she wasted her Essence and energy, turning from rabid predator to easy prey. Drats.

And then “safety” arrived from the unlikeliest of sources.

A Masked Avatar dropped in among them, forcing all the combatants to separate. “Enough!” she yelled. “Stand down. In the name of the Forborne Emperor, I command that you halt.”