Rieren had taken a gamble. She had known from the beginning that the Anchor was connected to the Divine Realm. Why else would everyone be seeking to use it to call down the Forborne Emperor, the latest cultivator to ascend to the Divine Realm?

She tried to look around, to see how many people had been affected by the Domain’s summoning. Had it caught all the spectators who had been staring agog?

There was a crowd around them. All those who had stood witness to the ritual awed by its sheer power, had now travelled along with Rieren and the new Banishedborn into the Divine Realm. Most weren’t moving, though. They were shocked. This was well beyond any of their imaginations.

Rieren couldn’t really blame them. They were in the Divine Realm now. It was natural to be a little frightened.

The transformation from her regular, mundane surroundings to the Divine Realm still took her by surprise. So what if she had hatched out a last-minute plan that wouldn’t need any dire sacrifices or anything of the kind. Rieren understood the implications of what she was seeking to accomplish.

She was saving herself, bypassing the need to draw the corruption out into herself, while getting rid of it from the Anchor too.

Even as she watched, the dark blots that had taken over the centre of the crystal now started seeping out of the Anchor. Rieren watched, as all the corruption from the Dreadflood left the Anchor in mere heartbeats. Moments later, the crystal looked like it had never been infected with the corruption in the first place.

Elder Olg appeared a second later. “Incredible.” He was staring out into the Divine Realm, his head swivelling this way and that as he took in the new world. “I can’t believe that I’m finally here.”

Rieren could barely believe that her plan had succeeded too. The corruption had been freed from the crystal. They could proceed with the plan.

“You!” The new Banishedborn turned to face Elder Olg with a withering look. “You dared to interfere in my plans! You actually threatened to ruin everything I’ve worked towards for all this time. How dare you?”

Elder Olg wasn’t impressed. His look was scathing at best. “Unwind this barrier of yours, Banishedborn. I have no real quarrel with you. All I wished was to reach the Divine Realm, and since that has been achieved, we can now part ways.”

“You truly believe you can get away from this after this intrusion?”

“You truly believe you have the time to waste fighting the likes of me?”

The new Banishedborn. It was smart of the Elder to remind him of his real purpose. Probably why he had come here to take advantage of the ritual in the first place. There were more important things at play than stopping an Abyssal, no matter how powerful he was. More important things, like calling in the Forborne Emperor.

Elder Olg began liquifying. The Banishedborn’s barrier hadn’t fallen around them, but the hole Rierne had used to remove manipulate the Anchor was big enough for the Elder to squeeze through. At least, when he was the Dreadflood again.

“Thank you, Rieren,” Elder Olg said as he flowed past.

Rieren almost said “You are welcome” but checked herself at the last moment. Elder Olg had jeopardized the entire ritual by trying to force his issue. She shouldn’t be feeling pleased just because she had ended up helping him, even when her real goal had been to remove his corrupting influence.

The new Banishedborn wasn’t paying attention to the proceedings. He apparently didn’t even care about the Anchor anymore. Its job was done. All he was looking forward to was the next step.

Stepping forward, the Banishedborn raised his head high into the air. He took a deep breath that made his marbled chest expand, then shouted, “O Great Emperor!” His voice rang loud, echoing over the area, making Rieren’s ears thrum. “I am here! I have arrived. Your greatest champion, your truest saviour, you r most steadfast companion—I am now by your side!”

Rieren stared. What in the world was he talking about? It almost sounded like… like he was sincere.

“Heed my call, Forborne Emperor,” the former Aryoventos Clanmaster said. “Too long have you fought with no one to rely on. Too long have you been alone in this hostile land. Well, no longer! I have come, your greatest ally in this excursion against the gods themselves. Allow me to join you. I entreat you, let me join your side. Together, we will be victorious!”

Rieren found herself slowly shaking her head. This… wasn’t right. All this time, she had thought that the former Aryoventos Clanmaster was in this because he wanted to pull the Emperor down. Because he had allied himself with the imperial court.

But that wasn’t the case at all. He was in this because he truly believed he could make a difference. That he really was the Forborne Emperor’s chosen Banishedborn.

Insane.

All this time, he had been manipulated into doing what he believed was right. All this time, he had thought the Emperor truly did need his assistance.

Rieren couldn’t tell if it was going to work, of course. The Emperor could surely hear the calls. Abyss, she was pretty certain most of the pantheon had been alerted to their presence by now. Which meant that they would be spotted soon.

But that wasn’t the real issue bothering Rieren. They couldn’t stay here simply because the execution of her full plan needed them to be in the Mortal Realm. The Banishedborn were down there. Those were her real target through this entire procedure, and Rieren remained determined to end their influence upon the court.

So, there was only one thing Rieren could do to bring things back to some semblance of its original direction. She forced her golden threads to exit the Anchor and retracted her control of its elixir field and meridians.

As soon as Rieren did so, the whole environment around them started to flicker. The Domain was finally falling apart.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The new Banishedborn whirled around until his flinty eyes landed on Rieren. Rage smothered any other expression he might have had. He as on Rieren in an instant, his hands seeking to tear the Anchor from her grip. With how much Essence through him, he was clearly determined to make use of it.

But then the entire Domain fluttered. Rieren stood her ground. The suddenness of Domain’s end, the reinsertion of the regular Mortal realm over their senses, all made the former Clanmaster halt in his tracks. Now he began twisting and turning, as if determined to find that chink in the rapidly-falling Domain that would allow him to keep it up longer.

Moments later, they were back in the Mortal Realm.

Rieren’s legs buckled a sever pressure for a moment. There was a rapid bang, as though something had exploded nearby. Screams pierced through the air like deadly arrows. But Rieren couldn’t turn away from the being before her. From the new Banishedborn stomping closer with a thunderous look on his face.

“it was you, was it not?” he asked. His voice was on the edge of yelling out at her. “You brought us back. How dare you?”

Rieren headed off his rage before he did something stupid and wasted any further time. “Complete the ritual.” She pushed the Anchor towards him. “We were never meant to open the Anchor’s Domain. We are not supposed to head to the Divine Realm. We—”

She stopped herself. The new Banishedborn’s eyes were filled with shock and suspicion. Ah, right. He was in this sincerely. This Abyss-cursed foll before truly believed that he was ascending to take his place by the Forborne Emperor’s side. He could be waging war against the gods and he other Banishedborn, and to do that, he would need to be in the Celestial Realm.

Of course he’d think that achieving the Celestial Realm through the Anchor’s Domain was part of the plan all along.

“What do you mean?” the new Banishedborn growled at her.

Rieren changed tack. “That Domain I opened through the Anchor wasn’t the real Divine Realm.” Sometimes, she forgot to bless the fact that she was so adept at lying on the fly. “It is fake. You need to reach the real divine plane, and the only way to do so is for someone in there to pull you up. You must realize that you are only in the Fated-realm, not the Primordial.”

The best lies, of course, liberally used the truth to mask their falsehoods. Nothing she had said was wrong. Someone in the Fated realm of cultivation wasn’t going to ascend to the Celestial Relam. That was why the Forborne Emperor had only left them after he had reached the Primordial realm.

With a grunt, the former Aryoventos Clanmaster pulled in the Anchor with a flick of his finger. “I knew this wasn’t going to be so easy,” he muttered. Then he looked up with the sudden speed of a praying mantis clamping upon its prey. “But we will require a sacrifice for the other method.”

Rieren swallowed. Was she to be this sacrifice? No, that was never going to work. They needed someone who had a connection to the old Emperor, someone who could be used a proxy to establish the connection that would then bring him down to the Mortal Realm.

Her eyes widened. It couldn’t be Kalvia, could—

“You have done enough.”

Both Rieren and the new Banishedborn turned to see the current Emperor walking towards them. Oh. Oh. Her eyes widened again with another realization. A new epiphany about how things were supposed to proceed.

The former Aryoventos Clanmaster grinned. “Ah, jut he man we have been looking for. Welcome, Your Majesty.”

“What is the meaning of this, Aryoventos?” Astern asked. “Do you know what you’ve done here?”

He wore the regal robe of the greatest being in the Elderlands. Pure black silk, embroidered with gold and green threads outlining a series of pearls that were patterned in the shape of a tree with many branches. But there was no veil, this time. The Emperor was all business.

“I know perfectly well what Ia m doing here, upstart,” the new Banishedborn said.

Astern’s eyes flashed. “Did I truly hear you speak to your Emperor in that manner?”

In answer, the Banishedborn simply struck out. It was fast. Too fast for even Rieren’s high-Mind enhanced eyes to pick apart. Less than breath, less than a wink, and Astern was sprawled on the ground, his chest turned to stone. Where the Banishedborn had hit him with a fist, Astern had simply petrified.

The Emperor wheezed. “You dare—”

The former Aryoventos Clanmaster struck again. They both moved with blistering speed, both at a pace that was nearly impossible for Rieren to keep track of. But she did catch one thing. However fast the Emperor might have been, the Banishedborn’s speed easily outstripped it.

He caught up to the Emperor and grabbed the jaw, tearing half of it off as it turned to stone.

Rieren started. Instinct tried to drive her to interfere, to perhaps save the Emperor from certain death. She mastered her impulse. For one, she’d be no match against a Banishedborn on her own. Not with Reaver Stance, and not even with Call of the Past. For another, things needed to go exactly this way. The Emperor knew it too. His resistance was only token.

At least, Rieren hoped he was giving his life with full knowledge of the implications. Why else would be here on his own like this instead of sending one of his Avatars?

In the next exchange, the new Banishedborn finally caught his enemy. His fist had driven into the Astern’s chest, grabbing some part of him inside the body. A shiver down Rieren’s back made him think it was his very spine that the former Aryoventos Clanmaster had latched onto.

The next instant, the Emperor was lifted off his feet and slammed down on the Anchor. He cried out as the overlarge, crystal stabbed through his midsection. Immediately, his form started turning into stone. It started spreading from his injured sternum and spread until stone covered him completely.

In moments, the entirety of the current Emperor had turned to blood-coloured stone.

Astern was dead.

Rieren’s breath hitched in her throat. What sort of will and courage did it take to sacrifice your life in such a manner? To willingly walk straight into death, willing to trust all those left behind to deal with the outcome to handle the fallout.

She realized a part of that trust was for her. For Rieren. She was a major facet of seeing everything to the right conclusion.

It was up to Rieren to see that the ultimate conclusion was the right one.

The ritual was rebirthing. Power entered the area again. Essence thickened, swirling light flashed into being, slowly starting to spike into Rieren’s eyes. The wind was whipping up to gale force as well, rebuffing her physically backwards, farther and farther away from the centre of the ritual.

The Banishedborn laughed. “Yes. Yes! You see, great Emperor. You must accept me. You will allow me to stand by your side. We shall conquer the Celestial Realm as one.”

Mad. The man was delusionally mad. But he was serving his purpose. Rieren was almost flung off her feet, but she held her ground and left enough of her eyes open to see the ritual succeeding. All the power was spiralling into an inverted funnel, rising ever higher until the concentrated Essence had pierced the heavens.

She looked up. The clouds were twisting as well. They spun faster and faster as they spread out, making room for the thick column of light shooting heavenwards.

At the very peak of where the light seemed to disappear, a different sort of power was materializing. Swirls of prismatic colour were forming a warped orb around the inconceivably high peak. A scar in the fabric of space.

A wound that led straight to the Celestial Realm.

The power in the area continued growing, just as the Banishedborn’s laughter did. Things had gone too blindingly bright. Rieren could no longer keep her eyes open. She resorted to using her Essence-infused eyes to watch what was going on, but even that was difficult. There was simply too much Essence. An amount Rieren had only seen in the Celestial Realm before.

If the Aryoventos Clanmaster’s ascension to the stage of a Banishedborn had been impressive, the end of this ritual had become inconceivably awestriking.

Without warning, the spire of rising light suddenly reversed direction. All the energy that had steadily risen to the Celestial Realm came back down to the Mortal one with a vengeful force. The explosion it caused sent Rieren—and likely anyone else who might have been observing—flying off her feet.

When she righted herself several dozen paces from where she had been a moment ago, she looked forward as a heavy pressure slammed down on her soul.

The Emperor. The old one. He was back.