Rieren trudged onwards through the Divine Fellserpent’s body. Despite being nearly dead and impossibly tired, and despite sporting more wounds than she still had hair left on her head, she laughed.

The foolish gods outside were yet to realize that the Fellserpent’s skin, thick as a castle’s walls, was potent enough to hide her divine presence. It was also long enough for her to infiltrate deep into the Celestial Realm by travelling through its innards. So easy to evade all detection. Well, all detection except for the gigantic monster’s death.

It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be found, not until she reached her true destination—the Tree of Creation.

The location where she could end the gods’ tyranny.

Her foot sank into and squished the walls of the serpent’s intestine. The path had been winding for a while, illuminated only by the glow of her innate divinity. By now, Rieren had travelled at least seven leagues into the Celestial Realm.

“Monkey’s balls,” she muttered, grimacing.

Much as Rieren took great, ruthless pleasure in hoodwinking the celestial cretins, she had no intention of travelling through the dead Fellserpent’s guts any longer than necessary.

The gastric acids were starting to chafe on her legs. Her wounds sizzled with pain, just as the droplets of her gold-red blood did on the acidic pool around her. The enormous corpse of the S-Grade Aetherian was filled with highly noxious fumes. While her Divine Resurrection perk kept her healthy enough, the stench still made her want to hurl with every inhale.

Several winding turns later, Rieren decided she had come far enough for her to get out and head straight towards the end of her journey. She pulled her Thousandth Blade from its sheath. The curved sword gleamed with a soft, golden radiance.

Cutting through the intestine’s wall was no trouble, nor was going past the curved ribs. The thick skin was going to need some work, however, just as it had when she had killed the gargantuan beast.

Rieren used Enchant, picking Keen Bleeder. Her sword rippled, the blade growing longer and less curved. A crimson light glinted along its cutting edge. There. Now it was ready.

She positioned herself in the attacking stance, then used Everblade Cross. The skill threw her forward with blinding speed until she was right up against the craggy, rocky skin of the serpent. Her blade sprang into action. A vertical slash tore into the weakened skin, the following horizontal slice bursting it apart to create a ragged hole on the Fellserpent’s side.

All in a split second.

Rieren wiped away the grey blood on her sword, letting the enchantment wear off so that it returned to its original shape, and she could sheathe it. None of her eighteen senses detected any trouble nearby. There wasn’t any need to hurry. Yet.

As soon as she was out of the Fellserpent’s body, another sense immediately activated. Espial allowed her mind to join in the stream of telepathic communication that passed between the gods’ and their followers. Rieren walked on, listening to those searching for her, keeping her presence muted.

“Thirteen thousand Banishedborn dead,” one said.

“Thirteen thousand?” replied another with great incredulity. “All by herself? What sort of monster is she?”

“A true god. Not even the Chosen can stand against her. Which is why we are not to accost her directly. All must immediately signal the Pantheon once the upstart has been located.”

“Certainly. I do not wish to fight one who killed all seventeen Aetherians in the Golcalith Ranges in one day.”

“Now that one is just a rumour.”

Rieren nearly laughed. She had to resist the temptation to correct them that it was actually the truth. Judging by what her Espial sense, Rieren was more or less certain those Divine Guards were somewhere far off to her right. Nothing she had to worry about.

“What do you think the gods will do once they catch her?” another asked, this time from somewhere far to her left.

“Hmm, we have not had a great torture session since—”

“The Fellserpent is coming,” someone said.

Rieren tutted. The communication turned into a series of technical messages about exact locations, estimated times of arrival at each point, and other boring details. Nothing she had to worry about. For one, she had already infiltrated far deeper into the Celestial realm.

For another, long years had taught her to keep her presence hidden when she was using Espial. None of them would find her easily, save the Fellserpent. That one made her move faster.

The surrounding lands were… beautiful. Rieren strode on ashen rocks that shifted in colour from mirrorlike silver to the hue of a mortal storm cloud. Even her wounds didn’t feel the feather-light touch of the glittering white grass. Grey-barked trees rose high with sinuously twisting trunks, red-and orange leaves fluttering like a thousand flames upon their boughs.

In another life, at another time, Rieren would have enjoyed this. She would have breathed in deep, sighed in contentment. Lowered her guard enough to soak in the beauty.

Not so now. On this day, on what would likely be her last day, she had a goal.

That said, the journey towards said goal afforded too much time for Rieren to reminisce. At the edge of her Godly Proprioception, she could sense movement far above her. Nothing to worry about yet.

Instead, as Rieren walked towards a stream, her resentment grew. The water was so transparent, it reflected nothing of the rose-and-aubergine sky strewn with clouds of golden nebulae, each foretelling a rain of twinkling stars. It didn’t reflect her face, either.

When she had begun her journey decades and decades ago, she’d been… naïve. Lying to herself was a fool’s errand.

Rieren had been foolish to think that power was what would lift her from her hopelessness and despair. She had thought, if only she could grow strong and invincible, she could carve herself a place of peace and contentment. The death of her father, the destruction of her home, a poor orphan’s life where her only prospect was being married off to some worthless man several times her age…

She spat into the water, marring its surface with her red-gold blood as she turned and headed upstream. Well, she had escaped such a sad life. Rieren had taken power for herself, had forced her way to greater and greater heights in the Mortal Realm, ramming her way through all the corruption and greed, untouchable and unstoppable.

Until the apocalypse had struck.

Rieren hadn’t mourned humanity. What was the point of a society that rewarded only those who fell in its narrow definition of strong and powerful? The mighty grew mightier, the wealthy grew wealthier, all while forcing those less fortunate to remain trapped in endless cycles of servitude and tragedy.

The apocalypse had seemed an opportunity then. A way to rise even higher, leave her foul mortal shell behind.

She grinned ruefully. “What a fool.”

Even higher had only brought her here. In the Celestial Realm of the gods. The very ones who had begun the apocalypse as nothing more than a means to raise their own sovereignty. As if being mighty entities who existed beyond the constraints of the Mortal Realm wasn’t enough.

They had purposefully sowed chaos among the mortals by granting the powers of a system to select individuals. Even when the Aetherians and the Abyssals had risen in strength to cull civilization, even when the survivors had begged and pleaded for help, the gods had seen fit to decline all but a mere handful. And thus, humanity had perished at the hands of monsters.

Rieren stopped when she reached the first waterfall. It was little more than a small step, a shelf of rock barely two paces tall. More such shelves led further back as the surrounding land sloped upwards.

The gentle series of waterfalls helped calm her thoughts. It had been a while since she had cultivated, her inner harmony not at all appreciating the gap. Ah, well. She had reached the end.

Rieren took a quick breath. None of her senses indicated any approaching danger. She had a little time. Pulling out a stone dagger with a triangular blade that tapered to a sharp point, Rieren buried it in the stream’s bed and let several droplets of her blood to mar the water around it. The stream didn’t make it flow away. The water was stagnant around the dagger.

Just as she needed it to be. Rieren used Enchant once more, focusing on the dagger as she pulled out a few more ingredients, picking Regressor’s Last Wish. Her Enchantment skill allowed her to infuse any weapon or item with a memorized spell.

And this one… this one would take what final dregs of strength she had left.

Hesitating for just a brief moment, she—

Something was coming. Rieren smiled. Smart. The assailant was rising from beneath the ground, bypassing all of her senses. Almost. Her Pallesthesia alerted her to any vibrations travelling through land. It seemed she was mistaken. There was no time.

Rieren grabbed up the stone dagger and the rest of the ingredients, before leaping back over twenty paces. She used Enchant with Keen Bleeder on her sword again, then activated her Swordstorm Severance skill.

Just in time. The area around where she had stabbed the dagger erupted as another Divine Fellserpent burst out with a spray of rocks, rising high with a guttural roar. Had to be the same one she had heard about.

The monster didn’t get far. Her skill carried her forward with the same incredible speed as her last one, but with a different effect. Instead of ramming into her target with vertical and horizontal slashes, Rieren turned into a bladed hurricane, swinging her sword viciously as she cut around the enormous serpent’s midsection.

Blood and other fluids spattered over her in a storm of viscera. The Fellserpent screamed out, the air shivering with its parting cry. A miniature earthquake rocked the land as it fell dead onto the ground.

But not before it managed to shriek out one word. “Here!”

The hissing roar echoed throughout the world as though there were invisible mountains. That would alert a lot of undesirables about her presence. In fact, she was certain that the only reason it had appeared was to ascertain her real location.

She sighed. No time to waste.

Rieren hurried forward and hopped over several rocky shelves, splashing water and blood everywhere. Pain might have been dull sensation she could easily ignore, but she had to be mindful of her actual condition. Forget healing her wounds. At his point, her Divine Resurrection perk could barely ensure she didn’t collapse from blood loss.

When she reached a shelf of rock that wasn’t practically shattered, Rieren pulled out all the ingredients once more. A quick look back confirmed that the Fellserpent’s corpse hadn’t blocked the stream. There was just enough space for the water to squeeze past and continue flowing. Good. It was vital that the Essence from her Enchantment was carried downstream.

Carried out of the Celestial Realm and into the Mortal one.

She used Enchant once more, again picking Regressor’s Last Wish. Rieren dropped a bit of her blood on the stone dagger, two blue berries that resembled eyeballs with slit pupils, and a small pendant bearing a symbol of a snake eating its own tail.

The Dagger of Ages, Sightseer’s Eyes, and an Immortalist’s Charm. Incredibly rare ingredients that had taken her the better part of a decade to gather. And now they were ready. Rieren had no room to falter.

A spring of blood red light popped up around her ingredients, accompanied by minute golden twinkles. There. Her Enchantment was ready. At a cost as steep as the land rising around her, of course. Her world grew fainter, the sounds dwindling a little. She no longer had access to her Domain, could no longer use many of her powers.

But Rieren had enough of her strength to see this through to the end.