Later that afternoon, Rieren was brought in sight of a great commotion in the Sect. It wasn’t anything sinister. No monsters had attacked the Sect’s walls, nor had people started killing each other, desperately trying to secure themselves some of the dwindling resources.

The latter wasn’t much of an over-exaggeration. It had happened in Rieren’s last life, though quite a bit into the apocalypse. They were still far from it, and by the sounds of things, the Sect intended to ensure such a situation didn’t arise again.

But for the moment, the source of the hullaballoo was quite interesting. The Sect was receiving some important visitors.

Rieren joined the throngs of bored villagers who were trying to squeeze past the guards and arrange themselves on one side of the Sect’s main courtyard. There were too many of them. Not only was her view blocked, she was also being squeezed to death from all sides. This was the last moment Rieren had expected to regret giving up the sword.

Some tactical elbow jabs and her natural agility eventually got her near the front of the crowd. Here, the guards were busy trying to push back the throng, refusing to let anyone get too close to the courtyard. The refugees might have been taken in willingly by the Sect, but they were still an eyesore.

As just another villager, Rieren was rebuffed as well. Only for a short while, though. She caught Avalien’s eyes, who hurried over and helped her get through the line of guards.

“Mistress,” he said, dipping his head in a short bow. “I assume you’ve come to observe the arrivals of the other Sects?”

“Oh, is that them?” Mistress, was it? Rieren tried to see past him, noticing that there were indeed people from other Sects. Likely the ones the Sect Leader had mentioned yesterday. “Yes, I thought I would take a peek. You received my message, yes?”

He perked up. “Yes, of course! I will make all arrangements and come retrieve you from—”

“No such thing will be necessary. I will meet you at the same location I requested that you guard.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Of course. I shall be there in a few hours.”

“Oi!” A sudden shout interrupted whatever the guard had been about to say. Amalyse stomped over with a thunderous expression on her face, and Avalien quickly cowered away before she stepped right on top of him. “Leave her alone. She’s with me.”

Before Rieren could explain the situation, Amalyse’s powerful hands had closed around her wrist and began dragging her away from the near-brawl the guards and the villagers had come to.

Amalyse was shaking her head as she pulled Rieren along. “Honestly, these guards need to calm down.” She turned her head sharply. “We could have avoided all that if you’d just stayed at the dormitories, you know.”

Rieren stared at her flatly. “Perhaps I should stop walking and simply lie down since you intend to drag me all the way anyway. Why expend unnecessary effort?”

Amalyse rolled her eyes but did release Rieren’s hand. “I was getting worried when you didn’t show up, and now I see why. Cursed guards. Someone needs to tell the Sect to tighten their leash on the ingrates.”

“I wasn’t having any trouble, for what it is worth.” Rieren didn’t feel particularly inclined to explain all that had happened between her and Avalien. Amalyse tended to be a bit of a traditionalist, occasionally struggling with the deep prejudices she had inherited from her parents. “But I am curious to see our visitors from the other sects.”

“Wait, you know about them already?”

Rieren nodded. “I wonder who they brought along.”

Amalyse looked like she had questions about Rieren’s knowledge, but she reined them in. “I’m also curious about our guests from our three new friends.”

Their short little journey came to an end a few paces later. While the villagers were kept farther back, the disciples were allowed to occupy everywhere but the courtyard itself. From their current spot, Rieren had a clear view of the entire procession.

Amalyse was right. Three different sets of patterned robes indicated the other Sects attending the meeting.

The blue-and-green ones were part of the Exalted Lake Sect, while the meeting attendees from the Crimson Leaf Sect had pretty golden robes embroidered with red vines bearing their namesake. At the end of the procession, the Lustrous Zephyr Sect had arrived in white robes decorated with a slight hint of amethyst.

Last but certainly not least, a woman unaffiliated with any of the Sects brought up the rear. Unlike the others, she was walking while wearing plain steel armour, her short-cropped brown hair whipping around her face. Rieren knew her.

She had killed the woman a long while back.

“There she goes,” Amalyse said, shaking her head. She muttered something vulgar under hear breath. “Times are certainly strange when we invite enemies within our borders.”

Rieren glanced at the other girl. Amalyse’s anger was obvious, but it was a tightly-bridled thing. But more than that, she didn’t seem that shocked that her killer was now striding through the grounds of her home, welcomed with open arms.

Her family. That had to be it. The Arraihos weren’t an Archnoble clan, but they were still wealthy, powerful, and had significant connections throughout the Elderlands.

Amalyse wasn’t exactly on the most amicable terms with her family, but blood was a deep connection. She must have informed her clan about her past, which in turn had set them to keep tabs upon their scion’s killer—Essalina Arteroth. No doubt, the Arraihos had ferreted out Essalina’s impending arrival at Lionshard Sect and had told Amalyse to be prepared.

Only, Rieren wasn’t sure what sort of preparation Amalyse might have in store.

“Perhaps she was invited because, in the end, she couldn’t stand against the Sect,” Rieren said.

“The Sect got to her?” Amalyse froze, slowly turning to Rieren with a surprised expression. “Wait… you didn’t…?”

Rieren frowned at her friend. “Keep the rest of that sentence to yourself.”

Amalyse burst out laughing, though the attention that drew at them quickly made her stifle it so that she was only grinning. “Unbelievable. I knew Essalina Arteroth needed to be put in her place, but I never imagined it would go on to be Rieren Vallorne who would do so.”

Essalina’s death had occurred long after Amalyse’s death. Of course, they had both met and faced off against the second-oldest scion of a branch family of the Arteroth clan. She had ties to a rival Sect, where she had trained as a cultivator for long years before returning to her clan to serve the head family.

When Lionshard Sect had finally managed to rally itself and begun to carry out forays against the hordes of monsters who had overtaken the mountain, they had eventually faced stiff challenge from others. Their initial reconquest had been seen as a threat. During those days, the very opposite of cooperation was what ruled the hearts and minds of most people.

One of their new enemy factions had dispatched Essalina to deal with the Sect, which had led to a long series of clashes, one of which had resulted in Amalyse’s death. A death Rieren had mourned for a long while.

She hadn’t realized when that grief had turned into a violent need for vengeance. It hadn’t been long before, during a subsequent battle, Rieren had taken it upon herself to end Essalina’s life.

By the time the Arraihos had learned about Amalyse’s death and responded directly in the last timeline, Rieren had already killed off Essalina. They had been somewhat grateful, but their true attention had turned to their new enmity against the Arteroth clan.

Rieren had appreciated that more anyway. She hadn’t needed to waste much time dealing with the wrathful attention of the Arteroth after killing one of their scions and one of the five Furies of the North.

But now that Essalina was here… there could be more going on than just an attempt of cooperation instead of needless enmity. For all Rieren knew, Essalina could have hidden motives. Monkey’s balls, the Arteroth scion might even be here to find and kill Rieren before she grew to power.

“Which one of them do you think is actually the strongest? I really don’t think it’s the Arteroth woman. Don’t you?”

They both turned to see a tall young man approaching them, Madielvo trailing him with a bullish expression. Serace. Rieren smiled at her lanky friend. Like Amalyse, he had been one of the few disciples she had truly gotten along with.

Unlike Amalyse, however, Rieren had never learned what really happened to him in the last timeline. During the course of events, Serace had simply… disappeared.

Perhaps she wasn’t the only one with secrets.

Amalyse flashed him a ferocious grin. “I’m going to hedge my bets on the Crimson Leaf with the ponytail. Haven’t seen him before. For all we know, he might be their trump card.”

Serace shook his head. “Why would Crimson Leaf send their trump card into another Sect’s territory? All we need are representatives with decently big brains, not knuckleheads who can punch the moon out of orbit.”

The rest of them laughed. Even Rieren cracked a smile. Serace grinned along with them, catching Rieren’s eye with an expression that was as pleased as it was surprised.

“Madielvo told me you’d finally made it, Rieren,” he said. “He also said you were acting weird. Well, even weirder than normal. Did the Abyssals hit you on the head on your way here? Might explain why you’re late.”

Madielvo’s bullish expression turned into a glare. “I didn’t say that!”

Serace waved off his unsaid concern. “Don’t worry. Rieren’s been called far worse.”

Rieren sighed. “I was—” She had been about to make some excuse when she recalled she had already made one. “I was occupied.”

Serace frowned. “Occupied?”

Amalyse coughed loudly. “Answer your own cursed question, Serace.”

Serace blinked at her, then at Rieren. His eyes went wide in realization. He coughed loudly into his fist and turned around hastily. “Ah, yes. Uh…” Serace looked squarely at the procession that was heading upstairs towards the Sect Leader’s tower. “Who was it…? Oh right, you remember the one at the head of the Exalted Lake group?”

“Kerasco?” They all stared at Amalyse. “What? I’m just good at remembering people’s names.”

Serace didn’t vocalize what his disbelieving expression suggested was really on his mind. “Yes, Kerasco. I don’t think we ever saw the true peak of that one’s power.”

“Or, maybe what we saw was the peak of his strength. He doesn’t really look all that impressive, if you ask me.”

“All part of his sleight-of-hand. The first rule of cultivation—never display your true strength to an enemy, unless you’re so much stronger than them that you can avoid fighting entirely just by showing a fraction of your true strength.”

Amalyse sighed in exasperation. “There are no rules of cultivation, unless you want to take the prattling of old Assorcius to heart. And even then, that was one of his later rules. What was it, the seventh?”

“How dare you!” Serace said. “Assorcius was the greatest thing to happen to cultivation!”

They bickered for a bit, Madielvo trying to butt in with the helpful suggestion of asking an arbiter, like Nidelin. That girl knew far too much.

But Rieren shifted her focus away from the disciples and settled it upon the distant group moving off. She had been looking at them for a while. At a certain point, she was certain she had seen Essalina throw some surreptitious glances all around her. But soon enough, they dwindled to too-small figures for her to see them properly any longer.

Rieren didn’t know what this strange future held for her, but one thing was certain. All this cooperation business was going to make hiding herself quite a bit more difficult than she had thought.

“Oh look,” Madielvo said. “Someone is getting a message.”

Rieren followed his pointing finger to a weasel made of glowing blue-white light scurrying over the edge of the courtyard. A scroll was bound to its back.

A Spirit Beast messenger. There were several that the Sect employed, one of their greatest boons thanks to the Scarlet Lion’s participation in establishing the Sect. All of them took the forms of beasts, though they weren’t restricted to any single animal.

The glowing weasel shot into their midst and came to a stop at Rieren’s feet. She frowned. It would have been more ideal if she had received the missive when she had been by herself.

“Receiving messages from the Elders before instruction has even begun?” Serace said. “What exactly did you get up to last time, Rieren?”

Ignoring the question, she bent and picked up the scroll. It was from Elder Olg. A quick read through the letter made her frown grow deeper. He wished for her to attend the meeting with the other Sects’ representatives. The seal at the bottom would grant her access.

He wanted her to meet with Essalina in a calm and civil manner.

“Guessing it doesn’t say anything pleasant,” Amalyse said.

Rieren sighed. “I am now an official Lionshard Sect disciple.”

Amalyse clapped her hands with a little laugh. “Why in the world are you sighing then?”

“I’ve also been asked to report about the past.” That wasn’t the exact truth, but she had no doubt that was at least partly what the meeting would entail. They were willing to let her help with instructing the disciples about the system. Of course, they’d want to verify her credentials, despite the suspicions they harboured. “I need to go.”

“Now?” Amalyse looked back to where the Sect’s guests were disappearing up the central staircase to higher levels. “With the new guests there?”

Rieren nodded again.

Serace started. “You’ll go meet with Essalina by yourself? She’ll kill you.” They all stared at him. “You all know I’m not wrong.”

Rieren nodded her farewell at the others. “I shall take my leave.”

Amalyse stepped up. “Rieren, Serace is right. The last time you faced Essalina was—”

Rieren raised a hand to forestall her. She hadn’t appreciated being made the subject of their inquiries by this untimely message from the Elders, and she certainly had no intention of being the subject of their scrutiny any longer.

“I have a plan, Amalyse.” She turned away before they could voice their protests and questions again. “Have some faith.”

They had more questions, but Rieren promised she would answer what she could after she had taken care of the business before the Elders got too furious at her snub. For now, she headed off.

She had an impromptu meeting to take care of.