Book 5: Chapter 31 (314): The Culprit's Decision (Patreon)

Rieren rushed into the little gathering of monsters. They had convened to discuss the situation among themselves, though there was less discussing going on and more flinging insults and blame at the nasty, tricky humans who were apparently the root of all that was wrong with the world.

“What is going on?” Rieren asked, striding into the centre of the little glen they had selected as their meeting ground. “Are you all standing here insulting the humans when it was one of youwho committed murder in cold blood?”

“Not in cold blood, Destroyer,” an Abyssal said. One of those who had been eliminated a while back but had hung around regardless. “This was provoked. All the dead mortal received was just what he deserved.”

“You do not give everyone what they deserve just because they deserve it. There are many in this world I would not mind killing as soon as I get a hold of them, but I would not do so. Do you want to know why? It is because there are many factors to be taken into consideration before doing anything with lasting effects.”

The monsters bristled at her accusatory tone. Several of them turned to her with no different an anger that they had been festering towards the humans.

“You cannot ignore the grievance that led to this, Destroyer,” the Abyssal said. “The context—”

“The context does not matter.” Rieren walked straight up to the monster and pulled out her sword. “Right now, at this moment, I am enraged enough to kill. To make the death of that idiotic human look like a peaceful passing by the time I am done. But I am restraining myself. I am not giving in to my urges to solve my problem in the simplistic manner my impulse would have me do.”

Another monster tried to interject. “Destroyer—”

Rieren whirled around, brandishing her sword at it. “The context does not matter. The reason has no bearing whatsoever. Get it through your thick skulls. All that matters is that the deed is done and now we must face the consequence. A consequence that, if not handled well, will lead to all of our demise.”

The monsters fell silent at that. Rieren turned, making sure the words had impressed themselves upon all of the Abyssals, Aetherians, and Arisen around her. Some of them looked like they were formulating some sort of reply to her, but she didn’t care.

Instead, Rieren marched up to the source of all their troubles. She pointed her sword at the Arisen who had so soundly beaten Amalyse a week ago. “Much as I have said that the reasons do not matter, I am still curious what in the wide world made you take such a drastic action.”

The Arisen looked down at her. Its golden plate bore no face that could display emotion. Nothing in its posture or stance conveyed any sort of remorse or regret to Rieren, but she decided not to jump to conclusions without at least hearing it out first.

“That human insulted all of us, Destroyer,” it said. “He—”

“I care not for your excuses. Give me the chain of events that led to your… action. Now.”

The Arisen took a moment before answering. “I was heading to the old battlefield of the first round, to conduct some personal training. On my way, the human came across me. He was very frightened at first and threatened to have me executed.”

“Then what?”

“I could not withstand his insults for long and returned them in kind.” The monster’s voice was turning more and more dispassionate with every word, like it was reading a story in a terribly written book. “He took umbrage at that. When he pulled out his weapon, he promised that he would gut me first, then destroy all the monsters. We are supposedly a plague on the Elderlands.”

That made the other monsters growl. Rieren raised a hand to quieten them. “So you retaliated after being attacked, is that it?”

“I… it was not so much retaliation as preemptive action. I was threatened, so I made sure I was no longer threatened.”

“By killing the man.”

“He was weak. I didn’t know he would fall to one little blow so easily.”

Rieren was tempted to throw up her hands in frustration. Unfortunately, she wasn’t that dramatic. She simply turned away and tried to corral her thoughts so that they weren’t influenced by her frustration.

There was no point in asking the Arisen what the man might have even been doing there. It wouldn’t have bothered asking. If Rieren wanted to know more about what an Archnoble’s son was doing close to the exterior of the tournament grounds, she would have to investigate the matter personally.

She couldn’t leave the monsters alone just now, though. The Avatar’s sentence still reverberated in her head.

The Emperor has concluded that the monster who committed the murder must surrender its life as well.

She couldn’t deny it was the safest option. Culling all the monsters for the actions of one would have been too barbaric, even if that was what a large contingent of humans no doubt wanted. But also, they couldn’t let an outright murder go. As such, they were resorting to the next best thing—taking the life of the monster who had committed the crime.

No choice was easy, but this would be the safest bet.

Now, Rieren just had to make sure that this didn’t lead to anything worse. She had to make them see the same point of view, had to make sure they understood that a sacrifice was necessary to preserve balance.

To make sure that they could still achieve their ultimate goal.

But before Rieren could figure out just how she could do so, the Avatars appeared. Too fast. Curse them all to the Abyss.

The monsters tensed as one as the trees shivered. Rieren turned, sensing the Avatars’ presence before they actually appeared in person. She was out of time. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do anything. Rieren turned to the monsters, her quick motion pulling their attention to her.

“I will tell you this once,” she said, her voice firm and unyielding. “Do not react with anger to anything they might say. Do not give in to your rage. This requires careful handling. Unless you wish to cause further harm and destroy everything you have accomplished so far, say nothing. Let me take the lead.”

They couldn’t argue. Not when the trees parted and the Avatars finally arrived. Three of them, each positioned on a different side, almost as though they were intent on trapping all the monsters between the three of them.

“You understand why we are here,” the Avatar in the lead said. He was the one who had been at the clearing too. His statement was just that. A simple fact. There was no room for questions. “There is only one resolution that you can choose—surrender the culprit and beg for forgiveness. You have no other recourse.”

If the monsters had tensed before, now they were positively filled with furious rebellion. That they hadn’t immediately begun insulting the Avatars and attacking them was a small miracle in Rieren’s estimation.

It seemed they remembered what she had said. As much they wanted to, they didn’t react.

Which meant it was Rieren’s turn to step forward.

“There is a mistake,” she said. She held onto the same unrelenting firmness she had used against the monsters. “This is not as it appears, Avatars.”

They considered her. Rieren’s eyes were fixed on the lead one, but she could tell she was the subject of the other two’s scrutiny as well.

She wondered how they felt. So often she had stood in opposition to the Avatars, and that was just in this timeline too. She couldn’t even remember all the times she’d had to fight one of them in her previous life. One of their own had tried to kill her all those times back at Lionshard Sect in this timeline too.

“I will repeat myself one more time,” the lead Avatar said. “We require you to submit the culprit to us. That is all we ask of you. You will have the end of this night to respond.”

“And if we refuse?” Rieren asked.

“Then you will all be branded enemies of the Elderlands and dealt with accordingly.”

“Oh, so that question deserves an answer but everything else I said does not?” Rieren took a step forward. “Listen, Avatar. Tell Astern that I am aware of what is going on. I know how precarious his position is. If he is so powerless that discovering the truth scares him, then everything his brother has left in his care will fall apart.”

The lead Avatar still didn’t answer, but Rieren had apparently riled one of the others enough. She kept her grin to herself.

“Your blasphemy does you no favours, monster,” the Avatar said. Her voice was a barely restrained growl. “The Emperor will hear of this.”

“Enough.” The lead Avatar stepped forward. “There is only one matter of consequence to deal with. Will you, or will you not cooperate?”

“Cooperate in sending one of our own to death?” a monster asked. “Are you such fools?”

Rieren grimaced. Hadn’t she told them all to stay quiet? She was dealing with this. Rieren cut in before the Avatar took that as a no. “What happens to the tournament?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you kill you so-called offender, then who will take its place? You cannot have a quarter final round with only seven competitors.”

“We will manage.”

“Not good enough.”

“Then take the matter up with the administration. We are only here to mete out deserved justice.”

The second Avatar flicked a look at the gold-plated Arisen standing farther back. “Perhaps the monster should have considered its participation in the tournament before causing such grievous harm.”

Rieren shook her head. “We need a guarantee. We worked hard to get where we are. Our victories were earned. It would be only right if one of us takes our rightful place in the tournament.”

The Avatars and the monsters were both silent for a moment. Both groups understood what Rieren implicitly meant. She was willing to give up on the Arisen they had laid the blame upon so long as it would be replaced with a different monster.

“We cannot guarantee such a thing,” the Avatar said plainly. He didn’t mean it in an aggressive manner. Rieren understood that it was truly out of his hand.

“We never agreed to it in the first place,” another monster said. “There will be no surrendering one of our kind.”

“Then this discussion is moot to begin with, isn’t it?”

Things were starting to lose cohesion. Rieren needed to pick a side, and she knew what the right side in the matter was. But the problem was making the rest of the monsters see it too.

“Give us a guarantee,” Rieren said. She faced the chief Avatar head-on, looking into the slits for eyes on his ceramic mask. “This incident shouldn’t tear away everything we hope to accomplish. Give us your word. Settle it.”

Perhaps an odd choice of words, but the emphasis she added seemed to work. Both other Avatars were about to disagree, but the one in the lead held up his hand.

“Perhaps I will be able to convince them—”

“Tell the Emperor. He will not need convincing, nor will he need to convince anyone.”

The Avatar was silent for a moment, but then nodded tersely. He understood what Rieren was playing at. Smart man. “We have an agreement, then. Surrender the murderer and I will ensure the Emperor hears the recommendation of allowing a different monster to take its place.”

“Agreed.”

The monsters roared. Rieren turned to face them. Now came the hard part.

Several of the monsters closest to her had taken angry steps forward to stand against the vile decision of surrendering their own kind to the Avatars. The culprit itself hadn’t moved from its spot. The Arisen had a wariness about it, one that made Rieren think it would try to escape. But for now, it remained motionless.

“Quiet!” Rieren yelled.

“No.” An Abyssal stepped forward, a B-Grade Blightmane. She had been seeing too many of those monsters for too long. “You have betrayed us for the last time, you trai—”

“Think for a moment. Use your heads instead of whatever you have for hearts. Do you understand what is at stake here? You.” She looked around, past the closer riot of enraged monsters to the ones standing back. The ones who had already understood what Rieren was getting at. “You all have an opportunity to continue towards your goal. Do not squander it.”

“She is correct,” the Avatar said. “In his esteemed generosity, the Emperor only seeks the least troublesome of solutions to this unforced problem. One life for another. A death to answer a death. That is all. The rest of you may continue as though nothing has occurred.”

“Nothing but the killing of one of our own! How could we ever believe in ourselves if we surrendered?”

Another valid concern. Rieren was tempted to growl now too. This was getting so problematic from all angles.

She understood why the monsters refused to shatter their unity by giving up one of their own. They had built themselves up as a united force to be reckoned with in the tournament. Even if Rieren was in the lead, they worked together, celebrated together, mourned together, with or without her, as was more often the case.

Someone had noted it too, besides Rieren. Someone understood that the monsters couldn’t be allowed to harness a togetherness that rivalled—and even exceeded in many cases—the solidarity of the humans.

And now, they had thrown a powerful wrench into their harmony.

“You can,” Rieren said. She faced them much as she had done with the Avatar, looking at them squarely with all the gravity she could muster. “You need to remember your true goal here.”

Another Arisen stepped forward, one who had been eliminated from the tournament as well. “Is there nothing that cannot be sacrificed in the name of this goal?”

Rieren shook her head. “Not a thing. Your ultimate objective is enormous. The consequences of it are far-reaching. To attain something of that magnitude, any and all sacrifices that come before cannot be baulked at.” She stepped past the closer monsters to stand before the Arisen. The culprit of the “murder”. “So what will it be? How do you see yourself, Arisen?”

She waited for its answer. Everyone else did too. The Avatars, the monsters, it felt as though even the air and the trees had gone quiet in anticipation.

For a moment, the earlier impression Rieren got from the Arisen grew stronger. It gave the feeling that it wanted to run away. That it wanted to be anywhere but here.

But then it deflated. It understood. Better yet, it agreed. With Rieren. With everything she was trying to say. With the acknowledgment that their collective goal was more important than any of their individual success. If they wanted to secure a home for themselves, they would need to think of what they had to do for the greater good of their kind.

The Arisen stepped past Rieren, past the other monsters staring agog at it, until it stood in front of the Avatars. “I surrender.”

This time, for a change, none of the other monsters protested.

Raising one hand, the Avatar summoned roots out of the ground to slowly begin encasing the monster. It didn’t react. For an Arisen that had been angered enough to lash out in a murderous attempt, it was perfectly docile as it was mummified by the Avatar’s power. Captured to be killed off before long.

Moments later, the ground swallowed the monster whole. With a nod, the Avatar left. A sacrifice. They had been forced into a sacrifice.

Rieren turned to face the monsters one last time for this deplorable night. “Rest assured,” she said. No, growled. If she was a monster, then now was the time to be one. “I willfind the one who caused this, and I will destroy them.”