Requisitioning a plane proved to be more complicated than Will had hoped it would be. Now that his point of contact with the ESNA had been bumped up from Commander Charlie to Supreme Commander Regina, he’d been a little warier of requesting stuff from them. He asked anyway, but it looked like even their largest transport wasn’t up to the task of carrying a being as large as Jessie.

A bunch of other nations were also eager to curry his favor, and he sorted through them in his messages. It was plain that everyone wanted the sole proprietor of the Two Minute War to be on their side, which Will really just couldn’t be bothered with. They’d had their chance to make a good impression on him, and a good chunk of them had squandered it. Will hadn’t paid that much attention to the motivations behind the people trying to take him down, but he’d killed enough assassins to know that a good deal of them weren’t lone actors.

He didn’t mind being the center of attention that much, but he was a little less inclined to accept a favor from a nation that had earnestly tried to kill him before.

Also, their planes were mostly spy planes and bombers. Once again, they had nothing that could carry Jessie.

Will complained about this length to anyone who was willing to listen, which was mostly just Aza.

After about an hour of talking to various points of contact, Aza raised a point that Will definitely should have considered.

“You have a portal ability,” the Dread Executor offshoot siad.

“I haven’t been there before. I can’t connect the portals.”

“Then have one of your faster friends send you there and portal back.” Aza spoke with the tone of a parent speaking to a particularly unruly child.

“Oh. Right.”

About two hours later, Will was once again tailing shortly behind Nathan somewhere in the lower atmosphere.

Nathan: I feel like an Uber driver. Where did I go wrong?

Will: Probably around the time you decided to come back from your other world.

Nathan: Yeah, good point. So, update: Hua and Liam are ostensibly Australia’s contingent for this, though they’re really just representing them for show. We couldn’t find a reason to get rid of Lily, so we’ve got her. Natalie’s already gone. Some disaster back home, I hear.

Will: Yui?

Nathan: Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.

Will: Bro, I seriously do not get how you’re basically one of the most powerful badasses on the planet otherwise but you lose your shit when it comes to one woman.

Nathan: You wouldn’t get it.

Will: No! I don’t get it! That’s literally my entire point!

Nathan: Ugh, just don’t bring it up. We’ve got the situation sorted for the time being.

Will: So it seems. Just don’t fall apart in a fight because of this.

Nathan: Trust me, we won’t.

Despite being away from the planet for several years, Nathan’s sense of direction was pretty much perfect. The Orbital Engineer class seemed to give him GPS-like guidance, which Will wished he had, but Sen was a pretty good substitute.

As they got within a few miles of Mount Everest, Will had Nathan slow down while he deployed Sen’s eyes.

Will: Checking for snakes in the grass.

Sure enough, as Sen’s eyes approached, even with the time-lock hiding them from most mundane forms of magical detection, flickers of magic started exploding out from the side of the mountain, killing the closest pieces of the skill.

Will: There are, in fact, snakes in the grass.

Nathan: Dude, it’s Everest. There are no snakes there. Or grass.

Will: Not only is this a figure of speech, there’s a non-zero chance that there are both snakes and grass on that mountain now. In a sense, at least.

Nathan was still flying high enough above and out from the mountain that he was mostly out of range of attacks from anyone on the mountain, but the Orbital Engineer was definitely capable of seeing the massive, swirling portal that led into the superdungeon at the top.

Nathan: Yeah, fair enough. You see anything before you lose your eyes?

Will: Looks like an encampment of some kind. Temporary fortress, maybe? Couldn’t get much more before Sen got popped. I just restored him, and I’d really rather not spend all of that right now.

Nathan: That’s fine. They have a load of anti-surveillance on it, but you already know that.

Will: Sen sees through most of that. They aren’t hiding in another dimension, so truesight is enough.

Nathan: Wait, your familiar has truesight at range??

Will: Yeah? Haven’t we been over this?

Nathan: Dude, that is such complete bullshit! It took me until gold just to get a single Perception skill that gives truesight, and that’s, like, thirty feet worth. I swear to god, some people get all the luck.

Will: I mean, if you want to call being the primary target of a fuckin’ core goddess “luck,” sure.

Nathan: Fair point. I think you can keep your gimmicks and I’ll keep mine.

They did have to decide what to do now that they’d at least scoped out the general area. The Peace… coalition? Will was pretty sure it was a coalition of them and their attached peoples, because there was no way there were that many Peace sigil-holders—well, to be fair, Will’s understanding of how gods decided to portion out sigil power was pretty incomplete.

Anyway, the coalition was aware of their presence and vice versa, which left them in a bit of a stalemate. Will was less confident about trying to replicate the Geneva incident here. He’d had good conditions there—a general lack of knowledge about his ability to activate the bulk of his skills through Sen, an urban environment with plenty of cover, and most importantly, a lack of an organized counter-response.

Here, there were at least a dozen gold-rankers just judging by the aura, which seemed off given the distribution of ranks. Will was currently rank 33 at Silver 10, and there being at least ten gold-ranks here meant that more than a third of the people above him on the leaderboard were Peace sigil-holders. Though he couldn’t tell what their sigil was with the leaderboard, he was reasonably sure that the majority of them weren’t.

That had worrying implications. One of three things was likely true. One: Peace had her tendrils in more people than Will had thought she had. Two: she had some way to convert existing sigil-holders to her side. Three: these gold-rankers weren’t on the leaderboard.

Okay, there was also four: Will had no clue what he was talking about and wasn’t even in the realm of being correct.

Nathan: I don’t want to eat shit here, so I’m going to set us down. Communicating with the others to let them know what’s up.

Will: You got it, boss. We’re going up Everest the old-fashioned way, then?

Nathan: More Point Break than old-fashioned, I’d say.

Will: I haven’t even watched that movie and I can tell you’re referencing it incorrectly.

Nathan: Damn it.

True to his word, Nathan dove, changing course so he was targeting a point about halfway up the mountain rather than the top. Most gold-rankers had enough range that Nathan would be able to take potshots at the Peace coalition and vice versa, but neither of them judged the full commitment of resources as worth it. There were a few lasers, projectiles, and more esoteric effects thrown their way as they dove down, but that was just a skill or two per person, more of a “hello and fuck you” than an actual attempt at killing them.

It made sense that they wouldn’t want to pursue Will, especially if their fortifications had him in mind. It also made this significantly harder, but that was fine.

Peace’s people might’ve been ready for him. Would they be ready for everyone else?

Equilibrium Mantle triggered as they got closer to the mountain, preventing the bitter chill from getting to them. Nathan’s environment-modulating skill only stayed active while he was in flight, so Will took over once they had feet on the ground.

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Will had never been to the mountain before. Once upon a time, he’d considered taking a summer or winter break trip to Everest to climb the mountain, but watching how wasteful the climb was and more importantly how expensive it was had sapped that desire from him.

Basically, he had no idea whether or not it was normal to be pouring snow at his current elevation, which was maybe… halfway up the mountain. Where did that put them? Fifteen thousand feet?

It was a cloudless sunny day, but snow still beat down on them, deflected aside by the weather-modulating effect of Equilibrium Mantle.

“That’s magical, right?” Will asked.

Nathan nodded, a ripple of his own mana pulsing out from his armor. “Definitely.”

“So, before I head back, what’s the plan? I was going to try to help Caiyeri, which means I need to make it into the dungeon, but I’m pretty sure they’re guarding it.”

“Odds on there being Peace operators in the superdungeon?” Nathan asked. “I’m thinking very high.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it. Which also begs the question as to why there’s, like, fifteen gold-ranks on the outside. Hold on, aren’t there three superdungeons? Are they bringing groups of this size to all three of them?”

“I haven’t checked the others,” Nathan replied. “I’d guess yes, though.”

“Then I doubt they have all the gold-rankers here,” Will concluded. That probably struck out the theory that there were that many leaderboarders who were Peace sigil-holders. “So, what, we kill as many of them as possible and get in?”

“I think we want to do this quietly,” Nathan said. “Stealth mission.”

Will frowned. “That… might be hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how in every shooter game with an unnecessary stealth section, you end up just pulling out a minigun and beating the shit out of everyone?”

“Uh, kind of?”

“Yeah. I’ll be right back with mine.”

You have consumed one level of [Purified] to negate the cast time of [Sanctuary].

A dark portal flashed into existence, its flat surface dotted with stars. Will stepped into the Beyond, vanishing without another word.

“God damn it,” Nathan said after he was gone. “I need to figure out how to make exits that dramatic.”

#

Taking Jessie through the Beyond was much less of a pain when it wasn’t actively trying to resist and kill him. It was a nice change of pace, really, and it seemed to be getting better at expressing its thoughts in English or whatever language it used natively. The gestalt wasn’t quite at full sentences yet, but it was getting real fragments in there.

Will had no idea where it was practicing. Was it talking to the life elves chasing it down before eating them?

In any case, it was pretty easy to port the gestalt from Midwestern America to what was formerly Nepal. Thanks to the Beyond’s time-warping nature, less than five minutes passed between Will leaving and coming back, truck-sized gestalt in tow.

Nathan: Bro what the fuck is that thing.

“This is Jessie,” Will said. “I think you saw it during the trial of the champion?”

“Maybe?” Nathan said, clearly struggling to keep his emotions under control judging by the way his aura wavered. “Pleasure to meet you. Do you speak?”

Jessie’s aura rippled in response. It didn’t try to vocalize anything, which was surprising given how much it had been talking earlier.

Will frowned. Was it embarrassed? That didn’t feel like an emotion that it should even be able to have, but Will’s understanding of aura had grown significantly enough that he could catch the note of trepidation in Jessie’s.

Does it only feel comfortable trying to talk around me?

“That’s a no,” Nathan said. “Alright.”

Will didn’t let his surprise show on his face or in his aura.

“It’s intelligent, though,” Will said. “Jessie understands human speech, and it’s really good at fucking up a whole bunch of targets.”

“I can see that,” Nathan said drily. “I think I do remember sensing this during the trial. It wasn’t this strong.”

“It gets stronger the more targets it eats,” Will said. “It ran around the surface for some time while we were busy saving the world.”

“So this is your minigun,” Nathan said. “Plus a handful more on the way. I’ve directed them back down here, by the way. If we can’t Assassin’s Creed them, we can at least do Viet Cong.”

Jessie’s aura emission changed towards a slightly confused one.

Will put his head in his hands. “Please stop making references. And if you do, get them right, at least?”

“My bad.”

“That’s not a yes.”

“It’s not. Anyway, do you want to come up with a plan of attack?”

“I have a plan. Attack.”

“Okay, you can’t come after me for shitty references and then make your own.”

“The ball’s in your court,” Will said. “You stop and I’ll stop.”

“Fuck.”

“Hey,” Aza said from behind Will’s shoulder. “The gestalt is getting impatient.”

“Jesus, you gotta stop doing that,” Will said. “I just about jumped out of my skin there.”

“You didn’t even move,” the familiar said flatly.

“The intent was there.”

Jessie growled quietly, its aura washing over all of them.

“Right, right,” Will said. “Sorry. Let’s get in touch with the others and figure out how we’re going to do this, okay?”

#

Caiyeri, Nynn, and Wisteria had encountered a bit of a roadblock.

Several roadblocks, really.

Not long after encountering the first body of a Peace sigil-holder, they made contact with a live one. That man had only been a silver-ranker, so it had been pretty easy for the three of them to overwhelm and kill him, but doing that had apparently triggered half the observable universe to collapse in on them.

“How many of these shits can there even be?” Wisteria huffed. She was suffering the most out of their group, since she was the only one still stuck at bronze rank. Most of the damage the other two had sustained so far had been in the act of keeping her from dying.

“A lot,” Caiyeri said grimly. “Someone’s not playing fair.”

Nynn was the only reason the three of them were all alive right now. Though Peace no longer had a true connection to him, he had been a Dread Executor in support of her cause for decades, and that still meant something. Though he couldn’t directly influence them, he knew where and who they were.

Combined with the spatially inconsistent, constantly changing interior of the superdungeon, they’d maintained a sort of home-field advantage in an area that was home to nobody and nothing except for the creatures Nynn kept calling anomaly offshoots and Caiyeri had concluded were mistakes of the gods.

Of course, Peace had responded by cheating in kind. While Caiyeri didn’t have constant access to the current cycle’s leaderboards, Wisteria did, and they’d concluded that there were more Peace-aligned gold-rankers in here than there were gold-rankers on the leaderboard. As far as they could tell, the guerrilla forces lined up against them all had Earth origins, since they were only being pursued by humans.

“She’s spending plausibility,” Nynn said grimly. “There’s no other explanation for it.”

“Didn’t you say that gods had to do something big for that?” Wisteria said. “I’m not too clear on the concept, to be fair, but…”

“She very well might be. I have no way of—oh, one moment. A particularly persistent irritant seems to want to speak.”

Nynn flashed with the same dark energy Caiyeri had seen the last time he’d gone off to talk to Will, though instead of just flickering in place, he fully vanished.

“Ah, he went Beyond,” Wisteria said. “I think that’s what it’s called, at least. I still can’t see it very well myself.”

“You’re talking about that weird alternate dimension that Will passes through when he teleports? I’ve been there once. It seemed unpleasant.”

“I think it’s interesting,” Wisteria said. “I spent my entire life leading up to this studying the stars, and it turns out that there’s so much more than I thought at first.”

“You seem to have taken the upending of your natural world order quite well.”

“I’m a scientist. Overturning current understanding is just a natural part of the process.”

“I wouldn’t know. Our researchers were all off-site. They’re probably dead now.”

Nynn flashed back into existence, dark energy accompanying his return.

“Took you longer than I thought you would,” Caiyeri said, ignoring Wisteria’s attempt to pick up the thread of conversation she’d left. “Was there a problem?”

Nynn nodded. “Several.”

A moment later, a dark portal opened. This one was much more familiar to Caiyeri, as was the type of power it emitted.

Wisteria visibly brightened as well. Caiyeri had noticed that the other woman had a powerful recollection for and understanding of mana despite her relative inexperience. She’d only seen Will use this skill once or twice, Caiyeri was pretty sure, but the bronze-ranker looked at it with the same familiarity the elf did.

She frowned. Wisteria was maybe a little too happy about seeing the ritual. Was there something more there? This was definitely not the time or place to be distracted by that.

Before Caiyeri could ask, though, somebody stumbled out of the portal.

It was not who she’d expected.

“Oh, Caiyeri,” Hua said politely. “Nynn. Again. You’re… Wisteria, if I remember correctly.”

“Hua!” Wisteria exclaimed. “You should’ve said you were coming!”

Following her was her companion, who looked a little more shaken.

“Bloody hell, that was a ride,” Liam said. “Can I just get that gold-ranker to fly me next time?”

“They shot our plane down,” Hua reminded him. “With extreme prejudice, too. I don’t think flying would have worked out very well here.”

“Make some room,” Nynn said. “You remember the—“

As Hua took a step forward, another familiar face popped out. This one had a bit of blood staining her face.

Caiyeri’s frown deepened.

“Lily Teneli,” she recalled. “You were a human in the same region as me.”

“Wow, I’m hurt,” Lily said. “You don’t remember me from the tournament?”

“I was busy. The people keeping me busy then are keeping me busy now as well.”

“Mm. Doubt they’re going to keep you busy much longer. There is something wrong with that man, let me tell you.”

The room was rapidly getting crowded, so Nynn horded them away from the portal, directing them to another room.

The next one through was Nathan, who started flying immediately and promptly hit his head on the ceiling.

“What the fuck was that?” he shouted. “What the fuck are you?”

After a moment of disorientation, he realized that the loose group had moved locations. Knowing who was behind him, he got moving quickly.

Shortly afterwards, the first room they’d been in exploded as the devouring gestalt teleported in, the sheer size of its body crushing the walls.

Caiyeri winced twice—once at the horrendous crushing sound, which must have alerted everyone within a mile of them, and then at the creature that was now with them. Its aura pressure had increased significantly since the last time she’d seen it, to the point where Wisteria was visibly struggling to move in its presence.

“Pleasure to see you again, Nathan,” Caiyeri said. “There’s a lot of you. Wasn’t expecting this many.”

“You too… uh, elf,” Nathan said, pausing for a second in the middle of a sentence in a way that made it very clear he’d forgotten her name. “Can you tell me if this is Will coming out? That man just committed unspeakable blasphemy. Like, I’m a heretic and all, but that was on a different level.”

The last two people came out together—except it wasn’t just two people. Caiyeri immediately noticed the gold-rank human, her aura controlled in a way that made it clear she’d formed it herself without a hint of core usage.

Will’s aura, as always, was menacing, but it in a much more controlled way than the gestalt’s was—which, notably, seemed to be struggling to get out of the kaiju-shaped hole it had made in the wall.

There was another being whose aura read silver-rank but clearly had been touched by a much, much higher power. His aura seemed to be connected to Will’s, which made Caiyeri conclude that he’d gotten a new familiar.

Last was Will himself, surrounded in such dense magic that it was hard to actually see him.

“The gang’s all together!” he said happily, a note of exhaustion in his voice.

“Seventh heaven, Azathoth?” Nynn asked. “You didn’t—what—“

“Good to see you again, Will,” Caiyeri said. “You sound tired. What happened?”

“Oh, I told, uhh… two, three… four gods? Four gods to fuck off. Had to go a bit beyond telling. C’mon. I’ll get you caught up, and maybe get something for Wisteria.”

“I’m fine,” the bronze-ranker lied.

“Azathoth?” Nynn repeated.

“So, business as usual then?” Caiyeri asked.

“Yep.” Will nodded. “World still isn’t making any more sense.”

“You know, there’s Peace sigil-holders homing in on us right now.”

Will grinned. There was a special kind of arrogance in that smile. Caiyeri had missed this.

“Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be too much of a problem.”