Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 254!

But speaking of decisions… Tearing his gaze away from his new energy, Randidly sighed and cracked his neck. With another curt gesture of his finger, Randidly recreated his root dwelling again. Even finally breaking through with Ignition Essence, it will take some time before I both understand my new powers and can use them effectively in a fight… time that I could have by going into a Dungeon to train for a month… or even a week…

Randidly looked up at the sky. It was murky with clouds, but night had long fallen behind the slate grey veil. Likely within twenty-four hours, Randidly would need to face Kaan Swacc. But for a few seconds, he supposed this didn’t need to be their definitive clash. His new image would give him a plausible explanation for why some of the signs for Nether could be seen around him, thereby delaying the reveal of Nether. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized the opposite might be true.

Having those signs now might make Kaan weary for the future, despite other explanations…

Yet that dread came back, stronger than ever when Randidly started to consider the details of a trip into a Dungeon. It gripped his heart and coiled around his stomach. Such was the vehemence of the rejection that Randidly raised his head and released a hair-raising, keening cry that seemed to emerge from his core. It came from his new Stillborn Phoenix, resonating Illym’s emotions with his current frustration to an extremely high degree.

In that prolonged moment of synchronization, the feeling of newness that came with this image began to dissipate.

A tremor seemed to go through the surrounding space even without Randidly conjuring his image. The noise and emotions were enough. For a split second while he continued to release the cry, the rain seemed to bend inward surrounding him, drenching his root shelter. But then Randidly ran out of breath and the world returned to normal.

“Damnit, where the hell is this dread coming from?!? Even if I can tell there’s something bothering me, I’m going to go into a Dungeon anyway if I can’t see-” Randidly began, but then all at once, he could see. Or at least, he could see an inkling of what was bothering him. The faintest hint of golden lines spread outward, isolating and labeling everything Randidly had seen and thought today. The shadow of his new Skill seemed to beckon him forward.

Once again, Randidly conjured Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold. The dark energy danced across his hands and gleamed. Slowly but surely, that profound sense of having everything in his life outlined returned to Randidly. And it wasn't just the surrounding area, although that gave him an almost crystal clear view of his immediate vicinity. So too that energy flowed into the past.

The Stillborn Phoenix was a creature nourished by Nether. At its core, it was a being of craving and connection. In that darkness swirled a long memory that slowly recorded every single detail that it had absorbed from the outside world. Nothing was excluded from the collection of experiences. That was an unexpected harvest of truly incorporating Illym’s essence into his image, which had existed as a Fate for a thousand years. So before the experience of Illym, some patterns began to emerge.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 255

What Randidly found was not an illuminated answer, but the mysterious revelation of a question that would guide him forward on the right Path. Suddenly, some details of Randidly’s talk with Lyra began to stand out to him. In his mind, he saw the almost shudder-inducing straightness of Lyra’s back as she bent at the waist to apologize to him. It made it seem like her body was wooden or mechanical.

Like a puppet.

Randidly’s eyes narrowed. Not that I think it was wrong that Lyra would apologize to me after the way things turned out… and after Yystrix’s death. I could tell she was sincere by looking at her eyes. That look was its own sort of message. But it was her body that was the strangest part of the whole setup. And now that I think about it, some of the other things that she said…

As if summoned by the Revelation energy in Randidly’s hand, Lyra’s voice manifested in his ear. “He instituted a gag order on all other Village Spirits, largely binding them to be silent for the next week or so.”

All other Village Spirits...

Randidly had responded by asking her why she could speak and Lyra had stated it was due to his foresight in giving her a Class. Which, because it was actually her that pushed for the Class, was a compliment aimed toward herself that Randidly expected from her. But perhaps more importantly than that, Lyra had finished her sentence by saying that the System had no control over people with Classes. Even at the time, Randidly had reflected that statement wasn’t true but hadn’t interrupted Lyra because it hadn’t seemed relevant.

But what if she had made such a statement precisely to draw his attention to the fact that Kaan Swacc had instituted a gag order on only the other Village Spirits. And how flimsy a protection a Class really was before the System, when Randidly had already discovered the apparatus present in Classes that would monitor an individual’s development.

The hairs on the back of Randidly’s neck began to rise. If Lyra was behaving like a puppet and it was only the other Village Spirits that were required to be silent, it was very likely that she had approached him under the Special Investigator’s orders. What was even more disturbing was that Randidly would never have learned about the attack if not for Lyra showing up. If Kaan Swacc really could control the Village Spirits, he could have done this without Randidly ever catching wind of the attack beforehand.

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Of course, there was a chance Randidly was overthinking it. But his Skill was telling him that wasn’t the case. Lyra wouldn’t have made such inane and strange statements usually; it was to draw his attention to the problematic nature of the message she had been ordered to give to him.

Which meant that this attack wasn’t really about weakening the Earth’s fighting force.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (P) has grown to Level 256!

Randidly went through the whole conversation with Lyra one more time, illuminated by the Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold. Two further statements stuck out to Randidly.

First, the last thing that Lyra had said about the Special Investigator’s activities. “He likely won’t kill anyone, but I believe his goal is to shatter the most powerful images of the people involved.”

And who was more integral to the current plan than Randidly himself? Even if he wasn’t planning on going with any of the teams for the Danger Zones, or even the Epic Danger Zone, it was the force of his presence that held the teams together. Without him and the assistance of the forces loyal to him, it would be a difficult road to clear the Epic Danger Zone before the seventh Zone connected to Earth. And that failure would leave the planet saddled with an enormous Aether debt.

And of course, the more Randidly reflected on it, the more ominous Lyra’s first statement seemed. “Apologies. I appear to have lost track of time, looking forward. Sometimes when you step through certain thresholds, what you find on the other side isn’t what you expected.”

At the time, Randidly had just thought that Lyra was speaking about the gulf that had formed between the two of them compared to their early relationship, despite the cooperation they had to create her Class but now…

A baited trap that Lyra never spoke about, likely because she couldn’t. Or because she was being watched during our discussion. As Randidly’s fury built, some of the tight reins that Yggdrasil and the Grim Chimera had kept on the Stillborn Phoenix were loosened. Both understood what was happening and allowed it to occur; this state of affairs raised their hackles as well. The muscles on Randidly’s arms bulged as his entire body flexed but he kept himself entirely still in his sitting position. The root structure around him began to shudder and warp as a fist-sized orb of blackness appeared in front of Randidly.

The Stillborn Phoenix released a long breath into the surrounding air.

Because the fact that the Swacc Family put the Earth in its sights proves this isn’t just about me- this is about teaching a lesson to all who are involved with the ignominies of the Swacc Family. Really, I’m leverage to get at Lady Iellaya, at whose feet most of the suspicions likely fall. I’m just the chosen sacrifice. They didn’t send someone to kill me; likely if that had been the plan, I would have already been struck. No, with the sort of family that Ileot belonged to… they likely want to break me.

They want me to feel powerless and frustrated. What better way than forcing me to take a certain Path in order to become powerful enough to matter… and find out later that the choice I made doomed me?

Randidly wasn’t precisely sure how Dungeons worked, but there was clearly a construct of Aether that tethered the real world to the world within the Dungeon. And a portion of that construct was involved in the disparate density of Aether and the strange relativity of time. Certainly, Randidly could use the Philosopher's Key to escape most physical traps… but what if they sent him to a world where a minute on that world was a day on Earth?

Before I even notice what’s happening, it’s too late. Randidly ground his teeth together. His short black hair was ruffled by the spreading influence of his image. I receive messages but by the time I can react in the slowed time, more people are dead.

The root construct underneath him groaned. With a loud snap, a paper-thin crack appeared in the base. Light began to bend around the black orb in front of Randidly as its influence reached toward the surrounding area. The greedy devouring of the surrounding air released a thin, keening cry.

It was difficult to know whether the attack that Lyra had spoken about would even be carried out; she might have been ordered to tell him just to force him to react. Because truly, what would attacking the elites of one of Earth’s four task forces really do? Even losing two of the groups would still leave Earth with several capable individuals. The System was all about one person developing a dominant image and Randidly was pleased with how many individuals with potential he had seen at his birthday party. They were nowhere near ready, but Randidly at least had hope for the future.

But the Swacc Family knew about Randidly's actions on the frontlines. They probably knew that one of the best ways to get him to move was to attack innocents. Just like Randidly had gone out to fight the first Nether Gatekeepers in that horrible, final attack of the Nether King.

Which meant that the timeline might be even shorter than Randidly had believed. This was a plot to target him, then he would be targeted when he went to a Dungeon.

The energy in his hand hummed with certainty that this was correct. This was the subconscious fear that had earlier pushed aside the decision to go to a Dungeon.

Randidly’s first instinct was to rush to a Dungeon now to confirm that it could be hijacked like that, but he rapidly controlled that impulse. Gritting his teeth, Randidly had to admit that was exactly what this person probably wanted.

The fist of pure blackness in front of Randidly had swollen to the size of a medium’s crystal ball. A breeze rustled the surrounding grass, pulling stray leaves and twigs across the ground to float up and be devoured by the singularity. Light bent around the circumference, spinning and melting inward as it was completely captured by the Stillborn Phoenix’s pull.

It was fortunate that the dark emotions of Illym now had a vehicle within Randidly to exist, but now he was dealing with the problem of his own emotions being drawn into the dark cycle of those impulses. His fury was a physical thing, shaking the surrounding air. The deceptively still black hole that Randidly conjured demanded that everything be broken as it sought its inevitable fulfillment.

The eye of the Stillborn Phoenix fluttered lightly, deep within Randidly’s image.

But Randidly relented. The egg of depression winked out of existence. Leaves and twigs that were about to be devoured fell around Randidly’s feet. And Randidly had to take a step up and outward as the groaning shell of the root structure he had built collapsed down from the strain of being so close to his image.

The rain still fell, but it was a milder touch. When the infinitesimally small drops landed on Randidly’s right arm and shoulder, the cooled him.

Well, at least I now have a better idea of what is about to happen. Randidly’s eyes were flinty as he started toward the horizon. More and more of the maybe-black-maybe-purple revelation covered his body. Now I just need to figure out how to punish this fuck for trying to trick me…