Ace’s twisted body was slowly devoured by frost. To the point that his figure, blessedly, wasn’t recognizable.

Randidly sat down on the ground and meditated for a while. Activating Dreamcatcher of the Long Night had been a bad idea. But… he didn’t regret doing it. More than the Fatepiece Levels… Randidly was glad he had a chance to be honest with Ace. No matter how late or ineffective that honesty appeared to have been.

Around fifteen minutes later, Randidly got back to his feet. He didn’t look over toward Ace’s body. On the one hand, he thought his friend should be buried. But he also had serious doubts whether Ace had earned that respect. So he looked around. Sydney was still standing in the same position she had been when she killed her former boyfriend. Her eyes were calm on Randidly as he got to his feet.

Randidly’s mouth twisted as he took in her rigid posture. Her elemental had settled down on her shoulders and released long, misty breaths. “You look as exhausted as I feel.”

“It was a long day,” She replied simply.

Randidly tilted his head to the side and cracked his neck. “Then let’s go about our business. We should talk… but that can wait until we’ve both had time to recover, I suppose. And grieve.”

But Sydney shook her head. “The whole reason I kept standing here until now is that there is something I want to say to you. We won’t need to talk again. It’s fine to interact professionally… but I don’t want to reconnect, Randidly. I know it isn’t showing on my face… and I know most of my numbness is the influence of my image… but I just killed Ace. You let me do it. This… it will take a long time to grieve enough that I don’t… wish things had been different. If you had valued our relationship… you would have reached out to nurture it while it still existed.”

She bowed at the waist. “So… thank you. For… for everything. And goodbye.”

Then Sydney left. And honestly, Randidly was too exhausted to have much of a reaction to her abrupt departure. So he returned to Neveah’s side and allowed the wave of Riders that finally arrived at their location to carry him back to Kharon. He left the unconscious Ezekiel and random other man on the ground but took the blood egg with him.

A part of him figured destroying it was for the best, but Randidly couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Not now, anyway. For the moment, it was inert.

When they finally returned to Kharon and Randidly carried Neveah up to his island, both collapsed and slept to heal their significant wounds.

*****

Tatiana had expected the summons for a while. Her Skill had informed her that it was coming, but she hadn’t needed the Skill to realize the shift in Randidly’s priorities. After the battle that had rocked the Western wildlands, the entire world had been on edge. The images released spread out across half the world. Those that were close enough to feel the power of those images were left shocked.

No one knew what the Earth would do if Randidly Ghosthound was killed.

The rest were driven mad by curiosity over the details of that echoing clash. It was an unfortunate time for Kharon to be in civilized areas because Tatiana had to field quite a lot of questions through professional and personal channels about what had happened. Those image reverberations were enough that even the issue of the Runic Tablet was lost in the shuffle for a day.

Tatiana refused to comment at all. Because she honestly only had a general idea of why the fight was necessary; she trusted that the Ghosthound had his reasons. And, twenty-six hours after Randidly had returned, he had woken up from his slumber.

Tatiana had sensed that too; her Skill really had quite a few useless uses. Rather than call her immediately, Randidly engaged furiously in several activities that Tatiana couldn’t determine the nature of, but could clearly feel the images he released as he did them. Part of it was Engraving, she believed, while there was also some meditation and image training thrown into the mix.

Again, all pointed out to her by her Skill.

Then, eight hours after he had woken back up, Randidly asked Tatiana to come to meet him on his island. Tatiana came with Wolfram and three of his best ogre scribes. Somehow, she figured that they would be needed. Annoyingly, her Skill wasn’t able to give her any insight into how Randidly was feeling. So she was a little nervous as they landed on his island and proceeded toward the central portion.

Randidly was waiting for them in his typical, modest shack. But the first thing that Tatiana noticed when she walked into the building was that there were stacks of paper everywhere; it looked like Randidly had lined the walls with bookshelves in order to contain all the papers that had somehow proliferated wildly since she had last been on the island.

Then Tatiana’s eyes settled on Randidly. He seemed… odd. There was a faraway look in his eyes as she entered and the ogres remained beyond the walls of the tiny home. He was tapping his finger on the desk and staring at the wall as though he hadn’t quite noticed their presence yet.

His gaze sharpened and his emerald eyes focused on Tatiana a few seconds after she entered. “Ah, you brought ogres. Good, that might make things easier.”

Randidly hopped to his feet and walked outside. Tatiana dutifully followed, her attention focused on the Randidly in front of her. In terms of image, she was slightly impressed by how… controlled the energy around Randidly was. The images he produced were very mild. And that oppressive weight he was radiating only a few days ago now seemed almost imaginary to her senses. Yet somehow, Tatiana also had a sense that there was an increased… intensity in the air around him.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It’s his eyes, Tatiana realized as Randidly turned and looked at each of the people standing in front of him with a direct glance. It’s not that he’s usually distracted… but he’s usually juggling a bunch of thoughts at once. But not right now. Now he’s focusing solely on us. The weight from his Nether vanished, but if anything, the force of his gaze is just as heavy...

“First thing’s first. I want you to schedule a tournament,” Randidly began. Then he flicked his right hand and produced a heavy stone object the size of a textbook. “This will be the prize. Single… no, that’s probably too individualistic. Maybe fives…? No, then the playing field will be tilted toward Donnyton. Duos, then. A duo tournament.”

Tatiana’s eyes widened. “Is that…?”

“The Runic Tablet to name Earth, yea.” Randidly flipped the heavy piece of stone shaped like a miniature tombstone in his hand. For a second his expression was bitter, but very quickly his frown turned into one of determination. “I was going to leave it up to Earth to decide… and I still think that’s the correct decision. I don’t want to name the Earth, nor do I want the Order Ducis to have a hand in it. But… in the past, I adopted an attitude of non-interference to stay as distant as possible from the politics of Earth for the sake of my image.

“Yet in the end… I couldn’t stay distant; the typical growth of a planet will require too many deaths to teach the people of this world the lessons it needs. So I interfered intermittently. Which was confusing and dangerous for most of the forces on Earth. Because I was suddenly an unpredictable, unreliable element of great power.” For a second, Randidly’s eyes narrowed. “In that way, I can see why President Greyman wanted to conspire against me.

“She did it poorly, of course. But I can now see where she was coming from. I added stress to an already strained political ecosystem. So, for this last month or two that I remain on Earth… I’ll interfere as necessary to shape the world up. Starting with this Runic Tablet. Any questions?”

Tatiana shook her head. “None about the tournament. I’ll send out word immediately. But… are you alright?”

When she asked the question, Tatiana specifically pointed at Randidly’s metallic left arm. She was aware that it was only recently made, yet already it hung limp at Randidly’s side. Periodically white symbols would flash to life, but very quickly they would be shorted out as a broken connection was revealed in the Engraving.

Randidly chuckled. “I’ll be fine. The arm has some self-healing capability… the only problem is how much it was damaged. It will take some time to build up some healing momentum… but I’m in no rush to return to the Nexus.”

After thinking for a bit, Tatiana scratched her chin. “Actually, I do have a question. What sort of timeline do you want for the tournament? If you plan on two more months here, it should be easy to have while you are still on Earth.”

“Ah. Well, I was hoping you could delay it until my… other projects were established. So that they could be revealed all at once” When Randidly showed his teeth after speaking, Tatiana felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She gestured for the ogres behind her to prepare themselves.

This was where they learned the projects to which they would sell their souls to accomplish in the next two months.

“First, I’m ready to move ahead with the additional islands to follow behind Kharon. The first wave will just have three very large pieces of land, each one fully one-third of the size of the current Kharon. They will be used for agriculture, housing, and… a special project, which I will elaborate on later.”

Tatiana did some quick mental calculations over how much space Randidly was talking about. “The housing will be apartment-style then?”

“Yes, with some specialty housing for the ogres. We don’t want space to be the issue holding us back.” Randidly rubbed his chin. He quickly turned around and walked back into the shack before returning with three bundles of paper, that he passed to the waiting individuals. As Tatiana began to scan through the papers, Randidly began to speak.

“The second big change is the governmental structure. The details are in that packet. Take your time reading, I want to know what your thoughts are.” Randidly kept a packet to himself, which he then opened and began to peruse. While Tatiana continued to study him for several seconds, he produced a pencil and began to rapidly sketch out several shapes on the paper in front of him.

Likely not related to governmental stuff, then. Tatiana thought. Then, as she began to read through Randidly’s writing, she began to frown. A few minutes later she was chewing her lip. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer and spoke. “I can understand your motivation for some of these choices… but if you want to increase predictability, why make this roundabout method for selecting the individuals who will be on the council?”

“You might know better than I do how people will react, but I don’t think it will matter,” Randidly said slowly. “The representative nominations will eventually be pulled toward the big organizations. Whether it be through money or strength, I don’t believe that any process I casually design will be able to resist the human bend toward corruption. Which is why the Order Ducis and the Kharon local government will be independent; hopefully, those forces can act as a protection.”

“What about the threat of chance?” Tatiana frowned. “What if one demographic is overrepresented? Repeatedly.”

Randidly shrugged his shoulders while keeping his arms very still. “Then the other underrepresented group got very unlucky. Which is too bad, but I’m not here to make a utopia. As outlined in the packet, the true point is to make most of the civilian powers of Kharon quibble over those three seats on the council for as long as possible.”

“Because we will control all the true power, as the government of Kharon and the Order Ducis. And you intend to keep tight control over those areas.” Tatiana watched Randidly’s reaction as she said that. The leader of Kharon and the strongest man in the world just smiled mildly. Randidly Ghosthound had never been a very charming individual, but that smile had the sort of confidence that formed the solid foundation of charm.

He’s finally become aware of the influence he has on the world, and he intends to use it knowingly. Tatiana realized. She wasn’t sure if that knowledge was a good thing or a bad thing, for the relatively socially out-of-practice Randidly.

Still chewing her lip, Tatiana looked back down at the packet in her hands. After skimming through all the details, she snapped the folder closed. “There are some adjustments in the details, but I think all of these arrangements are fine. So, what’s this project that you’ve been teasing for so long…?”

This time when Randidly smiled, it was a wide and enthusiastic grin that made him seem like a normal young man. He twisted around the sketch he had made and offered it to Tatiana. “Heh. Let me introduce you to Kharon Academy. It will be my legacy… and probably my nightmare for the next several weeks.”