Theodora Greyman was dying slowly, Randidly could sense it. Her body was rejecting the Nether that had flushed through her veins. As with the original Skill he had earned, whatever she was doing just created a faucet that she could turn and bring in Nether from the Great Rift. And her physical body wasn’t being healed by the System as the Nether continued to further corrode her.

Yet Randidly hesitated, then turned away from her. Fight the foe in front of you, Theodora. You chose this. Now its time to see if you have the resolve to see it through.

When he returned to his vantage point on his island, Randidly’s mind was racing. More than anything else, he was struck with the immediate desire to train.

Randidly realized something important when Huang Li pulled from the ambient images in the air; he had missed something vital for the past several months. Something that probably should have occurred to him as he was starting to understand Nether. Just being the entity that stepped in and protected the former President Greyman from the consequences of the tournament, he could feel his Nether roiling and bubbling as it experienced a heavy influx of memory and weight. In all likelihood, Huang Li and the other participants were experiencing something much more pronounced.

But of course, Huang Li didn’t have his own personal Nether. He subsisted, almost unconsciously, on the thin film of Nether that the System allowed people to possess. That small amount kept the semblance of balance between the energies, but it was a slight space that made it impossible for weight to accumulate around someone.

Yet the weight was still being produced. The function of Nether wasn’t being affected, just suppressed. Randidly had sensed the process happening in the air. He had experienced noticeable gains to his already developed Nether Nebula as he drank from a tributary of that weight. The main river was undoubtedly thick and powerful. So where did that weight go?

Or to put it more directly, what did the System do with that weight?

The other matches ended without any incident like Huang Li’s attack against Theodora Greyman and Randidly turned his attention away from the arena below. His silver wrapped island drifted back over toward Kharon. The top 8 of the duos tournament had been safely determined. There would be a rest day tomorrow, so Randidly would have quite a bit of time to investigate this phenomenon he finally identified.

Unfortunately, studying the actual Aether Constructs of the System revealed little to Randidly. The actual infrastructure was that sophisticated. Even when he tossed the problem to Neveah, she was unable to give him any real insight after an hour of examination. She did add that perhaps a more extended investigation would lead to more, but Randidly told her not to bother. He had another idea.

Actually, his idea was two-fold. First, he would see what was happening with that weight. To that end, he split off a poignant memory and created a globe of Nether to house it. The memory was Randidly’s first recollection of meeting Shal, finding him sitting in the safe room in the healing pool. Then he simply placed it outside of his body, letting it get flattened and squeezed by the tightly pressing constructions of Aether.

Gradually, as Randidly watched that compressed memory, he detected it flowing away from him and toward the sky. In the process of being forced through that thin membrane, the walls of the memory began to crack and break. The details were rubbed away but the significance remained. The strain was enough to damage Randidly’s thick Nether. It would take a few days to fully crack it, but Randidly couldn’t help but be impressed by the quietly efficient method of extracting weight.

That was the genius of this portion of the System. It syphoned this weight off and destroyed its individuality and even now, to Randidly’s concerted focus, it only seemed like a side effect. He couldn’t detect the source of the phenomenon at all.

Randidly grinned up at the dark grey sky, but his eyes weren’t really taking in the clouds. He was seeing that swirling Aether constructs beyond that. Randidly was peering up toward the location that a Nether King had come to attack the Seventh Cohort. His emerald eyes searched for any lingering traces of the Nexus. There aren’t that many actual coincidences here, are there? Just how deeply did your schemes run, Elhume?

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 253!

The night stretched onward. Randidly coolly watched his memory being smushed and stolen by the Nexus. Then, right before dawn of the break day, Randidly reached out and plucked the memory back out of that thin membrane area.

To Randidly, that memory was quite precious. It was enough to see that the weight of all these moments was really being stolen on a mass scale. Now it was time for him to work on his second idea; to take all of that Nether weight for himself.

Clicking his tongue, Randidly began to weave Nether once more. He suspected that his arrangement would need to be near-perfect in order to work.

*****

Huang Shou chuckled. They sat in the main room of their allocated suite, savoring the day of rest they had before the matches tomorrow. “Looking at it now will change nothing. Rest for another few hours. There is no rush to fight.”

“I understand, grandfather.” Huang Li said as he steadily worked his jaw. For whatever reason, Li just couldn’t find it in him to relax. He had always known this roadblock was coming. He had prepared himself mentally for it quite far in the past. But now, having made it here, having felt the vast, subconscious image in the air above the tournament and briefly made use of its power, Huang Li was strained and fraying.

Of course, even if it wasn’t Paolo and Kayle, it is not like any of the duos left at this point are push overs… Huang Li grimaced and looked at the full schedule of matches for tomorrow.

Match 1: (9:00 AM) Huang Shou and Huang Li v. Paolo and Kayle

Match 2: (12:00 PM) Donny and Glendel v. Tykes and Dinesh

Match 3: (3:00 PM) Alana Donal and Wivanya v. Lucifer and Guiliana

Match 4: (6:00 PM) Hank Howard and Ancho v. Lyra and Stan

Of the remainder, Huang Li had to admit that the Zone 7 team was the one with the smallest chance of victory. The power of the move that Huang Li was able to unleash captured the imaginations of the crowds and kept them relatively even with the more established duos in terms of bets, but even Huang Li had to admit that his control over that image was shaky.

But that power… the fact that I wielded that power in the past… Why is it now so hard…? Li gritted his teeth.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Alana and Hank had proven themselves multiple times against multiple enemies of Earth over the last few years. Lucifer had led a team to clear the challenge Danger Zone faster than any others. Donny and Glendel were basically the original dominant main force of Donnyton, a pair of individuals whose leadership skills meant they hadn’t needed to act publicly in years. Tykes and Dinesh were former members of Donnyton and heavily involved with the Order Ducis and the spread of images to other Zones.

Even Lyra and Stan, the least understood pair, made Huang Li nervous. Lyra also didn’t appear recently in any sort of discussions, but that was because she was nominally the VIllage Spirit of Donnyton. She was the first Village Spirit that seemed capable of existing outside of the Village and actually fighting. Viewers were left baffled by her unflappable and unhurried victories to reach the top 8.

It was rumored that she made a deal with someone high up in the Seventh Cohort to transform herself into more than simply being a Village Spirit. Yet during all the matches, her image was dense and well-controlled. Which made her a figure that Huang Li felt great wariness toward.

Li clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles popped. No matter how he thought about it, he would fail. He was a failure. And that failure-

“Ack!” Huang Li grunted and staggered a half step forward. He twisted around and looked at Huang Shou primly holding his his knobby cane with both hands. With a wince, he straightened. “...is there something you need, grandfather?”

“A grandson who listens,” Huang Shou said without any irony. Then he inclined his head toward the dinner table. “Ever since you have seen that bracket, you have not been able to eat or even produce a single productive thought through your your thick skull. I look at you now and wonder if you are the same young man who won us the prior match-”

“I know.” Huang Li whispered. His hands were tingling like they were coming to life after being numb. So even Huang Shou sensed that he had lost something precious in the prior match. “I… I know.”

Huang Shou snorted. Then he raised his cane to jab at Huang LI’s stomach but paused. After considering for a bit, he appeared to think better of the violent action. So he revered his grip on his cane and brough the larger, knobbed head around in a baseball bat swing that hit Huang Li’s thigh with enough force the limb spasmed.

Caught rather off guard, Huang Li collapsed. While he was on the ground, Huang Shou rolled his shoulders. “My grandfather was the greatest Go player that I have ever seen, even to this day. The current me could not give him a worthy match even with a seven stone handicap. Randidly Ghosthound has enough personal strength and force that the Village he simply associated with in his earlier days now has enough clout to dominate the list of Earth’s most powerful people. Can you guess what these two individuals have in common?”

For a while, Huang Li just blinked and rubbed the sore spot on his thigh. His thoughts truly had been in chaos since they had won their previous match. He had drifted around without any weight, stunned and reeling. The great achievement became a weight around Huang Li’s neck that he couldn’t support. That strike by his adoptive grandfather had shocked him awake.

But these questions… Huang Li shook his head. “I do not know.”

“Guess,” Huang Shou opened his mouth just enough for the frosty word to slip out, then resumed his near-perpetual frown. But Huang Li didn’t miss the way that Huang Shou’s hands choked up on the can in preparation for another swing.

Li released a large sigh. Still, his training from the Huang Family was deeply engraved in him. It had been since he became Captain of Zone 7’s guard, but interrogations like this had used to be quite common for him. He shifted his legs to be folded underneath him in a respectful posture. “...from what little I know of both, they were both very well respected men-”

There were a split second where Li detected Huang Shou’s movements and could have dodged the vicious strike. His adoptive grandfather had hid his high Stats very well, but even so, Huang Li had higher base specs. But ultimately, Li pressed his lips together and allowed the strike to hit his face.

With an aching jaw, Huang Li turned and listened to Huang Shou. The older man’s eyes were dark and flinty. “Your first thought is to talk of other people’s opinions of them? Are you a newspaper or a gossip?”

Li’s breath came out threw his nose and tried a different answer. “They both earned the respect and admiration of their peers.”

“Actually, my grandfather was rather universally criticized and avoided. He had an irascible temper and couldn’t accept even the slightest sign of disrespect. His tongue was vicious. I often believed that had it not been for my interest in Go, he wouldn’t have even bothered to allow me to visit his estate. The old man would derive great enjoyment from keeping the gate shut in my face… but as you truly did not ever know him, I will not count this against you. Try again.”

How generous. Very quickly, Huang Li’s flash of annoyance was suppressed beneath his practicality. The wheels of his thoughts began to quickly whirr to life. Li’s mind felt even more clear in the wake of the second strike. It suddenly occurred to him that these were not normal attacks; there was a Skill hidden in their movements, one so subtle that Huang Li had missed its activation.

An entirely different sort of bitterness emerged in Li’s heart as he considered the truth that Huang Shou was doing this currently in order to help him. The method was rough, but the old man wasn’t just lashing out randomly. So Huang Li did his best to consider the question posed by his grandfather; what did these two people have in common?

As Li’s emotions began to calm, something else occurred to him; despite his high standards, Huang Shou wouldn’t give him an impossible task. Because Li didn’t know anything about this previous Huang Grandfather, the answer would lay with what he knew about Randidly Ghosthound. So, what did the Ghosthound have in common with this former patriarch of the Huang Family? A man who that Li knew nothing about aside from the fact he was very good at-

That line of thoughts made Li paused. Almost reflexively, he spoke to Huang Shou in a question. “How much did your grandfather play Go?”

Huang Shou tapped the base of his cane twice against the ground. “I cannot think of a time that I saw him when he wasn’t playing Go. That board… was the most important object in his life.”

“...then what unites them is dedication to their pursuits,” Huang Li said with confidence. As his emotions calmed further and his thoughts cooled, it was like his mental state was being filtered. The mess of his mind was purified and streamlined, the silt and pollution of the past few days being stripped away. Li’s expression turned increasingly serious as he considered the internal chaos of the last twenty hours; the usage of that Sky-Slaying Slash was more dangerous than he thought.

Setting aside the emotional reaction, using that amalgamation of images while Huang Li’s image had been partially wounded by Blackhand’s energy resulted in some foreign elements bleeding into his image. Foreign elements that affected Huang Li’s mental state.

Of course I am a failure. I am just a simple man who was raised to this point on the backs of my predecessors. Why would being a failure bother me? That’s not the point. Huang Li released a much lighter breath. The point is to contribute, so those that follows can achieve even greater things.

“Well, I suppose that is close enough,” Huang Shou allowed. He tapped the base of his cane twice more on the ground. “But in this case, it is better to remember that both men were obsessed to the point of being isolated from the world. Never forget the steps you took to get to this point. The Go my grandfather constantly played or the battlefields the Ghosthound has traversed to reach this point… Do not turn your back on your prior efforts. The masses have coined the term Legend and put you in that category… but you are the most recent and the most eye catching of a dozen such individuals. You are still the soldier from Zone 7. That is all you are… and that is your strength.”

Li’s mouth twitched. That was… probably the longest speech he had ever heard from Huang Shou. And he couldn’t deny it was something that he had needed to hear at the moment. They sat in silence then for almost ten minutes. Huang Li pressed his fingers against the windows of the housing and felt the chill of the outside world creeping through the glass. Small snowflakes drifted downward, dancing lazily with each other on their journey to the ground.

Eventually, Li flexed his hands to disperse the numbness in his fingertips and spoke. “...although I don’t think the Ghosthound is quite so isolated as you say. He is currently hosting the tournament, after all.”

Huang Shou snorted. “The altar that young man worships at is power. This whole arrangement is an edifice to that power. Aside from protecting the participants… have you seen the Ghosthound do much else? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also constantly training on the side during the matches. The obsessed… don’t easily waiver.”