When Randidly turned up for their meeting, Tatiana looked him up and down and then clicked her tongue in distaste. “Did you finish training immediately before you had to come here? You smell like sweat and look like a zombie. Your eyes are as red as my lipstick.”

Randidly considered lying, but guile is an art that requires quite a lot of consideration and effort; the truth was much easier. And most likely, telling the truth was the right thing to do. “Well, I’m not done training yet, but…”

“...But you are in the middle of something. I understand.” Tatiana said lightly. They were sitting on a wooden bench in one of Kharon’s parks, which Randidly appreciated. The feeling of simply sitting in the sun was very pleasant, while he nursed his general sense of exhaustion. But he didn’t then enjoy when she slapped a heavy packet of paper onto the bench between them. Her image oozed tightly controlled fury. “But what you should understand is that you can’t just half-ass this and you certainly cannot put these decisions off, not considering we don’t know when you will leave.

“So I’m going to take a walk around the park. It will take about fifteen minutes. When I get back, I hope you are ready to talk about the city that you founded and how you would like it run.” With impeccable precision, Tatiana spoke, stood, and then walked away with small, rapid steps.

The wind seemed slightly chillier as she stalked away.

Randidly rubbed his chin guiltily. As Tatiana moved further away, he released a low breath. Then he eased the restriction he had placed on his other images, allowing Yggdrasil to finally flood his body, mind, and soul with warm and vibrant energy. It was the monsoon the desert of his mind had been waiting for. Compared to the steady and stubborn healing of Abomination’s Grim Vigor, the effect was immediate. His headache began to gradually weaken and Randidly gratefully sat with his eyes closed and recovered.

She’s right. Randidly thought to himself as he sensed the life around him in the park. Becoming strong enough to matter in the Nexus is important, but that only matters as a means to protect Expira. Strength is not my ultimate goal. It’s that sort of thinking that led the original Vualla astray…

And while I’m here, I need to give the proper care to the problems of the Earth.

Before even Tatiana came back, Randidly mind started to come back into focus. One part of him began furiously scrutinizing his behaviors in that desperate spree of training to look for methods to improve the Grim Chimera, but a larger part did turn toward the packet that Tatiana had left on the bench. He picked it up and began to steadily read through it. The task of paperwork was daunting due to the unending field of followup paperwork that was always lurking beyond the first batch, but lifting his chin and pouring through just these documents in front of Randidly was manageable.

When Tatiana returned, she didn’t mention that frustration and annoyance that must have led to her going on a sudden walk, and Randidly didn’t either. They addressed only the work, arranging the sale of the land and talking over various options for the housing island Randidly had been scouting. In their careful planning and long term projections, Randidly really felt how he would soon be gone from Earth. And how long that absence would be for. His wandering city would really need to thrive without his reassuring presence.

Randidly’s emerald eyes surveyed the park around him. The flitting moss spirits, the walking couples, and the laughter of children all seemed… suddenly so separate from him. He had always been aware this was coming, but as the truth of his forthcoming absence started to sink in, a part of Randidly couldn’t help become melancholy.

Sensing the shift in his mood, Tatiana smiled playfully. “Only this amount of work got you down? You just don’t have it in you to be a bureaucrat.”

Randidly ignored her attempt to lighten the mood and just spoke from the heart. “I’ll be sad to go.”

“And we will be sad to see you go,” Tatiana replied with the same directness. Then she pointed to a graph on the page in front of her and asked Randidly a question, and he allowed her to guide the discussion forward to the next issue on the agenda.

The meeting ended up lasting for almost two hours, but that was mostly because Randidly started taking longer and longer pauses to consider the questions that Tatiana asked him and reflect on the actions he’d taken on Expira to reach this point. During those extended silences, she didn’t prompt him, simply letting him slowly work through his thoughts.

So it was in a changed mood that Randidly returned to his floating island. Some of the exhaustion that Yggdrasil was furiously trying to address slipped sideways to become emotional heaviness that tugged at his thoughts. There was significance in his reflection, which drew more density into the steady churn of his Nether Nebula. That light grey color at the core was growing increasingly distinct.

After shaking himself back to action, Randidly walked onto the third floor of his home and considered the rapidly expanding foliage present there. He released several powerful pulses of Yggdrasil, feeling the ground accept the image easily as it was shaped by the World Tree’s power. Then he more carefully allowed the Stillborn Phoenix image out in the surrounding area, using it like a pesticide to suck away the life and energy from developments that weren’t in line with his plan.

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With a nod, Randidly hopped off of the third floor and landed on the ground. Then he walked over to his small shack on the other end of the island. He pushed open the door and peered carefully inside, his eyes taking in the deep gouges in the ground and the piles of shaved metal. “Acri… have you recovered?”

There was a low hum in response and then Randidly’s living spear tiredly slithered forward out the door. From the three-meter long bulk of the previous lance form, Acri had used the stupendous amount of experience that he absorbed from Kaan Swacc to streamline himself back toward a more typical size for the spear. Yet above all else, what struck Randidly as he viewed the reforged Acri was an appalling thick pressure that the spear now released.

The sensation of sharpness he emanates… is almost overwhelming...

Acri twined its body beneath itself like a spring and then launched it up into the air, where Randidly snatched it and tested its weight. The material of the shaft had shifted somewhat. Where it had previously been a plant spear, now it clearly felt like Acri’s plant matter had edged toward metal. Randidly could feel the pulse of life within the forest green shaft, but it was a type of life that he wasn’t familiar with. The material felt cool and solid against his palm.

Randidly’s hand tightened on Acri and he flicked the spear from side to side. With the weight increase, the balance of the weapon felt even more appropriate in his body that was strengthened by physicalized images. Randidly could feel the momentum and force that could be now generated with the metal/plant Acri and it brought him quite a lot of joy.

He held up the spear to catch the light. Even though the main result of the transformation was a general reduction in size, Acri’s spearhead remained overly large for the shaft. It was as wide at the base as Randidly’s thigh and stretched perhaps a half meter long. Perhaps it might be more accurate to call the new Acri a glaive. While Randidly watched, the spearhead slid part, revealing two jagged blades that connected to form the spearhead. Tightly layered patterns ran across the blade, reflecting various shades of green, grey, and blue.

“You look good,” Randidly grinned at Acri, who wiggled shyly. Then he allowed the spear to curl around his waist like a belt while he checked the time.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Timing (Ru) has grown to Level 161!

Randidly still had about four and a half hours before his dinner with Donny. He wavered between refining his Nether weaving or training the Grim Chimera further, but ultimately he felt like he was making a lot of progress with the Grim Chimera. While he still possessed that insight, he wanted to see how much further he could push the image.

So he opened a portal to the old Nemesai base and continued his training. Once more, he forced the Grim Chimera to confront Kaan Swacc directly.

Significance continued to pool around him, solidifying even more of his image physicalizations in his body. Although Kaan Swacc could empower himself and weaken Randidly with his resonances, Randidly’s base specs had risen to the point that even Kaan Swacc wasn’t physically a match for him.

The memory of Kaan was shocked by his inability to completely suppress Randidly, but not overly so. He once more loudly criticized Randidly for destroying his future and cutting himself off from the Nexus limitations and also for selling out his potential to the Nether. Then he weaponized his image and used it to wear down the Grim Chimera’s powerful body. With the combination of all his slightly improved new Skills, Randidly stoically endured for longer than he ever had before. The fight stretched on for nearly half an hour before Randidly was forced out of the Dreamcatcher simply because the deviation from the past grew too extensive and the headache was unmanageable.

Randidly tsk’d as he rubbed his temples afterward. Acri slithered up and rubbed his neck in concern. Maybe I should spend some time trying to absorb other’s memories and finally finish Leveling up the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night. If I’m going to train like this, I need to be able to withstand the pressure for longer.

But for now, Randidly simply satisfied himself with his current capabilities. For the next four hours, he challenged Kaan Swacc almost a dozen times, each battle brutally straining the limits of his new image. As he had hoped, the new Grim Chimera was gradually gaining a solidified shape.

Of course, a part of Randidly wished he could break past Kaan’s frustrating defense and crush him with just the Grim Chimera. And he had one last Skill that could perhaps do that: All Things Succumb, Yet Time Whirls the Earth. But as tempted as he was, Randidly let that avenue unpursued. He wanted to be very sure of the new shape of the Grim Chimera before he began to tinker with its most powerful Skill.

When his Absolute Timing warned him that he was in danger of being late, Randidly twisted his lips in frustration, left the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night, and allowed Yggdrasil to work on his persistent headache while he opened a portal to a bathhouse in Kharon. After scrubbing himself clean and applying some Ghosthound soap to himself with a conflicted heart, Randidly opened a portal to the residential district on the hill over Donnyton and searched for Donny’s home.

When he arrived, a guard directed Randidly downward, through several long corridors and too a staircase into a basement. At the bottom, Randidly walked out into a chamber the sized of a football field whose walls were lined with Engravings. Randidly’s eyes took in the whole thing. Considering the sophistication, these must have been done by Sam.

At the center of the area was a small gazebo and garden, where Donny was standing and talking with a man in a chef’s uniform. At Randidly’s arrival, Donny gestured for the man to leave and turned to Randidly. “Ha! You are here on time. I honestly planned on you keeping me waiting.”

Randidly smiled wryly. “I suppose I deserve that… but before we continued, I’d like to ask you a question.”

When Donny tilted his head to the side, Randidly shook his. “Look, does everyone think that I’ve been developing a temper? You can let whoever you have in your Bodyguard Skill out. I won’t freak out if we have a third person for the dinner.”

For a second, Donny’s face froze. But then he sighed. “...well, this makes things much easier. But I’m sorry to admit… I don’t think this will be the dinner you expected.”

There was a blurring as he deactivated his Skill and Randidly’s eyes widened. Fifteen people exploded into motion, taking positions around him. A horse huffed a large breath out through his nose.

Alana leveled her spear at Randidly’s back. “It’s an assassination attempt. Sun Strike.”