“Is that… really it?” The words echoed out through the training arena. At the moment, no one knew how to answer that question.

Superintendent Xeruth suppressed his impulse to flinch as the Ghosthound spoke beside him with such raw disappointment. The man’s presence and his ominous control over his son were already intimidating enough, but Xeruth had steeled himself against the expected arrogance and endured the casual affront of having to put up with the Ghosthound’s expansive good, but not great, image. In essence, he had made quite a few mental preparations for what he might need to deal with from the Ghosthound.

Yet the bewildered disgust managed to surprise Xeruth.

Below, the Ghosthound’s two hundred recruits looked just as bedraggled as they had as they arrived for the skirmish. It was clear that they were bruised from earlier fights and near exhausted from the hellish training they had been enduring. Superintendent Xeruth had been in contact with his son earlier in the week, so he had heard some of the details of the Ghosthound’s methods. And seeing their hollow eyes and shaking shoulders, his son might have underplayed how hellish the experience was. It made Superintendent Xeruth have an ominous feeling about why he hadn’t heard much from his son in the past few days.

Still, those bedraggled figures stood over the thousand crumpled forms of their opponents, their matching armor smashed and battered. They seemed just as bewildered as their Head Drill Sergeant sounded as they looked at their defeated foes.

“Is there a stronger group we could face?” Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound asked very loudly. Again, his voice echoed clearly out to the surrounding Drill Sergeants. Before the fight, that sort of question would likely have goaded one of the surrounding Drill Sergeants to aggressively speak out against him. But now they remained silent; the Ghosthound had sent a strong message with the overwhelming victory of his recruits.

With this example made public, no one could deny that there was a reason that Randidly Ghosthound headed up the elite, two-hundred man squad. And as more and more details came out about how serious the issue was in the Fifth Cohort, Superintendent Xeruth could understand why Commandant Wick thought it was necessary to bring in a brutalizer like the Ghosthound to train the elites. In a way, it was proof that Military High Command was taking this threat seriously.

It was also proof that they had to take the previous threat seriously. With the Nexus Aether Distribution Summit in Alymiyan, which occurred once every ten years, coming up in five months, the High Command knew they needed to show results as quickly as possible to placate the populace.

Then Superintendent Xeruth blinked because Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound was looking at him with his emerald eyes that were filling with increasing scorn. Remembering the Ghosthound’s question, Xeruth cleared his throat. “Unfortunately… all the other groups were matched up against each other. It… it wouldn’t be fair…”

“Hm.” Xeruth could feel the vibrations from the noise in his bones. The Ghosthound frowned deeply but didn’t say anything. Below, Xeruth could hear one of the Ghosthound’s assistants announcing to his troops that break time was over and they needed to head back to training. Without a word of complaint, the troops below turned and walked out of the arena.

As they did so, Superintendent Xeruth panicked and frantically searched amongst the bodies for his son. It was only when he found Kallum, looking similarly tired but otherwise extremely healthy, that he could finally relax a little. Then his mind slowly turned to the issue of what he had seen in the fight.

At the beginning of the confrontation, the Ghosthound’s recruits had really been outmatched. Not only were they outnumbered, but it immediately became clear that they hadn’t much training in regards to teamwork. With their tight formations and cohesive images, the numerically superior opposing recruits had surrounded the elite squad and began to safely bombard them from afar.

Yet the bombardment didn’t have the desired effect on the elite squad. Rather than being disheartened and shocked by the attacks, the elite squad seemed to have a realization that was something like ‘oh, this isn’t so bad’. Then, under the leadership of a few overwhelmingly powerful recruits, the elite squad exploded outward and smashed apart the carefully constructed group images with brute force.

Honestly, their current fighting methods were closer to Nether than Aether. But their image strength was the real deal.

While Xeruth had been reflecting on what he had seen, the Ghosthound had been considering. The humanoid with dark hair cleared his throat. Every noise he made seemed unnecessarily loud, especially while surrounded by so many completely silent Drill Sergeants. “Well, this won’t work. Arrange for… well, at this rate, five opponents for my recruits during the next skirmish. In the meantime, I’ll think about how I want the battle structured. Is this understood?”

The man’s eyes were emerald, yet there was something impossibly sharp about the determination in his gaze. Despite the fact that the Superintendent didn’t find anything overwhelming about the man’s image, there was an imperceptible heaviness to their interactions. It wasn’t something that Superintendent had felt often in his life, but he wouldn’t forget the source.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound felt just as wild and unpredictable as a Nether Gatekeeper. With the same gleeful capacity for violence.

So Xeruth could only force down his disappointment and acquiesce with a nod. Stay safe, Kellum. As long as we endure until the day you are deployed...

*****

After explaining his demands, Randidly returned quickly to his own area of the Rally Station. He didn’t even bother to scan through the parting crowd of Drill Sergeants to get a good read on which openly hostile emotions belonged to who. In addition, he barely had time to notice Lay’mel Tuuellethe skulking in the back, avoiding eye contact before he walked into the stone tunnel and pulled out his Philosopher’s Key.

Two things bothered him. First and most importantly, he had felt the arrival of Commandant Wick to his training area. Just the Commandant’s arrival was enough to cause the Aether and Nether ecosystems Randidly had created to shudder. Even worse, the man hadn’t bothered to wait for an invitation and instead had directly pressed forward into the Aether Engraving around Randidly’s base. Had Randidly not noticed what was occurring and designated Commandant Wick as an ally, the Commandant might have simply ripped Randidly’s defenses to shreds.

Which at least answers the question of how effective the Aether defenses currently are against true power, Randidly thought darkly. But he observed the ways that Wick strained the defenses and sent the details to Neveah, so she could try and improve their formula.

Meanwhile, the other reason that Randidly was in a bad mood was because of the performance of the opposing recruits: they had entirely failed to present a meaningful challenge for his recruits. He had been distantly aware that his was the ‘elite’ squad, which meant that most of his troops had been groomed to be capable enough. Meanwhile, the other recruits were desperate individuals from fading worlds in older Cohorts.

The opposition had been trained in fighting in groups, but it immediately became obvious that these other recruits hadn’t been exposed to Nether. The changes that Nether was making to the bodies and images of his recruits were relatively minor, but it added weight to them that their opponents lacked. After receiving a few blows, his recruits realized that the opposition was nowhere near as dangerous as their Overseers.

Their strikes were light. Then, like a pack of wolves that smelled blood, they struck suddenly and with overwhelming force.

At which point the other aspect Randidly had forgotten about took over; the natural recovery of the recruits underneath the System. Without the array suppressing them, they swiftly began to recover Stamina. By the time the fight was over, Randidly’s Overseers were almost anxious to get them back into the array, lest they need another few days to adjust to the constant image exertion to move.

Plus, all their images have really solidified after needing to use them for everything, Randidly frowned. Then he tsk’d lightly. Looks like we will have to up the difficulty for the next skirmish…

With those thoughts, Randidly returned to the central training area, where Commandant Wick was hunched over Randidly’s personal training pod that he hadn’t even the chance to use yet, inspecting the Engravings. As Randidly closed the door behind him, the massive bear-man glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at the Engravings. “Quite interesting, the setup you have here. Truly… your physical body is impressive. You’ve passed the System limit directly?”

Randidly nodded slowly. The Commandant’s furry mouth twitched. “A pity. Although you can achieve a small amount of success once you pass the limit, being cut off from the System’s blessings comes with hidden costs. Well, anyway, you clearly are capable enough now. But not so capable that you can survive without relying on my reputation. Hm?”

Toward the end, Commandant Wick spoke with a rumbling tone that brooked no disagreement. He turned around and folded his hands behind his back while regarding Randidly directly. Despite his image physicalizations, the Nether Nebula that spun in his chest and anchored him with significance, and his extremely high Stats, Randidly felt the edges of his vision darkening as he met the gaze of Commandant Wick.

The Commandant’s aura was a study in opposition. On the one hand, there was an extremely demanding series of mental restraints through the Commandant that brooked no disagreement. Those powerful bindings could suppress almost anything. Even the dangerous scent of pure madness that hung across the bearman’s person.

The shape of the image was still hidden, but the image was so powerful that Randidly didn’t need to witness it directly in order to sense some of the broader strokes.

Randidly’s heart rate increased and his hands grew sweaty as he resisted the radiating waves of pressure. Each second saw him violently assaulted by the horrid madness that raged underneath the cage of the Commandant’s image. Very deliberately, the Commandant was testing Randidly.

Randidly was powerful, but before someone who genuinely possessed an irresistible image, he still fell a bit short. His hands curled into claws. His Nether Nebula spun, trying to steady his images, but Randidly couldn’t muster enough dominance in the surroundings to generate his own images to fight back.

Yet Randidly refused to back down, even as the Commandant’s dark eyes seemed intent on smashing him into the ground, breaking him open like an egg, and poking through his secrets. Randidly raised his chin and forced himself to speak. “You bet on me when you believed the Nether Invasion was a small matter, but now that it is important, you are unwilling to take the political hit by admitting that you knew nothing about my capability. You are greatly relieved by my success, right?”

Emerald eyes met black ones.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Smiling Horror (L) has grown to Level 355!

“I see we understand one another,” The Commandant’s face broke into a wide smile that showed his wide and thick yellow teeth. His image receded like he had drawn a curtain across an open window to the deepest pit of hell. “And considering what you displayed in the skirmish today… I believe we will have no problems cooperating. Truly, I appreciate capable subordinates, Randidly Ghosthound. Results will matter first, in the military. Do not forget that.”