Randidly looked at Raymund Ballast with narrowed eyes, barely suppressing his urge to growl. Something feral had risen up inside of him, a primal force that had the same roots as his newfound ability to understand and utilize his emotions.

But this time, this emotional acuity was strangling his rational thoughts. All that power had flared to life at once, in a very passable imitation of the way Randidly’s skin turned red and he hissed out water vapor when at his most physically capable. The emotional power was just as incendiary and the current Randidly couldn’t quite manage it.

It was only now, when his eyes landed on Raymund, that the pulsing waves of red that Randidly saw finally ebbed.

Every time he tried to force his rage downward, his mind responded by reminding him of the purposeful way that the grey haired woman had avoided his non-lethal defenses and attempted to kill Charlotte Wick. The merest hit of that memory poured gasoline on the flames of his rage. His hand on the woman’s arm tightened and Randidly felt what remained of her arm crumble beneath his fingers.

He had ground her limb to dust in the most painful way he could manage. Such a demonstration should be enough.

It didn’t feel like enough.

With a snort, Randidly released the limb and watched it disintegrate. Then he glared down at the top of her head, wishing he could make the wound a more permanent one. His fingers twitched.

After several seconds of internal struggle, Randidly’s eyes swept sideways. Around him, all was silent. Significance poured into him, more every second. Both his elite group and the ‘special forces’ arranged by the NLC and its allies had their eyes fixed on him. The Drill Sergeant near Banum, who Randidly didn’t recognize, appeared to be the leader. And as their gazes met, Randidly felt that this man was strong enough to pose a threat.

He was tempted to fight. A part of him demanded that his fury be sated. Yet Randidly closed his eyes and released a breath. The entire problem was that this emotional outpouring had taken him by surprise. The shade had likely dealt with similar issues… but its existence likely had made it immune to the warping effect these emotions held.

The novel experience did not mean Randidly was helpless, however. He pressed down and forced his rage into a dormant state.

At the moment, he was inconvenient for most of the NLC. The Swacc Family might care enough to push Velio Dunn toward him, but otherwise, he was a meaningless servant of Commandant Wick to most. Taking an aggressive stand here would change that. Hurting the special forces group would concretely impact the plans of others. Suddenly, Randidly would become a painful thorn in the side of those that had moved to earn contributions in this war.

Quietly, The Stillborn Phoenix shifted in his chest. In the harsh moment of churning significance, it opened its maw and slurped down the suppressed inferno of rage that Randidly carried. In a split second, all that remained inside of him was a chilling practicality.

His emerald eyes cut through apart those who would resist him as he studied them.

Congratulations! Your Skill Tide of the Void (L) has grown to Level 300!

With his newly frigid heart, Randidly stood at the center of their attention and absorbed the focus of the surroundings. This strained moment was an exceptional one because he could intuit how to better wield his Weight by observing the way significance moved amongst his watchers. The natural flow of Nether was an inspiration, as always.

Influence +4!

Feeling that the moment had lasted long enough, Randidly and his frigid heart smiled slowly. “...if the elite squad surrendered, I guess there is nothing I can say. Heh. Let’s get out of here, recruits. You deploy in six hours.”

Congratulations! Your Skill The Torch of Fast and Slow Silences (A) has grown to Level 262!

Congratulations! Your Skill The Torch of Fast and Slow Silences (A) has grown to Level 263!

For good measure, Randidly released a powerful pulse of Yggdrasil’s image in the surrounding area. Some part of him didn’t want to do it, but the image served two purposes. First, this image would heal both his recruits and the other recruits that had already fought, most of whom weren’t affiliated with the NLC at all. Their special forces possessed barely any injured, as Randidly had intervened relatively early in the confrontation, so they barely benefited from the image. Randidly still didn’t like it, but the fact most of them couldn’t benefit from the healing wave made the action easier to swallow.

Randidly threw every ounce of his Willpower behind that image. The tree that blossomed into existence was massive, its thick brown bark covered in the curving script that described the entire world. Golden light pulsed from those runes while the heavy emerald canopy above rustled lightly from an invisible wind.

Specters of songbirds and deer flitted back and forth without producing any noise. But these citizens of Yggdrasil’s environment were rendered in heart-wrenching detail. Randidly had fashioned these beings to lend credence to his powerful image after the shade had expanded its scope in the shaft. Feeling the way his flames of Weight crackled pleasantly around his body, Randidly knew that he had done a good job.

The World Tree was the core. From that core, a wave of rejuvenating energy spread quickly outward. He didn’t hold anything back; this was the sort of sweet and refreshing blast that could heal hidden mental scars and relieve stress. The energy was that pure radiation that earned Yggdrasil its status as a godlike existence.

Even some of the Drill Sergeants were stunned. None could speak. Randidly saw that some suddenly had tears running down their cheeks, without even realizing what was happening to them. The exposure to Randidly’s image was too different, too new, too wondrous for them to process.

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When his recruits didn’t move immediately as the image faded, Randidly gestured sharply with his metal hand. Soon, his exhausted recruits snapped to attention and formed back up into their Squads. Despite their surrender, they marched out of the area with their heads held high.

Banum Voloppesett bit his lips but didn’t say anything as the group departed. Motes of golden light drifted down from the fading Yggdrasil, seeming to enforce the sanctity of this moment. Randidly smirked as his eyes slid to the Drill Sergeant next to Banum. He also seemed like he had something to say, but he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to stay. The tension in the air had been thoroughly suppressed by the aura of vitality that Yggdrasil could generate.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Smiling Horror (L) has grown to Level 391!

Running through the core of Randidly’s image was a firm flow of Nether, strengthening the image further. None could say a word as they left. Which was the entire point; the second reason that Randidly had utilized Yggdrasil so publicly and at his full strength was to give them a taste of his full power.

Letting the watchers feel like they understood his capability was the bait portion of his short term plan, after all.

At the last second as they were leaving, Randidly turned and glanced behind him at that strange Drill Sergeant who had the nerve to flare his image in front of him. Their eyes met again, but this time Randidly didn’t bother to screen the frigid remnants of his emotions settling into hatred. He smiled lightly. I’ll remember you.

Then they left, quickly returning to their portion of the FIfth Cohort Rally Station. But their stay here was short as well; soon, Helen and Heiffal had all the forces lined up to be marched to the teleporter. They would have six hours of freedom inside the Nexus before proceeding to the Fifth Cohort, where combat was already breaking out in multiple areas.

Before she left, Helen passed along a request from Raymund Ballast; in exchange for his continued loyalty, he hoped that Randidly would help Ballast find his brother. Randidly was still somewhat sour that Raymund had stepped forward and surrendered, but he understood that it was the right move. It had given him the breath he needed not to make more enemies than he could currently handle. So he acquiesced and spread the word to his Overseers, Edraine, and Lady Iellaya to see if they found anything about this missing brother.

Randidly also frowned at the last message the brother had sent, passed along by Raymund. So this, too, has to do with the Swacc Family, huh...

Currently, he didn’t have the spare time to help with the search. Randidly wanted to take care of a very dangerous problem now, while he had some relative freedom. So after his recruits went through, the Head Drill Sergeant followed them to the Nexus using the official teleporters. As he did so, his mind went to his current situation.

As Head Drill Sergeant, his responsibility had run its course. He no longer had any authority over his recruits and he was basically now given time off; he did not need to proceed to the Fifth Cohort to help with the war against Nether. However, for Edraine’s plan to proceed, they still needed more genuine Nexus Citizenship coins. The original plan was for him to find himself an assignment on the Fifth Cohort anyway, perhaps under the command of Lady Iellaya, and acquit himself honorably enough to be rewarded.

Arriving at the Nexus proper, Randidly glanced around. Within a few seconds, he had oriented himself. Because he had obtained the directions to his destination beforehand, Randidly didn’t hesitate when he walked out of the main teleportation terminal of the Nexus. He ignored the tightly packed streets that led down to the various military and civilian facilities and proceeded directly through to the entrance to the Web. There, he dropped down and allowed the natural pull of the significance below to accelerate him.

The other alternative to going to the Fifth Cohort was to spend time training himself now that he had no responsibilities. Indeed, the whole reason he had worked so hard to train his recruits was so that they would be able to achieve significant results without him. And obviously, training was attractive to his long term prospects, and if he was willing to brave the shaft he could take advantage of the extreme time dilation, but a few things stopped him.

First, his current order of business was to bring out the full potential of the Skills he already had. He needed genuine combat to get used to utilizing his Nether Weight. In addition, Randidly wanted to be in situations where he could test the limits of his newfound emotional capabilities.

Second, if he went to the Fifth Cohort, he would be able to protect his recruits. After seeing Charlotte Wick wounded… Randidly’s hands clenched as he utilized Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart to slow his descent in the Web. He swung off of some of the cords and landed next to a side hatch that opened easily under his hands.

Randidly walked forward and shaded his eyes. The false environment created in this dome included a bright and hot sun that seemed to hang in the sky over him. A workgroup bearing NLC logos paused in their gossiping next to several sandstone pillars to look over at the new arrival. Randidly inwardly released a breath when they turned away without any response; it seemed his likeness hadn’t been distributed.

Lowering his head, Randidly began to walk forward through the sandy street.

Third, Randidly was still uneasy about returning to the shaft for now. The significance was no longer a danger to him and he could handle the automatons, but he didn’t want to risk that there were additional dangers lurking down there that he hadn’t yet discovered. Even if it was just the fact that the tag on Randidly could track him, Randidly didn’t want any information to leak out that he was willingly back within the shaft.

It was one thing for Randidly to have managed a heroic escape, despite all odds, from the hellish place. It was another thing for him to feel so comfortable that he could return. Randidly didn’t pay attention to much, but Edraine’s emphasis oh how much had been done to protect the secret laying at the base of the shaft made him suspect that those in the know might notice if someone seemed to be able to move freely toward their secret.

Randidly paused as he finally moved past several small sandstone buildings and could see the massive alabaster building behind them. A massive white pyramid dominated the skyline in front of him with all the subtlety of a mountain. He pressed his lips together as he read the Engraving Guild sign, stretching ten meters up above him. The entire building was so massive that a small country could fit inside of it. Clicking his tongue, he moved along the side of the massive building to a smaller tunnel that led into the ground.

Dealing with that tag is exactly why he was here.

Down in the tunnel, Randidly had to step to the side as a woman with emerald hair rushed past with tears coursing down her face. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at the woman until she dashed up the steps and he could no longer hear her sobs. It was with a raised eyebrow that Randidly proceeded forward to open the door into the underground agency.

A bored-looking young man with short black wings poking out of his back didn’t even up from his deck as Randidly walked into the room. “Please put your credentials on the desk and I’ll get to you shortly.”

“...I’m not sure what you mean by credentials,” Randidly said dryly. “I’m here to see Nathaz Eloise. Let him know that Randidly Ghosthound is here to see him.”