The Nether King’s existence as six pieces of armor with amorphous conduits of smoke between them made it difficult to read his emotions, but the wide and haughty set of the armor pieces didn’t fade as the helmet tilted upward to look at the hand that possessed enough power to crush the sky.

In the wake of his statement, perhaps due to the lack of reaction from the Nether King, Commandant Wick’s small smile flattened into a look of irritation. “Perhaps you don’t understand your current situation-”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Commandant Wick took a half step backward from his floating perch, clearly ruffled. In front of him, Speculum Double Hammer had used his cane to stop the Nether King’s right fist, which had abruptly accelerated upward fifty meters with the clear intent to cave in Commandant Wick’s chest cavity. The Speculum offered a gap tooth’d grin down at the Nether King. “I might not be able to subdue you, but I can certainly protect my cute junior. Heh, you are going to die here today, creature.

RUMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

What began as a small vibration rose to a pebble bouncing seismic shift as the pressure from the massive hand grew more intense. As the distortion from the fingers grew, those bulging protrusions seemed to wreak destruction on a larger and larger scale. Small tornados formed near the stretching spatial walls only to wink out of existence a moment later. Looking down, DiOrtho could see that small cracks were snaking out to cover the whole of the crater.

Yet suddenly, a new arrival to the Pinnacle Seeker group paused the rising sense of tension that they all cultivated: Head Drill Sergeant Randidly Ghosthound crashed to the ground a little in front of the Frost Matriarch’s cracked image. He stood and rolled his shoulders as though his entrance was entirely normal. Then Randidly’s gaze swept back and forth as he walked toward them, his emerald eyes flashing. “We need to leave. It’s not safe to remain within the crater any longer.”

As if to underscore the Ghosthound’s statement, the rumbling grew even more intense as those massive fingers squeezed down on the spatial walls. The cracks beneath all of their feet were widening. The Frost Matriarch tilted her head to the side as she considered the Ghosthound’s sudden arrival and announcement. “Do you fear the fingers of Elhume? Their dominance now is indiscriminate, but once the spatial walls come down-”

“It isn’t Elhume that worries me, it’s the Nether King.” Randidly shook his head. His lips were pressed together and his brow was tightly furrowed. Then he hesitated. “I… I’m unable to tell exactly what will happen, but the spatial walls are the only thing-”

“A cowardly weakling wishes to drag us down into cowardice with him?” The Dusk Jackal bellowed. Its eyes turned red and malicious as the creature spoke in a low growl. “Let me put you out of your misery then.”

Without waiting for a response, the Dusk Jackal cracked the ground beneath his feet and bounded forward. One of its hands flexed and DiOrtho could barely catch that its claws sharpened and extended. With preternatural speed, the Pinnacle Seeker struck.

Randidly Ghosthound’s frown deepened. But he didn’t seem to be bothered by the attack. He simply… waved his hand in response, as though he was irritated by a persistent fly.

BOOOOOOOOM!

RUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEE!

The noise of the clash was almost completely blanketed by the escalating disintegration of the ground in their spatial island, but DiOrtho felt with his body how potent the physical power displayed by both individuals was. But the reason that the entire Pinnacle Seeker group had frozen was that when their attacks met, the Dusk Jackal was sent stumbling backward.

“You….” The Dusk Jackal’s eyes reddened further as he huffed out a very moist breath. “Your physical body… is more powerful than mine… hahaha, looks like I won’t miss out on all the fun after all!”

Suddenly, the quality of light around the Dusk Jackal changed. Everything else dimmed, while the muscular humanoid’s body seemed to have light leaking around his profile. It was as though he stood as a celestial body during a solar eclipse. With that strange shift in lighting, the Dusk Jackal’s image spread outward and began to corrode the Frost Matriarch’s castle.

His bloodlust was a physical thing, huffing and sniffing at the air in excitement.

“Jackie,” The Frost Matriarch said in a warning tone, but the Dusk Jackal’s gaze almost seemed unconscious, as though he was sleepwalking. And the object of those manifested desires was Randidly Ghosthound.

Randidly barred his teeth as the Dusk Jackal began to stalk forward. And perhaps they might really have begun fighting, had the Nether King not once more forcefully drawn all attention back to it. While it had continued to launch its fists in lightning-fast ranged attacks to ambush Commandant Wick, some drifting grey bubbles had begun to gather around its body. After accumulating hundreds of these grey bubbles, there was a sudden shift: the grey bubbles suddenly snapped into alignment. What remained was an absolutely lovely optical illusion.

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As DiOrtho looked at the Nether King, a delicate chrysanthemum seemed to be blooming before his chest. Then, while everyone watched, the Nether King lowered his helmet and devoured the illusory flower by sucking it into the wafting grey smoke of his being.

When he raised his head, the Nether King belched out a black beam of destruction as thick as a river. The air rang as the edges of that river heated surroundings so quickly that it became sheathed in bright white plasma. The two Speculum and even Commandant Wick were forced to scramble out of the way to avoid being engulfed in that sudden attack.

The beam streaked past them, rumbling and crackling and humming, to crash against the bulging palm print of the giant hand. Shockwaves raced outward from the impact point, dark energy weaving its way through the spatial walls and reinforcing them. The rumbling continued, but for the moment, the hand of Elhume was stopped dead.

“Ridiculous…” The Frost Matriarch muttered. Then she turned again to look at Randidly. “Truly, I didn’t expect The Nether could manifest this power. But how long can it keep this up? I see nothing worthy of our retreat.”

“It’s not this.” Randidly shook his head, his eyes still on the Dusk Jackal. He spoke quickly, urgency leaking into his tone. “But let me ask you something: why does Nether need to swirl in the air?”

“Enough talk,” The Dusk Jackal barked. Its muscles began to bulge. “Today… we fight!”

“You-!” The Head Drill Sergeant was clearly exasperated. His emerald eyes flicked to DiOrtho, and the ram demon realized that the only reason the man had come down here at all was to make sure he made it out alive. A surge of warmth filled him, from DiOrtho’s toes to his curling ram horns.

“Obviously, it doesn’t need to,” The Frost Matriarch said in a clearly puzzled voice. Then she glanced up at the gathering significance that still was accumulating above the Nether King. But all at once, her expression stilled. “It… is simply energy. It can be stored… wherever is convenient…”

The Frost Matriarch’s eyes slid downward until she stared at the growing cracks in the ground.

To the Dusk Jackal, Randidly spoke in a desperate voice. “Let’s make a deal. If I can endure one of your blows now, let’s agree to postpone the rest of our duel until ten days from now.”

“Fine then! I applaud you for having the balls to challenge me!” The Dusk Jackal roared. More and more light gathered around his figure. His body expanded, becoming more obscenely muscular. His veins protruded from his limbs and wriggled like freshly hatched maggots. “Survive this strike and prove you are worthy of a duel! The Last Light of Dusk!”

RUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMBLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE!

As though signaling the beginning of this challenge, the massive hand of Elhume began to force its way downward, directly overpowering the Nether King’s blast.

In an instant, the physical form of Randidly transformed. He flicked his hand and his two-meter spear Acri appeared in his hand. An angular, dark grey armor appeared on his body and covered his upper torso and metal left arm. The remaining revealed flesh of the Ghosthound’s body turned incorporeal and shimmering, while the thick veins running through his body began to glow with a golden light.

His black hair shifted toward a deep, rich green and light began to bleed and melt around his left eye. Soon most of the upper left side of his face was warped by a swirling orb of darkness. Spectral flames of Weight ran up and down the Ghosthound’s arms. DiOrtho could also sense an absolutely ridiculous amount of Nether coursing through his physical body. Then the Head Drill Sergeant raised his spear and executed an exquisite thrust to meet the Dusk Jackal’s offensive.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

Unfortunately for his grand show of resistance, the Ghosthound was sent flying as though he was a rubber ball hit by a club. He skipped several times off the ground until he reached the portion of the crater with a steeper slope and embedded himself into the landscape.

However, the Dusk Jackal did not pursue. The jackal-headed being looked at the hand that had smashed the Ghosthound backward and frowned. His muscles slowly lost their pulsing and enflamed size. Then he shrugged. “Fine. We continue this in ten days. Prepare yourself; I will not hold back.”

Meanwhile, the Frost Matriarch looked around at the gathered individuals. “We will be following the advice of the Ghosthound and retreat from this position. At least beyond the edge of the crater.”

With the Dusk Jackal in line, the group quickly retreated. As they marched in his direction, the Ghosthound pried himself out of the wall and brushed some of the debris from his armor. He was gaunt and looked bedraggled from the earlier clash, but he fell in with the group as they moved up the slope.

DiOrtho overheard the Frost Matriarch addressing the Ghosthound as they moved. “Can you tell the purpose of the array in the ground?”

The Ghosthound shook his head, looking extremely tired. “It’s too dense, even for me. But with how thorough the concealment arrays were…Heh. However, there’s one thing I don’t understand…” The Ghosthound glanced upward at the sky. “If I can see through those arrays with some work… for Elhume-”

RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLEEEEEE!

The massive hand gathered momentum and crunched the spatial walls of this place further and further. They were in a tin can, gradually being crumpled. The power the hand could display was overwhelming.

But the Frost Matriarch just sighed in a sonorous exhale. “You only have to look at the lazy hand conjured by Elhume to understand that he doesn’t take this threat seriously at all. He has been at the Pinnacle for longer than most have even been alive; he is far past the point of needing to examine carefully for traps.”

Randidly offered up a sharp smile and glanced again at the ground. “...a dangerous mindset.”