Congratulations! Your Skill the Grey Creature Glimpses Providence (P) has grown to Level 400!

None of Randidly’s senses possessed the capability to detect Techetadore’s attack. His eyes, ears, skin, and battle instincts remained ominously silent in front of this six-tailed Vulpine. Only the tingling warning of his future-sight Skill gave him the hair of warning to shift to the side. And even so, the Nether in the right side of his body rapidly decreased as something eroded the substance of him with its passage.

Hissing, Randidly retreated further and flexed his now numb right hand. In just a second, almost half of the Nether in that portion of his body had been directly wiped from existence. Although waves of burning heat continued to radiate out from the nearby white dwarfs, Randidly felt a chill.

“Hm? How strange.” Techetadore tilted his head to the side as he lowered his hand. “You… have a way to predict the attack? Perhaps that’s why you have proven so difficult-”

Despite Techetadore’s casual words, this time Randidly was ready when the Vulpine unleashed another dangerous blast of energy. By maintaining small gravity wells underneath both feet, he threw himself to the side as soon as his Skill tingled. The strange absence blast passed him by without touching him. Randidly glared at Techetadore.

Just as he was leaning forward to counterattack and turn some of the pressure back on Techetadore, he received a message from Lady Iellaya. Just stall for time, you fool. The more we seem capable of resisting, the more forces they are going to deploy against us. Are you looking to fight to the death today?

Noted, Randidly replied. He didn’t bother to explain how close to mental exhaustion he currently was, relying on his Yggdrasil image to keep a headache at bay. The combination of emotional intensity and unleashing that blast of accumulated energy left him truly with only Nether and his body. And even then, he could feel hundreds of tears through his muscles, after briefly housing all that natural energy.

Congratulations! Your Skill Glittering Leaves of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 397!

“I really don’t like being wrong about people, Randidly Ghosthound,” Techetadore growled. His tails flicked back and forth. “Today will be the end of you.”

Randidly did his best not to roll his eyes. Not that he wanted to be arrogant, but Randidly had heard a similar statement too often in his life to take too seriously.

*****

Eventually, the difficulties of retreating toward the six-star array while also defending against the attacks of the Swacc Family troops proved to be too much for the average soldier. A flaw emerged in one of the formations between two of the assisting squads and one of the massive Swacc images didn’t miss this opportunity. Raising its halberd, the golem slammed itself forward into the gap. The two combination images were caught without the leverage to assist each other and both were forced to the side.

Just as the image projection raised its weapons and swept it through the bodies of Military High Command Forces, Raymund Ballast lifted his hand and grasped. Fiero’s Audacity seized upon the other’s image. The golem stiffened for enough time that the two military images had time to form their defenses back up.

But even more surprising to Raymund was the rushing sense of power as a large, cast-iron tail formed behind his body. It felt like his Skill had stolen almost the entire force of the Skill. He tilted his head to the side. In terms of ease, few images have been so severable from their makers. Perhaps this aspect is related to the uniformity?

Either way, the current pressurized situation meant that Raymund was unwilling to ponder about this useful tool for too long. Even while the first golem listlessly attempted to build its momentum back up, Raymund twisted and cut sideways with a palm. Charlotte Wick’s Primal Force had been struggling to keep a quarterstaff wielding golem at bay and suddenly a borrowed projection of the halberd golem thrust its weapon into it from the side.

Other members of the Vulpis squad noticed the moment of weakness and twisted around to unleash their own image. Due to their intense training regimen underneath Overseer Helen, a single moment of weakness became a fatal ambush. Under the combined assault of a dozen images, the quarterstaff golem shattered, wounding dozens of the individuals who created it. Unfortunately, or perhaps tragically, the Swacc Family soldiers reformed their column and continued to move forward without any recognition of their defeat. Another golem, this one slightly smaller, gathered above their shifting advance.

For the past eight minutes or so, the Swacc Family forces had been clashing with them primarily through the medium of images. But the distance between them had narrowed to only a hundred meters; soon, they would be forced into physical combat with the larger army in order to keep them at bay.

Raymund glanced sideways at the white dwarf array. At this point, the heat was sweltering, made worse by roaring blasts of solar wind and glittering motes of shattered images that drifted up from the solar road. The Swacc Family forces there continued to advance as well, although Raymund couldn’t make out the details. He felt several powerful individuals clashing again and again as the core portion was steadily being bombarded by the golem images.

The Vulpine rubbed his jaw. The Military High Command forces were now close enough that they needed to either proceed downward toward the ‘solar road’ where the Swacc Family now banged its fists on the barriers of the inner area or hunker down, at the risk of being drawn into the gravity field of the stars within the array.

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Raymund focused on Lady Iellaya to see if she had any orders, but her fight with Gabriel Swacc had become increasingly feral. Black feathers and waves of darkness clashed against endless dust storms. The duo rose far above their subordinates, smashing their powerful images against one another. Meanwhile, the Ghosthound-

Raymund’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the figure in front of the Head Drill Sergeant. Techet. You-

Perhaps it was the distance between them, but Raymund’s increasingly tuned image senses caught the faintest presence around his brother’s body. A strange tint that blended seamlessly into the darkness of space yet also struck Raymund as familiar. But the coloration was so faint that it was difficult to pin it down even as he stared.

Techetadore and the Ghosthound spoke to each other. From afar, it was obvious that the Head Drill Sergeant’s attention followed the Swacc Family group that headed back toward the base. Then the six-tailed Vulpine raised his hands and unleashed a vague something that Raymund could only establish by watching the Ghosthound’s frantic dodges.

Vant arrived at Raymund’s side, waking him from his distraction. “If we retreat any further, the solar radiation starts to get really bad.”

“The Swacc Assault will weaken itself by braving those elements to surround us,” Raymund responded. He did his best not to let his attention waver from those he commanded. But he couldn’t prevent that strange familiarity around Techetadore from bothering him.

Meanwhile, DiOrtho spat to the side. His phlegm tumbled through space in an oblong bulge. “Yes, well. Look at the fuckers. Do you really think they are going to stop due to a little bit of their skin burning off?”

For a few moments, Raymund pressed his eyes closed. It was a tactical error not to recognize that the Swacc Family forces were fatalistic in their assault. Lady Iellaya had given the order to retreat, but as the one on the field, Raymund should have noticed this fact long before now. Being squeezed up against the radiation from the array meant that their choices were severely limited.

OHHHMMMMMM.

Both Raymund and DiOrtho turned and looked to their left. A pulse of a truly profound image from the center of the white dwarf array spread across the entire battlefield, pausing almost everything. The feeling that Raymund experienced was like being stuck in a stuffy room and finally opening the window; life seemed to tingle against his skin as he searched intently for the source.

In the next moment, the Swacc Family forces rushing up the solar road charged forward with renewed intensity. Their bombardment of the central defense array accelerated to an almost constant rumble. But Raymund could not help to solemnly watch the wavering spirit that rose from the depths of the Pinnacle Seeker defenses.

Because Raymund realized that what he sensed was not an image, not truly, but the inherent shine of something true. On the wings of that truth, something began to accumulate.

Without even having seen the process before, Raymund knew that what he sensed was the efforts of an individual to reach the Pinnacle.

However, he forced his eyes away and to the attacks in front of him; he had a responsibility right now. His tails flexed and Raymund reached out both hands at once, grasping at two of the heavy golem images that harried their forces. Even though he had experienced it before, Raymund was still taken aback by how easy it was for him to steal their images.

These he turned on two other groups, fully staggering four of the Swacc Family image columns single-handedly. Next to him, DiOrtho Vant grinned and flexed his hands. A horrible grinding noise began to rise as his machine horror steadily gathered itself. “...thanks for the opportunity. Now its my turn to demonstrate how much Overseer Helen meant to us.”

Vant released a long breath and exhaled pure darkness that stunk of the cataclysmic death of a civilization. The grinding, metallic hum of his image intensified until he exploded outward, throwing himself directly toward two of the most intact columns from the Swacc Family. The heavy golems pivoted to face the new threats, but Vant charged forward with a single-minded intensity that he had inherent directly from Overseer Helen. He carved a path forward, using the body of the silver-uniformed body of Swacc soldiers as cobblestones.

Raymund reached up and rubbed at his black armband. I hope you are watching, Overseer. Today and forever, we will carry your spirit with us.

Raymund did his best to monitor the situation of Military High Command’s sagging battle lines. Occasionally he activated Fiero’s Audacity to stabilize a collapsing position. Against almost ten times their number, the efforts of the Vulpis Squad were no longer enough to keep the assault at bay.

Occasionally, violence from across the way distracted them; the Swacc Family forces were prying apart the defensive Nether Rituals to attack the Engraving Guild.

Even worse, his eyes kept going to Techetadore, feeling to him like a stranger even though that face was so familiar. Raymund felt sick whenever he witnessed that smirk on his brother’s face. What sights had marred his soul to such an unrecognizable extent? Where did he obtain such an easy power, yet forget the plight of his people?

Perhaps the time he endured was larger than anticipated, but to have that bright and hopeful boy be reduced to this… Raymund gnashed his teeth. The culpability does not lie completely with me, but to see him like this, as his elder brother, I cannot remain idle-

Techetadore unleashed another invisible blast aimed at annihilating the Ghosthound, but the Head Drill Sergeant quickly skated sideways out of the way. Across the battlefield, the forces clashing in the depths of the white dwarf array stilled once more as there was a new pulse of energy from the Pinnacle Seeker making their ascent, despite their chaotic surroundings.

Raymund stilled. Perhaps it was the way that ripple of truth spread out and briefly reframed the battlefield, but he finally understood the aura of familiarity that he sensed around Techetadore. He had missed it before because he had been too focused on the foreground. But if Raymund viewed the whole of the battlefield-

Techetadore sat at the end of a massive, spectral tail that Raymund knew quite well, as the birthright of his people. And once he saw the first one, he saw three others present, two undulating lazily around the edges of the solar array and the other jabbing itself at the Head Drill Sergeant.

With a trembling hand, Raymund activated his Fiero’s Audacity. He reached toward the tails, which represented stolen images, and grasped. There wasn’t even the slightest defense against his touch.

Each tail was independent and although sliding into the essence of the tail was easy, moving the image contained within was exhausting. Refusing to balk at the spine-tingling way his brother was a part of this, Raymund pulled until his head seemed about to split from a throbbing headache.

Congratulations! Your Skill Fiero’s Audacity (L) has grown to Level 303!

And something shifted. The tail ending in Techetadore flickered and died as Raymund seized control of it.

Techetadore froze for several seconds, then began to scream.