After a two hour slugfest with the Dusk Jackal, Randidly finally raised his hands and conceded the duel. The gathered Pinnacle Seekers clapped politely, even if the duo had stopped using their images an hour and a half ago. Randidly then drifted across the Nebula in the opposite direction of the departing Wind Scythe and her apprentices. He wondered how problematic it was for them to travel the old-fashioned way due to the deactivated Nexus Ways.

But even if they could use the teleportation formations, these individuals assisted an enemy of the Nexus in stealing a valuable artifact, Randidly thoughts had to pass through steel wool to drift up to the surface of his consciousness, but he forced himself to consider. Would they be bold enough to take the Nexus Ways? Considering the Nether King kept that ritual up constantly to hide, I doubt resisting the Nexus is as easy as he makes it look…

Also, how did the Don depart so quickly? And why did he bother to bring me along if he could travel so quickly?

Randidly allowed his bruised body to be pulled down into the atmosphere of a grey gas giant, wondering if he was going to regret this. The thick fumes of the planet sizzled against his skin, but the fizzing wasn’t to the point of being uncomfortable. Besides, it was really due to the Frost Matriarch that I got dragged into that situation. The Don probably improvised on the fly to try and sell my Nether Core once I was here, but why would the Frost Matriarch want that to happen…?

He sank deeper and deeper into the grey gases, feeling the temperature rise as he did so. Eventually, the gases around him occasionally felt partially liquid as he submerged himself, making his skin tingle. Sulfur gurgled with pleasure despite the strange surroundings, already using the significant kinetic energy it absorbed in the fight to improve itself.

At least someone enjoyed that ‘duel’, Randidly thought sourly. His body just felt like it had been forced to endure the trials of his own day and serve as the punching bag for the Dusk Jackal’s frustrations.

The density of the surrounding gases/liquids eventually reached the point that his movements slowed, then stopped. Between pressure and gravity, an equilibrium had been reached. The thick environment roiled and oozed around his skin, but Randidly had pushed himself too far to reach this relative safety; at this point, any port would do. A sigh escaped his lips and his consciousness was gone, finally shutting down.

Blessedly, he didn’t dream.

When Randidly came back to himself, the high temperatures of the gas giant had become almost comfortable. Floating here was vaguely like being in a suspended sauna. His muscles were rejuvenated and humming. He looked down at his red skin and flexed his hand. Space popped and cracked from the abrupt display of force.

Feeling inordinately pleased by the display, Randidly twisted and earned another small triumph: almost his entire spike creaked and cracked after the long period of inaction. That suggestion brought Randidly’s focus to Absolute Timing. An acceptable fourteen hours had passed since he dragged himself away from the battle against the Dusk Jackal.

He yawned and stretched. Feels like that little nap did me a lot of good. Alright, back to work...

Randidly activated Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart and catapulted himself out of the gas giant, enjoying the massive eruption he produced when his accelerating body broke the surface and dragged some of the atmosphere with him. The heavy grey gas left him in streaming trails, clinging to his body as though it didn’t want to let him go.

Once back in the gloomy absence of space, Randidly noticed two things. First, something had shifted with his Nether Core. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but he felt quite unusual as his Nether Core began to accelerate back to its usual standby state. Secondly, and more pressingly, the cloaked man with tusks jutting out of his mouth was floating a few kilometers away, observing Randidly’s gaseous birth with a mild expression.

For now, Randidly ignored the first thing and looked at this Pinnacle Seeker who had not yet departed the area around the grey nebula. Taking this as an invitation, that individual flew closer.

“Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound,” The man said formally. “Please, forgive me for lurking here until you had recovered. I am the Wanderer. I wished to introduce myself and give you a few pieces of advice, considering your… current circumstances.”

“My what?” Randidly said sharply. His reinvigorated mind locked onto the word circumstances. Suddenly, the vision of the Nether King adroitly siphoning off a portion of his Nether and testing it became extremely sinister. Was it possible that the Nether King had already infected his Nether Core somehow? Or even worse, had Randidly been deemed too shallow because the Nether King had tested him, and his current discomfort was evidence of his failure-

“We may be a loose group, but the Pinnacle Seekers gossip. Commandant Wick killed one of your subordinates, yes? Spectacularly. And you have connections with Pinnacle Seekers and the Rexes. You are politically unique, which is part of the reason that Military High Command has given you certain jobs and will likely never let you do others. If you dream of becoming a Commandant, I would advise you to reevaluate your future.” The Wanderer folded his arms. “I just wish to say that these ancient beings do not like stories they don’t understand. Do your best to make sense to them, if you wish to have time to develop. Otherwise, they will try to fit you into their own stories”

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In a way, the Pinnacle’s Seeker’s words were a relief. Randidly’s weird paranoias about the state of his Nether Core fell away. But it immediately brought his attention back to that yawning abyss of grief that Helen’s absence has left.

Randidly closed his eyes for several seconds and just let himself feel. His emotional potency had returned, making his rage and hatred simultaneously burn and freeze his inner self. But he endured both of them. And for the first time since he had seen Helen’s mangled corpse, left for him to find as a cruel message, he truly felt that he could endure through this.

Make sense to them, huh, Randidly reflected as he opened his eyes. His eyebrows scrunched together. Well, maybe that’s a good point. Thinking about my current actions… don’t I seem like I have some terrorist sympathies…? I’ll need to research the timing, but it might be a good opportunity to head to that Grand Pattern summit…

Still, Randidly shook himself and gave the Wanderer another look. “...you stayed here for half a day just to tell me that?”

To his surprise, the Wanderer smiled. His tusks stretched his lips wide and displayed an impressive set of teeth. “Ha, well, that and to meet you. You might be a part of Military High Command, but I know the look in your eye; it’s been a long time since I’ve met someone who epitomized the spirit of the Pinnacle Seekers as well as you do.”

With that rather complimentary pronouncement, the Wanderer stretched out his hand. Randidly shook it. Then the Wanderer shrugged. “Besides, I do not have the mysterious means of the Nether King or the legendary Citadel of Beigon, which allows the Don to return to his domicile from any location in the Nexus. When I must travel a week through abandoned space just to reach the nearest world that receives an Aether tithe, what is half a day of waiting?”

“...would you like some help traveling?” Randidly asked awkwardly. Ideally, he wouldn’t allow word to spread about his ability, especially after the Wanderer just admitted how much Pinnacle Seekers gossip, but the Wanderer had witnessed him bringing Don Beigon to the meeting place. There didn’t seem to be any point in playing coy now.

The Wanderer chuckled. “That would be much appreciated. Oh, there is one more thing I can offer you; I overheard the Wind Scythe talking to the Nether King while we were waiting for the Frost Matriarch to show up at the meeting place. She had asked to see the Skull of Truth. The Nether King shook his head and replied with a single word. Poisonous. Not that your relationship with the Don seems close, with the way he tried to pin the blame for the Frost Matriarch on you, but if you get the opportunity… be wary of the Skull of Truth. I doubt the Nether King would lie to Wind Scythe. Not after the risk she and her people have taken by helping him.”

Randidly kept his thoughts to himself and opened a portal for the Wanderer to the edge of the Fifth Cohort. When he was finally alone in that desolate corner of the universe, Randidly sat in a meditative position and floated through space.

So many different things demanded his immediate attention. Too much information had been cascaded onto his unsuspecting face in the past twenty-four hours. But his first order of business was the strange sensation in his Nether Core. During the talk with the Wanderer, he had gradually grown used to the strangeness; just like having a cast across an arm to set a broken bone or feeling the unusual pressure of a new haircut would gradually be accepted as natural. But the fact that a change had occurred without his knowledge still left Randidly unnerved enough to dig into the sensation for answers.

What he found earned a bark of laughter. He reached up and scratched his head. “The Nether Core is literally the nucleus of me. And I’ve had all these improvements in my Nether density, my significance, plus the extra Weight I got from the Nether Ritual in the Rex book over the past few months… but I couldn’t really consolidate those gains with my mind, emotions, and images running constantly. Was I like a computer that needed to restart for the updates to be completed?”

Once he sensed the manner of the shift, Randidly could easily identify the noticeable improvements both in the stability, uniformity, and flexibility of the energy. He took almost ten minutes just splitting and rejoining Nether flows seamlessly, finally getting an inkling to how the Nether King could so effortlessly subdue his Nether senses, even while his eyes could clearly see what was happening.

Will I have to do this again in the future? I’ll need to keep it in mind. Plus, I need to remember to return to Expira for the significance pooling around the physical core… haaah, they should be done with the Calamity now though, right…? Recalling the chaos-filled state of his home planet made Randidly’s stomach flip back and forth.

Luckily for him, just as soon as he began to panic about the unleashed Calamity, Neveah’s consciousness reached out and brushed up against his. She released several visual flashes of the recovery efforts along with emotional reassurance. Alana Donal led them to a splendid victory, although there was a little bit of your image that bled through, it wasn’t involved in the final confrontation. Expira is recovering, and cleaning out the remnant monsters gives the Zones an easy goal outside of themselves to focus on.

Randidly cracked his neck. But I assume that isn’t why you reached out?

Why do you assume I’m not here to comfort you? Neveah prodded him back. You might not think you dreamed today, but let me tell you, you’ve been radiating an emotional storm through our connection. Why do you think our Soulbond Level increased so suddenly?

Randidly had no response for that; he hadn’t even noticed that the Soulbond Skill had Leveled. But even so, he waited.

Neveah sighed. Alright fine, yes. Claudette is finally ready. The image refining process is finally done.

Both his flesh hand and the Sulfur one tightened in a weird mix of pride and anxiety. And the result?

The transformation is striking.