The emotion steadily drained away, leaving him lying in a new environment.

Randidly’s jaw cracked as he painstakingly tried to loosen his locked muscles. The pain faded, but the strain and buzzing sense of being squeezed dry had not, even after quite some time. Behind him the shades flickered, led by the now extremely lifelike-looking Devick. He twisted his stiff neck and investigated the surroundings.

They now had reached a small plateau at the top of the sacred Mountain. In front of him, a low slope covered in quite a few extremely small mounds led up to two jutting pillars of stone. Those pillars leaned together to form a passage from which thin tendrils of mist emerged. Even looking at it, Randidly felt something strange about that passage; the mist exited and curled like stiffening fingers.

Weirdly, Randidly could relate to stiffness right now.

His eyes scanned again, looking for anything else. Unfortunately, the mist obscured the path upward. All he could see was the foreground. The last, small rise to the true summit. The strangely lumpy terrain. And above them, the inner workings of the Grand Pattern churned and spun for all to see and study.

But at the moment, Randidly was more concerned with getting his body back to working shape. He rolled and groaned. Another batch of physical suppression, huh? This feels like… 90%. So only 10% of my Stats matter for the last portion. For a lot of people, this basically breaks them back down to before they have a Class.

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 509!

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 421!

The strangeness of having his physical prowess reduced combined with the remnant aches and pains of an overstrained body and Nether Core meant that his recovery was quite slow. His confused Uncommon Metabolism worked in fits and starts. Randidly felt his sluggish blood and stabilizing Nether pumping through his limbs. However, the Nether he still had was relatively thin; surviving that last blast of emotions had drained him of nearly everything.

Sighing, Randidly pushed himself to his feet. The shades looked down at him, pity written in large letters across their face. To fill the silence, he said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand. Why did the imprint fail so catastrophically?”

To his surprise, an answer came from directly to his right. “Because the Master is flawed. He is imperfection incarnate.”

It took him a few seconds to swing himself around, but when he did, Randidly’s eyes widened. Next to him, with shadow-colored hair to her shoulders was the shade of Devick that he had encountered in the Third Step. “You-” His eyes flicked back over to the other Devick, who had crimson hair down most of her back. “How are you…?”

“That’s just how immense our potential is,” The short-haired Devick said with a smirk. But then the smile slowly faded as she turned to look at the summit. “I’m a remnant that regressed to the Devick we had been before we came to this place. She is the Devick of the present. And up there, right in front of the pillars- well, I’m sure you can guess.”

A Devick of the future? Randidly mused. Then he shook his head and immediately regretted the violence of the motion. “But why does that imperfection hurt you? Isn’t everyone imperfect?”

“You foolish whore. What are you doing here? Return to your Step.” The long-haired Devick stomped forward, the air burning with the vicious scowl she aimed at the short-haired version of herself. “If you don’t, I’ll show you how much I managed to improve since casting you aside.”

“How much can you really have improved by working with this master,” The short-haired Devick eyes flashed. “Compared to our talent, that man is-”

“I swear to god I’ll kill you,” The other Devick growled. They both crouched low, ready to fight. Randidly saw patterns stir, ripped by the sudden call of the two Devicks. But as the moment lingered, both of their faces creased with a deep and unavoidable grief. In the end, they turned away from each other without blows. The long-haired Devick spat on the ground.

The short-haired one turned back to Randidly. “True, all beings are imperfect in execution. But in aim, they are perfect. The Master is missing… something. So a baby created from his imprint will also always be missing something. During that first attempt, it was the spark of life that was missed, but perhaps-”

“There were no subsequent attempts with failed man-children,” The long-haired Devick hissed through her teeth. “There was no need.”

Randidly didn’t quite get it, but he supposed it was an image thing. Yet what interested him most was that the implication was that an individual would essentially reach the ‘Pinnacle’ with their very existence. All executions would be failed, but the aim could be perfect.

Which also makes it that much more impressive that Elhume managed to alter a large portion of the population without fucking it all up… Then Randidly shook his head and glanced between the two Devicks. He knew it was possible that his next question would antagonize them again, but Randidly couldn’t help himself. “How did you split like this? You-”

Both of the Devick’s expressions turned strange and Randidly trailed off. They looked toward the stone outcroppings and the mist. That was where the answer lay. Nodding to himself, Randidly began to walk forward. As he expected, a shadow soon developed in front of the entrance to the summit. There, a third Devick sat on her knees, her crimson hair grown so wild and long that it nearly eclipsed her figure. She was just face, arms, and feet poking out from a curtain of hair.

Congratulations! Your Skill Left Hand of the Nether Oracle (M) has grown to Level 467!

Randidly staggered as more Nether gushed from his already drained Nether Core and began to rush toward the kneeling figure; it was another remnant he needed to stabilize. He cursed silently and ceased his approach. After steadying his breathing, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his Nether Core. He marshaled his significance and endured. Shit, three Devicks are going to suck me dry… And in a very uncomfortable way.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Eventually, the flow of Nether abated and Randidly released a gasp. The two Devick’s both smirked knowingly at him, but Randidly could only helplessly sit down and meditate for a while. Considering that they still had to make it to the summit itself, he wasn’t going to move forward while so exhausted.

“You have a Stamina problem,” Short-haired Devick teased as Randidly stood. He ignored her and continued moving forward. More Nether vacated his body and joined the kneeling form, but this time he was ready.

Even though he had prepared himself for a shift, the cackling laughter that escaped the lips of the kneeling Devick caused a hitch in his step. The hair-shrouded figure seemed to levitate up to her feet. There was a strange fuzziness to the surrounding details that Randidly recognized; this was a memory. She cackled again, throwing back her head. A tight bundle of Nether lay on the ground before her, seemingly forgotten. “Fine… fine then. I should have known that relying on others would fail. I was such a fool. I was such a FOOL!”

“Rather than endure this again, it is time to take drastic measures.”

With the last word, an extremely domineering image flared and eclipsed her figure. The shade in front of Randidly split into three. A short-haired Devick watching from the back. A longer-haired Devick standing with her arms stretched wide. A Devick still kneeling, her body completely concealed by her hair. Randidly glanced sideways at the two Devicks he had brought with him, but they were completely inert. Likely, this was their origin.

“We shouldn’t do this.” The past Devick muttered. “This perverts our original aim.”

Present Devick raised her head and laughed. The sounds echoed strangely on this high mountain. The mist trembled with her voice, as though her humor had enough force to become the Grand Pattern.

The Future Devick drew swirls on the ground. “There are no partners worthy of me. So there is only one choice remaining.”

The Past Devick raised her voice. “I won’t be a part of this.”

The Present Devick twisted in place and sneered at her. “Then you can leave. Even if you are us, you are the weakest and most tragic. You have no power to stop us. And if you turn away now, you will be doomed to repeat our failure, over and over again. This is the only way to escape that fate.”

“Do I need to stop you? There is meaning in effort.” The Past Devick countered. She spared a glance for Future Devick, but seeing no change in the swirls, she continued with more confidence. “Just like imprinting on the Master failed, do you think splitting and imprinting on yourself will succeed? The child you create will be even more flawed. There are reasons why we require another-”

“You have chosen your eternal hell. Leave us to ours,” The Future Devick said, without pausing in her swirls. The Past Devick stiffened. But seeing that the Future Devick was serious. She shook her head and walked down the Mountain.

“I’ll find another way,” She called over her shoulder. But neither of the remaining Devicks reacted. Their disbelief was written clearly in their apathy.

When the Past Devick had vanished, the Future Devick stood and turned to the present Devick. “Let us begin. This time… I think we should have a son.”

Nothing visibly happened, but Randidly sensed the shifting Nether between the two Devicks as their gaze locked. There was a strange communion of force and significance between them, but even Randidly could see that something was horribly wrong with the process. The resulting sphere of Nether that manifested in the air and then sank into the Future Devick’s stomach was bulging and collapsing in strange ways. By using the mirrored significance of the same individual-

The strengths of Devick are there. But the flaws become magnified. Randidly observed.

The figures blurred slightly as time accelerated through the replayed memory. Future Devick’s belly eventually grew to the point that it pushed out through her veil of hair. And then-

“Failure,” Future Devick looked dispassionately down at the misshapen flesh she had produced. Her eyes were flat and glassy as she tossed the body to the side. Randidly shivered to feel the desolation that emanated from her; if he could have given that sort of feeling to Claudette, he didn’t doubt she could overcome her father’s machinations. Her emotional force seemed endless. “The body is ill-formed. Let’s try again.”

“Try again?” There was a panicky note to Present Devick’s voice. But Future Devick simply glanced at her. That bleak determination smothered any response. She lowered her gaze and they once more engaged in the imprinting process.

“Failure. These organs cannot support life-”

“Failure. Our image has seeped too deeply into the muscles. It will collapse on its own before it can grow.”

“Failure. This creature will not have consciousness. It is blank flesh.”

Each time the Future Devick endured the gestation and birth dispassionately. Each time she studied the wizened and bloody result and listed why it would not work. Then she tossed the baby to the side, uninterested in it. Steadily, Randidly watched as the hundreds of small mounds were created before the doors to the summit. The movements of the Grand Pattern became jerky and erratic, as though the horrifying ritual wounded the surroundings.

However, that was nothing compared to when Future Devick began laughing.

“Heh, another failure.”

“Failure, hehhahaha.”

“Failure, kekeke-”

This time, the Future Devick paused as though she strangled the giggle with her powerful hands. By this point, the Present Devick had all the light and life leached out of her. Although she had been a clone, the process of imprinting so many times had sucked the detail out of her body and features, until she was nothing but a shade. She didn’t react to the shift in the pattern, even while the Future Devick considered.

After a strained examination, the Future Devick cleared her throat. “This being… physically and mentally fine. However… its soul-”

“His.” Present Devick whispered.

Future Devick shrugged. “Ha! Irrelevant. The soul is quite weak. However, considering the other results, this can be considered the best. With the unique properties of our race, our son can merge his soul with others… and devour them to gain strength.”

“But if the soul is so weak,” Each word cost Present Devick dearly. Although a single imprint cost almost nothing, a hundred in a row had blurred her features beyond recognition. Yet despite that weakness, she persisted, desperate to speak. “What if our son loses the struggle and is absorbed by another? Then-”

Future Devick snorted. “Then we treat the winner as our son. What does it matter who devours who? The one who wins is the one who possesses our potential.”