Devick pouted as she looked at the empty gulf in front of her. Despite the fact that there was no air, she had no trouble projecting her voice. Small physical impossibilities could be ironed out by a powerful image. “Tsk. How disappointing. Did he foresee that someone would try this, or did someone already head here to destroy this dump? As far as I know, he’s pissed off quite a few minor characters… in that at least, I cannot help but admire him.”

She moodily looked between some distant planets then back at the dust-filled void. A few broken bits of stone tumbled through the weightless area, but otherwise, there was nothing of note. She checked the stolen Nexus records again: this was where Expira should be located in the Seventh Cohort.

Perhaps he had taken advantage of the current outage in the recording portion of the System? Her estimation of him rose a few notches.

“Truly, the value of a man can be determined by the sheer number of his enemies,” A ghost of a smile came across her face, brightening her visage and crinkling the corners at her eyes. In those infrequent moments of warmth, some of her pure beauty showed through, even edged as it was with a crusty rind of madness. Then she pouted again. “But what should I do? Threatening his home planet would have solved everything so simply. Now… hwaaaah...”

An obnoxious yellow planet entered Devick’s field of view. Her lip curled up and she flicked her fingers; a continent-sized chain sprung from the void and drilled into the core of that plant. Massive rusted spines forced themselves deeper and deeper, blasting apart stone. After it had lashed around and destroyed the interior, her image pulled back and left the unsightly rock hollow. After a few seconds, broad swaths of that planet’s core began to collapse.

Two emotions warred in her chest. First, the rage and frustration as she felt the bindings she had left in Wick coming to pieces. The sensation of her son unraveling pressed against her, urging violent reprisals. She had initially wanted to charge right over and force the misbehaving Ghosthound into line by squeezing him until he conceded or died. However, something else rose in opposition to it: fascination. Despite the fact she knew she should be infuriated, the fact that Randidly Ghosthound managed to routinely frustrate her was a blooming rose garden of delights. Especially since each time he did it in a new way.

Surprise felt foreign and novel, to Devick. Due to their logical interactions, she felt a resentment for the Ghosthound. But at the same time, her seething sea of madness cooed and loved him with all its heart.

Devick let out an aggrieved sigh and shook her head ruefully. “Being a parent is so difficult. Yet what can you do? We are family. I suppose I can put up with these small misbehaviors.”

The unfortunate planet that had caught her attention continued to rupture and shudder, crumbling away to a drifting field of debris. Bored, Devick left the area and returned to the comfort of her office.

*****

Randidly's Nether Core released threads of spun night, riding the most destructive wave of Nether he had ever unleashed. These destructive currents lapped outward, edged with the spectral flames of Nether Weight, burning a path through the sky and latching onto the surrounding space.

However, the grey clouds belched out by the flesh titan continued to struggle directly against the Nether. Its image was vague and general, so Randidly couldn’t exactly determine its purpose. Yet precisely that general feeling made it difficult for his Nether to burn away. It shifted and seethed, surly and stubborn in front of his force.

But cloud cover was the least of his worries.

The flesh titan stepped forward again, cracking one of the few remaining portions of solid ground in the large courtroom. The rest of the flooring had shattered into gravel and piles of glossy rubble.

Its rust-colored body shuddered again, expanding and contracting with a sickening consistency. Copper spikes stuck out of its shoulders and eyes, but Randidly could also spot the true core of this other image. A bulging spot on its torso, much larger than the ones that housed the weakened spirit, that could only be its heart pulsed periodically, sending throbbing tremors through its body.

This, even before it began to move.

That’s the target then, Randidly crouched slightly and gave Dreadful Alacrity the moments it needed to build up that extra bit of overwhelming speed. The flesh titan hurtled toward him, heedless of his silent preparations. Strike at that heart until Wick grows desperate and displays weakness.

Then slaughter him.

His legs flexed, pressing against footholds that had been strengthened by crafted emotional anchors. Instead of avoiding the powerful flesh titan with its body of organic rust, Randidly accelerated straight forward. Acri hummed, its point seeking at that pulsing weakness.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Vindictive Chimera Smites (M) has grown to Level 420!

Immediately, a shell of copper sprung out of its skin to cover the titan’s torso. The clash’s momentum wrenched Randidly’s wrist and shoulder. Acri’s sharp tip skittered across the armor with a horrible screech, eventually tearing off a portion of the image projection's fleshy shoulder with its force. The titan whirled its arms around to hammer at Randidly’s chest, but he was already moving, ducking sideways under the nearest blow and pivoting Acri’s shaft to slam against the side of the flesh titan’s knee.

The joint snapped and sagged, the bulging joint bursting into gristle and loose skin, but the image folded itself sideways without apparent effort. Its body was contrived. One of whip-like arms slammed down at the back of Randidly’s head, but he was already spinning away. He sucked in a hot breath, the violence and resolve to kill Wick humming a passionate song in his chest.

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The emotional handholds remain firm as he kicked himself up into the air to avoid the flesh titans massive palms and settled Acri in preparation for a thrust embroidered with his hungry desire for vengeance.

But Wick’s copper spikes rip out of the flesh titan’s body, tearing it and sending it howling but also catching Randidly somewhat by surprise. His eyes narrowed and the mantle of the Grey Creature settled more tightly around him. His edges began to blur.

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 555!

Randidly squeezed himself between two of the spikes, taking the opportunity to lance a thrust for the flesh titan’s heart now that Wick had a few less copper spikes to defend. Pressing forward set his skin sizzling from the wild madness and pressure from the image, but Acri’s vicious sharpness carved a path.

Clang!

More copper forced itself out of the flesh titan’s pores, oozing and shaping itself to a thin layering of protective metal. It dented underneath the force he brought, but did not rupture. Randidly pulled the ripples from the crash as he retreated, moving beyond the counter-attack before the flesh titan could catch him.

The titan raised its head and roared, the potency of the image flaring itself and setting Randidly’s teeth on edge. I need more than this to tear through this image power. How about-

Instead of fueling those ripples through the storm, Randidly pulled them directly into his body. Tension crackled through his muscles. In a way, the storm continued to churn with its same force, built upon a foundation of Nether. Just now, the storm was within his body. His Nether Core spun, settling itself into a role as the engine once more.

The flesh titan continued its mad roar with such force that flecks of spittle tumbled out of its maw. Copper metal flowed down around the titan’s ankles, strengthening the joint and allowed it to step sharply forward. It waved a massive palm but Randidly swayed around it, breathing out the rumbles of the compressed storm as he moved.

The physical discomfort was well within acceptable stages and he definitely benefited from absorbing the energy. Above, the grey cloud image darkened, proliferating against the abandoned outward Nether storm until it swirled through the massive room as the dominant weather pattern. Below, Randidly continued to push himself, striking with Acri again and again.

His strikes inflicted shallow cuts up and down the flesh titan. Some even severed its thin limbs, but it always created more.

Even with the extra force, it was not easy to press through the image potency. The air was thick with the smell of long-forgotten corpses. That buzzing intensity of the flesh titan image lodged itself in Randidly’s throat and made it difficult to breathe. The strikes of the rusty colored monster shook the air with their power; Randidly’s ribs twinged sympathetically at each strike he managed to avoid. But he forced himself forward, just like he had with every other hurdle that had appeared in front of him. His eyes burned as he wove between the attacks and lashed out with Acri time and time again.

So if that heart is the core of the flesh titan, Acri's tip seemed to race across a metal plate seeping out of the thing’s torso, the defensive barrier manifesting itself only a small fraction of time before the strike ground up the surface. The frequency of his strikes rose, until he inflicted more damage around that image core. Then Randidly abruptly fled, unleashing the heavy burden of gravity in order to avoid getting lashed by its flexible arms. What is the vulnerable portion of Wick’s image?

Knowing him- Randidly sucked in a deep breath. More ripples became raw power that he forced through his body, supercharging his movements to contain a hundred tiny servings of extra power. It wasn’t the same sort of overwhelming image he struggled against, but it was something. -that core is safely within the flesh titan. So I’ll just need to drag it out.

He planted a foot. He accelerated faster than he ever had previously. Acri ripped into that targeted bulge, sinking a few inches before copper rapidly congregated and forced him to a stop with a grating shriek of metal on metal.

Then he withdrew, choosing a new method. But thick clotted blood gushed from the flesh titan.

For a split second, Randidly’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips. The image physicalizations of the Grey Creature lengthened the appendage enough that the tip flicked out in the air as he did so. He could practically taste the opportunity he had been waiting for. All he needed to do now was force open his weakness.

He flickered forward, moving as fast as he had seen Devick traversing the ground in his body. Finally, it seemed the flesh titan realized it couldn’t rely on its basic swipes to attack. And rather than simply continuing this inefficient method, as its claims of wanting to die should encourage, it once more shifted its body. It grew almost twenty long and thin arms out of its back, each edge in a sharp copper hook. These wriggled forward, trying to hamper Randidly by sheer dint of their numbers.

His heartbeat, steadily aligning itself with the maelstrom he contained inside of his body. He moved Acri so quickly that the weapon left blurred afterimages in its wake. He shredded several of the feeble bits of stretching flesh but then grimaced as they curled in on themselves and toward his back.

Maybe someone else you’d catch like this, but right now…

Congratulations! Your Skill Grit of the Ascendant Bane (T) has grown to Level 553!

-Right now, I’m untouchable. Randidly blasted back a few more tentacle arms and unleashed a flurry of attacks on the flesh titan’s torso. The storm inside of his body made his flesh hum. Copper seeped to the surface of the image projection’s skin and it only made Randidly slam Acri forward with more vigor. Those clanging impacts released raucous stampedes of ripples that were then gathered and used to add an extra bit of punishment to his movements.

The flesh tentacles spun around and ripped toward him, but Randidly was gone. He landed on the other side of the flesh titan in an explosion of dirt and splinters, already blurring into a gleaming torrent of attacks.

This time he carved several deep lessons into the titan’s skin as it wheeled around. With naked physical force, he tore out large chunks of flesh from the image and left them squirming on the ground. The copper armor struggled to switch places and the torso produced more flesh hooks-

Randidly crashed in from a new angle, his chest heaving, his emotions heaving, Acri crying out sharp delights as it dug into the flesh. More and more copper seeped to the surface and Randidly’s Grim Intuition traced out some of the energy flows through the copper. He could sense the core areas. As long as those came to the surface-

But as he learned more about the copper, Randidly’s long tongue tasted a new truth. The knowledge curdled bitterly on his tongue and he skidded to a stop. This copper image… is not Wick.

The flesh titan sighed. “Let me die.”

Above, as though it had been waiting just for Randidly to make this realization, the grey cloud cover churned. With just a small shift, the dour clouds turned into thick lines of binding. The influence Randidly had ceded to the clouds as he shifted his storm inward came back to bite him; for a split second, he was totally bound.

A blast of annihilation and oblivions bypassed his physical form and slammed into Randidly’s psyche.