“I wish to become more involved in sharing the Hierarchy of Burden for the Ghosthound.”

Raymund Ballast paused in his training and looked up at her. Charlotte Wick kept her gaze firm, trying not to dwell on how rusty and raw her voice sounded, even to her own ears. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to another person; for the past several months, she had gotten away with nods and grunts. All she had to do was participate in training and no one thought anything was wrong.

Even though her recent drawings-

Charlotte quashed that train of thought immediately, afraid something desperate would show on her face. After looking at her for a long moment, Rayumund’s long tongue flicked out and licked his lips. Without answering, he resumed his slow movements through his combat forms. The powerful tendons of his arms bulged, a testament to the strain he endured.

Charlotte felt something black and needy twisting in her heart, but she didn’t push him. The leader of the Vulpis Squad stood in one of the newly erected gravity chambers on the island. Heiffal’s group had been hard at work for the last week carefully drawing the Engraving arrays, copying the original model made by the Ghosthound himself. Even compared to the Hierarchy of Burden, these arrays were painful; not only did they grind down your physical power, but they also reflected any poorly controlled images back on you, making the training process even more difficult.

For a variety of reasons, Charlotte didn’t dare expose herself to image reflection. She knew how that would end; the facade of everything being fine would be torn right down. So instead, she wanted a larger share of the Hierarchy of Burden.

She felt like she was falling behind as the others started using the gravity chambers. And that filled her with fear.

Seeing that Raymund didn’t dismiss her out of hand, Charlotte eventually gave in to her need and spoke again. “Although it is difficult for me to control my body underneath the Hierarchy’s influences, my image is uniquely suited for keeping my recovery fast. The Primal Force I’ve cultivated keeps me healthy even through the radiation. I think I should-”

“Your image has changed recently,” Raymund rumbled, still with his slow and even movements. But what was particularly impressive was that he released not a hint of his image as he spoke. The training here had benefited their leader immensely.

She felt so small next to him. When had Raymund Ballast changed from the awkward Vulpine to this confident man? Why did he sometimes feel so much like the Ghosthound to her that it hurt, because even thinking about the Ghosthound made her remember the sight of Helen’s ribs folded open, like a cruel child playing with a bird’s wings.

Charlotte’s words caught in her throat, both from the image she vigorously tried to suppress and his words. She felt like a fish that had leapt out of a stream and been caught by the tail, mid-jump, by an intent fisherman. She did her best to rearrange those words without allowing the caustic blackness to leak into them. She scrubbed them frantically with her tongue before releasing them. “After… everything that happened, I want my image to be a bit broader.”

“You cannot see Helen anymore, so you draw her with your whole soul into yourself.” Raymund’s low voice hit her like a physical blow. Horrific wings of bone and pulped organ spread wide in a horrid mockery of beauty. Charlotte felt seen and exposed and hated every second of it. “But Helen’s image was one of blood and danger; merging it with your Primal Force… is complicated.”

“It’s the Path I want to walk.” Charlotte’s voice came out in a whisper. Her own image groaned, its nascent bloody wings already formed. But as she spoke, she also remembered Helen’s, glorious and scowling. A memory floated to the surface of her mind.

It was back during their training days, with Helen standing with her hip jutted out. She wagged a finger at a trainee that had just complained about the new gravity chambers for physical training. “Do you know the difference between you and the Ghosthound?”

Helen had jutted her chin out toward the central gravity chamber, the largest one, the one that hummed and glowed with so many layered Engravings that the ground in the staging asteroid began to corrode from the constant grind of power. The one reserved personally for the Ghosthound. Helen’s eyes lit with pride as she spoke. “He walks straight toward hell without flinching. Right or wrong in his methods, he doesn’t hesitate or complain once he’s made a decision. Now, do you want to be… well, fucking you for the rest of your life, or do you want to be like him? The youngest Commander the Nexus has seen in hundreds of years?”

“Fine.”

Charlotte blinked, her awareness still murky with the memory, the aching perfection of Helen. She licked her lips. “Huh?”

“I’ll talk to the Ghosthound.” Raymund’s movements remained even, but she sensed the slightest image fluctuation. He had to grimace and bare his teeth as he stabilized himself, then continued his training. “You will be allotted more of the Hierarchy of Burden. But Charlotte? We lost her too. We all ache to have her gone. If you ever need to talk, just say the word. We are here for you.”

Charlotte nodded, fully knowing she would never take him up on the offer. Not when she thought about what they would say if they ever discovered how papered her personal chambers were with sketches, how she laid on her back and looked at the scene of Helen’s death every rest period until her eyes were bloodshot.

But with her request granted, the Path straight to hell laid out before her, she turned and left him. She returned to her own training area and threw herself into the activities, finding brief moments of numbness during those moments of the harshest training, too exhausted to feel.

In a world where beauty was killed… what is left but to polish your tools of destruction? Charlotte bit her lip. In a painful surge, more of the bone wings forced themselves out of her Primal Force, dribbling gore down its broad back.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

*****

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 625!

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has grown to Level 50!

Randidly finally flinched before the crushing grip of the chill and empty Entropy, deactivating the Fatepiece. He had reached the point where he could endure the Fatepiece’s horrid erosion of consciousness and purposefully deactivate its effects before he succumbed; recently, the trainees on the beach had taken up all of the first layer of the Hierarchy of Burden. Which was a pleasant surprise, because he was growing closer and closer to his next PP Tithe and the resulting evolution of his Endurance Stat.

To push forward now gave him a fair amount of optimism. Even if each attempt left him with a vicious headache.

He sank into his Nether Core, allowing his Penance its due. When he came back to himself, he spread his awareness out through the Nether storm and watched the complex interplay of patterns between his storm, Expira, and the massive Nether Array that he had built within the planet. Every day it grew stronger and more robust, its connections to the population growing and firming themselves.

Watching it integrate itself into the daily lives of the people of Expira, Randidly felt a great many ideas bubbling up for new Nether patterns he could try.

Abruptly, Randidly twitched. His eyes widened and he turned his attention inward.

He had felt the shifting scales of his Nether Core a lot over the past few weeks as he returned to his training schedule, mostly as the nascent Authority within himself continued to shape itself and swim toward the surface. It heaved like a massive shadow, growing limbs and reaching up to haul itself to rip its way out of the gestation of significance in which it now subsisted. Now, suddenly, he was struck by a strange recognition that left him confused.

This authority was the fourth Authority, the one which originated from a mysterious source. And as he ran his fingers across the curves of its shadow, interpreting the Nether equivalent of an ultrasound, it felt so familiar. Randidly could feel its solidity and cool surface as though he had pressed his palm up against it-

Growling softly, Randidly shook his head. How the hell can it feel so familiar, but I don’t remember where it’s from? And should I allow it to continue to grow… or delay its emergence for later?

He studied the grey clouds that hung above the island. Obviously, they provided him with no definitive answers. But they did push his mind in a different direction; for an entirely different reason, Randidly grimaced up at the clouds. Because seeing the deep shadow they cast with curtains of cool rain, he was reminded of something else.

In that sky filled with thick clouds he saw a throne, upon which he could sit. Which took him back to the problem of Yggdrasil’s emotional affect. Or rather not to a problem, but to his discomfort and a solution. He could see a Path forward, but one from which he balked.

Eventually, Randidly came back to himself for one of the most off putting disturbances he had been forced to grow used to during his training sessions; the two Unborn were gnawing at his elbows with their spectral and misshapen teeth, whining that they hadn’t had much to eat in a while. He rolled his eyes and allowed them to drift down to the training happening on the beach, where they would add the spice of existential dread to some training sessions.

He bowed his head in thanks, simultaneously apologizing to the poor trainees.

As they flitted off, Randidly could feel the Stillborn Phoenix’s fondness for them and couldn’t help but snort. Without the distraction, his attention came back to the issue of emotional affect. He felt torn; his current prerogative was to raise his Skill Levels and reach the PP tithe. But he had a growing impulse to follow his suspicion. If he could nail this single affect, he could also advance his time within the Sea of Dreams.

His thoughts whirled around, faster and faster. He had felt that brief moment of alignment when it had all fallen into place. That capacity for raw power was what he had fought against for so long, using his Stats and Nether to make up for the difference. It was his first genuine step toward that tier of image power.

The first time refining an image would be the hardest. Once Yggdrasil’s growth sped up, the rest would naturally fall into place.

Sighing, Randidly sat crossed-legged and readied himself. Just in case, he went again to that place of oblivion for the Penance, just in case he lost track of time. Then his attention went to the minute details of his body, tracing the flow of blood and Nether that animated him. He ironed out the smallest flaws, seeking a circle of perfection within his form. He breathed and the world breathed in answer.

It was a fitting prelude.

Then he sank, following his instincts, until he settled within the core of Expira, sitting atop the massive Nether Ritual that even now continued to sure up its foundations and stretched over a larger sphere.

Randidly’s eyelids flickered as he familiarized himself with the sensation of being plugged so directly into the working. Even now, he could feel thin tethers working their way outward to other planets within the Alpha Cosmos, where smaller branches of the same Ritual would eventually be planted. Randidly eased the tension and removed the film of Nether he used to limit his awareness. His skin buzzed for several seconds before he lost awareness of his body; he became part of the world.

And not just any part of the world. He sat at its helm. His body rumbled with the shift.

Even now, the prospect made him shiver slightly. He wondered if this was the right choice, to live so directly in step with the Alpha Cosmos. But at the same time, that he knew it was a mistake not to make these connections wholistic. In a very literal way, his body was the Alpha Cosmos. To ignore that relationship was to ignore the voice of his own body.

In a way very similar to his previous metamorphosis past humanity, the Nether Ritual provided a framework to connect his mind and his body and lifted him to be an entirely different sort of entity. The Nether Ritual primarily gave something to the people of Expira, but that didn’t mean there weren’t perks for him.

In that dark core of the world Randidly sat, ruminating on the power and privilege that his position afforded him. He held onto that distinction; a duality existed in this change. He looked at Expira and said yes, accepting the good and the bad into him. He opened himself up and drank from through the connections.

The World Tree sipped, his veins shining with a golden light.

In his image space, the small sapling steadily grew up, its bark darkening and bursting with emerald leaves. And slowly, he found the precarious balance between aloofness and empathy that he needed to be so much more than a single person.

His Nether Core spun, significance coming in eager waves, pooling and swirling into a monstrous whirlpool of meaning. Flames of Nether Weight flickered across his skin, tempering the connection.

He released a breath and the world sighed with him.

There were, perhaps, other choices. Randidly’s eyes opened. Flames of emerald and grey fought in his irises, significance warring with the growing magic of his body. But this choice is mine.

*****

In the inner sanctum of the ant colony, next to an elaborately made rendition of a bowling alley, the ant princess paused in her actions. She set the bowling ball down and bowed her head, remaining there for as long as her god looked upon the world.

The air hummed with the god’s breath and the ant shivered in ecstasy.