For about three minutes, Randidly, Pullas, and Xershi stood back with their arms folded while the fight raged. Fiona blasted her way through the weakly manifested waves of Yuroach’s clones, the insect-head still reeling from having all his Aether sucked away. She was a god incarnate, violence given free rein to rampage.

A boom echoed out as one of her kicks effectively leveled a small stone ridge.

Yuroach’s body tumbled like a ragdoll, smashed backward by a Fiona that very gleefully took advantage of the extra Stats fed through the tattoo. She flickered from one position to another, gradually growing accustomed to the extra oomph to her strikes and movements. She left small craters in her wake, the footsteps of a giant evidencing her fury. Yuroach retreated further, out of the zone affected by the Stillborn Phoenix tattoo. He took refuge amongst the ranks of his clones, his image gradually beginning to recover.

However, this just gave Fiona the opportunity to unleash her own image on him. The seduction sighs and whispers of taboo slithered outward from her bright eyes. Amongst the mass of Yuroachs, some began to twitch and swell, their bodies turning an angry red. Veins pulsed along their temples. These forbidden mutations roared and aimed their aggression at their creator, destabilizing the solidarity of Yuroach’s image from within.

With these turncoats rampaging through the ranks, Fiona could once against blast forward through the defensive groupings and drive her fist into Yuroach’s chest. His body bounced off the ground, his mandibles frantically clicking as he twisted midair and tried to stabilize himself.

Yet the fight continued to drag longer and longer. Fiona’s hits on Yuroach grew more infrequent, the effect of the tattoo dissipated. The ground remained bleached, but energy once again flowed in the space. Fiona clashed against his wide unified image, but gradually it once more began to fill the surrounding environment. Having owned this wing for a long time, it appeared the insect-man had a natural advantage.

The sky began a grappling match of two well-developed images with titanic power. Yet the momentum began to slide the other way.

Even from here, the collisions between the two powerful images buzzed against Randidly’s skin. The depth and solidity of Yuroach’s just happened to be a little more ponderous. It was quite well suited to this sort of struggle, where it could function offensively while also buffering against Fiona’s more insidious image. Randidly clapped his hands to ready himself. “Alright, let’s not just watch any longer. We don’t want to linger here all day. Or let Fiona hog all the fun again.”

Pullas nodded and Xershi grinned. Already, the massive metal liger shimmered in the air behind him. The three accelerated forward to join the fray. Some clones immediately wheeled to face the trio. Even as Yuroach slowly got the upper hand against Fiona, the ring owner pivoted smoothly and deployed columns of his clones to slow them down.

Xershi’s real body sank into the massive image projection, a sleek metal predator that rampaged happily through the troops. Every swing of its claws bisected limbs and pulped torsos. Pullas moved behind him, the pale light of her perfect death swaying as it moved forward. Randidly noted that her image was being refined quickly, as well: it now bore a soft smile on the fuzzy face of death. The clones touched by her image began to wither at a visible pace.

She’s moving quickly through image fulfillment, and in the best place in the Nexus to practice images, Randidly thought. I wonder how powerful she will be at the end of our journey…

He shook his head and focused on his own opportunity. He hung back while the other two carved a path to assist Fiona. The remnant troops that hadn’t been obliterated by the other two turned to face Randidly, their faces showing not the slightest response to the deaths of their companions. Their soulless unity meant that if all of them hadn’t died, none of them had. He waved a hand and both bodies and stone became roots, lashing back and forth to smash them.

Congratulations! Your Skill the First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 892!

…however, the results made Randidly scowl. The clones fought his roots to a standstill, even as he added more and more. Their weapons hacked into the manifestations and two working together could obliterate the grip of his image.

His Skill was powerful, but even empowered with his Yggdrasil image, he was only barely keeping up with a portion of Yuroach’s solid image of unification. On this front, he still had more ground to make up against the elite of the Nexus. He added the glowing life of Yggdrasil’s Plasm Animus to the roots to give them some extra hardiness, but the slight edge wasn’t enough to push forward.

Well, I didn’t want to go in that way anyway. Randidly squinted at the chaotic melee that erupted as Xershi arrived on the scene just as Yuroach had finally cornered Fiona. The insect-headed man shifted his focus, his powerful image lashing backward and stumbling the massive metal liger. The huge impact resonated in Randidly’s bones and made him rock back on his heels. His pupils dilated. I just need an opportunity.

Pullas showed up even as Xershi reeled backward, throwing a beam of pale death energy through the tight formation around Yuroach’s true body. It scythed forward, leaving the clones folding and rotting. Fiona reached out and twisted several of these core clones with her image, their eyes turning malignant and resentful of their creator. Yuroach screeched and his heavy image crashed down, physically squishing the turned clones and extinguishing Pullas’s light before it could harm more than a few. The formation around him began to shift to deal with so many threats.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Gotcha. Randidly’s eyes flashed. He planted a foot. His living spear slithered out into his hand. He released a steaming breath through his nose. Wicked Waltz of Tartarus. The Vindictive Chimera Smites. Darkness Withers the Horizon and the Waiting Carrion Grins.

Randidly stepped, mobilizing all of his Primordial Nether Juju and Dreadful Alacrity. Stats were important, but so were the long hours of practice. It was one thing to have that potent capability lurking within this remade body, it was another entirely to utilize it at peak efficiency, pushing him just a little further into the realm of impossible.

Just like with Synechdochence, your Stat ‘limit’ could be overcome by synergistic movements.

He blazed through space at such a speed that he left a trail of dangerous instability curdling and bubbling for a split second behind him. Some clones even reacted to the presence of this visible distortion, turning in confusion as Randidly vanished and left a bright wake of ripples.

The cruel carrion of the World Tree raised its head and mockingly cawed at these idiotic automatons. That sizzling spatial remainder exploded, crunching the bodies of the nearby clones and raining blades of spatial distortions that blended the rest to paste.

As he was moving, Randidly had a brief moment of insight into himself; weirdly, his advancement through the Hierarchy of Burden was becoming an increasingly important way to improve his power. Not only by strengthening the durableness of his body, but because his Stats had reached such a ridiculous height that they could rip apart space. And the Fatepiece guided him, step by grueling step, through what space being rent felt like.

The more he experience and understood, the more his own impression of what his powerful body could do would strive toward legitimacy. Beyond even affecting the image itself, mastering the Fatepiece would give him access to a wickedly destructive blade with just his body.

All these thoughts flashed through his consciousness right as Randidly arrived in front of Yuroach, Acri raised. A few clones had been blocking his way and were now partially pasted by his momentum. The remnant pieces tumbled through the air a moment before dissipating, the Aether twisted and broken. The wake of images behind him was only now exploding, so that Yuroach had the slightest inkling of his approach.

The insect head had just begun to turn. Randidly grinned and lanced Acri through the shoulder of their foe. His Nether Core had recovered enough that he had a sizable stream of the energy to gush into Yuroach’s body. At the very least, he wanted to incapacitate this individual for Fiona.

Of course, Yuroach was still an ancient and powerful citizen of the Nexus. Even as the bones of his chest shattered and the flesh blackened from exposure to the caustic Nether, he spun away. His image faltered briefly, but not nearly as much as Randidly expected; in retrospect, it was obvious he had experience fighting on the frontlines against Nether forces. To a greater degree than others Randidly had faced, this man could cope.

As he wheeled around, Yuroach looked at Randidly with blazing eyes; apparently his time on the frontlines had not been filled with fond memories. “Die.”

The whole of his unity and collective effort image gathered itself into a fist and smashed down on top of Randidly. His shoulders slumped and his knees wobbled as his flesh struggled to absorb the impact. Muscles tore and he gritted his jaw so hard a tooth cracked. Even for Randidly Ghosthound, the evolved being who had left the shackles of his humanity behind, the force that Yuroach could wield as he transformed his image into kinetic energy was oppressive.

Yet, that was just it. Only oppressive.

Congratulations! Your Skill Marred Yet Reliable Foundation of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 715!

Congratulations! Your Skill Marred Yet Reliable Foundation of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 716!

Randidly’s whole body trembled, but he raised his head and showed his teeth, broken on and all, to Yuroach. “What, you expected this to kill me?”

Visible surprise flickered across Yuroach’s contenance, even through alien, insectoid features. In the next moment, Xershi crashed forward and lashed out with a bladed paw. The whole of the metal liger was wrapped in Pullas’s pale light of death, resisting the ambient pressure that bled away from the image still suppressing Randidly.

Yuroach hopped backward, but then Fiona was behind him as he was landing. She produced a small grey dagger that instantly registered in Randidly’s senses as dangerous; this was her Fate and it was a powerful one. She slashed at his back, even as Yuroach twisted out of the way.

Perhaps before the attack wouldn’t have landed, but an additional two hundred and fifty of each Stat was a lot in these tight moments. The weapon drew a thin line across Yuroach’s side. Randidly saw several fat drops of ruby blood begin to drip out of the wound as the insect man landed and stumbled. A larger ripple went through his image as he tried to figure out how to escape.

Yet Randidly remained fixated on those drops of blood. They paused at the edge of the wound, steadily turning the same grey color as Fiona’s dagger. Then those drops seemed to turn around and sink back into the wound, spreading her image through Yuroach’s body.

For a second, the insect man just looked at them. Then he turned and fled. Clones threw themselves into a literal barrier to block their pursuit.

Xershi started to prowl after him, but Pullas grabbed his arm. “He is Fienalora’s foe-”

“Really, just call me Fiona,” Fiona groaned and raised a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. “I gave up that name a long time ago, when I failed my family.

Pullas offered an apologetic half-shrug. “-so it is inappropriate to pursue him if she does not wish to do so.”

“If we do not strike now, won’t he just come back and hurt us later?” Xershi frowned. Randidly could practically see the violent emotions pumping through him, urging further violence. Yet it wasn’t as though there wasn’t an appeal to tying up loose ends.

“Not if we climb fast enough,” Randidly said slowly, convincing also himself as he spoke aloud. “Besides, if we linger too long tying up loose ends, we will just be further embroiled in drawn-out fights. I doubt that Yuroach has grown to this age without getting into certain alliances of his own. I don’t think we’d be able to handle two such figures.”

Fiona rolled a hand in agreement, clearly too exhausted to speak; whatever she had done with her Fate, it clearly left her drained. Xershi begrudgingly accepted that and the group began to move. Randidly didn’t really relax until they reached the exterior stairwell and began to climb.

He glanced once behind him, down at the ring owned by Yuroach. An image not yet at the image fulfillment stage, but incredibly solid from long years of honing here in the Sonara. Still not as fearsome as Devick, but there are quite a few powerful figures here.

His eyes swiveled to look forward. …and there is still more distance to climb.