Randidly’s senses conflicted as he looked at the creature known as Mimic. Nether could find nothing of significance about this being. In terms of depth or history, he felt curious blank. Yet even the Grey Creature growled that this was a dangerous foe. With its eyes toward survival, this enemy was worth noting.

Randidly grimaced; The inconsistency of impression was not a good sign. He drew a deep breath through his nose, finally getting a bit of clarity; Mimic maintained a tight Nether barrier in the area around his body. His Nether Storm would need to be extremely concentrated to slow him down like this.

Either way, Randidly continued to gather small ripples from the conflicting images in the ring and spin them around him. A maelstrom of power churned around his body, ready to address whatever sort of threat erupted from this foe. His images gathered in his limbs, transforming into physicalizations. His hair turned emerald, darkness circled around his left eye, his fingers twisted and sharpened. No matter what, he would be prepared.

“Be careful, Randidly,” Fiona hissed through her teeth. Around them, Pullas and Xershi also fell into fighting stances. “Although you cannot sense his capability, he has mastered all basic-”

Mimic spoke a very familiar phrase in a light voice. As he pointed, he looked almost comically mundane. “Mana Bolt.”

Randidly almost believed he had misheard. Then an eruption of pure annihilation as thick as a tree trunk came from Mimic’s raised fingers. The intensity of the force contained it was beyond the Mana that flowed through everyone, nearing the equivalent of crystalized and volatile Mana. Only a hair of an image existed within the projectile, but the bright color and energy frequency burned itself into Randidly’s retinas. His body shifted, moving automatically to intercept the blast.

While the others took cover, he shielded them. The projectile landed against a swung fist.

To his shock, Randidly was the one buried into the mud by the collision. He hadn’t used any sort of Skill in response, but it had kicked him in the teeth. Groaning, Randidly pushed himself out of the shallow hole in the ground. His body was now covered in splattered mud, but his eyes were sharp as he looked up at Mimic. “You… how high are your Skill Levels?”

Mimic laughed. “I had heard about your great potential, Mr. Ghosthound. To think you would identify the trick so easily. Well, I really don’t wish to fight against you. Please, all of you, step aside and allow me to eliminate Fiona. If you do so, you may pass without any danger to your lives.”

“We are an Ascension Pact,” Pullas responded. Her image of death spread out to become a barrier around the group. “The only way we climb is together.”

Almost indulgently, Mimic looked at Pullas. “True, at least for now. So break the pact. Because is a stranger worth your life? Certainly not this particular specimen. Do you know that an entire race, one of the powerful ancient races, no longer exists because of this woman’s hubris? Her own people, now extinct aside from a few unlucky survivors.”

Randidly rolled his shoulders. Nether began flowing through his body, taken from the area behind him to reinforce him for the current fight against a foe with a positively apocalyptic Mana Bolt. The lion’s share Nether Storm he had left behind to slow down pursuit, but he now pulled all new kinetic energy to feed through into himself. Xershi stepped forward and growled. “Why the hell would you be able to kill people like us? You think we are afraid of some Skill?”

Mimic clicked his tongue. “Fine, have it your way. Leap.”

This Skill, too, was just its basic form with only the slightest hint of a nascent image, but that hint had been reinforced to the point that it became a piece of jagged glass. So many pieces of jagged glass had been bundled together that it became a glacier. Randidly’s eyes bulged, trying to conceptualize how long this being had been inside the Sonara, training only his Skills. Mimic practically teleported, tearing right through Pullas’s defensive death-barrier and arriving at Xershi’s side.

The well-dressed man, still untouched by mud, pulled a fist back to his side. “Heavy- tch, Iron Skin.”

At the last second, Randidly exploded next to him, wild-eyed and covered in dirt. His first slammed against Mimic’s midsection. Yet the powerful activation of even this Skill from Mimic meant that Randidly’s knuckles popped and fractured. The ground shook. All the Nether and kinetic energy dispersed, unable to overpower Mimic’s manifestation.

Randidly took a step back, his hand aching and thoroughly bewildered. How fucking old does this guy have to be to have so many extremely high Skills? They aren’t even just a Mille- I bet this fucker is more around three thousand.

Mimic raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Ghosthound, really, what did you think that would accomplish- hah, seriously? Iron Skin.”

As soon as Mimic began to speak, Randidly twisted around and brought down his Sulfur arm in another strike. Ripples agitated the surface of a nearby puddle as Mimic stoically endured the blow. Sulfur sighed in pleasure, thoroughly enjoying the rebounding force. Randidly struck again and again. Mimic began to frown and sway.

Randidly showed his teeth. Even if its power, the cost in Stamina grows as I apply more force. So I just need to keep tiring you out.

While their target was being (rather ineffectually) pummeled by Randidly, Xershi pounced in from the side. His gleaming metal paws ripped through the air. Mimic tutted at the new threat. “Wave of Force.”

Randidly’s pupils dilated. He whipped his left arm around and slammed his shoulder directly into the Skill activation. Only the faintest wisp of an image was present in the attack, but so much power was mobilized that even Randidly could barely overcome it with his body. Pullas and Fiona both shifted to be behind him, shielding themselves from the omnidirectional blast.

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Meanwhile, Xershi was sent careening away in a rapid mid-air cartwheel.

“How?” Randidly asked as he steadied himself and released a hissing breath through his nose.

Fiona pursed her lips. “You are right to be suspicious. Mimic has not mastered each of these Skills to this degree. He is old, but not nearly that old. He has only a single Skill for which he is named, Mimic-”

“For all I admire about you, Mr. Ghosthound,” Mimic interrupted Fiona’s explanation. She scowled but didn’t continue. Meanwhile, their strange foe adjusted the cuffs of his suit, which had been slightly ruffled by the earlier impacts. The lack of any dirt on the man was really starting to annoy Randidly. “You possess one of the worst cases of pointless diversification that I’ve ever seen. I can see almost uncountable abilities and Skills on your person- how difficult has your journey been, spending so much more time learning to juggle all the different abilities, rather than simply improving the ones you already had?

“True power stems not from variety, but from purity and focus. My entire being has been poured into a single Skill. Oh, I do have other Skills, but I no longer use them; everything funnels through a single point. That is power. Not your… dabbling.”

If it had been anyone else, Randidly would have laughed in their faces at such a harsh judgment of his capability. But after experiencing the Mana Bolt and failing several times to damage the Iron Skin, Randidly simply grimaced. The fact that a few points of Attributes somehow neutralized all his powerful strikes felt bitter.

Against truly top-tier figures in the Nexus, Devick and the like, he would die without question. Randidly reflected. But against everything else, the raw power of a single Skill might be enough to overwhelm them. We took different paths, but we ended up in similar places…

Mimic continued to explain, gesturing elegantly with his fingers. “This ability is called Mimicked Activation. Any Skill that I’ve seen, Rare Rarity or lower, I can use with the full power of my Mimicked Activation Skill Level. Which at this point has become extremely high. I can even peer into you, Mr. Ghosthound. Status Investigate is a Skill I have encountered in the past. So, for example…”

Mimic grinned, delighted by the discovery he had made. He raised a foot and stomped down on the ground. “Earthquake.”

Around them, the world ended. The activation was immediate and violent. The ground heaved and even Randidly was thrown into the dirt by the sudden displacement. The sheer volume of ground moving along with the Skill was monstrous. Based on Randidly’s understanding, Mimic’s Mana was probably draining away at a rapid pace. But due to his area of focus, he probably possessed quite large pools of attributes.

The shuddering kept Randidly off balance for a second, but not for long. A plume of lava bloomed in front of him, out of a sudden crack in the ground. Mud tumbled into the open abysses widened underneath MImic. The ground shook itself to pieces, slowly falling apart and sinking into the sulfurous depths of this ring.

Even his Nether Storm shattered before the massive impact Mimic released. However, it did also mean that pursuit probably wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Anyone trying to catch them would need to wade across the fiery mantle to reach them.

Randidly’s eyes blazed as he looked over at the source of this destruction. Fine, if I can’t beat you with a single Skill and an image, how about three? Volatile Breath from Beyond. Grit of the Ascendant Bane. The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty.

Randidly breathed and whispered. The world leaned closer to listen.

Stone within the ground became roots and those roots spread and wove themselves between the shuddering fractions of ground that hadn’t yet collapsed into the seething lava. Randidly’s Nether Core began spinning rapidly. He Seized all the remaining pieces of ground, creating a network of islands to support each other. With all his powers combined, juggled though they might be, he rode out the high Skill Level.

As the aftershocks began to fade, he looked up toward Mimic. The man, immaculate as ever, stood on a slightly raised pillar. The rest of the hill had collapsed around him from the Skill. Pullas and Fiona were behind Randidly, on one of a dozen lower pieces of ground. Thick stone tendrils bound them, forming two dotted rings around the central point. Smoke ash drifted through the air, off of the fiery arteries of the ground.

Randidly felt like he was in the middle of some imagined boss battle, rather than just trying to cross a muddy stretch of land and leave this place. At the far side of the ‘arena’, he saw Xershi clamoring up the side of a pillar to safety.

Mimic looked around and nodded in satisfaction at what he had accomplished. “What a powerful Skill. I’ll add it to my repertoire. Definitely sends a message, despite the Mana cost. Now, let me ask you again; will none of you step to the side? Fiona… deserves to die.”

“Does he have a weakness?” Randidly ignored Mimic and spoke over his shoulder.

Fiona’s expression was full of hatred. “Well, technically. He doesn’t use any images, except for the small pieces inside of the Skills. Theoretically, this limits his reach. And an all-consuming image can invalidate his abilities. But because of how high his Skill Level has climbed-”

“Only a single Skill, used for an entire lifetime,” Pullas muttered. “Truthfully, I am somewhat envious. Certainly, that seems like an effective method to controlling what sort of death he will eventually find…”

Mimic’s expression fell, clearly hearing their conversation topic. “Hmph, if you wish to gossip, let me tell you a story. The Raesham were a powerful and modest people, one of the few Ancient Races whose exploits echoed positively out across the entire Nexus. They were pivotal in winning the early wars against the Nether-- in fact, it is their predecessors that founded the Xyrt Brigade.”

Next to him, Randidly saw the blood beginning to drain from Fiona’s face.

“However, such successes did not come without costs; their youth were decimated by the war. Many of the major families were wiped out completely. All the hopes of the generation fell to a single war hero who earned an enormous amount of recognition on the frontlines, but more importantly, he also survived and came home. That is Duulys Ambar, the light of my people.”

Mimic’s features began to contort. “Obviously, he could not hold the entire race on his back. Too many had fallen. Perhaps the fall of the Raesham was inevitable, buried so the Nexus could build a higher castle upon this ground. But he could have slowed the descent, given hope to their allies, which would have meant they didn’t betray the Raesham to their enemies at the worst possible times. All he needed to do was have a few children.

“There was a lot of hope, too. After all, it was well known that Duulys Ambar had a childhood sweetheart. Despite the scandal of her being from a common servant’s family, most decided to overlook this detail; the future of the entire race was more important than bloodline. The Raesham were a practical people.

“But there was one problem. This pathetic girl, the one who trapped Duulys’s heart, was barren.” Mimic’s eyes glowed with malice.