Randidly frowned at the sudden announcement. Fiona stiffened at the word barren. Those emotions raged through her body, seeking to expend themselves and destroy. Her image seethed in the air around her, impotent and too amorphous to stand against the blunt hammer of Mimic’s Skill activation.

Mimic trembled too, driven by his own rising tide of emotion. “The worst part is, she knew! How could she not? We were all raised in the Nexus, we know our bodies better than anyone. She was the one to pursue Duulys as a child, sneaking around his family’s estate, helping him escape the confines of the Ambar mansion, exposing him to the rougher and unrefined sides of life. From her, Duulys learned of sloth and indulgence.

“She knew! She plotted and planned, wily and twisted even as a girl.” Mimic leaned forward, really getting carried away in his retelling. “Her small gifts and trinkets were calculated to sway a pure and noble heart. Because Fiona Sithe was and still is a sociopath, that would do anything she could to get what she wanted. She was selfish enough to steal Duulys’s heart, refusing to give him up to any other. Even though her withered loins would doom the Raesham.”

Randidly opened his mouth to respond, but someone else beat him to the punch. His heart warmed to know they were all on the same page.

“So?”

Mimic turned to look at Xershi. A flaring metal liger was completely manifested about his body, clearer and more detailed than Randidly had ever seen it before. Perhaps more than anyone else, the stint on this ring had imparted upon his image quite a bit of clarity. It raised its head and roared a challenge. Xershi sneered. “They were kids. And from what you are saying, Duulys made his own decision. Don’t push all the blame onto Fiona.”

“You wouldn’t understand that stakes,” Mimic snarled.

Xershi laughed so hard he bent over and slapped his knee. “You sound like a cheap melodrama. We don’t understand the stakes? Hey-” Suddenly the metal man’s face became deadly serious. “Are you assuming we crawled out from some heavenly utopia underneath a rock? We all grew up in the Nexus. Don’t talk to us like we don’t know the stakes.”

Through the Nether Ritual between them, Randidly felt significance rapidly spiraling within Xershi’s image. The metal liger deepened as it stalked forward, the presence of a whole, violent lifetime of struggles filling its shape. Its gleaming tongue slithered out across its teeth.

Yet Mimic wasn’t impressed. “Pah, you new bloods, given a platform by Elhume’s working, would not understand the constant threat the ancient races faced. We had to constantly prove ourselves, lest we get left behind. To prevent a flood of a new race in a new Cohort from annihilating everything we had built.”

Xershi pressed his lips together, clearly tired of this discussion. In the fraction of time before his companion pounced, Randidly sensed the violence of his emotions. Opposite it, Fiona’s wild storm calmed slightly. A hint of thankfulness sparkled in her heart.

Then the fight resumed. With a burning fury seizing him, Xershi launched himself toward Mimic. The Skill-user shook his head. “Whatever, your lives are worthless. Mana Bolt-”

Randidly was there, his arm looping around Mimic’s and forcing his wrist upward. The powerful Skill seared Randidly’s hand, but the discharge shot straight upward without harming anyone. Mimic blinked in shock but rapidly recovered. Randidly slammed his fist about where Mimic’s kidney should be, but once more crunched his body against an overwhelmingly powerful Iron Skin.

If nothing else, the bastard had quick reactions.

Mimic twisted in place. His leg rose up in Xershi’s direction. The movement was familiar. “Roundhouse Kick.”

Randidly belatedly threw himself forward, crashing into the white light that Mimic released with just a kick. A faded shard of an image it might be, but this common Skill became a destructive energy blast when all the Skill Levels of Mimicked Activation were thrown behind it. Randidly tumbled backward, enduring the force but still displaced by it. Sulfur crooned in satisfaction, taking most of the force.

Xershi ripped into that opportunity with silver claws. His sharp image hacked at Mimic’s Iron Skin, with enough intensity that it sliced through. A large gash finally appeared on Mimic, ripping open his suit and releasing a spray of blood onto the ground.

Xershi landed and twisted around for another attack, but Mimic had recovered. He raised his leg and drew a small circle with his foot. “Storm Kick Flurry.”

The unfamiliar Skill created about a dozen furious tornadoes of force around Mimic's leg. These blasted outward in curving lines, aiming to grind Xershi to dust between the jaws of the manifested wind. But Randidly was there before the attacks landed, gripping Xershi lightly and tossing him to another platform. Then he turned around and rapidly tried to steal enough kinetic force to condense a small storm and cause spatial collapse in the air directly in front of him, neutralizing the force of these Skills.

Randidly released a pained grunt as a kick knocked the wind out of him; he didn’t quite make it in time. The force of the attack drove him down, crashed him through an empty stone platform, and eventually spiked him into the lava. The heat was not as bad as he imagined it would be. He was a very different person from the time he had been knocked into the lava underneath a burning sun on Tellus.

After rolling his shoulders, he kicked his way out of the molten stone and leapt back up to land next to Fiona. Mimic frowned down at Randidly. He waved a hand and recovered his torn suit. “You… tch, what a hassle you are turning out to be.”

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“I need an opening,” Fiona said quietly to Randidly’s back. Her emotions were still raging, but they now flowed with a clear purpose. Desire gave her emotions the momentum to intensify the shape of her image. Fiona had always demonstrated very clearly her power, but this new focus sharpened everything into a deadly edge. The air hummed with her power. “You can endure the Skills head-on, we can’t. But also, your images aren’t enough to damage him. So just… keep him still, however you can. I’ll handle the rest. Pullas and Xershi, help Randidly get close.”

Randidly opened his mouth to say that he probably could hurt Mimic with enough Nether, if he could get within that harsh Nether barrier around the man, but ultimately shrugged. Fiona was right, it wouldn’t be easy alone. He would need the right sort of strike to create a weakness in his Skills and then would need to unleash a pure blast into his body to cripple him. After all, Mimic didn’t rely on images directly to wield power.

If anything, what fueled his vicious strikes was the System. A single lever of the System-

And framing it like that made Randidly realize he actually had a very easy way to restrain this foe, so long as he was close enough. So long as he pierced through that Nether barrier.

“Also, if you fuck up, I’ll be completely defenseless and probably die,” Fiona said. Then she giggled, pure and amused with herself.

“Even if he fucks up, I’ll protect you.” Xershi flexed. Pullas rolled her eyes.

Mimic smirked down at them all and put his hands on his hips. “Obviously, I can hear you. Well, struggle all you want. In the end, none of it matters. Mr. Ghosthound might be creepily persistent in the face of my threats, but the rest of you are not. Frost Nova.”

As always, Mimic’s Skills balloon outward with an absurd amount of power, considering the Mana investment. Even now, Randidly could barely believe the force behind these basic Skill activations. His three companions shifted behind him while he accelerated the flow of blood and Nether through his limbs. A blast of chill air washed over him. Within a split second, his body was covered in a thick layer of frost. Bits of snow drifted through the air.

Randidly almost laughed when he moved and cracked the ice off of him without much difficulty. Of course, the expansion is dangerous, but there’s no lingering image of chill to restrict-

“Thunder Crash,” Mimic raised his arms and pointed. The sky instantly darkened. The frost began to melt on his body, but a massive neon-yellow dragon bared its fangs and rushed down toward the platform on which they all stood. Randidly’s pupils dilated at the sudden threat.

And if you fuck up, I’ll be completely defenseless and probably die… yea, I know this feeling. We do all know the stakes.

He took a deep breath, drawing not only with his lungs but also with his images. Energy flooded into his body. He kept most of that sipping from his allies, but not all of it. At the moment, Randidly needed the kinetic force. His Grey Monarch’s Authority rose within his body, settling onto his hands. He looked upward, his fingers stretched out to catch the crashing dragon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 813!

Congratulations! Your Skill The Grey Creature Glimpses Providence (P) has grown to Level 794!

Right before the Skill landed and discharged its deadly burst of current, Randidly’s hands accelerated with such force that he tore space. He created a bowl of torn space to tie around the lightning. The Skill smashed downward, even as Randidly utilized the understanding he had earned with his Hierarchy of Burden to crease and destabilize the energy into spatial cracks.

His hands twisted sharply like he was cracking the neck of a chicken.

The attack vanished. Pullas and Xershi launched themselves into the air, both mobilizing their images. The giant liger and the fuzzy figure of a good death streaked across the sky to surround Mimic. The well-dressed man frowned. “Well, it’s not like I don’t have other methods. Drain Life.”

Randidly’s expression flickered; with how many Skill Levels Mimic possessed, it was a dangerous attack. Midair, Xershi went pale. Very visibly, streams of Health abandoned Xershi’s body and flocked to Mimics. With a leap, Randidly caught Xershi’s body and pumped energy into the fading metal man with his Fourth Authority: Animation Nova and through Yggdrasil’s Plasm Animus. When image wasn’t enough, he gladly paid in his own Health to stabilize Xershi’s condition.

Meanwhile, Pullas screamed in rage and denial. Her eyes glowing with an unnatural golden sheen, she raised her hand and cut. It was a denial and it was a demand of retribution. A slash of golden light flickered toward the subject of her ire.

With as much gentleness as possible, Randidly tossed Xershi’s body down and caught it with some roots on one of the stone platforms.

“Mana Barrier,” Mimic activated his Skill and created a thick and spectral wall in front of the attack. But his eyes bulged in disbelief when the intensity of Pullas’s emotions meant the blade cut through everything and severed his left leg at the knee.

By the time Mimic slapped his palms against the ground, Randidly was next to him, only two meters away. He had pierced right through the Nether barrier. Mimic’s head ripped around and he bared his teeth. “Fireball-”

The First Authority, This close, the weird defenses Mimic possessed didn’t affect him. Randidly raised a hand. Seize.

A fireball manifested in the air above Mimic, as large as a swimming pool and hotter than even the revealed lava after the Earthquake. It was a Skill that would have possessed an insane amount of destructive power. Yet now, it was Seized.

The moment stretched as Mimic tried to toss the Skill and found he couldn’t. The control had been confiscated.

Their Willpower’s clashed. The Grey Monarch in Randidly’s body began to laugh, amused at the struggle. Randidly cleared his throat. The Aether construct within his grasp hummed and bucked, but couldn’t escape. “I’d never considered using my ability like this. Images are too vast to contain. At this stage, individuals barely use Skills any longer. And even if I could Seize one of their Skills, they would have others. But not you.”

Mimic stared at Randidly. Animal fear stretched and contorted his features. Fiona landed on the central platform and patted Randidly’s back. “Whatever you did, it stabilized Xershi. Lost a bit of bluster, but he should be fine. Now it’s time for my role.”

She walked with a little extra sway as she approached Mimic. Her smile was as sweet and poisonous as honeyed nightshade. With a flourish, she pulled out that black dagger. “Let’s be frank, Mimic. All the inaccurate sins that you accuse me of committing… that’s a projection. The life you claim I’ve led, the fierce possessiveness and corruption of Duulys, that was the life you wanted, isn’t it?”