Tell lay on the ground, blood on his lips. His eyelids fluttered and each breath was a gasp. The crusher had taken him high in the chest, missing his heart by only a few hairs. His shoulder, however, had been mangled to a pulp. He coughed, his whole body curling with the reflexive action, before speaking. “Look, I know I’m not in a place to make requests… but… If I don’t make it-”

Devick shoved a finger into the wound and twisted, her face serious. Her eyes were oddly dead. “Don’t fool around and get back up. We have a special guest and I don’t want you to make me look like a fool.”

Tell blinked in surprise then winced in pain. He shot a glance at Jawem as he stood, who simply shrugged at the unexpected behavior. His eyes flicked sideways to the stands, looking for a ‘special guest’. The Miracle’s first match had ended in their overwhelming victory. The other team limped off the field, their spirits broken.

Usually, Devick led the charge on nonsense like this. It was because of her dramatic actions that it became almost universal that players with injury would really play up their wound, to the point that it seemed all but inevitable that they would perish. A medic leisurely walked over as Tell stood. In the background, the Arakis Beast happily feasted on Ara Fruits after the completion of the match.

Jawem raised his eyes higher and squinted at the special viewing boxes of this arena along the higher portion of the stands. The crowd for their first match was small, despite the throng of people who crowded the two skyislands, both for the lodging and for the dining and shopping facilities. First, because they hadn’t really announced that the Hobfootie match was beginning and also because people weren’t very sure how to get on or off the skyislands; hopefully they would release a schedule of landing times soon.

Perhaps the Nether King came to the match, which is why she is so serious? Jawem wondered. But he didn’t sense any Nether in the environment. He continued to look around for the dark-haired, green-eyed specter that had haunted him for the past month. However, when his eyes locked on the sapphire-haired young woman skipping across the bloody arena ground toward them, Jawem eyes widened.

“The Cerulean Thone,” Jawem hissed. Tell’s expression changed to one of shocked horror. The rest of the players jerked upright, their expressions similarly aghast. Devick lifted her chin, her expression serious and resigned.

“Oh-my-gosh!” The new arrival squealed, her hands coming to her cheeks and her mouth forming a perfect oh as she stopped only a few meters away and regarded the group. “Devick, it is you! Positively, absolutely, unbelievable! I had heard rumors you started dabbling with rough and tumble sports, but truly… well, I suppose you are only the adopted child. But to think a city lord’s daughter… you are just so bold. I could never be so shameless as you.”

The girl was short and slight, only standing up to Devick’s shoulder. Jawem and Tell both towered over the girl. Yet no one would mistake her wicked smile and sapphire hair. The players in the area hunched over, doing their best to both look respectful and not meet her eyes.

“Hello Larson,” Devick said in a resigned voice. She took a step forward. “Let’s hug, after such a long time apart.”

“Pahah! Such a joker. No, no need.” Larson waved her hands so quickly back and forth to ward off Devick. Her white with cerulean embroidery robe would not survive a close encounter with Devick’s bloody and scruffed Miracle’s uniform. Larson sniffed lightly. “Honestly though, how could you join a team without telling me! I simply delighted in watching. Perhaps you heard my cheers? The barbaric nature of the contest simply is so thrilling. The passion simply carries one away, does it not?”

“I had assumed you would make fun of me for playing.” Devick deadpanned.

Larson’s already weirdly oversized eyes widened to the point of taking up her whole face. “Devick you are such a joker. We are the best of friends! Why would I mock your… proclivities? Your sense of adventure is what I admire most about you! Walking around without a Class, staying so fragile… you are the bravest woman I know. And I want everyone to join in celebrating you. Your next match will be much more well attended, let me assure you. I’ll host an event; have you seen these private booths? They are absolutely sublime.”

Larson finally appeared to notice the other players, standing still without moving, like a deer before a wolf. She winked at them. “Tsk tsk, no robe’s on any of you? Well… since you are friends of Devick and just finished a Hobfootie match, I’ll allow it. But let’s not get seditious ideas about not supporting Aether traditions, shall we? Haha”

Even Jawem felt slightly ill at her words. She framed it as a joke, but coming from Larson Cerulean, daughter of the lord of Cerulean City, the single most politically influential figure in the Aether lands, it was difficult to swallow her gallows humor. After all, if an individual was discovered without a robe in Cerulean, they were executed. With no chance to protest or explain themselves.

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And when Cerulean City’s guards didn’t like you, or if you were from an independent faction, they would just strip you down in the street and cut you down like livestock. For the sort of poor or downtrodden individuals who became Hobfootie players, Cerulean City was a forbidden zone.

Larson Cerulean might now be out of her home element, but the dread in Jawem’s chest didn’t abate.

“I’m surprised to see you on the Skyisland,” Devick’s face remained dead.

“Truly, I expected this haphazard contraption to be as organized as a pig stye, with a worse smell,” Larson released a tinkling laugh that even Jawem had to admit was charming, despite the viciousness of the young woman. Larson leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial voice. “A shopping plaza and a series of luxury hotels, created by a being of filth and Nether, can you imagine? Yet I am broadminded enough to admit when I have misjudged. The facilities are passable, yet the real intriguing features are the personalized room controls! I even heard from the thick-headed lizard managing the establishment that there will soon be Very VIP suites, which include-”

Very purposefully, Larson seemed to notice Devick’s condition. She released another tinkling laugh. “Well, considering your economic situations, perhaps it’s better I don’t say. I wouldn’t want you to get envious, not when you should be concentrating on your… little hobby. Oh, I simply must depart. There is so much to arrange! Your next match will be such fun. Anyway, how excellent to see you!”

Larson pivoted on her heel and began to walk away, but Devick spoke again. “Just a moment Is… your father here as well?”

“Of course,” Larson smirked, finally revealing a trace of sharpness in her smile. “Do you think father would allow Elhume to wiggle out of his trial? Considering the relationship between Westrisser’s daughter and the destabilizing element… Well, father is a very careful man.”

With that, the sapphire-haired girl hopped away. Jawem’s mouth tasted like bile. Looking at Devick’s glittering eyes as she observed the other woman’s departure, he hoped nothing would come of the two’s strained relationship.

*****

Congratulations! Your Skill Infinite Incendiary Filaments of the Dove Moirae (P)(U) has grown to Level 1090!

Congratulations! Your Skill Roundhouse Kick has grown to Level 592!

Recalculating… Congratulations! Your Skill Earthquake (Un) has evolved into Footsteps of a Legend (L)! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Congratulations! Your Skill The World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 919!

A whole slew of notifications sat in front of Randidly, outlining the immense growth he had experienced over the past six hours. When he looked at his Path Menu, Randidly let out a slight grimace. At this point, most of his root avatars had been destroyed by others or released from their constant training.

His final PP total: 4871.

“For now… better take a break,” Randidly muttered to himself. Despite the fact that the individual activities weren’t particularly difficult, he had been engaging in hundreds of minute interactions for six hours. Even guided by the impulses borrowed from the emotional sea, it began to take its toll on him. His shoulders sagged and his eyelids felt heavy.

However… Randidly forced himself to be sharp as he raised his eyes and looked down at the cracked, lowered ground that had housed the root avatar melee.

So much significance had gathered in the area that black lightning crackled in the clouds overhead. A strange haze hung over the remnants of the battlefield. The memory shook slightly, not in a way that showed it was about to collapse, but rather like the surface of a pound while an engine hummed beneath the surface.

Feeling exhausted, Randidly stood and hopped down off of his chosen stone. He picked his way across the remnants of the battlefield. If anything, the deeper he headed toward the center, the denser the significance became. Grey flames of Nether Weight hung in the air, almost like torches.

His skin began to tingle. A frown twisted the edges of his mouth down. This… is strange.

During the height of the battle, Randidly had truly allowed things to go on autopilot. He felt the shift as more and more of his emotional sea got pulled into the root avatars as the three images led their fighters against each other. He had even been shaken away by a few of the powerful reverberations as the main image holders clashed.

Ultimately, however, those three had essentially defeated each other. Leaving the remnant avatars to return to their chaos-fueled fight. But now-

A single shadowy silhouette stood in the middle of a deep crater. Around the erect root avatar, almost a score of its fellows lay broken and shredded to pieces by the final frenzy of violence. As Randidly approached, the remnants began to smolder, burning away because they had been controlled with threads of Mana.

“You… what are you?” Randidly asked.

The silhouette raised its head and looked straight at him. For a split second, Randidly felt a stab of fear that the fourth emotional core, exhaustion, had somehow escaped the Stillborn Phoenix and come back to punish him.

Yet the moment of tension passed and the avatar bowed its head. “Just a manifestation of yourself, my liege. A small fraction of your power. But having us all fight like this… can you feel it? I discovered something, inside the fighting. Take it.”

The silhouette raised an object into the air as its body began to fall to pieces. By the time the object was revealed, the root avatar vanished. It was a cube.

Randidly’s pupils dilated as he watched the object begin to rotate. With just a look, he knew what this was. It was his second to last Fatepiece, with the final currently being in the possession of the freed Nether King.

He was glad to have found it; he had been so distracted by other concerns he hadn't really been focusing on his Fatepieces.

But... why had it suddenly appeared?