Randidly Ghosthound meditated in a storm of Nether. His hair fluttered lightly, almost a flippant dismissal of the potent forces moving within his body.

His Nether Core rattled and growled as it spun, barely maintaining its equilibrium underneath the pressure. Such was its speed as it whipped around and around. His chest burned and his breath came out in huge gouts of steam. Already Yggdrasil creaked and rustled as it reached out golden roots to help alleviate the pain of the transformation, but Randidly shook his head and nudged its touch away.

“We can’t intervene,” He sighed. “The Grey Creature… has chosen to become something very dangerous and difficult to understand. But he is cast from the same heavy iron as the rest of us. We asked him to advance… and now he proceeds-”

The rest of his words were lost in a haze of pain as the image body of the Grey Creature crashed through the edges of the Sea of Dreams. Sensing the foreign entity within the waves of shimmering emotion, the Sea of Dreams tightened like a fist around the interloper. Such was the force of its rejection that the name ‘The Grey Creature’ almost immediately eroded underneath the assault.

The figure that remained was nameless. Yet it did not dissipate underneath all that concentrated pressure. It drew around its shoulders its cloak of hammered darkness and whispers, laughing at the resistance. Each gesture was an emphatic rejection of restrictions. The cloak sizzled and rippled, but the entire transformation so far had centered around refining this cloak. It would not fold easily before foreign influence.

His image took another step forward. Realizing that simply frothing around the foreign entity wasn’t enough, the Sea of Dreams drew back and gathered its resources. Its next rejections came in waves, concentrated fronts of force. The image didn’t waver, its emerald gaze luminous and pure. Meanwhile, Randidly gritted his teeth for the both of them.

The first wave came with knives of sadness and depression, sweeping around the image and seeking to drag it down into stillness and helplessness. To afflict it with a horrid, suffocating sag. The surge of the Sea of Dreams turned turquoise and then darkened to midnight blue as it reared up to its full height.

Yet when the wave crashed against the cloak of scaled oblivion, it could find no purchase. The image continued to glide forward, its steps easy and confident. Its monstrous glee swelled, becoming a pulsing physical force. The being seemed ancient and unstoppable, a force of nature from before recorded history. As the cloak of night rippled around the image, brief glimpses of the image’s body could be seen. Yet Randidly only became more confused; while the Grey Creature had been moving toward a concrete form previously, now all that remained was stitched-together images of violence and smoldering ash.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 980!

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 981!

A battle raged across the hidden body of the image. But witnessing the clash of smoldering remnants, tooth and claws, and desperation made Randidly realize that the image didn’t intend for this battle within its body to end in a victory. It would always be host to an unending struggle.

Randidly’s Nether Core accelerated into dangerous territory, generating a feeling quite like heartburn in his chest.

The Sea of Dreams didn’t miss the lack of response to its first concerted efforts, so it came back with concentrated currents of yellow and mauve light. These crashed against the cloak, seeking to burn their way directly through the infernal cloak. Even under direct assault, the whispering scale cloak didn’t flinch. Its substance was night, the dreaded final night, inevitably creeping across the horizon and smothering all else.

“Here we go,” Randidly grimaced. From two blasts of colored light, six came with the next assault from the Sea of Dreams. Four of them crashed and splintered against the image’s protective cloak, but two of those streams wormed their way around the fluttering edge of the cloak and rampaged through the battlefield.

Pain constricted Randidly’s chest and made it difficult to breathe. Possibility and potential were obliterated underneath the vicious assault of the Sea of Dreams, vulnerable outside of the careful nest of Nether Randidly had made for the image.

Yet the image didn’t falter. It raised its head and chuckled. Its steps continued a consistent beat. The soft footfalls seemed to be increasing in volume, until each incremental advance came with a buzzing reverberation.

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Although the Sea of Dreams clearly didn’t want the image present previously, the previous attacks were mild fits. As the image’s steps grew in volume, the Sea of Dreams rose in a massive way of rainbow light and resonating emotions, sweeping out to completely wipe the image away.

Randidly’s jaw clenched right before the point of impact. His palms tingled. How long has it been, since I’ve gambled like this. If the Sea of Dreams is too powerful and scours away the new image-

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 982!

The wave crashed against the powerful cloak. But the true danger came after, as sunbursts of color and emotion spun away from their initial impact and stabbed toward the edges of the hammer cloak of darkness. Although it was technically inanimate, the Sea of Dreams had taken the measure of this image and discovered the proper avenues of assault. Randidly sucked in a breath as more annihilating blasts of emotional intensity ripped through all the accumulated significance and potential of the new image, leaving him raw.

Yet as those destructive forces rampaged through and twisted around to sweep back across the core of the image, something strange began to happen. In the scorched and obliterated stretches where the Sea of Dreams had immolated, flickering silhouettes soon returned. Ghastly claws and disembodied laughter echoed across the interior of the cloak. Skittering beings with too many arms and cruel smiles clustered at the edges, watching the uncertain blasts of emotional intensity from the sea. Soon more flickering specters formed, bodies with featureless faces staring at the surging current of invasive emotion.

The emotions crackled in furious response and continued their devastating sweeps. Cold sweat covered Randidly’s brow and his arms trembled as horrid, soul-scraping bursts of pain briefly whited out his awareness. Yet he didn’t waver. He watched carefully as his new image took shape under such brutal annihilation.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 983!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 996!

What will you become, after advancing through this mess, eh?

*****

Lowanna handed the groaning woman a glass of water. Newly promoted Unit Leader Devick flopped back and forth on her cot, her hand pressing dramatically against her forehead. “Truly… this wound… Hah… if I die… please, Anna, try and remember me at my most beauteous. Not this grizzled and war-torn hunk of meat…”

“Devick, don’t be modest. You have always been the most vigorously barbaric and brutish fighter I’ve known. Beauteous… well.” Lowanna’s lips twitched. She walked to the other side of the tent and picked up fresh bandages and a basin of clean water. When she returned to Devick’s side, she cut open her bandages and inspected the wound. Then she took a rag and began to clean the wound before reapplying her bandages. “Your hair is pretty enough, I suppose, once its fallen away from your glowering face.”

Devick tried her best not to glower in response and failed.

Her fingers gently brushed away dirt and dried blood on Devick’s side, ignoring the disapproving glare. All of Lowanna’s interactions with this strange Aether warrior had an edge of bitterness because all of her earned wounds and accolades came from killing Lowanna’s people. But the more time she spent with her, the harder it was to resent Devick.

She fought to survive, just like the rest of them. And with more sporadic generosity than most.

We fled into the Nexus to escape the worst horrors birthed by Aether. Lowanna sighed. Once here, we grew in power and authority. By the time we looked up, we had become the dominant force, enforcing our whims upon you. Using the monsters we all fled as justification to solidify our grip. To the point we became our own greatest threat… and look how far we’ve fallen, because of our own arrogance.

A rap came at the door to the tent, causing both women to look up. Devick wiped away her huffing disappointment and straightened in her bed. In a remarkable transformation, she seemed to be a coalescing upper-class scion, all sophistication and good upbringing. “Enter.”

Right before the soldier walked into the tent, Lowanna couldn’t help herself. She reached over and pinched Devick’s stomach. The other woman squawked like a kettle of boiling water as the sentry crossed the threshold and glanced around uncertainly. “Unit Leader, do your wounds continue to bother you? I had heard how caustic the Nether attacks can be, but if even you are bedridden…”

A vein in Devick’s temple throbbed, but she kept her brittle smile in place. “No, I’ll be fine in only a few hours. But did you have something to report?”

Instantly, the sentry went white. His shoulders slumped and he nodded slowly. “Yes. We’re to retreat. We’ve received word from Aether headquarters. Earlier this week, there was a great battle in the heartlands. For three days, they fought and carved out the flesh of the ground beneath them… Apparently, half of the forces on both sides are dead.”

Lowanna couldn’t help but raise her manacle hands and press them against her chest. Does it truly need to be this way?

“... so we sweep up the remnants?” Devick grunted.

The sentry sniffed. It took a moment for Lowanna to see past her grief enough to see that the sentry had tears running down his stony cheeks. “No. We move to reinforce the Aether Heartlands. Lord Cerulean suffered a grievous wound. If we don’t move quickly… all the Aether forces will collapse.”