Devick’s jaw ached from clenching as she faced off against Elhume and his fists. All her instincts screamed for her to run, but even that seemed impossible with his image clenching down across the street. Every other individual had been repulsed by his image and left the two women alone in some corner of Homewell, a city bottled up for a month. The incident would likely be reported, but how strong of a response team would they send for a minor disturbance like this? And this man-

He really could kill me, Devick sucked in a breath tight against her teeth. Her heartbeat began to quicken. Her whole body pulsed with it, tucked away instincts coming alive. Only the choker around her neck seemed solid, a weight grounding her in the face of this threat.

Devick felt something strange beginning to stir within the Class she had received from the associates of Nether King Hungry Eye.

Her frown rapidly dissipated and a positively dopey grin spread slowly across her face. Her palms tingled and a very strange thought occurred to Devick. Is this why Nether King Hungry Eye does it? To feel so alive, like this?

Elhume took several more steps forward and Devick automatically stepped in front of her manacled companion and struck a fighting pose. Elhume loosed a long breath through his nose. His impatience wafted off of him. “If you do not step aside, I will strike. And how can you protect her, she is the enemy!”

Finally, the repeated label of Lowanna as the Nether Arbiter sank into Devick’s mind, even through the haze of adrenaline mania. She briefly glanced over her shoulder, trying to picture this calm and dutiful woman as the violent adversary as painted by so many of the rumors in the Aetherlands. As the cruel hand that pointed toward cities and loosened the violent dogs of Nether to plunder. Lowanna met her gaze with worried eyes. Her hands were tightly clasped in front of her. She seemed so stiff and fragile, pale and vulnerable.

In the end, Devick straightened and resumed her antagonistic stance opposite Elhume without any regrets. Because when she had met the other woman’s eyes, she had seen helplessness. The sort of helplessness that reminded of Devick of her own life, before she had met Nether King Hungry Eye.

“I protect her because she’s a friend,” Devick announced. “No matter what she might have been, what matters is what she is now. No matter her… dubious taste in art…”

Elhume narrowed his eyes and smacked his fists together, erasing Devick’s attempt at levity. His suffocating image exploded out of his body and almost made Devick stagger backward.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lowanna pleaded over Devick’s shoulder at Elhume.

“I really do,” The drawn expression returned to Elhume’s face. Devick could almost see raw image power pumping through his arms and inflating his muscles, until he buzzed with enough juice to throw a fist a knock down a building. “You have something I need very very badly to save my family, Nether Arbiter. If you will not agree to work with me, I must… rely on blunt instruments to compel you.”

“I do not know what they have told you,” Lowanna responded quickly, “But your son is the Nexus. What you seek is a threat to him! He is growing into his own, as we speak, imprinting off of all the lives of all the people within him. The actions and growth, the wars and transformations… all of those small steps comprise his journey. For him to reach maturity and stabilize the Nexus… that is an occasion worth celebrating.”

Elhume snarled. “You believe my son being erased is worthy of celebration?”

“Erased is the wrong way to think about the transition. After all, has he ever been conscious like us flawed beings of Aether or Nether? Pine can become the fabric supporting all of us.” Lowanna pleaded. Devick remained frozen, wondering what exactly these two were talking about. “You have experienced it, have you not? His glorious, but constant expenditure of energy is exactly why the Shallah are mostly extinct in the wider universe. They burn brightly, but briefly. Him becoming the universe is the way for his power and personality to remain as a constant force for good. That is how a Shallah may love.”

“You would have my son built around you like a house. You would rest on him like he was furniture.” Elhume’s eyes burned. “A dead thing, an object for you to use at your leisure. All his other potential obliterated, railroaded by the constant need. No, I will not allow it.”

“You are a fool. It is better to have him become full with all of us than to shatter his shell and carve out pieces of him to keep,” Lowanna shook her head. “And once the Universe Core is vacant-”

“Enough. I will not allow you to stall any longer.” The smoldering embers he used to see fixated on Devick. The muscles in his forearm flexed as his grip tightened. He would move to slaughter her. “Prepare your soul.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Congratulations! Your Skill Maniacal Recalibration (Ru) has grown to Level 415!

Congratulations! Your Skill Maverick’s Psychosis (A) has grown to Level 370!

Devick felt the killing intent in Elhume eyes strike her body and set the entirety of her ablaze. She burned, trembling between excitement and fear, the muscles of her legs humming like guitar strings. Just like on the day of the Hobfootie final, she felt her awareness narrowing. A glowing river of fire flowed into her chest, providing her with abundant energy. All she needed to do was use it.

To somehow take the pittance of her self and survive against a genuine powerhouse, a being who even Nether King Hungry Eye respects.

She flared her rapidly solidifying image, picturing the Needle-Toothed Hare, yet in a split second it took for that to condense around her body, her entire awareness shuddered and a fist seemed to consume all the space in front of her. She couldn’t move, her body wouldn’t listen. This was an enemy that possessed a legitimately overwhelming body.

Devick couldn’t catch up. The impact came almost simultaneously with her awareness, with the tickling sound of her image breaking beneath the attack. She couldn’t look away from the approaching fist, its rumbling frustration and desperation.

Am I really just going to die like this? Devick wondered.

The blow hit her-

Her world exploded into rumbles and waves of brown energy. She felt her collarbone and ribcage shatter, although not as blended-to-mush as she had expected. Devick tumbled and crashed to the ground, gasping and spluttering. Was she bleeding more than she felt? Her landing felt quite... goopey.

With her vision swimming, Devick found herself laying on her belly in a thick puddle of mud. After several blinks, she pushed herself up. Her entire front was covered in the mud. Now that it was on her body, it smell possessed the heavy, metallic tang of blood.

“Who are you?” Elhume growled, pulling Devick’s attention around. “Do you answer to Turtleline high command?”

A bulky figure covered in short brown fur stood between Devick and Elhume. Mud pulsed and bubbled around her feet, her image influencing the environment in a profound way. Devick couldn’t see the figure’s face, but she heard the smile in the tone. “If you want to keep your image controlled enough that this city’s guardians won’t notice you, you won’t be able to get through my Hallowed Ground.”

“You-” Elhume hissed out the word, but didn’t try to continue the discussion. He exploded into motion, demolishing the ground beneath his feet.

The furred figure gestured. Five pillars of mud erupted from the ground, one engulfing a squeaking Lowanna. The pillars reached about two meters in height and quivered. Devick was about to turn her aggression toward this strange interloper, but then Elhume reappeared in a burst of unstoppable force, ripping his way through the pillar where Lowanna had been standing.

The pillar collapsed with a single touch, but the Nether Arbiter had vanished. A new pillar sprung up next to the furred figure. She smiled at Elhume. “I say again. Take this opportunity to flee. Otherwise, you will be trapped here.”

“You know nothing.” Elhume’s face became oddly blank. And while emotion no longer animated his stiff features, it continued to pulse and swell beneath his skin, within the confines of his muscles. “If I utilize my full might for even a second, all of you will be-”

Power blossomed around the furred woman’s body. Where both she and Elhume had been restricting their images, she uncorked her ability. A natural wave of life-giving energy geysered up and spread its influence. From it, Devick could sense the deep blood and flesh of consumed bodies within the ground, but also the pure force of life they would become. This woman’s image was one of growth and slow transitions in a beautiful cycle.

Almost immediately, alarms around Homewell began to sound.

“Oh, you sneaky bitch,” Devick cackled.

For several precious seconds, Elhume’s eyes bulged; he had assumed he had all the power. Likely even better than Devick’s limited senses could determine, the new interloper was much, much weaker than Elhume. Obviously quite a bit more powerful than Devick, but nowhere near enough to actually protect Lowanna. As such, he hadn’t considered her an actual threat.

Except she didn’t need powerful enough to stop him. Just powerful, and foreign, enough to grab the attention of someone who would.

Suddenly, all of Elhume’s vicious certainty snapped back into place. His image blasted out from his body, socking an unsuspecting Devick in the mouth and pummeling the muddy and layered aura of life the furred woman released. He took a step forward, a thunderous wrath shaking his limbs. All he had to do was throw a punch and they would all break and die-

Yet he hissed out a curse; already, powerful individuals had fixated on the confrontation and sped across the sky above Homewell to their position.

“I will never forget this,” Elhume hissed, his eyes locked on the furred woman. He stomped his foot and vanished, several of the nearby houses partially collapsing into the street.

As soon as he disappeared, the furred woman keeled over sideways. A still-groggy Devick staggered uncertainty in her direction, but Lowanna moved much more quickly, going to her side and kneeling next to her. “Miss your arm- oh god, what’s happening to you?!”

After a groan, the woman spat to the side. “It’s not as bad as it looks; I’ll heal up quickly. Blocking that first attack took more than I want to admit. I had to bluff my way forward, so I replaced some of my damaged flesh with mud. Heh. I’m glad it looked convincing…”

When Devick made it to the woman, she drew back with a gasp; almost the entire left side of the furred woman’s torso turned to mud and crumbled away. Soon, it revealed a massive, leaking wound of torn flesh than ran from her midsection up to the hollow of her shoulder.

“Who are you?” Devick whispered. Above them, several of Homewell’s most powerful warriors moved to land. A few streets over, the shouts and marching of soldiers could be heard.

The woman lifted her chin, pride suffusing her expression. “The Knight of the Ghosthound, reporting for duty wherever he calls.”