Charlotte Wick had a rough few months that led her to this point, propping herself up with conjured lifemud and bluffing her way through a confrontation with Elhume.

It had come after the most depressed and hollow stretch of her existence, but that didn’t make it any easier.

Only begrudgingly, the Ghosthound had acknowledged her request to be his Knight and immediately threw her to the dogs, in this case the maniacal DiOrtho Vant. Who, due to Charlotte’s desperate inclusion of Helen’s bloody image inside her Primal Force, had seen her image degenerate into a surge of bloody power in the final match of the Tournament in Expira and knew she couldn’t survive like this.

And Vant’s best strategy for helping her find her new image footing seemed torture and ridicule.

What pissed Charlotte off even more was that it had worked. Out of the Ghosthound’s sight and with the talented Alana Donal as a sparring partner, she had worked tirelessly, dragging herself back to relevance.

Helen’s bloody power had seeped into the same image-ground on which her Primal Force had died as she failed to find a shape to contain it. For a few days, her physical training sessions turned listless, thinking she had broken all of her accumulation for nothing. She had barely even heard Vant’s constant litany of insults, so deeply she had sunk into her funk.

She found herself deeper and deeper in the dirty slog of her life. Where her dreams and greatest desires had withered and died. With each motion seeming to earn her nothing.

Yet to her surprise, the more time she spent down in the mud, the more she felt something shifting down under the surface in response to her efforts. Some life seeped back into her limbs. The exact shape still felt like a mystery to her, but Helen’s blood and the bones of her Primal Force had mixed together into a rising Hallowed Ground, a heartbeat of the deceased underneath her feet, grasping up through the mud.

Once she had made this discovery, her power rapidly returned. Within a week, she was incomparable to who she had been during the challenge tournament. The raw power of her image only increased a small amount, but the defense and pervasiveness of her Hallowed Ground’s mud made even Vant rip out his hair in frustration.

She felt confident she would become an able Knight of the Ghosthound.

She could never be Helen, but she could find her own purpose, so long as she developed this power.

So, two months after her training began and about a month since Randidly had left for the Upper Sonora, she felt like she was making progress. That was when the entire Nexus shook. People everywhere, including the Rally Station on which Raymund Ballast trained the Vulpis Squad, looked up and saw the sky breaking as the Sonara began to shatter.

Usually only visible to those who had earned Tier 3 Citizenship, the cataclysm broke down the barriers between the tiers. Or perhaps more accurately, the devastation knocked down the divider, letting everyone witness the horrifying event.

A bleak chrysanthemum of destruction blossomed above the Nexus. Instantly, all the factions with any power mobilized their troops to surround the collapsing building. Military High Command rushed forward with all its force to monopolize the area, although its maniacal Actus Suprem Devick was nowhere to be seen.

It was hard to tell whether they rushed into place to assist anyone escaping the Sonara or capturing them, but the tension was high as more and more of this suddenly visible tower began to crack and fall. Almost simultaneously, a request thrummed directly through Charlotte’s existence, pulling her to the Ghosthound’s side. After a quick report to Raymund, Charlotte accepted.

She had found herself pulled into a strange, flat land with constant storms thundering overhead and a massive, blazing ball of energy that was not a star hanging above them all. The Ghosthound, serious-faced and focused, had given her a short recap of several ominous facts she barely had time to acknowledge: i.e., that they were inside an alternate timeline of the Second Cohort, investigating what happened in the Nexus, in the middle of the largest war between Aether and Nether that the universe had ever seen.

Then he had pointed her to the Southwest, where he asked her to go intervene in a vague event centering around Devick.

Charlotte had sucked in a long breath, remembering the rakish grin of the Actus Suprem, from whose lips leaked blood and madness. She didn’t understand. “...by Devick you mean-”

“The same Devick who will eventually become twisted into the leader of Military High Command, yes,” The Ghosthound frowned. He reached up and scratched his head. There was a depth to him that Charlotte didn’t remember; she wondered how long he had been within the memory, and how powerful he had become in the meantime. His Nether flowed around his body, more molten metal than an invisible energy. “Still, grief hasn’t yet broken her. She’s not so bad. Ah, and also, quite young. Even a strong individual from Expira could wipe the floor with her. If she starts getting an attitude, beat her up a bit.”

…did the Ghosthound just joke about Devick?!

So a confused Charlotte had quickly moved to accomplish the mission, even while noting the tension in the air of this place. She flew over a furious battle between two groups of footsoldiers, half Aether and half Nether. Even more nerve-wracking was when she felt the attention of a genuinely powerful Nether individual lock onto her, but she was able to flare her nearly-condensed Nether Core and that awareness lost interest, assuming she was an ally.

How are there so many powerful warriors around? Charlotte thought with alarm.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

When she arrived at the city Homewell, where Devick was currently located, she felt the strange, amorphous barrier around the city. From the depths of her Hallowed Ground, the energy source of her new image stirred with empathy for the arrangement. But before anything else, she felt the tight fist of an image locked around Devick’s location.

Her mission came first.

Charlotte inserted herself as quickly as she could, facing an overwhelming freight train of a punch about to turn Devick into paste. Her Hallowed Ground rapidly expanded into a defensive barrier, creating a zone of compaction to absorb some of the force. In a split second, she had erected several defensive barriers that ended up doing almost nothing at all; the attack rolled forward, annihilating everything she put in front of it. So Charlotte Wick could only grit her teeth and step forward to absorb most of the force personally.

As she felt the left side of her body sheered away from her, a strange thought struck her. Is this… Elhume attacking me right now?

…Like ELHUME Elhume?!!?! Seriously, what the hell, Randidly! Why wouldn’t that be the FIRST thing you mentioned!

Before she could collapse, she tightened her Hallowed Ground around her body and recreated her flesh. She packed in mud and shaped it into her body, which luckily was very brown. Although he might someday be the ruler of the Nexus, this Elhume couldn’t see through the ruse. Charlotte desperately flared her image and attracted the attention of even more powerful figures, eventually scaring herself away.

When the security forces arrived, Devick spoke about how Charlotte had intervened to save her and her aide from an attack. The local turtle people took that under advisement but still escorted her away. After being left briefly in a dank cell that smelled of dried blood, Charlotte was dragged before three wrinkled Turtlelines with massive shells. Her hands were locked behind her, although the chains didn’t seem sturdy enough to stop her if she really needed to escape.

No, the real problem was the three individuals studying her. Each blazed with image power close to what Elhume has wielded.

Elhume came to attack Devick. Charlotte sent a message to Randidly, trying not to sound too accusatory. I was… quite surprised. And overwhelmed. She survived and is safe within Homewell, but I’m not captured by the people here. How should I proceed?

The answer came quickly. Remain in the area for a bit. I’ll contact you again soon.

“Do not lie to us,” The central figure said in an imperious voice, focusing Charlotte’s attention. “Although it took us a while to recognize the aura on you, the Lifeseal is not so easily fooled; you are an agent of Nether King Hungry Eye.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Charlotte attempted a smile, but her cheeks ached too much from the beating she had taken less than an hour ago. If she was supposed to remain here, she might as well find a place where she wouldn’t be disturbed.

“As such, you will be held here until he comes before this tribunal and accepts our justice,” The Turtleline on the right added, a great deal more waspishly.

Charlotte simply nodded her head, amused at the thought of the Ghosthound accepting these people’s justice. “I will pass the word along.”

Apparently, agreement and acceptance had not been what these individuals had been expecting, because the left Turtleline cleared her throat, the central figure excused themselves for the moment, and then had a heated discussion in the hall about ‘whatever infernal trap this Nether Spy is weaving’. Charlotte closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall behind her.

She even began to doze, because suddenly the three Turteline judges were back in the room. The central one cleared his throat. “You will be placed in strict, solitary confinement. Due to the known guile of Nether Beings, the Lifeseal shall be constantly active around your body. You will not be able to escape; do not even consider it. And should you make any sort of attempt…”

The female Turtleline on the left laughed cruelly, the noise heavy with implications. But Charlotte didn’t miss the fact that no one present actually vocalized the threat. She suppressed a twitch of the mouth. Well, seems like they fear Randidly enough they won’t actually attack me unless they feel its necessary.

Again, a few more stammered threats and promises were said as Charlotte simply nodded and allowed herself to be led away. Her body and image steadily recovered while her ‘captors’ dithered, before finally depositing her into a rather nice, if small, room in the deep catacombs beneath Homewell. As promised, Charlotte could feel the constant hum of the massive barrier around the city squeezing her cell. Her small attainments with Nether were completely suppressed, but she didn’t mind that much.

“Well well. A lifeseal,” Charlotte’s eyes glittered. “Time to pull a page from the Ghosthound’s playbook and milk these people for all they are worth.”

*****

Fatia Cerulean lay in his opulent personal quarters, propped up by silk and chick-feather pillows. His heavy talons, massive skull, and aura of blue fire seemed as hale and domineering as ever, but a deeper inspection revealed cracks in his carefully constructed facade. His image remained chaotic, the lingering wounds from his battle continuing to tug at his awareness. Focusing was a painful affair, leaving Cerulean mostly to stare idly at the ceiling.

His beloved army was in an even worse state. When the balance had begun to turn against him in the horrid fight with his foe, he was forced to rely on some of the experimental resonance images he had implanted in his trusted guard. He had bought his passage out from that battlefield with the lives of his finest subordinates. Cerulean now sat in his keep, the dregs and cowards at the walls, overmatched and outnumbered by the Nether Host marching toward his position.

Word had spread and reinforcements would be coming, but he knew that they wouldn’t arrive quickly enough to matter. Right now, he was at his most vulnerable.

Yet his original self remained within the isolated space of his trophies. Not that Cerulean had faked his injuries, but it would certainly simplify matters if he could eradicate this lingering threat and focus on that damned Nether Herald.

I held back, just slightly. But he didn’t just slightly defeat me. Cerulean clacked his jaws together. The motion was enough to earn him a headache. However, dire situations squeeze out potential. Desperation will sharpen my insights, so long as I have time-

As though sensing the hope in Cerulean’s thoughts, a clatter of footsteps could be heard outside of his chamber. A soldier knocked several times on the door. “Lord Cerulean! We have the most recent report on the Nether army!”

Fatia Cerulean growled and pushed himself up off the cushions. “They’ve arrived?”

“No sir! They appear to have stopped and set up camp. At first, we didn’t understand, so we scouted especially heavily in the surrounding area. As far as we can tell… they are setting up an ambush. For a force heading from the North.”

Cerulean’s eyes glittered. Some extra breathing room? Intriguing. The Nether Herald should know how dire my situation was; what sort of prey is important enough to let a shot at me pass by?