The scrying surface remained active in front of Cerulean, but he leaned his bulk back and considered the ceiling. Azure aura flickered around the core framework of his body, pulsing with the intensity of his thoughts. His awareness spun and sparked, a thousand ideas swirling around in his mind. For the first time in quite a while, the raptor construct felt genuine excitement.

He saw a way forward, a way to climb higher along his Narrow Path, across the bodies of lesser beings.

He hadn’t caught much of the actual confrontation between Nether King Hungry Eye and the Sovereign of the Breathless Vigil, but he had seen the Sovereign's strange Domain broken, which brought him a strange glee. And then he had seen the strange companion of Hungry Eye show up, reveal her ruinous dragon image, and then depart with Hungry Eye.

It was actually that companion that so fascinated Fatia Cerulean. A part of Cerulean wished to stalk out of his castle right now, hunting that black-haired humanoid and claiming her as a trophy he could utilize himself. A fourth foe worthy of being his prey. However, even Fatia had to concede that it was a politically complex time to be antagonizing Nether King Hungry Eye. Setting aside the issue of whether a coalescing Cerulean could actually overcome him, which had become a murkier question of late.

Yet she didn’t need to be prey; the methods of the woman gave Fatia the seed of an idea.

She had an insidious image that slipped inside of the viewer. It actually empowers its targets, giving them a boost to a very certain sort of self-awareness, one focused on your own mortality and limitations. On the truth of the universe, cast in a very particular slant. It allows one to see themselves in the harsh light of eternity… and obviously, on that stage, no one feels invulnerable. Doubts creep in and resolve crumbles, under exposure to such an awareness.

Not useful against the truly elite, but for those who do not walk a Narrow Path, they are as frozen and dead as fowl before the fox.

Fatia raised an arm and clicked his talons together. “The trick… is to set the opponent up against the entire universe. But in the end… won’t it be more reliable just for me to hunt a portion of the universe…?”

*****

“Honestly, the Turtlelines have a flair for the dramatic,” Devick nodded in approval as she looked up at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t mind them throwing me my next birthday party.”

Colonel Matteo chuckled, only slightly awkwardly. He had been particularly quiet over the last stretch, mostly because the Turtlelines ahead and behind them were entirely silent. After Devick gobbled down four more fish pockets, the two were waiting in a deep underground chamber beneath the city, one of the places where the non-Turtlelines would have been allowed before the festival. They stood in a long line of individuals, waiting for this special ritual. Devick spotted a few other non-Turtlelines in the queue, but they were outnumbered twenty to one.

The roof of the massive chamber was studded with gems at regular intervals, forming hexagons of darkness between twinkling lights. The sheer size of the dome and the distance from the ground made it resemble the night sky, aside from the regularity of the lights.

Devick had found the soft illumination quite compelling, but then she realized that some of those lights were brighter than others, purposefully. So when she unfocused her eyes, the ceiling became a whirling kaleidoscope of block animals. She could see a massive fish, a lizard, a butterfly, a many-tailed fox, a tiger with two tails, a long-legged heron, and of course the more ornate and featured turtle sitting in the middle.

“S-so anyway,” The Colonel cleared his throat into his head, trying to make as little noise as possible but instead overexaggerating it to the point the cough seemed to echo. He became overly nervous when she spoke bluntly about their shelled hosts, even more so now, with armed guards flanking the line of individuals waiting to be allowed into this lifeseal ritual. “How was your patrol today?”

Devick pressed her eyes shut. Better one of the Turtleline guards decided to run her through than she needed to suffer even a minute more of the Colonel’s attempts at small talk. Honestly, they should have bought more food, so at least his mouth wouldn’t be tempted to be open for conversation.

It was for this reason that, despite the fact that truly her connection to Nether King Hungry Eye was one with minimal intimacy or hints of a change on the horizon, she only allowed herself and the Colonel to spend time together when she had forgotten how painful their previous out-of-work interaction had been. His main charm ended up being the fact he was simply here.

“Fine,” Devick eventually managed to huff out the word. Blessedly, the Colonel made no more attempts at conversation for the next few minutes as they edged forward in the queue. A particularly burly Turtleline with a scimitar watched their passage with narrowed eyes, clearly disapproving. Eventually, they approached two tall totems in the middle section of the shaded area. A strange orange illumination flickered in the distance beyond the totems, the only sign of this being a genuine activity, and not some elaborate plan for the Colonel to kidnap her.

A whole series of kidnappers of kidnappees. Devick mused. And we are made to wait in line because… well, by the end of it, we will be so bored out of our minds that being kidnapped seems appealing.

Ten minutes of preferable silence and stuttering conversation later, Devick could make out several figures moving in the darkness around the central plaza. The orange luminance in the distance brightened, albeit gradually. About fifty Turtlelines kneeled and bowed, their genuflections aimed toward the source of the undulating light. After a few more shifts forward, she could hear their muttered prayers. The Turtleline directly in front of Devick and the Colonel hummed along with the words of the Turtlelines, clearly knowing the phrases.

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Devick frowned; she listened closely, but something seemed to be preventing her from hearing the details of their prayers. The words felt slippery in a way that she had only experienced when brushing up against an image. Above them, the ceiling began to sparkle and gleam with a more wicked sense of humor. She only could notice the dazzling shift out of the corner of her eyes, but the whole contraction of lights seemed to be spinning. She turned to the Colonel, abruptly serious. She became very aware of the darkness of the cavern and the line of Turtleline guards they had passed to get here. “What do you know about this Festival, anyway?”

“It celebrates the Turtleline people’s arrival in the Nexus,” The Colonel said. For all that she seemed to make the man insufferable, he also looked around warily, sensing the shift in the environment. “And their… heritage? I think an integral part is the reinvention of themselves, as a people-”

The ancient Turtleline in front of them paused in his prayers and gave the duo a long and disgruntled look. “The Turtlelines are proud now, but we were once common villains, outcasts forced to flee into the Nexus for safety. But here, we discovered our true virtue. This festival reminds us never to lose sight of the mistakes we once made. To forget the past is to repeat it.”

With that ambiguous and unhelpful contribution, the Turtleline turned around. Devick opened her mouth to dig for more information now that he had volunteered a little, but the Colonel gave her a pleading look. She practically threw her hands up into the air. Fine, let’s walk blind into this fuckery. Just don’t yell at me when one of the guards steps up behind me, slits my throat, and asks you to slurp up my lifeblood.

Also, if we both are to die, don’t let our funeral flowers be orange.

They finally reached an archway surrounded by at least ten guards, all radiating the strange heaviness of an individual with a powerful image. Beyond the threshold was a murky area of orange light, where the actual function of the ritual was impossible to see. When the ancient Turtleline in front of them stood at the head of the line, his whispered prayers turned fervent and furious, like he desperately needed to finish his prayers before he would be allowed into the archway.

Before he completed his rushed whispers, the two halberd-wielding guards stepped forward and gestured imperiously. It was time. After briefly bowing his head for a moment of silence to punctuate the end of his rapid words, the old Turtleline walked forward into the shifting orange light. Devick watched in amazement as his body seemed to segment into blocks, fade into a hexagonal outline, burn briefly as more a constellation than person, then vanish into a puff of glittering radiance.

“That’s fucking awesome,” Devick swore. It might lead to total oblivion for all she knew, but at least she would go out in style.

The guards leveled Devick an unamused look at her outburst. An unusually massive Turtleline with a golden shell flicked his eyes to the Colonel. “You truly wish to waste the chance to meet the remnant spirit on this… glorified sentry? Matteo, it is not wise to let the wiles of an egg warmer sway your opinion. She is not yet even Level 50, yes? Perhaps she doesn’t even know the truth of her combat.”

Devick felt like she was slapped in the face. She couldn’t even decide which part of the hard-shelled bastard’s words pissed her off more. For a moment she felt a flash of shame, but that was quickly replaced with a rapidly surging geyser of indignation and hate.

The Colonel let out a light laugh and shook his head slightly. “We’ve spoken about this, Ilwen. Someday, I hope to make this woman a wife of mine. She deserves this chance.”

You fucking what? Devick blinked, thrown for an entirely different reason. She goggled at the Colonel for several seconds. Because for all of his blandness and lack of any interesting things to say, she had always believed him to at least have a genuine appreciation for her. She had taken him at face value, due to his persistence. And it was rather illuminating for him to not even defend her, after this bastard called her an egg warmer.

“You-” Devick stepped forward, fully prepared to defend herself, but the Colonel reached out and put a hand on her arm.

“Don’t worry,” He said warmly. His smile was bashful, like a teenager talking to their first relationship partner. “They won’t refuse your entrance just due to dislike. It would sully their honor.”

Devick just stared at the Colonel for several seconds. Her fury hate-fucked itself, had a brood of vicious little gremlin children, which hatefucked each other in a mounting pyramid of vicious, spiteful procreation. All the anger condensed outside her body and Devick had the weirdest sensation of standing as the towering pillar of wrath right next to her own body, looking at her own blank expression as she tried to fathom HOW this boring, obnoxious piece of shit, who unfortunately would continue to be her superior officer after this interaction, who she had spent the last hour coddling and humored. believed that her agita was because she feared she wouldn’t be allowed to utilize their stupid turtle ritual.

Synchronicity detected!

Warning… If you possess insufficient energy, Skill transformations might result in sickness or death. Please see-

Pantheon Intervention. Recalculating…

Congratulations! Your Skill Spark of Fury (Un) has evolved into Spiteflame Heart (A)! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Spiteflame Heart (A): While combustion usually results in mundane flame, extreme circumstances occasionally create a more potent varietal. In the case of Spiteflame, extreme, negative emotions have been compressed into a tight space and then set ablaze by an improbable spark. As such, the user now hosts the Spiteflame within her body. Skill is active at all times, either in an outward or inward mode. While in inward mode, Skill Levels will passively increase and user will experience mild pain. The stronger the emotions to act as fuel, the more quickly Skill Levels will increase. Pain increases with Skill Level. While in outward mode, user’s physical performance will be boosted, while constantly depleting user’s Mana. Stamina usage slightly decreased. Enemies will experience extreme pain while near the user. Effects increase with Skill Level.

She released a long breath and it almost surprised her to see no tongues of fire seeping out of her mouth. When she sucked in another breath, she prepared herself to let loose all the fury she held, and damn the consequences.

But then she thought about Nether King Hungry Eye. She felt the gulf between them, widening every second. So she gulped down her wrath, her vindictiveness, the flames of her spite that she could now feel nibbling along her insides like vicious ants. She pressed her lips shut. Her eyes burned, but she would wait.

She would rip out every benefit she could from this stupid ritual. Then she would plot the Colonel’s murder.