In this moment of serendipity, as neither the actions of Nether King Hungry Eye nor the Prophet’s own counter-actions managed to sway the majestic confluence of events the Prophecy had predicted, the world seemed to be chiding the Cult of the Savior for ever doubting the Prophecy. All fell within the light of El-Kedec.

Mae Myrna and Elhume, independently, reached the promised moment. Fatia Cerulean somehow stumbled across the idea he was supposed to only discover after being nudged very forcefully by the Cult of the Savior. In the end, the light came from a deeper place. Its truths ran deeper than the Prophet could fathom.

The Prophet almost wanted to laugh at its own lack of faith. Once more, the luminous brand of divinity seemed to swell in his chest until he housed a young star, his blood and muscles nearly evaporating before the all-consuming power of that light coursing through his limbs. His doubts vanished, erased entirely by its presence in his body.

An off-kilter existence had been nudged back into perfect balance.

The Prophet moved its attention away from the cursing and struggling Elhume, whose groping fingers only hastened the Hierarchy’s disappearance. He observed the flow of those energy particles as they flowed to the Northeast corner of the Aetherlands. The powerful weapon wouldn’t arrive directly to Mae Myrna’s desperate grasp, but it would follow resonance and condense-

The flow of the hierarchy shards trembled. A tributary split off from the main flow, heading for… Nether King Hungry Eye.

As the Prophet’s expression twisted, both mouths gnashing their teeth and its eye bulging, it became obvious those particles of the Hierarchy of Karma weren’t heading to him directly. Somehow, those particles flowed around him without him noticing their presence. The surface of the scrying rippled and a woman with long, lavender hair stood behind the Nether King, apparently springing directly from his body into existence.

The change within the disintegrating particles grew even more noticeable, as Elhume stared with hollow eyes at the spot where the Hierarchy of Karma had previously been.

The lavender haired woman twitched a finger and the particles began to dance and spin, a small celestial wonder. More particles of the dissipated Hierarchy flowed toward her. The Prophet’s anger mounted, still managing to keep its doubts at bay, but understanding that it had been correct in one aspect: Nether King Hungry Eye represented a threat to the very fabric-

Across the room, some object audibly shattered, producing a small crack. The Prophet glanced sideways, impatience clear in his furrowed brow and twitchy gesture. It quickly transformed into appalled when he saw the Prophecy had been the source of the noise.

In the bowels of the Cult of the Savior facility, an alarm began to ring. A voice spoke and almost the entirety of the Nexus must have heard. Yet the Prophet’s skin crawled when the words brushed against the skin behind his ear, warm and indulgent.

“What’s this?”

More alarms began to sound in the compound. The pressure of a foreign being’s attention froze the image displayed on the scrying surface just as Nether King Hungry Eye whipped around, also a confused recipient of the words. The sudden chill of pressurized Nether made the Prophet flinch backward. His senses scrambled, trying to understand what had happened. The resonant voice reaching his position, within the deep enclaves of the Cult of the Savior, was impossible. A being this powerful-

“Any party who aided in the death of my student… will achieve no dominion over this plane of existence, or any other. Not while I still breathe.”

A massive hand spread out over the world; this the Prophet didn’t need to see in his scrying surface but could feel with his body. A dense network of Nether strong enough to strangle out the remaining Aether beings unfolded, more closely resembling spider legs than fingers, moving in a mesmerizing pattern the Prophet couldn’t manage to follow. The appendages split and lengthened, swooping down through existence.

Those threads stretched and swam together until they had plucked up every little shard of the Hierarchies. Then they rapidly withdrew, the Hierarchy of Karma completely captured by the whims of this powerful being.

“Fatia Cerulean and Nether King Hungry Eye,” The voice boomed, its playful edge vanishing into a grimness that chilled the Prophet just to hear it. In the darkness, the being smiled and revealed golden teeth. “If you do not come to me, I will find you within the week.”

The Nether presence vanished. The vision on the scrying surface resumed, Nether King Hungry Eye staring up at the sky with wild eyes. A split second later, Scythe hissed behind the Prophet. “How could he be here? According to the Prophecy, that bastard should be asleep. If Degan-”

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“Do not say his name. If you say it and he notices, you will share his fate.” The Prophet snapped. Ripples continued to distort the scrying surface. The Prophet thrust forth a palm and shattered the stone bowl, water splashing across the table. He leapt to his feet and prowled back and forth, furious and fearful. He dared not look at the Prophecy, knowing it would be unable to describe their current situation.

Even now, he refused to acknowledge the small crack that had been created, marring the elaborate geometric patterns on its surface.

Nether King Hungry Eye! Let that monster rip you to shreds, The Prophet ground its teeth in frustration. Perhaps you are dead, things will finally return to normal.

*****

Charlotte Wick’s head snapped up as the sky above Homewell darkened and the voice boomed out across the area with force enough to vibrate her to the bones. She had the strange sensation of a lid being snapped shut over the world, but she couldn’t pinpoint the source of the feeling

“Fatia Cerulean and Nether King Hungry Eye, If you do not come to me, I will find you within the week.”

She looked down at the reed basket filled with freshly baked bread and stuffed it into the hands (legs?) of the Homid in front of her. Just as quickly, the Homid thanked her and fled. Then she hopped up onto the nearby vines the size of a mountain stream and dashed toward Randidly’s position, where he probably continued to meditate next to the partially demolished fort at the Western edge of Homewell.

Whereas a few minutes ago the Western Slum, suddenly overrun with an explosion of thick and thin vines that created a weird green dome and had a strange symbiosis with the lifeseal over the rest of the city, had been crawling with the returning refugees, the voice had emptied it out. Charlotte streaked past abandoned piles of wreckage swiftly giving way to vines. The people here had just experienced one catastrophe, they weren’t going to linger out in the open while another seemed to be brewing.

The fern-like growths arching over the vine road whipped at Charlotte’s face as she dashed forward. They grew higher every hour, but right now she needed to duck so her nose wasn’t tickled until she sneezed. She saw a few divots cut into some of the smaller offshoots of the main vine systems, which apparently oozed enough refreshing liquid to drink, but kept her focus up on the dark sky.

But an opponent didn’t descend and the shadows slowly receded. Perhaps the real threat would wait for the promised week to pass before revealing itself.

Charlotte found Randidly sitting on the edge of the ruined embankment, the twisted violence of the root orchard in front of him smoldering its way to the ground. One of the Pantheon, Lucretia, stood next to Randidly. She noticed Charlotte’s approach and bowed, quickly vanishing back within the Alpha Cosmos.

Charlotte licked her lips. “...is another attack coming?”

Randidly offered her an exhausted smile. “There’s always another attack, as far as I can tell. But for now… I don’t think it is impending. It was just a promise. From a very, very powerful Nether individual. From what I can tell… a remnant of a different age, a genuine Nether Warlord…”

For a second, he seemed lost in thought. Then he snapped back into focus with a shake of his head. One by one, he used his thumb to crack the knuckles of his right hand. “Too much is happening too quickly. For now I need to return to the farm and speak to the Nether Arbiter.” He pivoted and gave Charlotte a glance. She felt herself flushing; Randidly Ghosthound could sometimes gaze with such an intensity that Charlotte felt the layers of herself peeled back, her thoughts and images laid bare.

Such was the razor-sharp point of his look that she sometimes worried that when he looked at her with those emerald eyes, he also saw back to Commandant Wick and remembered what had happened to the Ghosthound’s first Knight. That beneath the begrudging acceptance of her being his Knight lay skepticism, waiting for a failure on her part to strike.

“Your image had deepened considerably. What a complex interplay of bacteria you are maintaining. However…” The Ghosthound glanced at her again, an optical excavation that took only a second. His lips twitched. “You are stretching yourself more than you need to account for complexity. Instead of going wide, consider depth.”

Charlotte tilted her head to the side, briefly distracted by his words. “What do you mean?”

“Aren’t bacteria just piles of cells? You have quite the variety of cells within your image, they form an excellent base layer. It will take a lot of work to set up…” Randidly rubbed his chin. “But if you have your bacteria composed, or perhaps colonized, but a set of smaller bacteria, you can add quite a bit of variety. Perhaps sometimes those bacteria can have an effect on the host, but sometimes they won’t. And that, certainly, is life.”

As soon as the Ghosthound had said it, Charlotte Wick’s eyes brightened. She could see the way her image could evolve, incorporating more complexity. Yet she set those sudden insights to the side and looked at the Ghosthound with genuine concern. “That voice… what are you going to do? Can you win?”

For a moment, Randidly Ghosthound looked old. The System suspended aging, to a point. But a portion of that depended on how the individual viewed themselves, so far as Charlotte understood it. So although the signs were subtle, lines formed on the Ghosthound’s forehead, the chick-form of crow's feet were visible when he frowned.

“Honestly? I’m not sure.” He smiled and his whole face transformed. His eyes sparkled. “It’s an invigorating feeling.”