In the end, Randidly and Neveah parted in tense silence. His little rhetorical plea aside, he couldn’t yet reassure her effectively enough that this attempt would work out. Nor, apparently, could he convey that he understood the consequences to the point she could accept his word.

He reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. In the end, he had avoided giving her a dangerous truth about himself he was still in the process of accepting. And she hadn’t pressed, too terrified by the same truth to bring it up.

Sitting on a rock South of Homewell, he looked East toward the sun, just now peaking above the horizon. The rays were still cool, tinged more blue than yellow by the cloud cover. He couldn’t blame her for the intense reaction, either. The more details he shared about his ‘plan’, the more obvious the holes became. He could feel the patterns of humanity's creation and the spread of Fates, but how would those details fit into the three attempts he had described? By the end of it, she had almost been trembling with rage.

“This is not a plan. This is a veneer of optimism spread across a deathwish,” Neveah had hissed before stalking away. Leaving Randidly to stare at the night sky for several hours, as he did some mental calculations.

“You think I don’t understand the risks I’m taking?” Randidly sighed to the night as it slunk away from him, several hours too late for his conversation with Neveah. He didn’t wish to say these words to Neveah, not now while her fury still sizzled and spat, but he also didn’t want to bottle up the feelings either. He wore a tired smile on his face, one worn from long years of desperate fights against long odds. “But… I’m different now. Those other Paths… I can’t see them anymore, Neveah. Now…”

In his chest, the Dread Homunculus hummed, part engine and part hesitant child. The purified form of the internal locus of control. Ready at any moment to choose. We advance.

Randidly simply nodded, allowing true reorientation to finish settling. His Nether Core whirred, but the mechanical note of its operation had deepened as his third image finally settled into its proper place. Every since the image had evolved, this shift had been inevitable. He hadn’t thought too deeply about how such a change in his priorities would change his direction, but there was no avoiding it.

To advance and to survive were two very different methods of living. He needed to carefully sound out how to live like this without needlessly endangering himself. Because he no longer could just behave the way he once had.

Not that he was the one totally at fault here. Neveah had always possessed a fear of his recklessness. She could not see the thin, admittedly minute, Path on which he walked around the very pressing risks. Her fear warped her perspective. Her instincts warned her away.

For the first time, Randidly turned inward and examined his Soulbond connection. He wondered, if like other relationships, it was possible for two Soulbonded individuals to grow apart. Hell, from what he had learned about Commandant Wick’s reliance on Soulbonding and systematically suppressing his companion, he understood that the balance he and Neveah maintained was the exception, not the rule.

What would happen if the Dread Homunculus began guiding him into a darkness so deep the connection between them only made Neveah shudder?

Randidly’s jaw clenched. “There is a way forward. My instincts… I need to trust them. And I need her to trust them as well.”

He already had a few pieces. With a few more, he could begin to make more concrete preparations.

He pulled the Cloak of Utter Night across his shoulders, sinking into the inky darkness of the primordial emptiness that Nyx had gifted to him. The cloak possessed an indescribable font of support, a hint of the status quo before creation. The eternity certainty, which Randidly borrowed now to steady his overtaxed brain.

He couldn’t explain his certainty to Neveah. But what he could do was gather enough understanding to make his actions seem less like a gamble and more like an educated guess.

Ripples, revelation energy, and strands of fate glittered in his eyes. Because even after cutting incisively into the budding storm of significance above, there were so many aspects he hadn’t yet followed. Half of the sudden shift in the Aetherlands came from Cerulean and Westrisser but the other half…

Randidly’s eyebrows rose; these influences were familiar to him as well. The Master… and Don Beigon, huh? Just a small current right now, and a weakening one… but a lot of threads reaching out-

Randidly eyebrows knitted together as he read the twining threads of of their malicious intention. Because he saw, they already had hypotheses about how to create Alymian, now even before Elhume had become involved. And their method-

“Lower the power level of the isolated world,” Randidly whispered, impressed despite himself. “Take away all the benefits of the System, the advantages imparted by Aether and Nether. Makes it that much easier to arrange two of the necessary elements to reach the Pinnacle. And once you earn the absolute moment, you make the isolated, low-power space permanent.”

Another piece, a strange one, one which didn’t currently seem like it would come to pass. At least not yet. But understanding their desires was another lever.

Back when Randidly had won the challenge and saved Claudette Beigon's independence, Don Beigon had briefly explained the Path to the Pinnacle: it required a foundation, an image, and a perfect moment. Witnessing the statues within the isolated zone and briefly possessing out-of-universe understanding via Muse’s Reverie and the Prophet, Randidly understood this was just the easy method laid out by the Rarities of the System and not the only avenue forward.

Still, it was a useful series of guideposts, although Randidly could see in the messy end to their pattern that neither Beigon nor the Master would be able to articulate the actionable benefits if they actually succeeded. But a weakened world made the moment of the attempt easier to perfect and the image much cleaner.

All that remained was the foundation for such a grand undertaking. Frowning, Randidly followed their malicious thoughts back to the source.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 980!

It didn’t even take much examination to find their answer: cut out the memories of the Homid people and plant them like a seed. Use their idyllic days of living, their humble history, their mundane existences to create a pseudo-lifeseal. With enough reinforcing Engravings, the memory-seal could be used to establish an independent space. Once inside, the duo’s true experiments could begin.

Randidly saw with amusement how his own interference had altered the original path; in the memory, the people of the slums saw no need to accept the raw deal offered by Beigon in order to survive. The vine structure provided them with everything they needed. However, he also saw Beigon’s methodical arrangements to force their hand with the danger of the Nether attack.

Randidly spared a glance up for the sky. Underneath all the seething currents of significance, a heavy counter-weight remained inert at the bottom: Deganawidah’s promise with Randidly had been satisfied with the breaking of his Fatepiece, but he would still follow through and aim for Cerulean in four days.

The army would be the prelude, the Thrice-Drowned would be the hammer.

Randidly clicked his tongue. Yea, Deganawidah would not bother to try and limit the damage. Certainly, his casual movement could pressure the people in the slums. But…

Randidly’s eyes sharpened. He looked at the lives and memory they needed to plunder from the people of the slums in order to successfully create their memory-seal. He bared his teeth at the storm of significance above him. The Cloak of Utter Night rippled across his skin, cool and smothering. “Beware of what watches you from the dark, Don Beigon. I respect you enough to leave you alive, but if you reach for their lives, I will teach you a valuable lesson in capricious greed.”

It would be another task to add to his list, but it would be one that he strongly believed was right. His eyes peered through time and space, a hidden knife aimed at Beigon’s back. From the depths of Yggdrasil’s branches, a many-legged carrion skittered out of the shadows. It licked its lips, hoping for fresh meat.

Congratulations! Your Skill Darkness Withers the Horizon and the Waiting Carrion Grins (T) has grown to Level 974!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Cloak of Utter Night (P) has grown to Level 1004!

Randidly settled back down, the influences and plans of all the individuals swimming together, coming to a head in four days. Mae Myrna was the only powerful force that appeared to be sitting out; he could still sense her isolated universe in the distance, but no significance flowed out of her area.

Congratulations! Your Skill Homunculi’s Monstrous Tenacity (P) has grown to Level 923!

His headache had become a constant grind against his senses, distracting him and making every examination a chore. Yet Randidly ignored the pain. The Dread Homunculus squared its shoulders and sifted through the sea of information flowing toward him. Nether Core and image simmered together and began to refine the conflicting elements into a map of what was to come.

A map Randidly had to navigate near-effortlessly if he was to be sure that Neveah’s worries wouldn’t become a reality.

At some point, the headache broke and just became a hot buzzing in Randidly’s temples. Some of his focus faded, but that left a blurrier, and perhaps more realistic, picture of organized chaos in front of him. At least four full waterfalls of meaning, the accumulated momentum of history gushing them over high cliffs and pounding into the seething froth below, all aimed at the same point in time.

They danced in his vision. Randidly felt a strange excitement in his chest as he began to fold and unfold their connections, testing for inflection points. One of the lessons Randidly had learned right at the beginning about Nether was that the most important bonds were not the thickest, but the ones of silk and breathless hopes. In his unfocused state, he began to bounce from one influence to another, testing their integrity. Seeking the pieces he could manipulate.

Cerulean and his predatory hunger.

Westrisser and his experiments.

The looming of Mae Myrna.

Surly Deganawidah with his dead student.

The machinations of Don Beigon.

Fates, spreading throughout the Aether population.

The impending war as the Nether forces marched back, with more Nether Warriors at higher Tiers.

The tensions between this Nether leadership and the Nether Arbiter, Lowanna.

The overwhelming dread so thick it cast a shadow over Homewell, even on the sunniest day.

The weakened Lifeseal, the support of Homewell for Beigon’s and the Master’s experiments.

Elhume and his desperate hopes, the scraped-together plan to create humanity. This time, with a less wounded Origin Beast, due to Randidly’s interference.

Devick, thrust into the middle of the chaos, weak and wandering. Growing as quickly as she could manage

Perhaps the realization that made him most bemused was the effect of Randidly himself on the pattern, a spear of significance pinning certain elements in place, acting as a counterweight for the devastation and war that had originally happened in the memory. And if he had his way-

Randidly paused. For a few seconds he floundered, wondering why his skin had tingled with a half-recognized sensation as he gave the different flow of significance a quick once over. Yet once he looked for the source of this feeling, he could sniff it out everywhere, especially in Deganawidah’s deep well of significance, remaining mostly still.

Honestly, Randidly wasn’t sure if he would have noticed otherwise. Because even the deep energy of Deganawidah unwillingly inched sideways, pulled into a deeper pattern by a powerful force.

His awareness still blurred, Randidly leaned back. He looked at the whole of the forces. Not the way that they clashed with each other, prepared for their inevitable conflict. But he saw the way the entire approaching climax flowed slowing in one direction.

And in the memory, there was only one source of power so noticeably greater than Deganawidah it could have this effect.

For a brief moment, Randidly allowed his gaze to flick up to Pine. A spark of genuine hope surged in his chest. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. In the end, this is the battle for you, huh? How do they so corrupt the soul of a universe, I wonder, to turn it into the empty pit you are in the present?

Well, this time will be different.

Randidly looked back down. His mind raced, tracing out the implications of the pattern in that inevitable movement through all these elements. One method to handling all his goals would have been to categorize all the environmental factors and predict them perfectly. Then he would walk without fear amongst the chaos, plucking up every benefit he wished.

However, that was unrealistic. And, to be honest, Randidly defaulted to simple brutality whenever he could. More than conceptually understanding so many diverse influences… he could just keep the pull of Pine in mind. If he could understand that…

He could make sure his goals were just a bit more downstream in the flow of history than his enemies. The rest of the knot of tension he had been carrying in his chest, the worry that Neveah had been right about him, evaporated.

With his three Moiraes and three images, Randidly Ghosthound began to plan in earnest.