Moish nudged Raddeus with his knee as the two departed the guardhouse. “So is your wife-?”

“You cannot come over for dinner,” Raddeus scowled over his shoulder and loped ahead of his superior officer. He used his feet to rub his eyes. “ This is getting out of hand. Look, I obviously appreciate everything you’ve done for me. And the restructuring of the neighborhood has helped so many people-”

“We do the best we can,” Moish said firmly, unwilling to savor the relative peace of the last week. Not with the Nether host marching toward Homewell.

Behind them, their captain complained loudly of the bitter smell of the vine berries, a common new refrain as baking swelled in the slums and smoke drifted over Homewell’s walls, but these were the same individuals who surreptitiously hired others to head out and by some berry turnovers. But by now, Raddeus didn’t even twitch as they walked past the snide complainers; he had learned that the best revenge is surviving well.

“Even setting aside you… straining our hospitality-”

“Your wife is such an excellent cook.” Moish smacked his lips together. “And she keeps inviting me back-”

“Because you loiter outside! Besides, my wife won’t be home in time to cook dinner. And it’s your fault. The job you helped her get routinely keeps her after hours, to help with the cleanup,” Raddeus grumbled, but he slowed down and allowed Moish to keep abreast with him. “Honestly with schools closed down, we are barely managing.”

“It’s a good job. And working for the trade emporium, even just as a banquet hall staffer, will open doors,” Moish pointed out. “When Dattylan wants to go to school in Homewell-”

“Why bother with a place in Homewell, considering Turtleline attitudes? Conditions are improving so quickly in our neighborhood! I bet within a year, we will have a school that is just as good as theirs,” Raddeus growled. At that moment, a pair of Lizakh soldiers rounded the corner heading in the opposite direction as them: one pair of slum warriors heading to help with Homewell guard shifts while the other went home. They exchanged nods, even while a Turtleline woman, clearly coming back from the slums, sniffed and crossed to the other side of the street to avoid passing either pair.

Moish raised a foot and scratched his forehead. He didn’t know how to explain that while yes, conditions were improving, there was no way the teaching environment would be as good in the slums as in the city. The difference in money meant that the teachers-

A rumble brought both of their attentions sharply up. Out through the West gate of Mallon, they could only see a sudden rush of dust. From the wall above them, a cry of alarm was raised. They could feel the ground rumbling through their knuckles. Moish and Raddeus both broke out into a gallop, crossing thirty meters to the gate as quickly as they could. If the Nether attack had come early, all of the carefully maintained peace would be taken.

Moish’s heart clenched. The two careened forward, narrowly missing a panicking civilian coming the other way. They skittered to a stop, their eyes widening at the sight that awaited them. Thaddeus blinked several times, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. “What… the hell?”

The dust slowly cleared, making the truth more obvious. In front of them was a wide and roughly dug hole. And the slums, the vines and all their homes… seemed to have inexplicably stood up and wandered off away from Homewell. They watched its hunched movements for five minutes until it shuddered and settled itself back down about three kilometers away from its original position.

Raddeus clearly couldn’t compute the shift. “This is-”

Moish’s tension eased. He chuckled. “-going to make the commute to work much more obnoxious. But also, at least Turtlelines won’t be able to slip out into the slums and buy our baked goods without people noticing any longer. No more teenagers throwing shit off the walls at people in the slums, either.”

“Neighborhoods can’t just move!” Raddeus gestured widely. But his eyes were vacant, the proof of his mistake right in front of his face.

Moish patted his shoulder. “Just because you’ve never seen it before, doesn’t mean it can’t happen. But now let’s hurry to see if anyone needs help; even if it just moved, there was probably damage.”

*****

Randidly observed the significance swirling around Don Beigon for a while longer, noting how all the momentum he had built up now spewed out into an empty space. Once Charlotte left, he did a lot of fist clenching and teeth gnashing. He stood and did a lot of pacing, before returning back to Homewell.

Already other Nether currents swirled around to take advantage of this potent frustration. Most notably, the Cult of the Savior began to pay attention to Don Beigon.

For a moment, Randidly’s eyes narrowed and he glanced over his shoulder. A slight distortion in his shadow flattened out almost immediately. Still, he pursed his lips. Not that he expected his preparations to go completely unnoticed, but he was slightly unnerved how difficult it was for him to catch the Cult of the Savior’s representative. Somehow, they seemed to be able to tell when he thought too clearly about them.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Still, it’s not like they can stop me, Randidly’s lips twisted upward. Not when they can’t see the larger game that I’m going to play.

Randidly’s attention shifted to his new obsession, only two days before the important confrontation. He sank into the depths of his Nether Core and allowed his significance to completely cover his body. His consciousness floated forward and brushed against each of his four Authorities.

The First Authority: Seize

The Second Authority: The Hollow Needle

The Third Authority: Intangible Burial

The Fourth Authority: Animation Nova

Each had a different cool sensation associated with it. They formed the four foundations of his Nether Core. At the moment he touched the Second Authority. His Nether Core trembled for several seconds, channeling a fraction of the Hollow Needle that had been offered to him by the statue of Nyx. The long, thin tool resembling body felt incredibly light in his hand.

A ripple emerged in the world, quickly stabilized as the Authority manifested. Randidly grinned up at the sky. Thanks Deganawidah, you really are a delight, when you aren't shredding one of my Fatepieces.

His attention focused on his hands, where he began to craft Nether Rituals. He folded the energy into tight bands, creating dense orbs of darkness. But while the result appeared like an obsidian sphere the size of a fist, the interior was a flurry of tightly arranged force.

He created not just one, but a series of Nether Rituals, woven together with thoughts and emotions using the powerful Hollow Needle. Each took about ten minutes, carefully layering the different patterns, twisting and tightening them until the potential energy contained within became an electric charge in the air, ready to explode with force.

When he finished, he flicked his wrist and the obsidian orb floated to the side, joining the forty or so others that bobbed up and down around him.

With his fast-fast-slow Nether now entirely replacing the energy flowing through his body, he had begun his work in earnest. His fingers blurred as he created tiny pieces of the broader whole, the world modeled on his earlier adjustments to the weather around Malloon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yearnings of the Nether Heir (P) has grown to Level 1109!

Except this time, he wasn’t wasting his efforts just to keep it sunny.

The downside was Randidly had to quickly cease his efforts, allowing his Second Authority to dissipate. His Nether Core had begun to whine and his head pounded; for all that Deganawidah kept the world in place, Randidly still couldn’t handle the powerful Authority for too long. But he knew it would be worth it to include both his newly patterned Nether and scraps of his emotion in the Nether Rituals.

These would be prayers for alchemy to sweep through the world and create a miracle. He made them, without having a method in mind, just needing to have a powerful Nether weapon prepared.

He glanced around; with today’s efforts, he had probably gotten halfway to the point he wanted. He would need to buckle down for the next two days to finish in time. After this thought, he allowed himself one of his brief naps. He lay down and allowed his mind to drift.

But exactly thirty minutes later, his eyes snapped open. He had work to do.

He relaxed as much as he could and ignored the developments in significance. Instead, he began cataloging the Aether of the memory. Once he had realized the trick of borrowing the desires of Pine to help leverage his will, he had stumbled across another fruitful avenue of consideration: the System.

The Overlay System hadn’t been created yet in the Second Cohort, meaning its underpinnings mostly passed without anyone noticing, but it remained a central force in the shape of interactions. Randidly hummed to himself, trying to borrow Deganawidah’s effortless ability to clear away the noise and see the core.

Because there was one core mechanism in particular that he wanted to utilize.

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 971!

…unfortunately, while the idea seemed like a revelation when he had it, discovering the active portions of the Nexus proved to be more difficult.

Any insight? Randidly asked Neveah after several fruitless hours.

As Randidly’s plans had solidified and begun to have a more productive shape, gradually the amount of negativity and fear his Soulbound companion radiated began to decrease. So he felt rather cheered when she sent him an exact impression of the shape of the Aether construct he was looking for.

Randidly pulled back and expanded his senses, reaching and reaching, his awareness rushing out across the massive planet on which the Second Cohort occurred. Further and further, until his senses began to grow fuzzy, stretching past the hazy limits of the planet's atmosphere into the space around it.

No life existed off the surface of the superplanet. The universe around the Nexus was empty. It simply served as a backdrop for the main event.

With a headache brewing, Randidly stretched his awareness out to the far reaches and then turned it inward. The Aether constructs had been inserted into the essence of the Nexus with a less sophisticated method than the citizenship, but based on a similar methodology. The functioning portions of the Nexus were invisible… unless you were looking from the proper direction.

A glittering wonderland of complex Aether cogs, searing energy bindings and vast systems to create and distribute energy, and collect ideas, briefly stopped Randidly dead. Ferris wheels of gold and crimson rotated slowly, motes of blinding light flaking out from the edges. A huge river of information flowed through a complex series of maze-like pathways, the absorption and redistribution of image shapes throughout the universe. The whole arrangement seemed to breathe as he watched, pulsing with vitality. He had sensed the presence of these workings for most of the last ten years of his life. But now, with the overlay System stripped bare, he could see the pure genius of the arrangement.

He bit his lip. Can’t waste too much time admiring. I have a job to do.

Randidly’s senses hunted through all the energy, taking mental pictures for Neveah but seeking his quarry. And after about fifteen minutes, he found it. A smile stretched across his face. He rubbed his hands together, smug with satisfaction. “Well, what have we here?”

Randidly gazed down at the complex mechanisms of the Nether that would open it up and gulp down a new Cohort.