Randidly looked Deganawidah in the eyes and felt the whole world shift around him. As the old Nether monster activated his third ability, he seemed to pull away the mask of crusted Nether that covered his whole existence. The egg-shaped body shuffled off its skin like a rattlesnake and revealed an ominously inscrutable depth of significance.

A vast history of betrayal and pain washed in toward Randidly from every direction. Waves of significance came so quickly and with so little distance between each that grey Nether Weight rubbed away the details of mundane existence and locked him in a dimly lit purgatory. But despite the ominous shifts, Randidly simply raised his head and laughed. “Perfect.”

The Stillborn Phoenix’s heartbeats of silence began to come more frequently, the growing image covetously stealing sound and movement from existence while it held its brief spurts of dominion. That image power forced itself through the flaws that Randidly had created with Acri, aiming to damage the interior of Deganawidah.

Two battlefields emerged. One inside of the Nether monster’s body, with the Stillborn Phoenix howling and devouring all the complex Nether patterns blocking its path. But to Randidly’s senses, that process felt disturbing akin like going to a desert and trying to vacuum up sand. The other battlefield occurred in Randidly’s body, in his muscles, bones, and the image physicalizations as he hunched forward and sealed Deganawidah’s wound with his presence. He endured the whole of this Third Drowning so the Stillborn Phoenix could complete its own evolution.

His eyes flickered in recognition. Even now, duality. The amorphous form in the distance and the manifestation of the event horizon… soon, we will be able to see the face of the Stillborn Phoenix.

The silent heartbeats quickened in excitement. And to keep that hope pure, Randidly suffered; he felt knots form in his muscles as the sheer weight of all Deganawidah lived through began to tighten around him. He gritted his teeth. In comparison to this monster, Randidly had only existed for a breath. A single moment in a fluttering storm of time. All the while, Deganawidah endured, growing and deepening his roots.

Deity’s Ruthless Cerebral Scope had plenty of opportunity to shine. To the front, the Stillborn Phoenix quickly set up the two locations of the superposition: the event horizon based in Sulfur’s palm and right outside the Nether Core of Deganawidah. It flared its gravitational powers to fold space and bring those two locations together, although nothing but willpower bridged them.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hypothetical Gaze that Consumes the Universe (T) has grown to Level 1047!

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart (T) has grown to Level 963!

Heavy waves of grey energy raked across Randidly’s back, but he ignored them. As the first line of defense, the Dread Homunculus sat with a billowing cloak of night around his shoulders. He pointed and the ground rumbled. Dozens of golden roots exploded and cut into the advancing tides of memory, and when the roots moves the groaning phantasms of hell sculpted into a parody of a tree followed with twitching movements a half second later. Two trees scythed through the endless pressure of the memories, one brilliant and generous, the other haunted and skeletal. They moved in an eternal dance, Yggdrasil leading and its specter of a partner following.

Aether and Nether crashed and grappled. The force of the impacts created small tears in existence around the two opponents. Both refused to concede. Roots and waves of dense memories smashed into each other, over and over again. Randidly rapidly felt a headache starting to build as he maintained the effort. The impacts between Nether and his images hummed up through his body, squeezing his internal organs.

He tried his best not to concern himself with any details but the next exchange. Because in every direction, as far as he could see, grey waves of memory and significance surged closer. Fucking bottomless, indeed.

Deganawidah and Randidly were so close they felt each other’s breath. Deganawidah shook his head, just slightly. “You will be paste, soon. You and all your dreams, ground away to nothing. I can maintain this for as long as necessary. And when you are dust? That raptor construct will suffer the same fate.”

“Honesty, keeping Cerulean alive is just an unpleasant practicality,” Randidly saw no reason to lie, now that they were in this energy-death-spiral of an embrace. Besides, he felt a guilty sort of pleasure imagining the blue energy being slaughtered. “If you kill him, his army probably retreats. Homewell falls. And I need Homewell intact for what I plan later.”

“Will a coward like that not use this opportunity to retreat?” Deganawidah spoke mildly, but the intensity of his Nether attacks increased. Every moment of struggle and pain in Deganawidah’s life became a cudgel, hammering at Randidly’s psyche, trying to shatter his consciousness. The Stillborn Phoenix howled forward, making use of th opportunity, but didn’t appear to accomplish much. “Your recklessness has made you blind to realities.”

Congratulations! Your Skill Homunculi’s Monstrous Tenacity (P) Has grown to Level 1010!

Randidly winced but left Yggdrasil and the Dread Homunculus to their grim work. Instead, most of his attention flowed forward into the body of Deganawidah, where the Stillborn Phoenix attempted to manifest.

Heartbeats grasped at Deganawidah’s dense Nether, attempting to still the energy to the point of sharing common ground with the emptiness inside of the Egg of Depression. However, overpowering was practically impossible. His roots simply ran too deep. No amount of leverage could allow Randidly to pry him into position.

Which meant that the Stillborn Phoenix would literally have to devour all the energy in its path to create the basis for the superposition in the pressurized environment. The Hungry Eye opened, gazing upon the core Nether of Deganawidah and beginning its feast. Nether unwound and flowed into the absence, more and more and more.

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And as all that significance was plundered, it went to the home of the other side of the event horizon. Each pinch of Nether Weight made the beast waiting on the other side, the Stillborn Phoenix that so craved life, that much more real-

“What nonsense,” Deganwidah scoffed.

Randidly licked his lips. The grey environment pulsed and squeezed, draining the energy from his two other images with its relentless offensive. He needed a little bit more time before the Stillborn Phoenix could transform. “Your ability… its name is Bottomless Longing. What are you hoping for, Deganawidah? Must be something quite big, if you have this much power gathered up.”

“You are fettered by your narrow perspective. Not every detail contains a secret,” Deganawidah grunted. The marching grey erosion quickened in its step. Roots of gold and shadow whipped back and forth, managing only to stay just ahead of the offensive. Meanwhile, the Stillborn Phoenix fought its way forward with the wild glee of a child finally emancipated from its parents and given real power. A tingling sense of anticipation emerged in Randidly’s chest as he could feel his limits approaching.

The more the Stillborn Phoenix pushed forward, the more intricate and heavy the Nether patterns of Deganawidah’s interior became. So the pressure began to mount on both sides of his body.

“You are definitely right; the way I think about existence and connections limit me, but still…” Randidly quirked an eyebrow at Deganawidah, which sent a bead of sweat skipping down his cheek. “If the label has no meaning, shouldn’t I be able to easily overpower this hollow drowning?”

Tragically, pointing out his opponent’s hypocrisy didn’t magically weaken the technique. His two trees continued to give ground. His bones groaned, forced to take on more of the load. Already, the Dread Homunculus stood from its conductor position and began to loosen its shoulders and hips; soon, it would need to fight as well, to hold the line and keep the pressure off the Stillborn Phoenix’s back.

Deganawidah had the eyes of a dead fish as he regarded Randidly’s pithy point, which Randidly believed to be very auspicious.

“For example,” Randidly continued to speak out loud, the fire building inside of his Fateset. “One of my images, the one ravaging your Nether Core at the moment, is called the Stillborn Phoenix. Stillborn. And yet its whole focus is to be born. A contradiction which has loomed over me for a long time. But wasn’t the answer there the whole time? Stillborn. Born, but without the fires of life.”

The heavy moments of stillness that signified the Stillborn Phoenix’s heartbeat increased in scope and ferocity. For the first time, some of the Nether patterns that hadn’t yet been devoured began to falter. His emotional sea boiled with triumphant malice. Randidly’s emerald eyes gleamed. “A Phoenix with the whole of its magic taken from it. The animating fires were never lit: the door to reincarnation will be forever barred to this being. If it should ever be mortally wounded, it would die without returning. A creature of magic made mundane. Born with an obsession-”

An exertion of will from Deganawidah, increasing the relentless assault on his back, choked off his explanation. Randidly scowled and Deganawidah gave him an unimpressed look in response, seeming to ask whether Randidly had expected this Nether being to simply sit and listen passively while he subject him to such nonsense.

The tension mounted. Randidly hunched forward even as the Dread Homunculus charged forward. Its streamlined body blurred amongst the desperate flailings of the tree roots, smashing and cutting and rending the weaponized history of Deganawidah.

Congratulations! Your Skill Erebus’ Baleful Waltz (P) has grown to Level 1017!

Congratulations! Your Skill Erebus’ Baleful Waltz (P) has grown to Level 1018!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Erebus’ Baleful Waltz (P) has grown to Level 1031!

The waves came faster and faster. Instinctively, Randidly pulled back his lips to show his teeth. The pain seemed out through his core, a fire lit in his brainstem due to the effort of maintaining the activation of all three images, at such a high level, for so long. Yet Randidly found the spare focus to smile at the massive features of Deganawidah. The Stillborn Phoenix sang of the imminent reversal. “Do you feel it?”

“Do you finally sense your stupidity?” Deganawidah replied. Most would take this opportunity to gloat, but not Deganawidah. If anything, the frequency and complexity of the attack slamming against Randidly grew. Even the Dread Homunculus faltered before

For that, Randidly had to respect the bastard. He didn’t play with his food.

“No, the pressure.” Randidly had to wheeze out the words as his body began to fail. “The… depth.”

“You are delirious,” Deganawidah snorted.

But Randidly continued forcing out the words, even through the rain of grey significance. His Fateset wanted Deganawidah to understand the fell alchemy he now worked. “My superpower, the labels, is the trick. And I needed one to understand superposition implicity. Two locations, overlapping. But what does that look like? How can that be a being? My breakthrough came-” Deganawidah apparently grew annoyed by the explanation because he pursed his lips and shot out another spike of Nether that ripped out Randidly’s vocal cords.

His body shuddered. On the first battlefield, the Stillborn Phoenix gained more and more momentum as the moment neared. Yet the second battlefield was one lapse away from a full rout.

After a very long moment of teetering, Randidly found the energy to heal the wounds. He continued right where he left off. His fingers tightened, squeezing Deganawidah’s shoulders. “-when I tried to think of a metaphor and stumble across the idea of the Stillborn Phoenix being a flower. The dividing line between ground and sky was the most important. On one side would be roots, on the other would be the bloom… but, obviously, this wouldn’t work. But that was the key: being able to visualize the dividing line. And now, Stillborn Phoenix, do you feel it? The depth.”

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart (T) has grown to Level 1050!

Recalculating…

Warning! Deviation detected in your Skillset, The Stillborn Phoenix: A Star that Prayed it Would be Reborn!

For a brief moment, the Stillborn Phoenix image stilled the entire confrontation with a beat of its heart. In a horrid, claustrophobic depth of another plane of existence, a hungry entity smiled. When the moment passed, Deganawidah’s attacks slammed against Randidly, almost breaking through. But the Cloak of Utter Night held them at bay for the last few seconds.

“Superposition. Both here and there.” Randidly whispered. “You stare down at the surface of water. Perhaps you see your reflection, but you also see something in the depths, moving. But what you see is not that object. You whack the water’s surface and disturb the vision, but-” The event horizon on Randidly’s hand grew and grew, clouding the space between them. “-but even if you disturb the phenomenon, one truth is constant. From the depths, something wicked watches you back. And its swimming closer every second.”

Congratulations! Your image the Stillborn Phoenix is evolving!