The fluttering trick of light melting along the edges of an event horizon, the vision of the monster project to the surface of the water, the muddy-edged hungry eye pulsed in anticipation. Two disparate points started inexplicably accelerating toward each other, coming into cataclysmic alignment. Randidly felt the shift in his chest as the Stillborn Phoenix stepped over the edge… and that dividing fault on which it had been sundered exploded with possibilities.

Congratulations! Your image the Stillborn Phoenix is evolving! Incorporating influences. Detecting synergies. Incorporating advantages and the influences of your evolved Stat anchors…

Recalculating…

Pantheon intervention. Gathering meaning…

With the mutation, the absorptive power of Randidly’s image multiplied rapidly. It no longer just sipped of his foe’s interior, but consumed.

Deganawidah’s eyes widened, perhaps for the first time surprised as a huge swath of his interior patterns suddenly vanished. In its last moments of existence, the Stillborn Phoenix took and took from the world, so violently that its consumption became a sort of irresistible song, luring the energy of existence into those twisted depths.

The edges of blurry wings could be seen as the main body condensed. A vicious, short beak also formed with clear lines. But other than that, the resemblance to a phoenix ceased. Randidly’s fingers tightened, not allowing Deganawidah to pull away as the transformation finished. All the pressure with which the Nether Monster assaulted Randidly came back to bite him: because with the rigid limits imposed by Bottomless Longing, Randindly could pour and compact all his energy and emotion, forcing all the potency he could muster into the image’s new body.

The grey waves added a sense of reality to the ‘depth’ of the image. The weight was so overwhelming that already Randidly feel the associated meaning; to be simply born of those depths made the new image a Survivor.

A strange resonance bounced out from Randidly’s Soulspace, spreading through the dense waves of grey significance that attacked him. The environment and emotion mixed together as the new image crawled the rest of the way from the Abyss, fully formed.

Randidly gasped, feeling the creature screaming silently, opening a wide mouth. First, a small crack formed. Then the Egg of Depression finally hatched in a sundering nova of power.

Congratulations! Your Skillset the Stillborn Phoenix: A Star that Prayed it Would Be Reborn (P) has evolved into Singularity of the Inhospitable Depths: The Songstress of Absence (GD)!

Recalculating…

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has evolved to become Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P)! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P): An impossible being made real, whispers woven together through the alchemy of the Ghosthound’s three Moiraes. However, grasping existence did not solve the woes of this being: As a monster that crawled up from the depths of this world, it has survived by singing its ballad of negation near constantly. Only that constant effort allowed it to persist. It may have escaped the gauntlet, yet now it cannot stop its eerie song. The Songtress of Absence can only exist by taking from the world. This Skill empowers Skills that destroy and take from existence. The greater the price, the higher the effect. User will experience slightly dampened emotions and will need to constantly feed in order for the image to retain its power. Effects increase with Skill Level.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hypothetical Gaze that Consumes the Universe (T) has combined with Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart (T)! The potential of the Songstress of Absence has vastly increased! Recalculating…

Your two Skills have combined to become Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy (GD)! Skill Level has been set at 1010!

Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy (GD): An instinctual need animates the actions of the Songstress of Absence. Her otherworldly aspects grant her great power to manipulate the natural laws, most notably gravity, to an incredible degree. A discordant note from her mouth could shatter a planet. To open her mouth is dangerous. And yet the Songtress cannot help herself. User can wield incredibly powerful gravitational fields to a high degree of fidelity. User has a small capability to accelerate or slow the passage of time in the immediate vicinity. Activation of the Skill has a small chance of inflicting a terrible apathy, remorse, or depression on any nearby individuals. Activation is more likely if the user is much stronger than the target. Effects increase with Skill Level.

Recalculating…

Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has evolved to become Absolute Insight of the Smoldering Abyss (P)! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Absolute Insight of the Smoldering Abyss (P): The Songstress might carry deep scars from her escape from the depths, but these scars are remnants of a deeper, more primal existence beyond the reach of light. By their sadistic shape, a hint of the natural order can be seen. Their presence on her body informs her song, adding a hint of prophecy to her every choice. Increases sensitivity to information regarding the future. Provides insight into the vicinity of the user in the present. Effects increase with Skill Level.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Randidly pressed his lips together as he examined his new image.

The beak of the Songstress of absence suddenly seemed small, as the rest of her features came into focus. Most of her head was dominated by massive, sightless eyes, dyed completely black. All pupils with no iris. Her skin resembled a substance never before given the pleasure of sunlight, dappled so it was grey in some places, but a dark lavender in others. Scraggly, rotten hair hung lank down across her thin neck. From her back stretched two massive, insubstantial fins. A glittering blue-green membrane stretched between the long spines stabbing out from her shoulder blades to form the approximation of wings.

The body of the Songstress of Absence ended in a thick fishtail. The tail beat idly, keeping her aloft as she prepared to bring catastrophe for all who listened. Randidly and Deganawidah both regarded the newly born image, Randidly with the first hints of resignation in his chest and Deganawidah with actual alarm. The Survivor of the Crushing Abyss sucked in a breath, elation and anticipation animating her features. Then she began to sing.

In singing, she plundered indiscriminately. Such was the pull of her song that even some of Randidly’s own energy leaked out of his body.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy (GD) has grown to Level 1011!

Congratulations! Your Skill Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P) has grown to Level 802!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P) has grown to Level 873!

While Randidly lost only a pinch, a huge chunk of Deganawidah’s significance vanished. For the first time, a look of pain crossed his oversized features. Perhaps he wouldn’t have normally been able to inflict such a wound, but Randidly had cracked open his defenses and slipped a half-made image through the breach, allowing it to fully manifest and take Deganawidah by surprise with its longing.

Yet Randidly felt his sadness steadily growing. The violence of the Songstress’s arrival wasn’t accompanied by music: the voice of the Songstress of Absence was completely silent, just like her heartbeat.

A split second after her song began, she realized her voice still couldn’t be heard, even after her ‘birth’. The Songtressed’s black eyes bulged. Randidly’s emotional sea turned choppy. Her tone shifted to one of fury and betrayal.

Randidly couldn’t hear her keening wail, but he could feel her intent: it wasn’t supposed to be like this, she screamed while slurping down the fabric of this world.

I want to exist like everyone else.

I’m sorry, Randidly bowed his head slightly. Because he looked at the new Songstress of Absence and saw balance in his power. One image for growth, one image forged of practicality, and one image that bore all the consequences of the power he had accumulated. One image which took on all the horrid aspects of the foes he had worked to slay, as he moved to the Pinnacle by climbing over their corpses. You are the one who needs to bear my sins. You… have too much of me in you, Songstress.

The finales you grasp come in shapes you would have never wished for. You are Alchemy, to your benefit and detriment.

The Survivor screeched, still gripped by the throes of this revelation. She didn’t have any animosity toward Randidly, just toward existence. She shrieked and raved, a thousand variations which could only be interpreted through the different emotional notes as the volume remained monolithically silent. Her wings fluttered, practically useless on her body.

But there was a purpose to her temper tantrum. An audience bound to experience her agony.

Her fury beggared Deganawidah’s interior Nether. Each hollow note ripped more and more of his significance out of his chest and dragged it into the mouth of the Songstress, where annihilation waited. Deganawidah’s features tightened and barked at Randidly. “Do you truly wish to follow this to its conclusion? You will not survive it.”

Randidly had to concede Deganwidah had a point; while the Stillborn Phoenix shifted to become the Songstress of Absence, the waves of grey significance had not slowed their assault on his back, to plug up the hole that allowed Randidly to strike at his opponent’s core Nether. It might have granted the Songstress great and immediate power, but he had to suffer through it.

Many of Yggdrasil’s roots had been broken open, sap leaking down across his limbs. The spectral fantasms had been snuffed out of existence and it was only through the sheer stubbornness of the Dread Homunculus that Randidly’s flesh hadn’t been flayed from his bones. Perhaps in another thirty seconds, he would collapse.

Come on, you held off time itself for over forty seconds. You can’t last thirty more against Deganawidah? Randidly joked.

His body was extremely unamused by this perspective. It pointed out it had gotten to sleep for all of ten minutes between these attempts, and half of his resources had been poured into the Stllborn Phoenix’s transformation. Likely over half. The fact it could manage this much was already a miracle.

Randidly cleared his throat and refocused. Already, he could feel his Fateset settling back down, which allowed weariness to seep into his thoughts; this had apparently just been prep work for a future bit of alchemy with Deganawidah. With the goal accomplished, his reserves suddenly vanished.

His mind had been a new highway and all at once the concrete began to harden.

But Randidly knew this was not a foe who would withdraw gracefully, not with these wounds. So he could only bluff.

Well, not bluffing, Randidly admitted. Just take the first few steps down toward mutual destruction and hope this bastard doesn’t follow me.

“I’ve seen this pattern so many times,” Randidly loosed a low chuckle. His emerald eyes flashed, even as the Survivor of the Void sang of an absence that rampaged throughout Deganawidah. “You swear I will be crushed. We fight. You swear we will both cease to exist if this continues. And we fight. And in the end… well, over and over again, I survive.”

“You have not gone up against a force like the imperative animating me,” Deganawidah hissed.

Randidly smiled, with teeth of bleached and sharpened bones, hungry for his next meal. It was an expression, he had to admit, he had stolen from future Devick. He gathered up the last scraps of his willpower. “Then let’s begin.”