Once again, Randidly suppressed his urge to gulp, wondering if he would need to call on Neveah’s assistance to endure through this, wondering how much help she would truly be against this dense Nether. His mind shifted through the possibilities available to him, and none of them were ones he liked.

Apparently, Deganawidah could not be threatened effectively with mutual destruction.

Yet simultaneously, the burning brand of his resolve reasserted itself in his mind. From the ashes of its exhaustion, the Dread Homunculus sat up and stared at Deganawidah with bristlign intensity. I might no longer Survive, but I can Advance past this. This won’t be my grave. Or if it is…

I’ll tear down this monster with me. You can survive as many drownings as you want, Deganawidah. I’ll bury you in the empty void.

Congratulations! Your Skill Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P) has grown to Level 910!

Just as Randidly, again, was to throw his last pinch of focus behind the Survivor of the Void, a new development occurred. As fiery baptism was about to annihilate the advancing column of Nether Warriors, a ripple manifested in the air above their heads. A deft weave of Nether, more pure genius than any sort of significant power, sprung into existence and shielded them from being directly seared from existence..

Homewell’s vicious counter-punch burned and quaked the sky on impact. For a split second, the defensive barrier strained and held. In that prolonged moment, as the lack of power made it seem inevitable it would collapse, both Deganawidah and Randidly came to a realization. Randidly blinked, unable to understand. Deganawidah blanched.

Because they both recognized the source of that energy: Lowana the Nether Arbiter had deployed the barrier to protect her people. Using only the skimmed, ambient energy that gathered around her true power, as Randidly had helped honed her capabilities, but still. With how numbed her control likely was from combat, she sat on a precarious perch.

Despite that, she was unable to sit by and watch her people be annihilated.

In Randidly’s heart, he knew her action meant she had an answer for his impossible question.

Deganawidah tore away from Randidly and Randidly let him go without any regret. Right now, he would take a little bit of unexpected assistance. The Songstress of Absence crooned out a muttered disappointment, but she allowed her image manifestation to dissipate and return to Randidly’s body. His emotional sea sloshed back and forth, so much reused emotions seeping back into him with the departure.

He felt his heart pound and his Nether Core swirl, torn between relief and the humming collapse of a sated animal.

Surging across the sky with a blanket of inky Nether behind him, Deganawidah smothered Homewell’s powerful strike like he simply pinched out a candle. But then he turned away from the Aether forces entirely and flowed down to Lowanna’s position. His powerful Nether spun around, creating a new storm centered on that position.

Both sides watched uneasily for several seconds, but Deganawidah did not re-emerge and rain death once more upon the Aether forces. A collected sigh emerged from the wary warriors that had been squeezed and ground down between the two armies, and Randidly felt himself sighing right along with them.

Almost there, to the most powerful individuals in existence, He looked down at his hand and then made a fist. But still just a little short, huh?

He shook his head and glanced up at the sky. He ignored Pine’s presence and looked beyond, to the Aether architecture that had been built up into the Nexus. Those massive gears that would create and gulp down a new Cohort glittered in the distance. Waiting for someone with an insane plot to pull the right levers. With the transformation of his image into a powerful new form, he had the last piece he needed for the second attempt on the impossible.

To make this deeply desire memory truly real.

So close to the edge. Randidly narrowed his eyes and did some frank self-inspection. The Songstress simply needed some time to acclimate to her new forms, but many of the critical details of his other two images had been brutalized and blurred over the last few minutes. Shit, I actually need to sleep for an hour before I can do this.

Randidly came back down to his body, with blood trickling out beneath his shoulder blades and down his back. His lips quirked in the ghost of the smile. He knew without looking that the trails of blood across his body would form the shape of wings, the non-existent echo of the Songstress’s fin wings across his physical form. He looked to Homewell and then to the Nether forces, both beginning to draw back to themselves like an ant mound hearing the queen’s decree to return.

If he needed the rest, he needed it. It was as simple as that.

He crouched down, wincing at the way it made the horizon wobble, due to his vicious headache. He pressed his hand to the ground and felt the carefully woven Nether orbs waiting down beneath this place’s crust. They had ripened since he had made them, the hopes and dreams he so carefully wove through Engravings deepening in power.

When he straightened, he winced and stumbled. Yggdrasil hummed in concern and did its best to feed energy into his body, but it had been the frontline of the defensive effort and had sustained significant damage. Most of the energy it managed to pluck from the environment leaked out at the wrong time, providing him with just a taste.

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His gaze unfocused toward the sky. He ignored the rumbling remnants of the energy crackling outward as the Lifeseal’s attack had been discharged and the heavy slate clouds hovering over Deganawidah’s position, the only sign of his massive significance. Instead, he looked at the patterns of meaning whorling into gorgeous seashell shapes.

As best as he could manage in this depleted form, he peered into the future.

Randidly felt exhausted, both because he saw how quickly the fighting would resume between the two sides and because he needed the fight to be happening, to take advantage of the two energies striving against one another.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Insight of the Smoldering Abyss (P) has grown to Level 1013!

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Insight of the Smoldering Abyss (P) has grown to Level 1014!

He didn’t see the exact inciting incident, but Randidly didn’t really need to. Both sides wanted the war to continue. Soon, a new force would sweep through and once more cause hostilities to break out. He needed to be ready when it happened.

Randidly spat to the side. Before he could think too much about what else he could do to throw off the chain of events, he kicked off the ground and shot into the sky. He shot up and up, pulsing gravity around his body with the Songstress to accelerate. When he was high enough his sweat had frozen into glittering beads on his arms and shoulders, Randidly slowed and created a folden pocket of gravity, marveling at the fidelity of his new powers.

And in that pocket he laid himself down and began to sleep.

For what came next, he would need to be at one hundred percent. Whatever happened before he was ready for that point… he couldn’t take every responsibility onto his own shoulders.

*****

Kethope leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. Her joints ached from too long spent holding together a race that seemed intent on tearing itself to shreds. “Obviously we need to take advantage of this opportunity. The question for your featherless chickens is what we are going to do while the Nether forces are confused. Without a plan, we will squander what little chance of survival remains to us.”

The members of the impromptu council glanced back and forth between each other, largely looking more queasy from earlier casualty reports than they were thrilled to stake a raid on the other’s camp. At the far end of the table, the usual blowhard, Ilwan with his golden armor inlaid across his shell, sat and brooded while looking at the melted stump of his arm.

Kethope’s gaze briefly brushed against Cerulean’s. The raptor construct had its arm completely ripped away from its body and maintained the wound like a badge of armor. Its usually oppressive sapphire energy hung close to its body, evidence of the expansive struggle it claimed to have happened.

Of course, Kethope had been in the Lifeseal’s observation platform. Very few others possessed enough presence of mind to pay attention to anything but saving their own lives, let alone the capability to witness a fight of the caliber Hungry Eye and Deganawidah demonstrated. Therefore, rumors were spreading that painted Cerulean in a much more capable light than he deserved.

Kethope gritted her teeth. And none of his subordinates lived to share the news of his weakness. Almost a bit too coincidental.

Not that she wished him dead; his life had been the whole reason for her fixation. If Fatia Cerulean had truly been about to die, she would have needed to take responsibility and go out personally; there were no other Turtlelines she trusted to be able to stand their ground against Deganawidah. And watching Cerulean’s defenses being ripped up from the ground as the Nether Monster stalked forward made her doubt she would have had a much better time trying to slow him down.

The only reason we held long enough to have this opportunity is Nether King Hungry Eye, Kethope pressed her lips together. But being the first to acknowledge that-

“Where is Nether King Hungry Eye?” One of the captains of the free companies raised her hand in confusion. The beast woman tilted her head to the side as she spoke to the group, an unconscious tell regarding where she believed to fit within the hierarchy. Which was an accurate reading of her standing, but made her words doubly damning. “Surely, considering his contributions to the defense, he should have been invited.”

Kethope pressed her eyes closed. Almost immediately, her Turtleline subordinates began to bristle: to them, missing a meeting was a slap on the face of the highest-ranked person running the meeting, in this case her. So because Cerulean had moved so quickly to call the meeting and she had been unable to get in contact with Hungry Eye, somehow her honor ended up at stake and the creepy raptor’s missing arm made him a war hero.

This is so exhausting. Inside her shell, she hunched her shoulders. Do these other fools truly want to survive this tribulation?

“If he has decided not to attend the defensive meeting, that is his decision,” The golden-armored Turtleline said with a cool voice. “Have we not seen his disrespect for authority time and time again? If it did not amuse him to dabble in these conflicts, likely he would leave us hanging out to dry, right when we needed him most. No, it is far better that he remains out of the loop so that he cannot betray us.”

As the other Turtlelines grumbled agreement, Fatia Cerulean raised his talons. “Now, do not be too hard on Hungry Eye. His assistance was invaluable in the fight against Deganawidah. And you cannot blame him for wishing to hide and lick his wounds; it takes quite a bit of bravery to persist, even while hampered.”

He saved your life, you lying shitbag, Kethope cleared her throat, wanting to move the conversation forward. “This is all irrelevant. I ask again, what-”

“Actually,” Cerulean looked up and smiled. “I have a few notions as to how we can counterattack the Nether rabble. We’ve been approached… with a truly unusual opportunity.”

The door opened and three individuals walked into the room. The first Kethope recognized as that weasel Don Beigon, who had struggled and failed to handle the situation in the slums, so now they had stood up and walked away. Yet her heart stopped as she felt the waves of power rolling off the other two individuals that floated in behind him.

“Greetings,” The second individual bowed. He possessed features… but they were mixed up. He had a massive eyeball taking up his chin and two small mouths where eyes were usually located. “I call myself the Prophet. This is the Scythe. And now that she has revealed herself… we would like to assist you in slaying the Nether Arbiter.”