Gasping for breath, Devick pulled herself to the top of the moonrock spiral staircase. The fingernails of her left hand had torn away, but she had dragged herself up as quickly as she could manage. Her vision spun. For several seconds she could only sit at the top and breathe. Her body refused to cease shaking. All of her energies were drained to the minimum.

Her forehead knocked against the safe ground, but she couldn’t move. She had almost died down there, without even noticing it.

“Oh? Finally out?”

Devick groaned and shimmied. After gathering a bit of momentum, she managed to roll off her belly and onto her back. Neveah stood over her, hands on her hips. Randidly’s Soulbound companion waved with surprising cheeriness.

“Y-you-!” Devick panted; she couldn’t gather enough energy for the vicious dressing down she intended to deliver to Neveah. But also, she couldn’t vocalize her reasons for being so furious without sounding like a fool.

“Ah.” Neveah brought her hand to her mouth. “That’s right! I knew I had forgotten something. I promised to help pull you out from his Visage of Obsession training, so you wouldn’t just lose yourself, didn’t I? Well, if you are only now belly-slithering your way out… I suppose you’ve been immersed in that place for… a little over four hours? With the additional time from the Engravings… almost nine months. Oh my. What. A. Tragedy~.” Then Neveah leaned forward, her expression still bright. “But I bet this means you’ve learned your lesson about taking my words lightly, doesn’t it?”

Devick really had been in the hyper-demanding area of the Visage of Obsession, completely enthralled in the process of training. She hadn’t paid any attention as the strenuous activities had withered her down to twig bones and paper skin. She had pulled and pulled on her energy, to the point that she had begun to waste away, without the stable connection to energy from Hungry Eye. Only when her body had begun to annoyingly fail had Devick bothered to ascend a bit, and check her condition.

She was lucky she had. Her body had begun to eat itself. Her brain would have likely been next.

Despite how returning to such a place certainly would mean her death…

Devick flipped Neveah off. She pushed herself off the edge to tumble back down into the darkness of the Visage of Obsession. Even if she had been close to death, it was better than Neveah acting superior after tricking her-

Neveah grabbed her foot and dragged her back. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so condescending. But if you go back down there now, you really will die. I don’t want to deal with Randidly being mopey because of it.”

Devick grinned up at Neveah. “You really think he’d be mopey? For how long?”

“You are literally insane,” Neveah sighed. She offered Devick a hand and the red-haired woman took it. “So? How was it?”

Devick smiled shyly. She raised a hand and the surrounding ground erupted with rose bushes. Neveah watched as the buds formed, swelled, and then shyly opened to reveal blood-colored petals. The sweet floral scent filled the air.

Devick reached out and plucked one of the nearby blooms. As soon as she touched it, Neveah felt a different sort of image moving. The color bled from the petals. The stem stiffened and died, the flower turned bone white and stunk of death.

“So-so. Why, is something pressing happening outside of Hungry Eye's little pocket universe?” Devick sniffed the pale flower. She grimaced. “I suppose, this much will need to suffice for saving the world.”

*****

With his Alchemist’s Passport, Randidly moved to the bottom of the Universe. He sought out the dark heart of the Nexus and the caretaker of Pine’s corpse.

Nothing had changed since his last visit. The endless plateau of darkness. A thin membrane of protection, a glowing barrier that separated the Nexus from the monstrous subconscious waiting below, where all dead things sank. Now that he had fought more against the dark underbelly of the Alpha Cosmos’s emotions, he could appreciate how horrifying that waiting darkness truly was. Both in terms of time and quantity, Randidly couldn’t even fathom the flood of violent emotions lurking beyond the membrane.

But most importantly, the ghost of Pine floated in front of him. That small world, a shimmering ‘utopia’ that was painful to examine. The brush of eyes across its gleaming perfection served as an invitation to the monstrous hunger of the fallen Pine, the jaws of its hunger for significance ripping into Randidly’s psyche.

Randidly’s eyes flashed as he looked straight into the abyss and felt it return his attention. This time… I don’t just need to flinch before you.

Congratulations! Your Skill Ghosthound’s Cloak of a Thousand LIghtless Horizons (GD) has grown to Level 1131!

Congratulations! Your Skill Echoes of a Living Myth (M) has grown to Level 1023!

Instead of pressing his feet against the protective barrier that Randidly knew would lessen the pressure, he first just floated and looked. He had felt the regrets of the past used to create the Sonara, but this was altogether more horrifying. Forged from regret this was as well, but a substance of regret that poisoned the air and infected the surroundings. Significance flooded downward, absorbed by this mirage of a utopia. But without the flow of Nether constantly pushing back its expansions…

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

Randidly gritted his teeth. He could see, just barely, beyond the vision, the hollow hole at the heart of the mirage. It had grown larger since his last visit. Which made sense, due to to the time dilation, but it made him nervous to witness the growth. Because it would accelerate.

Shaking his head, Randidly settled on the membrane. The vicious, howling, tugging pull fell away. He could pivot and look at the figure who had invited him to the bottom of the Nexus, standing almost provocatively, right beyond the lips of Pine’s corpse in a display of power.

“Solomon Rex,” Randidly said.

The thin humanoid tilted his head to the side. “The way you say my name… well. I suppose it makes sense. You’ve been inside the old regrets. So you understand what I am.”

Randidly nodded very slowly. Pieces had been steadily coming together in his mind, but he hadn’t been sure until he looked into the eyes of Solomon Rex and recognized the obstinacy he saw there. He had seen those very empty eyes only a short while ago.

He had suspected something when he had entered into the memory and felt the way the regrets were structured, but it was the was Elhume and Fiero, holding hands and standing side by side while nearing the Pinnacle, that made him understand. Then with the way Elhume’s attitude had taken such a sharp turn after the Second Cohort, the fuzzy manifestation Elhume had always taken, and the commonality of borrowing the images of others in the Nexus-

“... You are the father of the universe. A man once called Elhume stripped bare. With his image, his past… and even his body, stolen by Fiero, Patron of the Borrowed.” Randidly said.

Solomon Rex, who had been called Elhume before his entire identity had been taken from him, leaned back and loosened a long laugh. The tenor of the laugh skittered across Randidly’s skin. It contained, bitterness, fury, patience, frustration, malice, and just a little bit of hope. In this wide plateau of oblivion, with only the the corpse of his son present, Solomon Rex laughed and laughed, as though the crazed laughter could cover up all the seething pain in the environment.

As though it could wrap around the pieces that had been assembled here and hide the naked blade, aimed straight toward the heart of the Nexus.

It took a while, but Solomon Rex, because Randidly sensed the name Elhume truly no longer belonged to this being, ceased laughing. His lips quirked as he considered Randidly. “So? How was it? The past me?”

“Rather pathetic,” Randidly didn’t bother to lie.

Solomon shrugged. “Despite you being a distant descendant of my humanity, you have very little awe for me. Well, if you saw the beginning, if you saw the ‘heights’ for which the name Elhume is lauded… I suppose that’s true. There is no word but pathetic for me. Especially considering how far I’ve fallen.”

“I do have a question,” Randidly said. “Before we speak… of the current world. A little clarification. So… it wasn’t you at all, was it? Who pursued Yystrix for those centuries, seeking to find her and use her.”

“No, it was not. In fact… I only worked her identity out later, during the Fifth Cohort, by putting some pieces together about… Elhume’s movement.” Solomon Rex frowned down at the ground. “Definitely… pathetic. You went to the end of the Second Cohort? By that time, I had already forgotten about Yystrix entirely. Fiero had taken the memory, when he still bore that name. He considered her- well, I suppose in a very real way, she was his mother. Fiero was born naturally from the universe, you know. A product of the Nexus. She was the first face he saw when he woke up. He wanted her, as he wanted everything, to be entirely his.”

Randidly nodded slowly, at least understanding why Yystrix hadn’t made herself known during the memory. He scratched his chin, his mind sorting through the details. “That’s also why Elhume’s attitude regarding the Nexus and Pine… changed so suddenly. Whereas you wanted to give Pine the space to come into his own, he now seeks to kill him.”

“In a very real way, Fiero now inhabits a pathetic corpse. What he borrowed now weighs him down,” Solomon chuckled, this sound much more gleeful and vindictive than the wide and hollow laughter he released before. “I have very little pity for the bastard, but at least his actions make sense. He wishes to carve himself free of the Nexus, one way or another. But I cannot allow that to happen.”

“And you wish for my help,” Randidly finally said. He stood straight and looked at Solomon Rex, after climbing to the point where he could meet with this powerful figure, this shaper of the Nexus… and be at an advantage.

From the first day he had manifested in the Dungeon and almost been killed by a glancing blow, he had come a long, long way.

“I seek cooperation.” Solomon countered. Already, the posturing had begun. “Although I am here, much power passes through this place. Elhume cannot attack this place easily; Pine’s corpse functions as a bomb because I’ve gathered so much significance here. If he acts without caution, my tragic child will pop. And lead us all to oblivion.”

“He wants to escape alive, then,” Randidly confirmed.

Solomon looked amused. “Don’t we all? Even you, Mister Ghosthound, who has a whole universe as a Soulskill. Quite intriguing.”

Instantly, Randidly’s gaze sharpened. “So, what is it you want?”

“Cooperation. Simply… well, the very universe I just referenced: Your Soulskill.” Solomon spread his hands, a used car salesman selling a lemon. “Not that I wish to possess what is yours, but this cold war with Elhume has meant… I have had to be very blunt with my preparations— even to my eyes, too much significance has been absorbed by Pine. He needs to be stabilized. I will help you defeat the current Elhume… and in return, you will either accept Pine into your Soulskill or form a connection between it and the Nexus. That should stabilize my son for long enough for me to begin the process of… reversing what he has become.”

You are going to betray me, as soon as you sink your hooks into the Alpha Cosmos. Randidly’s eyes blazed like little emerald pyres— he didn’t need a Skill to predict how this psychopath would act if he had the advantage. He felt a strong impulse to lash out right them, testing himself against the being now known as Solomon Rex, who had fallen to the bottom of the Nexus after a long career of borrowing the brilliance of another to succeed.

However, he could not, for the same reason that Elhume could not move easily against Solomon; looming behind this man was a mass of significance. Should that horrifying hunger destabilize and collapse-

But if I understand the way you react when other elements are present… Randidly controlled his temper. But in his heart, the three Moiraes and the Alchemist looked at each other with knowing smiles. …doesn’t that just make you another ingredient for me to use?