“...is it possible to leverage your assistance further?” Don Beigon asked, sitting in the middle of a grand formation built on the edge of the cliff. Waves of copper-colored water crashed below, sending glittering spray up into the slow golden rotation of energy around his person. Nearby, several powerful figures from the Nether Lattice floated and considered, while adding a pittance of their shared significance to the working. In the distance, the Don’s subordinates and former debtors called to join the Nether Lattice mingled freely.

It had almost become a small festival. The excitement and powerful images added weight to the air. Many lingered over curiosity over how Elhume would deal with this blatant transgression, growing ever more curious as the distant disturbance in the Nexus continued to delay the predicted hammer blow. Of course, they also remained far enough away from the action they would be able to escape sudden retribution.

Upon his request, the Nether Lattice representatives took their sweet time conferring with each other to weigh the options. Knowing this would happen, the Don closed his eyes; time was a precious commodity to him right now, although he needed to be extremely precise in its allotment.

His image wavered and swelled, before adjusting its shape and slimming back down to a more condensed shape. He felt a low through through his entire being, as he tried to perfect his image that would become a Truth. Once he reached the proper volume, the volume of the Pinnacle for his image note, he would not be able to make adjustments. The process couldn’t be interrupted.

His emotions twisted and writhed; each exerted individual influence on the final note. His deep well of vengeance, his methodical patience, his brutally exacting intellect, the complex gears and flywheels of his internal sense of debt.

He felt a grand machine becoming clearer and clearer in his mind, possessing none of the vagaries of ephemeral karma. No, the Truth he would embody would be an empirical truth. Connections, brushes, and touches wouldn’t be so poisonous. His would be a moment of clean delineation.

Of fucking payment for which he was long owed. A reckoning that would attribute culpability where it was due.

“It is possible,” The humanoid hawk that had hemmed and hawed in the negotiations now acted as though this agreement was the pinnacle of generosity. “However, you must understand, we take on a great deal of risk in this manner. Despite all your preparations, have others failed to at least gather this much support? After all, if Elhume were to intervene before you have repaid our significance…”

The Don bowed his head as though giving this pile of horseshit his due consideration. Instead, he simply followed the notes of his personal truth toward their inevitable conclusion. The nobs of his emotion slowly slid into alignment. He would generate a reordering of this Nexus. A new order where power could not elude justice.

“...I do have certain rare resources, gathered over the course of my business operations for the past few centuries. Secret vaults. I am willing to provide their locations, as collateral for your continued faith.” He finally said. He looked around at his ‘allies’. He witnessed the poorly disguised greed in their eyes.

The Nether Lattice representatives nodded solemnly. The amount of support they offered increased. The trickle of significance became a healthy stream. His left hand gripped the armrest with just a pound of force less than would be required to snap it; For now, this meager increase would be enough. His foundation empowered its shape and structure, pushing him upward.

Irritation surged in the Don’s chest, both threatening to cause him to break his ‘character’ and also lose the thread of his truth. In the end, this was a distracting farce and he couldn’t wait until he could put it behind him.

He followed the flow of golden radiance above him, to the place where his foundation, the available moment, and his rising image led him. A swirling portal opened, a direct Path to the Pinnacle. However, the Don made no move to take this doorway.

He honed his image. He strengthened his foundation. Across the Nexus, his agents activated secondary rituals to give him a better grip on the moment.

The portal to the Path to the Pinnacle wiggled and shifted. The crossing-over point to this trap gauntlet created by Elhume adjusted to his higher attainment. Gradually, the grand working created by the Don drilled upward, giving him access to a higher point along the dangerous gauntlet guarding the Pinnacle.

Stay the course. Their judgments will come.

*****

The implacable solidity of the ground forced a ragged breath out of Alana’s chest. She choked on dust and bits of shattered marble as she scrambled to her feet. From the rumbles echoing out from the broken facade of Military High Command, the rest of the Vulpis Squad experienced similar difficulties.

The personal soldiers of the Actus Suprem were stronger even than the Swacc Family and their Armaments.

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A pillar the size of a small building leaned sideways and collapsed as Lady Iellaya stalked slowly out of the main entrance. Her feathers bristled along her arms and neck. “Not that I don’t understand your reluctance; this association isn’t how I imagined my career proceeding either. But once you get a bit of the Actus Suprem running through your veins… its hard not to be swept up in it, you know? To wonder what hell we are hurtling toward, to anticipate the inevitable crash. And nothing’s quite like dragging someone else along for the ride.”

“As attractive as you make it sound, I’ll have to respectfully decline the Actus Suprem’s offer of personal tutelage.” Alana Donal’s image swirled in the air around her body. She tried not to breathe too deeply, less she strain her fractured ribs. Her flesh healed as quickly as it could during the small beak. Alana stood on the steps and raised her spear.

“Then I will kill you.” Lady Iellaya said. She almost sounded bored.

Alana smiled, in spite of herself. She had plenty of familiarity with threats. “You will be one more individual who gave it their best effort, I’m sure.”

Both leaned forward into the clash. Alana channeled her tired and fluttering holy light through her spear. The radiance had dimmed over the course of the day, but she felt the core of her beliefs had been repeatedly purified by the impacts. Opposite her, a vast and hissing feathered serpent spread its fell wings. The swollen veins spoke to the madness animating its violent body. The two images crashed into one another.

“The Fourth Revelation: Divinity.”

On contact, the exterior of her image of Divinity cracked and crumbled. Alana adjusted her posture before the impact landed, but was still knocked sideways. The impact knocked a gasp out of her lungs. Her ribcage groaned, dangerously close to collapsing. She broke through the crumbled wreckage of the fallen pillar and rolled to a stop in another cloud of dust and plaster.

Some part of her acknowledged that she should be down for the count. But her hands found the ground, blood still flowed through her shaky arms, and she leveraged herself back to her feet by the time Lady Iellaya stalked through the passage opened by Alana’s body.

It’s Nether, Alana realized as she steadied herself, less injured than her instincts told her she would be. It’s Randidly’s Nether, flowing through me. For whatever reason… it feels so much more solid than it ever has in the past.

The Nether felt cool and refreshing, flowing through her body, spiraling through her injured muscles, condensing next to her heart and keeping Alana grounded.

“Your loyalty is doubly surprising,” Lady Iellaya remarked as she stopped and examined Alana. “Considering that the Ghosthound simply left you here to your fate. Your squad was already worn ragged from repeated skirmishes and he abandoned you to a foe that could overwhelm you even at your most prepared. He left you to the wolves. He knew you could only become meat. If you instead followed the Actus Suprem-”

“He thought we would win, despite all that. Despite all the reasons why most said we wouldn’t be able to manage it.” Alana coughed a bit, sucked in her stomach, and took her spear stance. Small wisps of golden-orange light slithered away from her skin. She could feel her image, her faith, percolating through and settling within that dense core of Nether in her chest.

“How?” Lady Iellaya chuckled as she looked Alana up and down.

Alana shrugged, unwilling to admit she also didn’t understand. Instead, she focused all her attention on her next move-- her current five Revelations wouldn’t cut it. After such a long break… it was time to open her soul and discover a Sixth Revelation-

The place in her chest where faith and Nether mixed shook slightly. Alana was disconcerted; the shudder seemed to indicate creating another Revelation was the wrong choice.

Another section of the Military High Command facade collapsed as two more bodies blasted out. A group of three grim-faced soldiers walked out after, just as Heiffal coughed and writhed, rolling off of Charlotte Wick, who he had protected with his body.

Large spatters of blood bloomed on those stretches of ground they had rolled across before their momentum had been expended.

“Heiffal!” Alana gasped out the words. Charlotte released an inarticulate roar as she managed to get her bearings. The ground beneath their feet writhed and seethed as her Primal Force roused it into action. Waves of natural energy filled the air. The warm smell of freshly turned loam filled the air.

It was an empowered and inherited image, one passed down from the Ghosthound.

The three soldiers smirked. They unleashed blasts of their sharpened images. In concert, the three ripped through and obliterated Charlotte Wick’s defenses. All the natural vibrancy she conjured barely held off the offensive for a second. And in the next instant, Heiffal came roaring onto the scene.

Drops of blood dribbled out from his numerous wounds. Alana could tell he was a firm shove away from folding over like a rotten tree trunk. But in the face of those refined images from the Actus Suprem’s personal forces, Heiffal didn’t hesitate for a second. His image was rough, but it surged dramatically from the depths of his body. It was a profoundly selfish image, one that refused to concede.

Despite its faults, it possessed a foundation that an inherited image couldn’t rival. The Nether in Alana’s body began to rotate.

His resistance flickered but didn’t wholly falter. For a second he held back the attack, giving time for Charlotte to reposition, bring her furry around swinging around Heiffal’s waist, and then yanking both of them to safety.

The concentrated image blast from the trio shot forward, ripping up a trough of marble ground. Alana felt her Nether begin to settle into a new pattern. Her ribcage continued to release twinges of pain, but she knew what she had to do.

“As I pointed out, you were abandoned,” Lady Iellaya said. She took a step forward. Her Feathered Serpent’s tail lashed back and forth. “If you surrender now, we will be willing to spare the lives of your soldiers.”

“It can’t be about him all the time,” Alana whispered to herself. Her orange-golden motes of holiness began to flash and pulse. “We… we need to begin to take full responsibility. The paths have been opened. And now…

“Now we walk.” Alana’s eyes shifted to Heiffal, coughing through lips wet with blood. Her pupils dilated. The Skill crystalized inside her chest. “The First Parable: A Hopeless Soldier.”