With the shimmer of temporal distortions above them, Charlotte Wick acted as the cutting edge of the Vulpis Squad’s blitzkrieg into the defensive array. Her spine burned, animating her entire form into violence. She pivoted with grace and wielded huge mallets of force. Her image surged in response, the ground shaking out its vindictive support.

And she fucking enjoyed smashing the porcelain dolls to pieces. Her paws lashed left and right, each blow containing the force of an earthquake. She felt powerful, she felt like an incarnation of violence with bits of porcelain fracturing and spitting away from every one of her attacks. Perhaps for the first time, with the Vulpis Squad surging behind her, she truly felt like she deserved the title of Knight of the Ghosthound.

That feeling took root in her Nether. Charlotte Wick felt a small pop as a Nether Core condensed inside of her and began to rapidly rotate. She breathed in, a whole new version of herself animating and inflating with the energy she pulled through her limbs.

“Brace!” Raymund bellowed out from behind her as almost two hundred porcelain dolls floated up and rolled in front of their advance with gleaming crystal apertures. Light snaked across their individual bodies and then crackled form one body to another, until a massive collective weapon hovered over the group.

Charlotte crooked a finger and the ground rumbled its amusement at their petty resistance. The other images of the Vulpis Squad became a buoy around her own, granting her strength. They cleared out the environment so her image could shine. Even now, Charlotte felt her skin tingling with the Parable that Alana had given her.

“Upon Dirt, A Mortal Quells the Sky,” Charlotte planted her feet. She brought her two paws together and interlaced her claws. She raised her hands above her head

When she hammered, the intricate offensive array of the porcelain dolls sputtered and failed. And then the porcelain defenders tinkled into a million glittering pieces as the secondary wave of pressure blasted them apart. Charlotte Wick leaned back and bellowed out a cry of triumph, even as she heard from behind a soft gasp from Alana. A split second later, Charlotte’s instincts caught up with the sudden threat; she folded waves of natural force into an impromptu armor, twisting around-

She wasn’t going to make it-

Images clashed and Charlotte felt her fur standing on end. She finished her rotation, bitter and chagrined. By the time she had been ready to respond to the threat, another half-familiar figure had interceded between her and the assailant. Pullas, one of the two irregulars who Randidly had left with the Vulpis Squad, looked at the ambusher with disdain. “Xershi, what the fuck are you doing here? And why are you attacking us?”

“This side just seemed like more fun,” A slinky metallic liger humanoid gave Charlotte an extremely pointed glance, one full of promises of death. The bearwoman bit her lip, wondering how well she would have fared if Pullas hadn’t been there. Then he unwillingly turned back to face the woman in front of him. “Besides, my creator fights to save our universe. After recanting his earlier statements-”

“That fuck approached you again, peddling lies? He’s using you, Xershi.” Pullas said quietly.

Xershi fleshed his clawed hands. “I’m not being used. This side will give me the chance to clash against the Ghosthound, and our rivalry-”

Charlotte couldn’t suppress a snort at that. “Seems like you haven’t seen Randidly lately, if you think a grub like you stands a chance.”

“You-!” The liger pounced forward. Pullas intervened again, a dense aura of death emanating from her body. Even Charlotte’s Primal Ground recoiled somewhat, unwilling to pass so closely by her genial death. Xershi hissed as their images clashed. After a prolonged moment of contact, the liger hopped backward and opened up some distance.

Raymund Ballast appeared at Charlotte’s side, giving her a light touch on the shoulder. Then he looked at Pullas. “You will handle this impediment?”

“Gladly. It’s my responsibility, as he was part of our Ascension Pact.” Pullas nodded. Xershi started gnashing his teeth and swearing, but the leader of the Vulpis Squad was done with his antics. The Vulpine raised a claw and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, Xershi’s rapid mouth movements were totally inert; his voice had been stolen.

Raymund looked at Charlotte. Several more large groupings of porcelain dolls floated up from the ground, sending bolts of crackling energy smashing into the sides of the stalled-out column. “Continue to lead the charge. If we are to break through to the core area, we cannot lose ourselves here for too long.”

“He probably tells the truth about his creator though, waiting in the middle of this,” Pullas said over her shoulder as the group began loping away. “That being… was strange. Be careful about the form he will have taken.”

Charlotte gathered her image once again and glanced up toward the sky. The temporal distortions over their head had become a strange tornado, originating in the lowest portion of this dried seabed and writhing up into the sky. The clouds and sky blended into a broken whirlpool of grey, oranges, and soft pinks. But as they rushed toward the middle-

It’s darkening to red, Charlotte smashed her way through another defensive Engraving and led the Vulpis Squad forward. Soon, the sky is going to be the color of blood.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She tried not to think too deeply about that development as they proceeded forward. She didn’t turn to look at the fading strength in Heiffal strapped to Edgar’s shoulders, nor the trail of bodies they left behind them.

*****

The sky had become a wall of fists. Yet Don Beigon didn’t panic.

In the face of the Elhume’s foretold vengeance, he moved quickly. He sent a few signals out to his subordinates with hand signals and rolled himself purposefully forward toward the howling portal.

The edges of the Engraving crackled and collapsed as the fists descended. Huge chunks of the immaculately carved arrays folded in on themselves, wasting all the significance and Aether he poured through to the ascension process. The Don’s fingers on his wheelchair handles were slightly slick with sweat, but he kept his motion controlled. The pressure those fists released was perhaps an attack he could turn aside, but it would be a waste of energy.

Now, in the finally stretched, he needed to conserve his trump cards for as long as possible.

The hawk humanoid fluttered to the Don’s side, even with several of the other blindsided Nether Lattice leadership members hovering after her. Her eyes flicked back and forth, trying to conceptualize how deep a well of shit they had fallen into. “Don Beigon! I demand you cease- if we do not adjust our behavior now- ah, those fists, Elhume’s gaze-”

“His gaze still isn’t here,” Don Beigon said grimly, looking once more at the sky. A tremor went through his wrists; truly, the tyrant’s gaze was elsewhere, and yet all of their defenses folded before him. It was a pathetic display-- The Don refocused. This inattention was an opportunity. His vengeance for Diane had the space to grow. “We still have a chance, we just need to seize it. The Path to the Pinnacle is open, and significantly has advanced.”

“Yet the truth is that none have returned- with this much investment, if we do not manage to retrieve a little bit of significance, the Nether Lattice-” Fear made the hawk humanoid blabber. The Don saw similar expressions of panic in the whites of the eyes around him.

The Nether Lattice is just a tool. But out loud, the Don spoke in a calm voice over the howling of the fists approach and the crash of their defenses fracturing. “We both know that Elhume would not have just forgiven your involvement. I know I’ve forced your hand, but that was because you weren’t willing to acknowledge this one truth: from the moment you supported me a little, your fate was tied with mine. Now, we can only proceed forward.”

“We might be killed upon the Path to the Pinnacle,” One of the other Nether Lattice leaders whined.

“We will be killed out here as well,” Don Beigon chuckled. He flexed his hands. In front of the portal, a group of ten of his best soldiers bowed to him. A few of his Nether Lattice Allies gave him terse nods. Behind them, the Engraving rumbled and cracked right down the middle. The portal flickered. He felt the other members of the Nether Lattice come into alignment with his beliefs.

Which was a relief; he would rather save his reversal of fortune for later, aimed at threats they would meet upon the Path of the Pinnacle. From what he had heard about the trials installed there by Elhume, he would need all the strength he could muster to actually proceed to that high summit of harmonious image tuning.

The Don believed he cut a very dashing figure, rolling his bamboo wheel chair through the portal while the group fell into formation behind him. There was a horrible lurching sensation that shook up his organs and then the Don ‘stepped’ onto this harrowing Path. With trepidation in his heart, he looked around.

The Path was a literal one. A grey cobblestone thoroughfare cut with godlike precision rolled forward, up and up and up. However, the true magic of this place lay beyond the edges of the five-meter wide road.

Because past the edge of the pathway, cosmic tapestries of rainbow radiances glittered in the distance. They moved in a place of spinning nebulas and glittering light. Small luminous orbs hung haphazardly in space around them, so as they walked they seemed to be in a frozen snow globe or an interactive astronomy display. In the background, the rainbow colorations shifted slowly, seafoam green undulating to indigo and then to royal purple before shifting toward the color of blood.

Don Beigon understood this was a deliberately constructed place. Elhume had created this Pathway originally for his own use, then as an obvious trap for the greedy within the Nexus. The Don had some private theories as to why the original purpose of the Path to the Pinnacle had been discarded, but at the very least, it served as the perfect venue for his vengeance.

He would pretend to have bought into its magic until the last possible moment.

It was a place of beauty and possibility. And glittering in the distance sat an island shrouded in robin’s egg blue mist. Despite preparing himself mentally, the Don still squeezed the arms of his chair as he looked. Raw yearning rose up in his chest, whispering about a different life he might have lived, a life where his wife would be here at his side for this moment.

With his very own eyes, Don Beigon could see the Pinnacle.

As the last few Nether Lattice lackeys were scurrying there the portal, another rumble shook the threshold; Elhume’s attack had landed and all of the Don’s preparations crumbled. One of the unfortunates cried out a note of pure fear and then the portal winked out of existence, leaving three individuals stranded in the transitionary space.

The moment when the pried-open doorway closed was silent, as their bodies were squished and crushed to naught. An acceptable development, because it weakened the Hawk humanoid’s support.

The Don Beigon looked around and measured the fear of the others. He cleared his throat. “We cannot hesitate. We need to move forward. So long as he isn’t following, we have the chance to reach the Pinnacle unmolested.”

Almost immediately to counter his statement, the air in front of the group flickered. A specter manifested, his ghostly lines solidifying before their eyes. The humanoid swung his long glaive, thunder crackling along its length. “Well met, challenger. Before you proceed on this Path to the Pinnacle, you must-”

The ten soldiers the Don had brought leapt into formation. Engravings glowed between their painstakingly wrought armor. Then, just as the specter seemed to recognize what was about to happen, they cut from ten directions toward the specter. The specter hissed and straightened, bolts of lightning smashing down in the surrounding area. He released a pure and powerful image.

However, within twenty seconds, Don Beigon’s elites had driven ten blades into his heart and caused the specter to fade from existence.

“You must face the specters alone, to hone your image,” The Hawk humanoid protested weakly.

The Don sneered. “Not only can we currently not afford to waste time, but did you not examine the essence of its body? That thing is almost a half Nether Prince, hewn with the roughest and most caustic Nether. Clashing directly with it will only weaken your image. This whole Path was designed to tire you out… no, the foes we must face are the Path’s guardians. Follow me.”