While the Don continued to howl and rave on this side of the barrier, Devick watched the Nether King. His wide eyes and full lips gave the being a surprisingly innocent feel, despite the recent developments. The Nether King walked to stand in front of the cross-legged corpse. It raised its head and looked up at him. Her eyes were bright, but with a soulless framework of reactions, not with any of the intense commitment to justice that Mae Myrna had possessed.

For several long moments, those eyes remained bright as she examined the Nether King. Then the light dimmed. “Interesting. On this Path… you have slain none of the defenders’ spirits. For such a righteous choice, you deserve to ascend. Enjoy your Path to the Pinnacle.”

Behind the Patron of Truth’s corpse, there was a small wooden door sitting in the darkness. At the word deserve, the door swung open and revealed a stairwell. The Nether King walked forward and passed through the doorway, beginning to ascend back toward whatever destination awaited.

As soon as the barrier fell, the Don wheeled forward, his eyes blazing. He arrived before the Patron of Truth and raised her gaze to examine him. Her nose wrinkled in obvious distaste. “You… have slain many to advance to this point. Both enemies and allies have died by your hand to pave your Path. You reak of blood and desperation. You… do not deserve to continue any further.”

The Don popped out of existence with a finality that made Devick’s eyes shoot upward. This corpse could kill so instantly? However, she heard his roar of impotent fury from her right. She glanced sideways, to a new platform that had appeared just to the side. The Don raised a fist and slammed it against the barrier containing him, sending a ripple through it but inflicting not lasting harm.

The Patron of Truth frowned at his tantrum. “Serve your sentence of six thousand, two hundred years of repentance. Then your conscience will be cleansed and you will be deserving of further continuing. Otherwise… you must deal with my wrath.”

“Actus Suprem,” The Don pivoted and looked at Devick. His eyes were bloodshot, and those small veins pulsed and wiggled with an unnatural liveliness. “Obviously, we cannot allow a Nether King to proceed uncontested to such a holy place of the Nexus. If we work together, I have no doubt we can overcome this foe, even with the image suppression. We should immediately- wait, what are you doing?!?”

Devick walked down the stairs, past the Don’s subordinates who backed out of her way, and onto the platform. The barrier snapped into place, as it had when the Nether King had been judged. She shrugged. “I mean, if we need to, we can try your way. But what’s the harm in letting me test myself? Rules shouldn’t always be broken.”

God, who am I, giving respect to rules. I’m spending way too much time around Enmya and Lowanna. Devick clicked her tongue and focused forward, on the corpse of Mae Myrna. Despite her light words, she felt nervous looking at this Third Guardian. It hadn’t yet revealed its wrath, but Devick couldn’t see through the mechanism of the Don’s sudden incarceration.

On cue, the corpse’s gaze pivoted upward and examined her. Those eyes glowed with some internal measurement system, scrutinizing the entirety of Devick’s depths. Despite its usually irreverent attitude, even Malice straightened and preened a bit under the attention.

The light died. “You… are a difficult case. You also have not taken the lives of any spirit on your ascension. For that, you deserve to continue. However-”

At the word deserve, the wooden door began opening. The Don unleashed a cry of outrage. Then the corpse said however, and the door froze, half opened. The light in the corpse’s eyes began glowing again. The process restarted. She examined Devick closely. The light dimmed. The light brightened. The eyes flashed with an extra bit of intensity. The light dimmed. The light brightened.

The light dimmed, the corpse clearly caught in some sort of conundrum. Devick felt her heart contracting; what if she was stuck here in front of this robot, the weirdness of Randidly making her real from a memory somehow fucking her over?

The snakes swam around her head, clearly bored with all the waiting… until the corpse raised her hand and pointed at them. “...however, these each bear the burden of many lives. More lives than I can even imagine have been sucked dry by their hollow fangs. And such delight for unimaginable cruelty… They deserve nothing. They are connected to you, yes, but-” Eyes brightening, eyes dimming. “...but they latch onto you, without you desiring them. So long as you leave them behind, you may ascend.”

The door swung all the way open. Simultaneously, the snakes hurried down to float in front of Devick’s face.

But power!

Take us.

Kill the dead thing.

Squish it. Very dead.

Us too! Take!

Remember power?

We give power.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Take and take and take.

Soon chairman ours too!

Yours too! Take

Powerrrrr.

Kill kill kill!

“Impossible!” The Don shouted over the din of the serpents’ whispers. By now, those bulging red veins in his eyes were slithering back and forth. His face was flushed. “How… how can she be clean, and I am not?! She does not deserve any of this.”

“Being lucky is a certain kind of karma,” The corpse sniffed, she shifted slightly, eliciting a long and satisfying-sounding series of cracks from her back. When she raised her gaze, the light in her eyes wasn’t completely dim, but wasn't completely lit either. The corpse looked around with interest, then back to Devick. She tilted her head to the side.

“You smell… a bit like me. A different me.”

“How strange,” Devick said cheerfully. Then she marched past this animated husk before the situation could develop further. She had spent enough time around Randidly Ghosthound to know that everything he touched turned weird and sentient at the most inopportune times. She liked that part of that seemed to be rubbing off on her, but now was a relatively inconvenient time to deal with it.

To her great relief, she made it to the door without incident. And with that, Devick put her foot on the stairs and began to climb toward the Pinnacle.

*****

Pine rolled closer every second, filling the sky with absence and distorting the fabric of the Nexus. Randidly’s eyes were emerald lanterns as he unleashed more and more of his Yggdrasil image power, holding up the sky in the area above his head. Beyond his halo of protection, the ground continued to fray and float upward.

Soon, sky and ground would merge completely into a weightless suspension.

Randidly cracked his knuckles and stalked toward Solomon Rex possessing his old body and the hunched silhouette of Fiero, prepared to end this. His Truths began to raise their voices again, from having their momentum killed by the Don’s inopportune interference. He felt exhausted, but he also felt exultant.

The Pinnacle felt so, so close.

The face of Elhume quirked up in a bitter smile. “We may still discuss this, Randidly Ghosthound. To speak of final trump cards… you are the one that leads us to the precipice. You endanger the Nexus-”

“You’ve had a thousand years, more than that, to guide us to a better end,” Randidly growled in response. The Dread Homunculus sneered. “But all you’ve done is exploit the lives of those weaker than you, ignore their pleas, and monopolize the benefits of your position. You two have built the game board. I will not flinch from breaking the rules you’ve maintained for your own benefit.”

“That power of yours… it should be mine…” Fiero mumbled.

Randidly flicked out Acri. He pulled his three images through his body, each pulling a slightly different emotional affect out of his deep well of power. Significance traced the edges of the images, sharpening their impact. The steadfastness of Yggdrasil, the ferocity of the Dread Homunculus, and the abject yearning of the Songstress of Absence all came together. Randidly used his Privilege of the Half-Shallah to guide the three differing images together with perfect harmony.

He raised his spear, weight perfectly balanced, a bomb a split second before detonation.

“Fiero, we must acknowledge the situation,” Solomon as Elhume suddenly hissed. He spared a disgusted sideways glance; perhaps he had to come to terms with the fact that this mentally weak individual had managed to pry everything from his fingers. He soldiered forward. “The contingency about which I spoke to you earlier… I believe it is time.”

“You believe our only hope is to ask for help?” Fiero gnashed his teeth.

“The truth is, we have been receiving its help for a long time, in bigger and smaller ways. Now, we must simply allow it freer rein.”

Randidly’s lip quirked. Yea, let’s not let you get through this conversation. He exploded into motion-

Elhume waved his hand. Temporal waves condensed just as Randidly surged forward. The figures of Elhume and Fiero grew blurry. Randidly simply narrowed his eyes and unleashed the full weight of the power he could now wield: liquid Aether and translucent Nether seared through his back, shoulder, wrist, guiding a thrust to unleash a combination image.

The temporal barrier squeezed closer, desperate to stop him. Randidly felt his Truths rising in him. He shredded through waves of time, having fought against this move enough in this fight to understand it. Yet even as he blazed forward, Randidly felt more temporal waves coming at him from behind, wrapping around his arms and waist. Rather than stopping him, it appeared they intended to try and force him to replay this moment.

This time, as Randidly gritted his teeth and adjusted his image, he didn’t target the temporal barrier directly. He aimed instead for the persistent, insistent truth of ‘time’ underpinning the whole technique.

If you are going to use these rules against me, Randidly’s emerald eyes blazed. I’ll just shatter them. Singularity Engulfs the Finite. The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty. The Wrathful Calamity Rends.

Spectral roots exploded out of his spear, edged with the infinite hollowness of the voice. Those void-roots became a hand and Randidly Ghosthound took that claws to the very concept of time supporting the Nexus-

He felt a tremor within himself-- that figure of Nyx that had condensed through the slightly wider opening to the Sea of Statues he now possessed was shouting and gesticulating. He couldn’t understand her, as if-

As if a temporal barrier blocked it. As if it had been preventing the communication from this dubious ally the whole time.

Randidly forced his way through the concept of time and immediately staggered backward by the radiation that slapped him on the other side. For one reason, Pine now had descended even closer. The entire sky had vanished, replaced by Pine’s looming corpse, about to impact the ground and smash them all to paste.

But it was another sensation that made Randidly’s instincts prickle in warning. He could feel the shredded truth about time gradually being forced aside by a powerful… something. A portal flickered into existence, next to Elhume and Fiero. A portal to the Sea of Statues.

“Randidly Ghsothound,” Elhume had to shout to be heard above the roar of Pine, yet his eyes were bright with triumph. “Allow me to introduce you to Laplace, the Fickle Crossroads of Time. A dear friend, who will teach you the meaning of respect.”

Through the portal to the Sea of Statues, three scaled fingers stretched out and curled slowly around the edge.