The two figures stood in the void with jagged waves of warped time wrapping around their bodies. Their meeting would decide the fate of the Nexus.

As Randidly faced off against Laplace, he considered an alternate option to rushing into this confrontation: stepping back through the barrier behind him and fighting in the final threshold of Pine. It would essentially be a stalling tactic: gamble that Laplace, due to the interference of the dead, would take longer to make it through to the final area than Randidly would. Ezekiel and Commandant Wick had vanished since the fighting broke out, but Randidly suspected they were still lurking around and coordinating the actions of the regal dead.

Temporal distortions buzzed against his skin as he clenched his fists. At the very least, the choice would give him a bit more time to consider what to do about the strange dissonance Randidly felt in his Nether Core every time he considered his Penance.

Yet almost immediately, Randidly discarded that idea. He clenched his fists even tighter until some of his knuckles popped. For one thing, he wasn’t sure what he would find on the other side of the barrier. The Truths in his heart were gathering momentum toward shaping themselves into a Grand Fate. His intention was to condense the Grand Fate at the same moment those Truths reached the Pinnacle and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could delay.

But perhaps most gallingly… after their physical clashes, Randidly wasn’t sure if he would be the first one to break through this last barrier.

Green puss leaked out of the wound from the ticking second hand inserted into Laplace’s left eye. The strange liquid stained the blank expanse, the previous paths of the ooze drying to an offputting yellow-brown. But around the Eternity, its vicious time had regained its stability.

With deliberate care, the massive serpent creature used its arms to drag its heavy body forward. Randidly took his own step forward to face it. He felt a sense of unreality as he defended Pine’s Corpse from being desecrated, but at the very least, a spiteful part of Randidly refused to allow the benefits of the Nexus to flow to this bastard.

He would not step back, not before this asshole.

Cheh, maybe Devick is rubbing off on me more than I thought, Randidly reflected, feeling the heady burn of Devick’s Truth resounding through to him. Yet he did not try and separate himself from the heat. If anything, he allowed it to echo out from their connection, achieving more and more resonance with his Yggdrasil, which housed the Inevitable Deviation Promises Doom, a Devick’s Deviation Rarity Skill.

With his Penance continuing to show problematic stutters, Randidly pushed it to the side. He observed the gathering of temporal power around Laplace with a solemn expression. His hair fluttered back and forth across his eyes. An Eternity looked at Randidly with righteous fury, pus still oozing out from its wounded eye. Randidly’s lips twitched as the monster condensed six floating books.

The fat hand gestured imperiously. The books slowly opened, each to the first page. Several strange moons formed around the books and orbited their spines. The pages of the books began to flutter forward.

Tch, so dramatic, Randidly’s lip twitched, trying not to think about how convoluted his Skill names had become.

Time wrenched and curdled underneath the pressure of those six books. And the more the pages fluttered from the beginning of the book to the end, the worse the pressure became. The whirl currents of time concentrated into a vicious cyclone.

Can’t just let those gather up momentum. Randidly’s eyes narrowed. Laplace pointed and the first book zipped forward just as Randidly took an aggressive step opposite it. Just a look told him that the horrifying force that overwhelmed his body was where these temporal tomes started; from there, it only went up.

This was the genuine power of Laplace, the Fickle Crossroads of Time.

The toes of Randidly’s right foot dug into space, trying to find purchase. In his heart, he felt the potential Truths he had gathered. Each came from a different place, each hinted at a different Path to the Pinnacle.

He had his three base images, each with potential and a growing certainty adding an edge to their bite. His consciousness shifted away, to the other tools he had assembled for his grand miracle.

First, Randidly acknowledged his own nascent Truth formed with the help of his methodical Alchemist: Every detail matters.

The humming from Devick grew louder and louder, as she inexplicably discovered her own powerful Truth. In only five minutes it had risen from a seed to a blooming flower that resembled an envious hand, with long fingers wrought from stubbornness and gritted teeth. Randidly could sense that given only a little bit of time, it would evolve into a version he could incorporate into his Grand Fate process.

In addition, Randidly possessed the Truth given to him by Nyx: You can’t have it both ways.

Those were the Truths that seemed to possess the requisite integrity to be used in the process. Even further from becoming actionable, the burning ember he had taken from Shal had been continually refined by the pressure-filled situation. Perhaps if that continued-

The pages made soft, fluttering noises as they flipped forward and created a horrifying orbit within the isolated battlefield between Laplace and Randidly. Randidly flexed his hands. No more time to think. Let’s begin. And of all the Truths I want to use to create a Grand Fate, I definitely need-

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Yggdrasil, Songstress of Absence, Dread Homunculus. Let’s stop holding back, shall we?

Randidly’s emotional sea trembled. Then all it once, through those thick currents of energy and vast depths, the entire basin flipped upside down. Emotional force coursed downward in a thunderous ‘water’fall that crashed through his body and made Randidly’s images flare with power. No longer did he attempt to restrain his images from nearing their core resonance. Now he allowed all the heavily layered potential he had so carefully carved into their forms to unfold into transfixing eruption.

Yggdrasil went first, exploding in the space behind Randidly’s body to become the towering trunk, the expansive canopy, the filtered light and darkness of a tree that could support worlds. It had been Randidly’s first image he had discovered on his own. Now, the history of his journey through the Nexus made it resplendent. The leaves were as emerald as his eyes. The trunk had been marred, but never truly wounded. All of the stories he had spun, the lives that Randidly had touched, had become golden carvings that glittered with heroics and truth along the trunk.

Randidly might have given up his physical form, but the World Tree remembered his every triumph, his every failure. Life energy gushed into the surrounding space, beyond the reach of time, pure and giving.

Opposite, Laplace opened its wide mouth and howled. The temporal warping of the book grasped out for Randidly… and the World Tree leaned forward to embrace it.

The undertow of Laplace’s strange books pulled and pulled. The canopy of the World Tree shivered underneath that suction. The hooks sank deeper into the image as the pages continued to flutter and accelerate the flows of time. Randidly could almost hear the passage of time whooshing past Yggdrasil, Laplace relying on the sheer weight of its experience to grind this impediment to nothing.

Yet the World Tree had always been imagined on a universal scale. If time was a foe that could slay it easily, it wouldn’t work very well as the foundation of a universe.

Pure surged up through Yggdrasil as it resisted the initial shockwave. The book twitched as though incensed by this resistance from a mere tree. The flipping pages came more quickly, time swirling away at a faster and faster pace. And Yggdrasil-

Stopped resisting.

Randidly allowed a small smile of triumph to flash across his face. Go find your Truth, Yggdrasil. If you had time enough to grow to maturity… how powerful would you become?

Time pulled and the Yggdrasil borrowed its powerful momentum to hurtle itself forward. Which meant that it also had to be subject to the horrifying pressure of the time Laplace wielded, but this much it could stand. And with time rushing past, the slowly growing Yggdrasil shivered— its golden roots flexed and coiled.

Chips of bark were ground off the trunk, but the canopy and roots exploded into growth, riding the forceful temporal waves. The brown and gold tendrils dug deeper and deeper into the fabric of the Nexus. Time might have torn, but Randidly could feel his connection to this universe growing increasingly strong as the image could expand. He felt the heartbeat of this wounded universe, the life that stubbornness persisted in the shadow of Pine’s corpse.

Meanwhile, the canopy stretched wider and wider. It had very little effect on the current situation, but Randidly could feel those wide and sturdy boughs interposing themselves between Pine and the rest of the Nexus. It took away some of the horrifying pressure of this bomb.

While the physical changes occurred, what was really important was the Truth in Randidly’s heart. The emotional affect achieved the supportive harmony Yggdrasil had always exemplified. The Truth of this core image of Randidly Ghosthound was slow growth and near divinity through nurturing and support. Randidly’s efforts had been able to provide high-quality examples of the former and he could use emotional affect to mimick the sensation of the latter, but it hadn’t been genuine.

Now, riding on the quickly flowing time, Yggdrasil made up all of that ground. In only a moment, it had existed for several hundred years. After three seconds of the hug between book and tree, it eclipsed a millennium. The World Tree matured.

Yggdrasil grew massive and flowering.

Laplace howled again, its rage palpable. The book accelerated the flapping of its pages. But although the World Tree shook from the impact, it was just a resettling. Over a thousand years old, the universe-supporting tree would not sway against temporal flows of this magnitude.

Randidly’s chest burned as he felt the keening note of resonance gathering momentum.

Warning! Strange energy signature detected.

Your image is devolving in a dangerous manner! Please see your nearest Village Spirit-

Pantheon intervention… Recalculating…

Your Image Yggdrasil, Universe that was First a Tree, is approaching a qualitative transformation! We suspect this will result in a Pinnacle event.

Reach the Pinnacle Now or Delay? Now/Delay

Randidly snorted at the sudden choice notification that popped up in front of him. It had been a while since he had bothered to notice their passage. He pressed Delay, feeling a strange sense of separation settle across the World Tree image; the Pantheon now acted to maintain that state, so he could bring all his images to where he wanted them before he actually condensed his Grand Fate.

Book and tree leaned against one another, giving themselves fully over to the battle of time. Laplace watched, an ugly expression on its face. Likely, it could sense the same outcome that Randidly could. Halfway through the book and its fluttering pages, it seemed like the attack would not be enough to shatter Yggdrasil.

This time when it screamed and pointed, the remaining five books shot forward, all at once. Randidly could only wince and mobilize his remaining two images, understanding he was the last barrier before the core area of Pine’s corpse. Their power shook space; those books might rip their way to Pine all on their own. “Alright, you two. This is not a drill. Are you ready for the Pinnacle?”

A ripple ran through the surrounding area. The specter of the Dread Homunculus stood by Randidly’s side, still dragging a long cloak of night that teemed with the unwilling spirits of the dead. Its eyes burned with steady resolve. Randidly could feel the anticipation it possessed, ready to thrust itself forward.

Yet it was the Songstress of Absence that cracked open space as she descended.

Randidly couldn’t help but laugh: the Siren of the Inhospitable Depths had been waiting a long time for the chance for her solo. And now she could sing her heart out, without worrying about anything of note being caught in the crossfire.

They stood in a corpse, surrounded by the dead. She could devour it all and the Nexus would only be improved for it.