Heat became a physical presence. Energies warred against one another. The Truth was repeatedly hammered toward Randidly by the Samsara, but stiffened as it entered into the growing stability he provided to existence.

Gradually, Randidly felt the new direction to which his choices would lead him.

Aegiant screeched and rose higher while Randidly advanced his second Creed. The dark pits of his eyes widened and ate through his face in their best impression of the Stillborn Phoenix. Heat and darkness mixed as he expanded to destroy the cave system of the memory and then began to eat into the unsuspecting sky with teeth of distorted air and sparking plasma.

Temperature failed to describe the power of this incarnation of Aegiant; he radiated annihilation. Even Yggdrasil began to dry and crack underneath this manifestation of the sun. Stone turned runny in a larger and larger area; Randidly could only awkwardly paddle in the rising tide of lava around him. Aegiant raised his hands and condensed a blinding pillar of sunlight. He poured his whole existence into spiking it downward toward Randidly.

As the attack passed through the air, the pillar birthed incandescent halos of plasma that fizzled and spat in its wake.

With its trunk covered in glittering symbols, Yggdrasil stretched high and proud in the face of this attack. From the rustling leaves came the scattered beams of light from the dawn of existence. The canopy parted to allow a pure blast to meet the assault.

Congratulations! Your Skill Genesis Opens A Thousand Doors and Baptizes All Comers (GD) has grown to Level 1451!

Light met light, but one was the soft and holy light of possibility while the other was nothing but Truth warped until it had become a scouring acid. When Aegiant ripped and shredded apart those pure rays, a new rustling appeared in the canopy. Deep shadows formed underneath the auspices of the wide leaves, with a cackling avatar of woe and madness approaching. The profile was a twitching monstrosity of wicker and skittering avarice. She stretched out her greedy fingers and clawed at the powerful attack.

Congratulations! Your Skill Insatiable Deviation Promises Doom (DD) has grown to Level 1493!

The Nether construct around Randidly pulsed with a single certainty: Power.

Despite the relentless nature of the Skill, even the shadows were broken down by the unstoppable force wielded by Aegiant. The Samsara had spared nothing to prop up his image. That light spread and tore its way downward. The canopy rustled one last time before the annihilating heat arrived. The gorgeous emerald leaves were burnt to a crisp in a flash. The image manifestation flickered.

Randidly watched the pillar approach. He felt an instinct to raise his hands and struggle, but he stilled that feeling; that was not how he would be able to break this memory.

Although the Vengeance Creed is bubbling in my stomach like heartburn when I just sit and take the attack. Randidly’s lips twitched. His hands tightened into fists and then he forcefully relaxed them.

The attack hit the waiting trunk of the world tree. The powerful bark barely managed to slow it down. A massive hole was drilled through the tree’s top, several branches catching fire directly. Other branches began to snap and wither as waves of heat and discharge plasma nova’d outward. The surrounding area was marred by burns. Beneath the hammer blow, Randidly was smashed deep into the lava ocean, his Vessel hammered and shaken.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yyrflesh Vessel of Yggdrasil (GD) has grown to Level 1560!

A pillar of heat connected ground and sky, with Aegiant standing with his hands raised in the middle like a prophet of the apocalypse. Even through the haze of his new deafness, Randidly could feel the Truth of this ‘power’. It seared his skin and ravaged his muscles, crashing again and again against the flow of Nether stabilizing his body.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yyrflesh Vessel of Yggdrasil (GD) has grown to Level 1613!

Randidly’s lip curled upward. His position in the depths of the lava pool stabilized. Because eventually, that powerful manifestation faded. The deep root system of the World Tree hadn’t been touched in the slightest. His burns rapidly began to heal. Significance continued to gush through his limbs. Randidly swam back to the surface, his hair sizzling. He laughed at the memory. It all had begun to seem so two-dimensional. “And now what, Aegiant? What do you do when power isn’t enough to get what you want?”

Aegiant roared out his defiance, but small sprigs were already growing out of the scorched and ravaged portions of Yggdrasil. And in the energies rushing through the World Tree, there were new bright sparks of plasma, causing the Engravings across the trunk to glow intermittently. By surviving the baptism of a sun’s heat that could end a world, Yggdrasil would grow back more resilient.

It could grow back with a little bit of that power incorporated into the image.

Randidly once again felt his hands tightening into fists, but forcefully engaged both of his Creeds. Yes, I will not let this go. Aegiant will be punished; I will have my vengeance. But… there are many ways to have revenge aside from violence.

Power… is not enough to stop me. I’ll show you how frightful it can be to fight an entity in harmony with the world.

Randidly poured another 1000 VPs each into his Vengeance and Harmony Creeds. One called for immediate retribution, the other pulsed with cool certainty. He utilized them both, forming a riverbed with the receptive Harmony to guide the rampaging instinct of Vengeance into the shape he desired.

Randidly settled his focus into his manifestation of the World Tree. The shape constantly evolved. His emotions sharpened and sank into the form, breathing life into its existence. He could no longer find those particular resonances between shape and emotion that would grant him an extra edge, but he did not need them.

Randidly pictured his own Yggdrasil. From seed to towering pillar of a universe, he had watched it grow. He did not doubt his instincts.

Congratulations! Your Skill A Legend’s Instinctual Image Framework (L) has grown to Level 502!

Additional sprouts forced their way out of the charred hole in Yggdrasil and began to reach upward. Soon a new emerald canopy had recovered, covering the damage completely. Yggdrasil’s roots dug deeper into existence and steadied its foundation. Its leaves pushed upward.

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Above, Aegiant roared and roared, conjuring another massive pillar of solar fury.

The core area of this new pillar burned so brightly that it scarred the eye to look at it, drawing a deep gash of darkness in a watcher’s vision. Randidly just grinned and waited for the next hammer blow to fall. Aegiant’s arm swung downward, a feeble figure bloated with the confidence of power.

Again Yggdrasil rustled its canopy as the judgment of the sun's approach. Again the canopy rustled and released the brilliance of the first dawn, creating a defensive halo around its trunk. The new light incorporated aspects of the previous attack, brightening the first dawn into an event that seared existence. It had gained aspects of inviolability that resisted any outside forces.

Congratulations! Your Skill A Legend’s Instinctual Image Framework (L) has grown to Level 599!

Congratulations! Your Skill Genesis Opens A Thousand Doors and Baptizes All Comers (GD) has grown to Level 1481!

All at once, the canopy exploded in a wall of flames as the wave of temperature overwhelmed its defenses. Aegiant’s features had been completely distorted by the dark holes of his eyes, but his glee was clear. Ashes like luminous tears drifted down around Yggdrasil as the attack drilled deeper.

As before, the intrusion drew a horrific monster out of the depths of the world tree. Just like the light of the dawn, this darkness had been empowered by the previous attack. However, it had only become a more stark shadow of the pure light. The monster seemed scarred and twisted, full of madness in the face of light trying to penetrate to the depths.

Congratulations! Your Skill Insatiable Deviation Promises Doom (DD) has grown to Level 1540!

Randidly felt Vengeance howling its support of his Skill as the vicious darkness ripped and tore at the powerful light. Based on the overwhelming attack, he could feel the deviation in the World Tree growing more powerful and sinister. He couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows as it managed to stall out the attack for a full second. His lips twitched. You know, the point is to be eventually pushed back by this Truth… that’s why I’m only activating one image at a time, although that definitely assists in the purity…

Hah, I can only blame this because this Deviation Rarity comes from Devick… she’s too unreasonable for her own good…

Congratulations! Your Skill Insatiable Deviation Promises Doom (DD) has grown to Level 1601!

In the end, however, the shadows splintered and cracked and then evaporated underneath the constant assault from the sun. The pillar of flames seemed to be aware of its previous lack of effect, and spent extra energy to hack and tear its way through the branches and trunk. It even stabbed downward and plunged into the ground.

Lava erupted from the ground at the point of impact. While being ravaged by the heat, Randidly was carried away by a tidal wave of molten rock. He felt like he was being chewed up by the intensity of temperature as the pillar exploded down and destroyed a portion of the root System. The absorption of ambient energy slowed for a few seconds.

Yet as always, the power began to fade. And in that opening, Yggdrasil began churning up all the ambient energy in the environment. It drank the remnant heat down and fed it back into Randidly’s body. The canopy frothed and blossomed into a riot of greens. The roots wove themselves into a massive network underneath the fabric of existence. Randidly raised a hand and caught a thin root to stop his tumbling.

Congratulations! Your Skill The World Tree Guzzles Even Truth (GD) has grown to Level 1580!

He felt the image pressing against existence and creating a phenomenon akin to gravity. His absorption proceeded at a monstrous speed. The particular manifestation of this Skill became increasingly strange; after all, Randidly could hear Truth no longer. Which meant he just swallowed it all down, without knowing, without caring.

It all became fuel.

Congratulations! Your Skill The World Tree Guzzles Even Truth (GD) has grown to Level 1605!

As the root carried him upward, he broke the surface of the lava and then swung himself to land on one of the low branches of the World Tree. He grinned up at Aegiant while steam wafted off his skin and molten rock hardened in thin streams down his legs. “You might have more power, but that just means that you create a larger effect on the world. But what happens if I’m simply better at controlling the effects I want than you?”

This avatar didn’t bother to respond; Aegiant conjured an even larger pillar. Time stuttered around them as the power of the image ripped through the temporal fabric.

Almost instinctively, Randidly pursed his lips in distaste and sutured together the edges of the wound.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 973!

Congratulations! Your Nether Penance Empty Vessel Fosakes the Path has grown to Level 973!

The light from the pillar became so intense that the visuals crumpled and became darkness, and the dark points in the environment became light by contrast. Aegiant birthed a cataclysm that he unleashed upon the World Tree. Power with a capital P crunched all opposition against it as it rolled inexorably down, like the descending curtain after a theater performance. The canopy vanished, dawn’s pure light and the darkness of Yggdrasil handled in a moment. The upper branches became kindling. The lower branches were crushed directly.

Already, Randidly felt the effects grinding against his Vessel. He bit his lip, using the violence of Vengeance and the steadiness of Harmony to remain strong. His image continued to suffer: The trunk was scoured clean of the Engravings. The interior was hollowed out by flame.

The roots were ripped up and pursued as they swam deeper into the ground to escape. The lava around Randidly’s body evaporated on impact. His Vessel shook and shook, ravaged continuously by the high temperature. He walked on the surface of a sun, parched and fading underneath the overwhelming image.

Randidly forced his spine to straighten. Sparking blades of plasma slashed across his torso, shredding the skin and evaporating the blood in the same instant. He lifted his chin and did not flinch. Randidly understood the allure power. But it didn’t have to be an unassailable Truth.

With time damaged, the experience of overwhelming heat stretched. Every moment was agony as his skin began to bubble. But compared to the exhaustion Randidly had carried… compared to the weight of expectations he bore… compared to the soul-sundering agony of having Truth’s mutate and crack him open…

Randidly Ghosthound stood with his eyes half open. This was nothing. He could weather the tantrums of power.

Yet even in this state, his psyche gradually began to fray. Time had bogged down, nudged by the Samsara into trapping him here. The heat turned the air hazy. Randidly ignored the pain and the oppressive darkness and raised his gaze. He spread his arms wide.

Your manipulations just prove how desperate you are. You know how this ends too, don’t you, Laplace?

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 991!

Congratulations! Your Nether Penance Empty Vessel Fosakes the Path has grown to Level 991!

The power began to fade. This time, Yggdrasil barely waited until plasma had ceased dancing in the environment to blossom out of the burnt surfaces. The World Tree drank down energy and restored its luster. The trunk came back, stronger than ever. Lively energy gushed through the branches. The canopy stretched taller and produced additional meadows of thick leaves. The roots dug deeper into the ground.

When the Samsara shuddered and attempted to empower Aegiant even further, Yggdrasil’s roots wormed their way into the cracks of the animating patterns. The World Tree twitched and broke the memory open.

The Samsara groaned and melted away in a gushing explosion of significance. Randidly found himself looking at the shocked face of the young guard.

“Stop right there,” The guard growled. Randidly’s emerald pupils dilated; finally, he had made it back here. Before he could proceed forward… he needed to figure out how to handle this Truth.