The guard’s face contained obvious desperation and worry. Perhaps instinctively, he sensed the damage Randidly could inflict on him, just by his presence.

Randidly felt his heart tremor, just slightly. This was how the Samsara had almost broken him down. By weaponizing one of his old Truths against him: Every detail matters. Because the perspective of following every detail would lead to predictable outcomes. Which made it more painful to observe the way Randidly’s actions produced unintended consequences because each unexpected outcome was a failure by him to consider.

Specifically, he had been so thoughtless he had left behind ripples that would sweep up and destroy the lives of innocents. And that was not the sort of person, or legend, that Randidly Ghosthound wanted to be.

Even with all the Stats he had earned, and now earned more constantly due to the accumulation of VPs, Randidly couldn’t handle every detail. The world was too broad and complex for any mind to grasp. He had achieved the status of a legend, a being beyond mundane reality. But that didn’t bless him with omnipotence. Details would escape him. Ripples would drift outward.

But the vicious conclusion this inevitability insisted upon ignored a very important point.

Randidly offered the unfortunate soul in front of him a sad and kind smile. As he spoke, he couldn’t help but picture all the ways he had killed this man, originally and in the memory replays. “No, I’ll go back on my own. Because the real reason so many innocents are killed in my wake… is I don’t bother to clean up my messes.

“Because I’ve been too proud, because there is always a more important issue to address… and that hasn’t changed. But I’m of the opinion… what’s the point of gathering all this capability if I cannot even handle my own problems?”

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 1000! Your existence continues to insinuate itself into the very fabric of time! Your presence will prevent temporal distortions in the surrounding area. Those within the Alpha Cosmos have gained the slightest wisp of this capability! In the future, their development toward Skills and images related to temporal stability will greatly increase.

When opponents use temporal Skills against you, there is a slight chance of stifling the activation and generating a dangerous rebound!

Congratulations! Your Nether Penance Empty Vessel Forsakes the Path has grown to Level 1000! Your Nether Core is experiencing a period of immense Nether growth! Your significance will soon develop further unique effects, after being isolated from the reverberations of Truth. The effects of your Authorities are increased!

For the continued growth of aligned Grand Fate and Nether Penance, +1 Muse’s Reverie!

Without waiting for a response, Randidly pivoted on his heel. A few steps brought him to the window, where flurries of snow spiraled down. He stepped up onto the sill and hopped out into the chill air. His breath seeped out of his mouth like fog. His new eyes, black with that bright emerald pupil, aimed downward.

Below waited the open maw of entropy, the mutated Judgment he had avoided, the manifestation of all his small decisions that could be catastrophes for those innocents caught in the crossfire. He walked back down the ‘Path’ he had carved without worrying about the consequences.

Violent winds curled a massive snowstorm into a tight circle. It exhaled freezing rain and condensing clumps of hail. The storm plucked up sharpened stakes of ice, solidified recriminations, and whirled them around in a tight spiral of death. It was a throat with a circular opening lined with frigid teeth.

The air around Randidly remained mostly still, but that was because he had climbed the tower to escape the Judgement behind him; it would take a little bit of time to catch up to him. He looked down and saw a thousand tiny bits of ‘Truth’ the Samsara had probably plucked out of his subconscious to make his heart bleed.

More memories bobbed and flashed across the surface of his mind as he followed those horrific winds. He saw all the danger he had put the people of Donnyton through, by refusing to take on a mantle of leadership. He saw Shal’s emotional struggles on Tellus, the ones Randidly had never asked about as he continued his training. He saw the suffering of Turtletown, the fate of the Lyra, the bloodshed in the different Zones as he refused to stop them from making stupid decisions.

He saw the lives he had taken in Dungeons. He saw suffering in the wider Nexus, the plight of the Nemesai and the Patrons.

He saw Helen, her eyes blank, her ribs spread open like bloody wings. He saw the blood spreading out around her.

Randidly dumped a thousand more VPs into Vengeance as he dove downward toward the churning maelstrom of ice and ignored the consequences.

You have condensed a Vessel Layer! Current Vessel Layers: 3

For earning a new Layer, you have unlocked access to a new Creed. Creeds will be distributed differently, based on the Vessel Layer. For the third Vessel Layer, please choose a Creed from the following two: Imagination or Duty.

Heh, I think a part of me wants to believe I am the type of person to pick the first Creed… I am the Alchemist, a master of new transformations; imagination is the greatest tool to manipulate perspective and trick an audience. But it was not dreaming that carried me here. Randidly’s brow furrowed as he fell. Bits of snow caught in his hair as he rushed right toward the eye of the storm. No… I’ve advanced to this point because I grew strong quickly and knew that we deserved better than the fucking Nexus.

And I was the only one who could do anything about it.

(Creed) Duty: A Creed chosen by those who will not shirk their responsibilities, no matter how heavy they grow. A choice of tradition and long term thinking. When VPs are spent, user’s Vessel will become more well-equipped to handle any sort of consequences. Physical and mental toughness will increase. All objects created by those who have embraced the Duty Creed will last significantly longer. In addition, user will have a natural intuition of the difficulty of accepting certain agreements. For those within the Alpha Cosmos, this Creed makes it easier to develop Skills or images related to oaths, chivalry, the moon, stone, hibernation, and craftsmanship.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As the relative dominance of this Creed increases, user’s promises will develop a great deal of significance. Images will be very effective at defending ideals and resisting transgressions from foreign powers. However, those affected by the duty Creed will experience extremely negative consequences for failing to fulfill a promise or participating in purposeful dishonesty. At locations of great strife, Pillars of Resentment will naturally form. Individuals will be able to touch the Pillar to inherit the role of the unwilling dead in the ancient battlefield. If they manage to accomplish the dead’s wish, corresponding benefits will be obtained.

His new Creed settled across his body. But the sense of familiarity immediately let him know he had made the right choice— he had always held duty closely in his heart.

Randidly flashed downward, ignoring the rapid drop in temperature. His Vessel, which had been seared so effectively in the past memory, now became coated in a thin layer of ice. The complex emotions of the past, his fears and insecurities, seeped into him through the precipitation. He spent two thousand more VPs to strengthen his newest Creed against the invasion. He felt his resolve firming. He felt the bones of his dedication tingling with life as his Creed spread through him and found so many amplifying nodes.

The decisions he had made to form this Vessel, the building blocks, resonated with the Duty he had chosen. His Vessel seemed to breathe out a thick billowing mist of Aether and Nether that melted the snow and evaporated the negative emotions. The compatible energies swam around him with the natural liveliness of water serpents. He housed the Alpha Cosmos but also the Alpha Cosmos expressed itself in a thousand ways.

In the eye of the storm, a figure waited for the descending Randidly. It was the same three-meter-tall Yeti which he had avoided instantly, the manifestation of the Patron of Frostbite. Yet as he stared at the figure, the features shifted. Randidly Ghosthound looked up at himself and vice versa.

This was a Randidly that wore an expression of constant panic; the disposition was a familiar one, from the early days of the System. Every day brought a new threat. Judgments, Calamities, and Tribulations jostled in line for the chance to end his life.

Randidly had done his best and it had been just enough to survive.

Yet the mistakes were his own. Randidly had recently obtained the power of stillness, which would reduce the influence of opponent’s images in the area. But this figure had a different varietal of that same power. He sat at the middle of a pool of entropy. All the damage his wild struggles had caused sucked the life from the environment. The chill deepened the closer Randidly shot down, the cutting wind edged with more and more powerful ice. This was the hole that Randidly had himself dug, by avoiding all the consequences of his decisions.

His hands clenched into fists. His body trembled with power as he pulled kinetic force from the storm.

He crossed an invisible boundary where the devouring nature of entropy revealed its fangs. The clouds roiled and exploded from the shock of impact as Randidly dove through the threshold. Instantly, his focus shifted from gathering up kinetic energy in the surroundings to maintaining the energy from within his body.

Entropy took and took from him. It looked up and watched him without any reaction.

There are few sensations worse than guilt. Thank you for holding it for me, for so long. Randidly’s eyes flashed as he gave freely. In exchange, he plucked up that guilt. Now it’s my turn. The Fourth Authority: Animation Nova.

The Samsara emitted a small growl of rejection, but then the powerful surge of significance knocked aside its defenses and unleashed a pure blossom of valuable energy. It started as just a small spark in the core of his Vessel, but then the empowered Authority lapped out in every direction. The frost on his body melted. The howling winds stilled and mellowed in the face of the warm nova.

The Yeti with Randidly’s face hissed as the Authority cracked open its desperate feelings of insecurity and need. All the sense of inferiority, the fear, the guilt, the crooked worry, the nervous sweat… All of it melted beneath a wholesome blast of pure energy.

Randidly’s lips quirked into a smile as a seemingly infinite amount of life energy gushed out of his limbs. And just like that, I get to play the role of the sun in a memory. Tch, and to think Aegiant, you made it look so difficult.

Randidly’s Penance had reached Level 1000. Even he felt somewhat surprised by the manifestation of power it could create, but he didn’t miss this opportunity. Acri didn’t exist yet in this memory, but with a flick of the wrist, he created a radiant avatar of the spear companion he had wielded for so long.

Streaking out of the sky, ripping his way through the oppressive cold, Randidly thrust his weapon. He carved the spear from pure life and generosity. Warmth sharpened the edge. But it was Duty that formed the shaft.

With a single thrust, he pinned the yeti and its core of entropy to the ground.

“I don’t know if I will ever gather enough capability to prevent innocent lives from suffering from my actions,” Randidly said quietly. In front of him, his own mouth on the yeti’s body opened and closed soundlessly. “However… I can take responsibility. I can apologize. I can continue to advance. There are no set Paths to follow here… but so long as I am honest about my feelings, I believe I can be better than this.”

The other Randidly’s mouth finally seemed to find its words. Its voice creaked as though its throat had rusted shut. “You have caused so much pain.”

Randidly just smiled as a realization tingled its way out through its body. “...that’s the problem of treating time casually. The current shred of time is all you see and understand. Did you know that so long as you have time… you can make a Truth into something else entirely.”

The memory dissolved around him as the Samsara switched its tactics. It pulled deeper from Randidly’s subconscious, searching for other moments to use as traps for him. But in his chest, Randidly felt his bones of Duty humming with a very particular meaning: he had wasted enough time in here.

The Nexus would not survive much longer in his absence.

Devick needed him.

He raised his gaze and pierced through all the complex waves of Nether. He saw the veins running amongst the complex patterns, creating the living, breathing Samsara that aimed to ‘digest’ him. Without Truth to distract him, he found to the deepest and most sophisticated place. The fat veins led him directly to a pulse, shuddering core of ill-will and beautiful arrangements.

Randidly still couldn’t quite interpret the meanings of the patterns created by Laplace, with the help of Pangu, but he didn’t need to. He fixated on the pulsing, empty heart in the middle of the Samsara and barred his teeth.

“The Third Authority: Intangible Burial.”

Randidly ripped out the heart of the Samsara. After squirming and wiggling for a second, the significance collapsed into a cracked and fracturing heap. He took its core to give himself freedom. The memories exploded into glittering bits of Nether Rituals.

The Samsara of Laplace, Fickle Time and Regretful Heart, had been broken.

Randidly stood in the remnants like he had attended the championship sports match and the inky-black team had won, its confetti sparkling around him. He lifted his chin and savored a warm and vicious sense of satisfaction. The particles drifted down to the ground and melted away.

Randidly’s eyes, the new implacable blackness around an emerald pupil, swept side to side and took in the view of the uppermost tier of the Nexus, the calcified figure of Pine at the bottom of that hole, with the hole that indicated a wisp of the Nexus’s soul still existed. Based on what his newfound senses indicated, he had spent all of 57 seconds stuck in the Samsara.

He exhaled slowly. Duty had been seared into his bones, urging him forward. After a moment to gather himself, he rushed to chase the Eternity.