Ace squatted down on the hill and idly rubbed the red-brown clay between his fingers. Below them, a group of several thousand people was hurrying deeper into the hilly land that was as much swamp as solid ground. The fleeing group’s speed was rapidly slowing as they encountered adverse terrain. This only seemed to spur them more quickly forward.

Despite the fact that Rose Callaway could sense a hint of danger from the people below, none bothered to check the surrounding hills for enemies. They were too intent on their escape to bother.

Rose braced herself. And as she expected, after watching the flow of bodies below for some time, Ace slowly turned and smiled up at her. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep and his continued obsession. And because of his strange nightly ritual of merging himself into the memories they had obtained. “Do you know what it takes to create a villain?”

Aren’t you going to tell me no matter what I answer? Rose wanted to say out loud, but she knew that would just aggravate Ace. He was… strangely fragile right now. The way Ace was now… everything had to be arranged in a certain way. So instead, she just shook her head.

Ace’s smile deepened. “First, you need a hero.”

Randidly Ghosthound, Rose supplied mentally. She was well aware of the dangerous fixation Ace had developed with his former friend. There just didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. Hopefully, after this plan was finished, Ace would…

Inwardly, Rose sighed. I guess I just hope he won’t be dead...

Rolling his shoulders, Ace straightened. Then he raised his arms above his head and interlaced his fingers, pushing his palms toward the sky. “Next… a unique and unusual effect.”

The Impending Rock.

“Then… and this is perhaps where most people focus their attention to their detriment, you need a powerful force of otherness. Something that doesn’t quite fit with the inherent logic of the human world. Sometimes it is even a coincidence, where two normal elements are juxtaposed in an unexpected way. In this case, something that doesn’t even fit in the logic of an Earth that has been empowered by the System.”

In this case, the Lifeblood essence gathered with the image of Straud and then refined by the Winged Serpent’s unleashed image. But even so… the power of images that Randidly spread across the Earth is also very powerful… Is the Lifeblood Essence really that special?

Almost as though he noticed the doubts through Rose’s expression, Ace chuckled. “This is what I’m talking about. People get too wrapped up in the details of the element of otherness. Let me assure you that this amount will be enough.

“And finally…” Ace’s eyes turned back to the group of people hurrying below. “You need an opening. A time where a hero diverts from what should have been done due to a misunderstanding or being too distracted by other matters. Although even I admit that these Corrupted Invaders are a cause worth addressing… but I think Randidly Ghosthound will find that allowing this man to run free is a mistake.”

“Is he truly that strong? The Blighted Paragon?” Rose frowned. “From what we heard, even the mapmaker of the Order Ducis could overwhelm him and his forces…”

“The Order Ducis…” Ace’s eyes seemed to gleam. “Not a single one of them can be underestimated. Just because Vye works on maps doesn’t mean her image isn’t sharp. And that situation with her hand… well, I suspect Randidly will resolve that soon.

“But no, Howard Boltmer isn’t overwhelmingly powerful. Yet his Skills are quite unique. I assume you’ve largely been suppressing your Skill Detection… but why don’t you take out your clipboard and take a look at what’s going on below?”

Again, Rose basically had no choice but to humor him. So she got out her clipboard and a pen. Her fingers instantly began scrawling different Skills across the paper. Danger Sense, Physical Fitness, Running, Endless Effort, Quick Recovery, Leap, Sense Temperature…

Very quickly, a dozen basic Skills appeared before Rose. She continued to mark them down, annoyed at the knowledge that nothing caught her attention meant that she was missing something. Chewing on her lip, Rose focused her mind and began to parse apart the ambient ripples of Skills coming from the group below her with more care. And very quickly, she discovered something that made her gasp.

“They… their Skill Levels are so weak…!” Rose blinked several times. “I barely sense any that are above one hundred… and yet they managed to conquer so many other bubble cities…?”

“I don’t know the details, but Howard Boltmer’s Skills appear to be related to the manipulation and creation on a cellular level. Essentially, he modified the DNA of some of his subordinates to allow them to transform into partial monsters with much higher Stats. So why he is quite weak right now… he is essentially working with trash.”

“Now that it’s living, you want him to modify the Impending Rock.” Rose breathed.

Ace wagged a finger at her. “Shouldn’t it be called the impending flesh now? But yes, to put it inelegantly, that is the case. Besides… there is another factor at play here that will aid in the grand creation of a villain. Mirroring.”

Ace’s smile widened. “Doesn’t Randidly now have an image that looks like an egg? Well, we have an egg too. And when they both hatch… which do you think will be more powerful?”

*****

After the meeting about the Epic Danger Zone, most of the members of the Order Ducis and the representatives from the different Task Forces left Randidly’s mist-shrouded island. Now that they had finalized the roster of the 100 person vanguard that would be the first group to test the waters of the Epic Danger Zone, there were a lot of preparations to be done. Forces and supplies were being moved to the area around Lake Apollo even at this moment. Civilians nearby were notified and being evacuated, just in case something unexpected happened.

But Helen, along with Naffur and Tatiana, stayed after the meeting and looked at Randidly’s sitting form with uneasy eyes.

During the entire meeting, Randidly hadn’t said a word. What was even more disturbing was that when the Ghosthound moved, which was infrequently, it was with an exaggerated slowness.

At one point Richter from Zone 1 had asked a question directly of Randidly, but the leader of the Order Ducis and creator of Kharon hadn’t responded with words. At that time, Randidly had been sitting with his eyes closed. At Richter’s question, Randidly’s eyes slowly opened, revealing a bright emerald light.

Then, his body moved at a glacial pace as he raised his head and simply looked at Richter. Perhaps luckily for the Order Ducis, the slow speed generated a great amount of tension and weight to the gesture. The man had paled and perhaps would have collapsed had he not already been sitting in a wheelchair. After Randidly slowly closed his eyes once more, Tatiana stepped forward and spoke into the awkward silence to continue moving the meeting along.

Perhaps to others, it seemed like Randidly found Richter’s question insulting and not worth his time. But the Ghosthound’s subordinates knew better.

Helen tried to control her expression but ended up just glaring at Randidly despite her best efforts. “Is it truly so agonizing…? Don’t you have methods to deal with this?!? You are a recognized Commander at the frontlines. Just go there and get involved in a battle with Nether to eradicate the Aether Mines.”

Randidly moved more quickly than he had when everyone had been on his island, but he was still rather reserved. The corners of his mouth slowly curled and shifted as he looked over at Helen. “...there are methods to deal with the Aether Mines… but its a matter of risk tolerance. I’ve tested it in several ways, and everything has consequences immediately. The Special Investigator always moves no matter what I do. Better just to wait a few more days and deal with everything at once…

“Besides, the pain isn’t nearly as bad as you think.” Randidly flexed his right hand and every joint popped loudly. After about ten seconds of his face gradually shifting, he looked down and frowned at his hand.

Helen waved her hand. “Fine then. Suffer in silence. See if I care. I suppose we will just be on our way and you can continue doing whatever the hell you do up here…”

Randidly chuckled. His jaw popped in the process, causing him to stop and carefully stretch the joint out. But then he raised his hand as his subordinates began to turn away and said. “Wait, I have a request before you go. I need you to gather something for me.”

“What is it?” Tatiana asked curiously. She seemed to take Randidly’s strange behavior in stride. Helen just folded her arms across her chest. Naffur truly seemed too exhausted to care.

Randidly smiled widely, his mouth seeming to seep outward like a spilled liquid. Honestly, his slow movements were starting to seem rather creepy to Helen. “It might sound strange, but can you get some corn starch for me? A lot of it.”

“How much is a lot?” Tatiana asked quite seriously.

Randidly seemed to think about that, gradually bringing up his hand to rub his chin. The whole process of the movement took almost a minute. “Maybe a couple of barrels full…?”

“Just because you need to move slow doesn’t mean you think slow,” Helen snapped at Randidly.

His eyes brightened with amusement at such a constant pace for thirty seconds that Helen wanted to punch him in the face. Then he chuckled, long and low. “Actually… I do need to move slowly right now. It’s an image thing. I pushed my heart rate down to about two to three times a minute, and I’m slowly my movements down establish a baseline… so when I speed the heart rate back up, everything will speed up.”

“Is the pain really that bad?” Naffur asked in a low voice.

Randidly twisted his arms. His elbows came down and his palms gradually went upward. It was only ten seconds later that Helen realized he was throwing his hands up in the air. Then he scowled slowly around at the three of them, his head turning like a millstone. “Why does no one believe me when I say the pain is manageable?!?”

“Maybe if you were honest about the pain, we’d believe you.” Helen growled.

Randidly gave Helen a mild glance. At the beginning, she was determined to hold his gaze, but very quickly that ominous heaviness around him began to worm its way into her mind. Within a few minutes, Helen was gritting her teeth. Before five minutes had passed, she snorted and turned away. “Fine then, whatever.”

The three subordinates floated back down to Kharon in silence.

Both Naffur and Tatiana kept casting glances Helen’s way, but they weren’t willing to approach her before she was ready.

For that, Helen appreciated that. Her expression softening, she turned and glanced over her shoulder at the floating island, wreathed in silver mist. Cobalt bolts of lightning periodically snaked their way around the island. After hesitating, Helen began to speak. “Do you really think that he-”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Perhaps because they were so close, the noise was especially grating. Helen’s expression quickly hardened. “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING UP THERE?!?!”

She swore to herself that if the noise didn’t stop by tonight, she would head up there and see how well his slow movements handled a spear thrust.