“Ar….arrooooo…!”

After taking the time to roast some fish for a quick meal, Vizzeret suddenly opened his mouth to release a deep yawn. Steam wafted up from the delicacy sitting on the plate in front of him. However, the act of yawning seemed to unlock a sudden wariness in his chest that he couldn’t resist. Helplessly, he found his body curling up beneath him; he twisted sideways to avoid faceplanting directly onto his meal. His eyelids fluttered but then closed as his body thumped onto the floor of his dwelling, helpless as his consciousness was swiftly carried away.

Just as quickly as this strange exhaustion struck him, Vizzeret experienced a sharp stab of clarity that cut through the strange surroundings. He moved his head from side to side, sniffing. Vizzeret was standing in the large challenge pit in the Southern portion of their area. There were a few blurry figures in the surrounding area, softened by the presence of the luminous silver mist of a dreamscape. But as Vizzeret peered around curiously, a strong sense of foreboding appeared in his heart. His hair stood on end and he had to suppress the urge to growl. Then he just as quickly suppressed the urge to lie down and expose his belly.

The two distinct figures turned to look solemnly at Vizzeret. One floated in the sky above the pit while the other was standing nearby to where Vizzeret had appeared. He was perhaps only three meters away.

Both were Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound.

The one in the sky chuckled. “Ah. The Nether connection must have pulled him along when you activated the Dreamcatcher because he is so connected to this moment anyway. Interesting. But it’s worth knowing that it can be used like that.”

“Increased strain though,” The Head Drill Sergeant on the ground observed with a frown.

Feeling very out of place, Vizzeret opened his mouth. “I-”

“Recruit Clamman. That is your name, correct?” This time when the Head Drill Sergeant on the ground spoke, it was with iron and ice in his voice. His emerald eyes narrowed as he looked toward Vizzeret Clamman. “Stay silent and stay to the side. This doesn’t concern you. But the fact you were brought here… well, you can consider it a bit of good luck. Exposure to forces about your level is good experience. Try and avoid getting caught in the crossfire. I would hate to almost kill you again.”

This is a nightmare, some part of Vizzeret whispered to him.

As the Head Drill Sergeant continued to pierce Vizzeret with his gaze, the massive canine could not help but nod and scurry backward about twenty meters. His own experience fighting against the Ghosthound was still too fresh. And the casual way the Head Drill Sergeant had fought against the Overseers left Vizzeret dreading the Ghosthound’s true power.

When the canine had created quite a bit of distance between them, the Head Drill Sergeant looked away and peered up at his doppelganger. At a symbol that was invisible to Vizzeret, the two blurred into motion. One released a monstrous, complex image of three almost conflicting figures that condensed around his body. There were emerald leaves and golden roots, an enormous claw and a hand with razor-sharp fingers, and a horrible, hungry darkness. These images flickered so fast that it was impossible for Vizzeret to catch the details.

The other Ghosthound became the eye of a grinding maelstrom of Nether, wielding a fist-sized grey bubble in his right hand. Every time that strange maelstrom spun, Vizzeret found it more difficult to breathe. The two accelerated toward each other and clashed.

The ground shuddered and cracked, sending Vizzeret farther backward; he clambered out of the massive ditch to higher ground. But shockwaves and blasts of Skills decimated the surrounding area. The explodes grew larger and larger. Every second saw that the radius of destruction increase as the conflict between the two intensified.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Vizzeret blinked and found himself skidding across the ground. The air pressure from the latest contact was so powerful that it had briefly knocked him out. The ground beneath him was shuddering. Huge chunks of broken ground were being thrown everywhere.

The massive canine frantically leapt up onto a small island of stone and dirt that had been sent tumbling end over end to avoid the thick carpet of aggressive roots that exploded from where he had been previously standing. Right as he landed, he spared a glance upward, but then he adjusted his stance and leapt further away to avoid a suffocating heaviness that darkened the sky.

Vizzeret really wanted to stop and observe, but it sort of felt like he would be annihilated if he did so.

Congratulations! Your Skill Canine Agility (Un) has grown to Level 268!

Vizzeret sprinted past the collapsing bamboo forest as fast as he could manage, occasionally looking over his shoulder to look directly at the maelstrom of darkness. A horrible screaming filled the air, and Vizzeret couldn’t tell if it was an image or just a shrill and furious wind. Beneath the pads of his paws, he felt the entire Rally Station shudder and crack.

Panting with his tongue lolling outside of his mouth, Vizzeret continued to flee. The ground around him was sundered, opening up a vast ravine that he was forced to jump over.

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Canine Agility (Un) has grown to Level 287!

*****

With a sigh, Randidly powered down the personal training pod. Gradually, the light in the Engravings dimmed and the physical and emotional suppression he had subjected himself to over the past week faded. The sensation of relaxation that seized him, to finally be without any sense of effort, seemed to wipe away all his previous sweat and bitter stubbornness.

For a week, he had buckled down. Now, he unburdened himself.

The first thing he did when he walked out into the waiting area was stretch. He twisted sideways, earning a very satisfying series of cracks up his spine. Then he bent at the waist and touched his toes, feeling his hamstrings pop lightly. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles for good measure. Certainly, it had felt like he hadn’t been stuck in a single position for the entire week, due to the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night, but the truth was Randidly basically hadn’t moved.

Randidly had spent the week pushing the limits of his images, both in detail but also in terms of Skill Levels. The Stillborn Phoenix had received most of his attention, as he worked those Skills back into his common combat habits. And the gains were bountiful; as Randidly developed himself further, it became easier and easier to raise his lower Level Skills up quickly.

Step by step, he had grown stronger. Feeling pleased, Randidly grinned down at his hands.

But of course, this was only the start. So he took several deep breaths. He had deliberately isolated both his Aether and Nether while he was within the training area, just to avoid any unexpected events while he was affected by the suppression array. So now he gradually re-extended himself into the surrounding space, checking for anomalies. Luckily, none appeared.

Not everyone can just punch a hole in my defenses like Commandant Wick can...

Nodding to himself, Randidly walked up to the Engravings and looked down at the suppression field. It was to the point that even he struggled against it, but he believed he could push it even further. With a careful touch, he began to erase and then redraw the Engravings to form new, even more vicious restrictions.

Congratulations! Your Skill Spriggit’s Tinkering (R) has grown to Level 232!

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 307!

This is why people think I’m a masochist… Randidly smirked as he made some minute adjustments to his new Engravings. This should challenge me physically, but perhaps I can go into the Dreamcatcher and reproduce Kaan’s metal pyramids… if I can further my image suppression-

However, before Randidly had even finished his adjustments, he raised his head and narrowed his eyes. His Nether Nebula began to spin more quickly and he could feel the air around him slowly ionizing as energies converged on his current location. The space seemed to buzz and compress. Randidly released a quick smile; it seemed that the significance had successfully been refined by the recruits and was ready for him to harvest.

Or rather, the significance now demanded an audience, whether he wanted it or not.

So he opened himself and allowed the torrent of significance to spiral into his body. But to his surprise, Randidly immediately grunted in surprise. His chest pounded with pain and he could only grit his teeth against the growing discomfort. It felt like every part of his body was covered in a rough, gradually constricting rope. His ribs popped. The rotation of the Nether Nebula slowed, straining to incorporate this new significance into its ecosystem.

At the core of the Nether Nebula, there was an innocuous grey bubble that tumbled weightlessly through the air, with a second, smaller bubble beginning to form next to it. As the Nether Nebula continued to struggle to churn forward, those bubbles began to… fizz. The completely condensed bubble began to rapidly shrink while the smaller one slightly grew. As Randidly watched, an even smaller third bubble formed and gradually increased in size.

“Damnit…” Randidly muttered to himself as he pressed his metallic left hand to his chest. The coolness of the metal was a relief. The pain... was extremely strange. Compared to being submerged completely in lava, it was a mild sort of agony. But it was the most uncomfortable and horrifying heartburn that Randidly had ever experienced. It came hand in hand with a creeping sense of helplessness. As his Nether Nebula struggled to incorporate all this significance and continued to slow, the pain grew worse.

Randidly pressed his eyes shut and began to try and create a flow with his Nether to relieve some of the pressure, but there was simply too much of it. He could have shunted a lot of the significance into the surrounding space, but he somehow sensed that if he struggled with this, his recruits might be crushed by the sudden rush, even if it spread amongst them.

This flow of significance… I can feel the way their time here at this Rally Station has changed so many of the recruits… it seems like all the improvements they have made are compounding the significance…

Randidly held on and endured the strain as best he could. The Nether Nebula continued to slowly rotate. He threw his Willpower behind that heavy spinning, urging it forward. Despite the fact that he knew it was relatively ineffective, he began weaving together the Nether in the periphery of the Nebula, creating some space and easing the rotation. At the core of the Nebula, another tiny grey bubble formed. And then another.

The rotation slowed further. Randidly felt a sharp sense of foreboding.

But then there was a groan from his Nether Nebula as the significance was whipped into a tight core. Five grey bubbles the size of marbles clung to each other, radiating a horrifying weight. His Nether shuddered and imperceptibly grew denser. Then the strain began to ease as most of the rush of significance was accommodated. The Nether Nebula achieved a much more ponderous equilibrium.

I’m still missing something about Nether, Randidly grimaced. His senses carefully inspected his Nether Nebula and the grey bubbles. Perhaps that was incorrect too; Randidly might understand Nether well enough, but he just didn’t know what to do with it.

Randidly released a breath and opened his eyes. His expression turned serious. He certainly hadn’t expected this, but now felt rather dumb for not foreseeing this eventuality when he expanded his accumulation of Nether. This strained episode he had just experienced was probably Nether Sickness.

Aether Sickness occurred when an individual earned too many Skills and Stats before obtaining a Class. The System declared that this was because an individual could no longer simply sustain themselves on ambient Aether and Randidly had never really questioned it because it hadn’t been a serious issue for him. He passed on the System’s message to the people of Expira and they had adjusted. But now Randidly wasn’t so sure that was the full story.

There probably was some truth to Aether Sickness being related to a lack of energy, but its effects should be so sudden if that were true. What might be more likely is that it is a combination of that weakness due to insufficient ambient energy and a sudden complication due to having too much Aether affixed to a physical body without having any structure to it.

It was the equivalent of building up the materials to construct a skyscraper solely on the small plot of land that would form the foundation. If the skyscraper is high enough, obviously the finished product would require more materials than could be contained in that area. Hence the Nexus came peddling a Class, to systematically build a structure to affix images and Skills to.

As to why Randidly hadn’t encountered the problem sooner… it was because, even from the beginning, Yystrix was building something special within his body. Then, when he obtained the Alpha Cosmos, the amount of anything he could physically withstand shot upward.

He had a very big foundation to work from.

But even so, Randidly now sensed he was approaching that limit in regards to his accumulated significance. He had easily surpassed the power of a Nether Gatekeeper, yet now needed to create some sort of order in his Nether if he wanted to expand his significance further.

Which meant the creation of a Nether Class grew a lot more pressing.