The man floated absently for a while in the darkness, feeling somewhat lost. His limbs felt separate from him, as though the body was barely his. He looked at his hands, one metal and one flesh, almost in wonder for several long moments.

But then the fire in his chest urged him toward action. No matter the strange sensation, he had work to do.

The man shrugged. Clearly, I had to give something up in order to proceed with the Fatepiece. Yet… nothing seems different…? Am I just going to be numb this whole time? Hum… Well, best not to dwell on it. So, to finish my Nether Core, all I need is the significance of the Stillborn Phoenix… And then to actually Engrave the thing...

The man stretched his limbs, feeling his joints crack pleasantly. As he moved, the numbness was steadily disappearing. The horrible heat in his chest continued to char his organs to urge him to move forward, but somehow that drive was blunted by the strange emptiness that the man felt in his head. Rather leisurely, he used his Grim Intuition to peer at the surroundings. Particularly, he examined the Nether Gatekeeper floating nearby very closely.

Due to the dense aura of Nether the creature projected outward, it was difficult for him to get a good look at its Nether Core. But as he continued to press his Willpower, the general shape of the Nether Core was revealed to him…Grim Intuition took great pleasure in slowly peeling back the layers of obscurement.

Gradually, the Nether Gatekeeper appeared to sense the intense scrutiny. It looked upward with sharp eyes at the man. The ‘territory’ around this Nether Gatekeeper was a vivid teal color. Yet as it appeared to grow more and more incensed at the man’s unrelenting attention, that strange being raised its antlered head and hissed up at the man; the color of the area grew closer and closer to white.

After adjusting his grip on the emotional tether, the man grinned down at the Nether Herald below him. “If you’ve got the ability, come and stop me. Otherwise…”

Even as the Nether Gatekeeper began to gnash its teeth and swipe menacingly at the air, the man gradually forced his senses through the thick layer of swirling Nether and could study the Nether Core within the creature. Immediately, the man’s mood improved; compared to the average Nether Beast, the Nether Core of this Nether Herald was created with such complexity and acute curves that even his initial examination proved fruitful. Some of the subtle layerings of patterns present helped point the man toward solutions for his own complex layering problems.

The man grinned downward in satisfaction. And the Nether Gatekeeper could do nothing to stop him.

So a new variety of training was incorporated into the man’s normal schedule. There were some other nearby Nether Gatekeepers and the man antagonized them all with his invasive stare until he could observe their Nether Cores while they were still functioning. His understanding of complex Nether layering finally reached beyond his initial sense of helplessness. As the man drove himself forward in this new manner, he also felt his ability to observe Nether growing at a prodigious rate.

Still, he didn’t masquerade as a peeping tom all the time. He also spent a significant amount of his energy revising his images. Strangely, the man in his current iteration felt like he had been such an idiot in the past; why hadn’t he been able to see all the simple ways that his images could be improved? So he started making large scale changes to the three main sources of his strength.

For Yggdrasil, the man’s focus was two-fold: first, he adjusted the runic symbols that covered the bark of the World Tree to utilize some of the principles of Nether. Although the effect was small, some portions began to resemble his new progress in Nether layering. In his mind, it was silly to expect that the story of the universe would be solely writ in the shape of Aether.

Secondly, he began to add some surrounding plant and animal life to his image. Beings now existed in the biome generated by the World Tree. Yggdrasil’s main power came from the aura of life that it released into the surrounding area. Yet that most powerful weapon wasn’t demonstrated properly in the image; the effect was simply reliant on the faith the man had poured into it. Now, as smaller shrubs and ferns blossomed beneath the auspices of the World Tree, that aura of life became concrete.

Birds fluttered from branch to branch while foxes sat below and watched them with cunning eyes. A smattering of brightly colored flowers bloomed near the base of the massive trunk. Yggdrasil was a spring of life, invigorating plants and animals alike. The very air changed nearby, becoming pure and wholesome.

And already the rejuvenation effect has increased, the man thought with a smug smile.

For the Grim Chimera image, the man focused on the tails. The spectral tail starting from the base of his neck grew more translucent and mysterious, seemingly not even present most of the time. Sometimes an observer would see it flicking to the left, yet in the next instant, it was somehow curling around the opposite shoulder. Its behaviors and traits were misleading and dangerous for the man’s foes.

Meanwhile, the lower tail had its bone armor completely overhauled. The spikes were blunted; this wasn’t a weapon of puncturing, but bludgeoning. In addition, the length doubled. In terms of power, the blows that the Grim Chimera could execute with the lower tail were now more powerful than any strike the man could make with his other limbs.

As the tails became more central to his image, the man could feel his balance shifting. The structure of his legs shifted, with more muscles clustering around the knee joint. His explosive power steadily rose as he refined the image.

The man was most hesitant with his changes for the Stillborn Phoenix, considering he hadn’t yet figured out the significance of that image. He was missing a key component. Because of that, he focused only on one specific aspect: the black hole’s ability to devour emotion.

The man hadn’t thought deeply about it before, but it was strange that his image could absorb emotion when even the horrifying significance below him in the Aether Refinery couldn’t manage to restrain that fickle Aether energy. But instead of justifying this deviation from the norm, the man offered up some capability as compensation.

Now, when the Stillborn Phoenix was active, spectral forms would sometimes wander out of the event horizon. Monstrous hunched beasts, humanoids with hollow eyes, even a starfish-esque amoeba drifted out of the Egg of Depression as the man shifted the black hole’s focus. These phantasms were hollow ‘shapes’ that rapidly disintegrated after departing the black hole. Without their energy and emotion motivating them, they rapidly fell to pieces.

In the man’s view, if he could restrain one portion of Aether, he should be less effective at influencing the other portion.

Much to the man’s delight, those remnant pieces of shape left behind a thick thread of significance, which the man was only too happy to devour into his Nether Nebula. He hadn’t been focusing on the development of his grey bubbles in quite some time, due to the more dangerous threat of being dragged down by significance, but these occasional phantoms rapidly bolstered those grey bubbles.

Previously, the man had only a single grey bubble floating at the center of the whirlpool, with a small bulge hinting at the formation of another. Yet as he continued with his training, he gathered more and more, to the point that three bubbles clung to each other in the core of the Nether Nebula.

Feeling pleased, the man continued his ceaseless training.

He pondered the significance of the Stillborn Phoenix and sharpened his images. Then, when his mind began to grow weary, he tested his physical body against the inevitable current of significance heading downward. He delighted in the powerful vibrations of his own heartbeat. Occasionally, he had to reset his grip on his emotional tether, but the speed at which he sank downward was acceptable. It would take a very long time for the man to even reach the antlered Nether Gatekeeper below him, let alone the Aether Refinery at the bottom of this place.

Still, slightly annoying that I’m falling more quickly than that fellow… The man reflected as he spared a glance for the Nether Gatekeeper below him. Hopefully, he isn’t the type to hold a grudge...

For the most part, this seamless existence of training was extremely satisfying. But occasionally, the man would be rocked by a sense of impending crisis. He would halt his activities and float for several seconds in the darkness, exploring his own soul in order to find out why he had such a terrible feeling in his chest.

Yet his soul was empty of anything but the sensations of the present, leaving the man bewildered at the source of this worry. His heart ached with a sense of loss that he didn’t truly understand. Sometimes tears formed in the corners of his eyes. At times like those, he wondered why he was down here, constantly training. Why did he need to struggle like this?

The ache in his chest grew stronger in those strained moments of empty reflection. The man felt like he was peering into the mirror, but he had no actual features the item could reflect back at him. The impression his empty soul left him with was somewhat chilling.

But those motivating flames also surged upward during those long moments. A resolute expression came across the man’s face. Even if the why of his current circumstances eluded him, he trusted those flames in his chest. And those flames told him that everything would be solved only as long as he continued to advance.

So the man trained and trained.

Part of that training was utilizing strange and mysterious abilities that were related to his images, yet somehow independent. The flames approved of this activity and the man found it relatively restive, so he engaged with those abilities from time to time as he gave his mind space to tinker with other pursuits.

In particular, the man was fascinated by a certain particular state he could achieve with those abilities, where he would touch upon the Fates of parallel versions of himself. Unfortunately, those alternate versions were just as foggy and adrift as the man was. But as they all worked together, they could maintain the connection in a much more intimate way.

Although the man was abandoned and compelled to train in this place of darkness, he was not alone in his struggles. That realization made him feel very warm and that warmth steadily began to change the shape of that ability.

Then there came a day where the man stopped his training for an entirely different reason. A scroll appeared in front of the man and steadily unrolled without him even touching the object. He examined the scroll with his senses and then followed his instincts to allow himself to merge with the scroll.

He knew this object. It was a Fatepiece.

The man found himself in a new place, where the ground was a swirling and murky grey that varied between storm clouds and gunmetal. Strange forces shifted beneath his feet. As the man lifted his Grim Intuition, a tower the color of a heavy sword pierced upward. The sky around the sword was a robin’s egg blue, but that tower continued upward until it reached an enormous, black moon that hung over this place.

The man stared at the tower for a long time. His senses went to the spot where the sword punctured the moon. Grey tentacles stretched from the sword, seeming seeking purchase on the moon, but with no success. Then he lowered his gaze as he detected that there was another figure in the vicinity.

The man looked at this stranger curiously. The person in front of him was extremely clear, as though drawn in an entirely different style than the rough and blended fabric around him. The man had short black hair and bright emerald eyes. Without a shirt, the lean and powerful muscle of his torso was revealed. There seemed to be shallow scars across almost all of him. The stranger’s left arm was made of black metal, but golden veins that pulsed intermittently with light ran through that dark material.

Strangely, the man’s feet were bare. His toes didn’t seem to mind the seething layers of grey beneath his feet.

Powerful, the man thought as he examined this unexpected presence.

As though sensing his thoughts, the emerald-eyed man grinned. But very quickly, the stranger’s face turned serious as he began to speak. “Well, I guess I should take that as a compliment. But we shouldn’t spend much time chatting. I believe your instincts should tell you why you came to this place…?”

The man considered that, once more examining his empty soul. Perhaps it wasn’t a mirror, but a well. And at the bottom...The man slowly nodded as he could see down to his goal. There must be a sacrifice to advance.

“Indeed,” The stranger said wryly. Then the man shook his head, as though amused by some secret joke. “Well, this is a bit larger than the previous sacrifices, but it will hopefully accelerate the process. Even I’m not sure how long we’ve been like this. So these-” The stranger gestured to the grey tower and the black moon above him, “-are what you will be sacrificing.”

The man tilted his and to the side, feeling very confused. Why would he need to give up these strange and foreign entities…? They were not his, to begin with.

The stranger rolled his eyes. “Trust me when I say that these things are a part of you, although it’s tough to sense it in your current condition. This grey tower… is something we have been building for a long time. It is… the Lord of the Baleful Wood, and all associated variations.”

The stranger’s finger went up to the black moon that loomed above both of them. “That… I suppose that is the bigger sacrifice. That is the Alpha Cosmos.”

Again, the man looked up without any recognition.

Sighing, the stranger shrugged. “Don’t think about it too deeply; the meaning is there, even if you cannot sense it. Oh, but there is one more thing… The Fatepiece is essentially in its most active state after this sacrifice and won’t deactivate until you accomplish your goal. So… good luck. Don’t you dare give up halfway.”