A natural force drove Randidly forward. At this point, he couldn’t stand even a single second of idleness. However, his years of training had taught him how to manage his body well. He cleverly arranged the tasks to keep from burning himself out.

Still, he couldn’t help but push his limits a bit. Without novelty and strain, it felt like his anxieties would catch up to him and devour him. So while keeping his Fatepiece roaring, Randidly began to think about his image. The Stillborn Phoenix strained to spread its wings as its chilling grasp seized the surroundings.

An egg of darkness slowly formed. Randidly reached out and began to polish the details.

At the edge of the event horizon, crimson snakes of electricity crackled and snarled. Just as quickly as they formed, the electromagnetic discharge, too, was pulled back past the point of no return, summarily devoured by the open maw of the Stillborn Phoenix. Its suctions was overwhelming.

Randidly released a breath and finally allowed himself a small break. He had spent an hour sharpening the details of the electricity, using the lessons he had endured with his own flesh to increase the potency of the Egg of Depression. But now, satisfied with his current progress, he turned his attention to the light.

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 482!

He had always transformed the light into a milky liquid circling the edges of his image, running into thick currents as the pull of gravity and significance became irresistible. But now he began to toy with the particular hue of the light. Because Randidly had begun experiencing the vast spectrum of light with his body, due to his Fatepiece. He peeled the light back layer by layer. His focus was exacting, searching for only the particular radiation he needed. Even at the event horizon, there was a gradient.

I will not compromise. Not here, not now, Randidly pressed his tongue against the backs of his teeth and hissed out a breath.

Soon, he arrived at the frequency he wanted and spread transformed his image. Only a pale, cold, insidious light could escape from the edges. The sort of deceptively intense light that the human light couldn’t detect and would cook a person just as quickly as a stint in a microwave oven. The forceful grip of the black hole was a blunt instrument that sundered light and left a portion weaponized and dangerous.

He moved deftly, expanding the details. Those horrifying frequencies of light were drawn in the surrounding space, almost like a morning mist. The Stillborn Phoenix became the pupil at the center of a murky and indifferent eye.

Helen’s punctured eyes-

Every muscle in Randidly’s body clenched. Then, one by one, he loosened the muscles and continued with the work in front of him. It was all he could do to stay sane. When the combination of his headache and his lack of knowledge left him hesitant, due to his limited experience with the Hierarchy of Burden, Randidly shifted his focus to the Skills. His strained Willpower could at least partially take a break. Instead, he simply focused on applying the image to the Skills.

The Stillborn Phoenix reached out and seized the surroundings. That strange, determined, desperate, mad image continued its emotional breathing all the while. When the image exhaled, the surroundings buzzed like a kicked beehive. Purple-black energy swirled through Randidly’s eyes.

The new image was sharp and oppressive, rapidly earning him Skill Levels. The surroundings began to buzz even when the image was not exhaling, not from emotional violence, but from the grasping need of the Stillborn Phoenix. That natural need accelerated the Skill growth.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 395!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill Piercing Gaze of the Egg (L) has grown to Level 295!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Tug of Tragic Silence (A) has grown to Level 288!

Congratulations! Your Skill Tide of the Void (L) has grown to Level 351!

Perhaps I’m becoming spoiled, but perhaps some of the Skills of the Stillborn Phoenix could be improved as well, He reflected. The Skills that were originally based on my flame Mana Skills are a little stale… the Tug of Tragic Silence is sitting at an Ancient Rarity...

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 399!

Eventually, Randidly’s heart ached too much to continue focusing on his Stillborn Phoenix; the image was too emotionally charged for him to handle right now. He released an explosive sigh and allowed the image projection around him to fade. His left eye brightened from a lightless night back to emerald. He raised a hand and pressed it against his heart. Just once, alone in the darkness of the Shaft, Randidly shuddered.

Then he forced himself to move forward. That natural force pushed him without any sympathy.

He had failed his one knight; he deserved this torture.

Next, he opened up his Path screen and selected the World Host I Path. With how quickly the driven him was accumulating PP meant that he didn’t mind spending a thousand more. Especially because Randidly continued to experience mild discomfort from the inclusion of Tellus in his Alpha Cosmos.

Of course, thinking about Tellus brought two meaty mandibles of anxiety sawing through Randidly’s heart. Since he was going to hold a funeral for Helen, he would need to soon head to Tellus… and tell her mother. And thinking about that-

One thing at a time, Randidly shook himself and spent 1000 PP. Each 50 he spent earned him 1 Willpower and 1 Resistance.

Congratulations! You have completed the World Host I Path! You have gone down a Path never before seen in the Nexus; your route toward the Pinnacle is truly unique. The substance of your body now hosts a series of worlds, connected to each other through the substance of your Domain. Due to current System malfunctions, unable to anticipate how the process will affect you. But continue walking forward, so that future generations may follow in your footsteps.

Not if I rip out all the observation constructs, Randidly’s lips twitched. Then he looked at his rewards.

Congratulations! +100 Willpower! The effect of your (Domain) Crossroads of the Alpha Cosmos has slightly increased! Congratulations! Synchronicity detected! Your Soulskill, Figure of the Alpha Comos, is gradually harmonizing with your body! The quantity of the PP Tithe your receive is marginally increased!

Unfortunately, completing this Path hadn’t earned him a new Skill and most of the benefits were more subtle. The whole ‘reward’ felt rather hollow, like the System actually couldn’t find a way to mess with his Skills now, so he gave him vague language as a placebo. But of course, that couldn’t be true; ever since he had created his Nether Core, a portion of his notifications were running off of his own Pantheon. That was why he could see them in the Shaft. So the reward should trustworthy.

Randidly turned his attention inward, but it was difficult for him to feel any differences from either his Domain Skill or his Soulskill. But the reference to the tithe made Randidly anticipate when he grew his Soulskill sufficiently.

He spared a glance at his current progress and grimaced. Of course, improvement to the PP Tithe won’t become relevant until I earn a little under eighteen thousand more Skill Levels… even with the amount of Skills that I possess, that won’t be an easy or quick task…

However, Randidly’s primary aim had been achieved; immediately the pressure of the Alpha Cosmos he felt below his throat began to ease. Which, on the one hand, was a good thing. On the other hand, suddenly Randidly possessed that much more awareness that could be directed to the rift that Helen’s death had left in him. A tireless demon began to crank up his own feelings of inadequacy and grief with this new spare awareness.

Randidly drew in a shuddering breath, held it for ten seconds, and then breathed it out. Then he contacted DiOrtho and brought the subordinate out into the shaft.

“This is where you train?” The ram demon asked. He spun in place, kept aloft by the influence of Randidly’s Nether Core and his own Skills. He nodded several times. “Makes sense. With an environment like this, there is nothing to distract you from training here.”

Nothing to distract me from how empty I feel, Randidly thought bleakly. Helen… if you had just fucking reached out…! Maybe I could have come to an agreement with Wick-

Randidly could practically hear Helen’s snort. She would have pointed out exactly the sort of deal that the Commandant would have insisted on, in order for her life to be spared. Randidly’s jaw clenched partially at Helen being right and partially due to the circumstances. This was all because the man’s fucking feelings had been hurt by a casual action from Raymund and the rest of the Elite Squad.

So Helen hadn’t hesitated. She was his knight, one that had always been frustrated by her inability to fight for him. This had been an easy decision for her.

With her last moments, she had lost a battle and paid a dear price for it. But the fires of conflict were spreading, and Randidly would damn himself rather than let Helen’s sacrifice for this war be in vain.

But all that was for later. Randidly shook himself, ignoring the awkward expression that DiOrtho was making. They had been floating silently for several minutes while Randidly had grappled with his helplessness. Instead of bothering to explain, he took out the Hierarchy of Burden and began explaining the basics to the ram demon.

When Randidly was done, he could tell from Vant’s expression that his subordinate wasn’t going to let the indeterminate amount of time that he was silent pass by. Vant coughed and then said. “About Helen-”

“We are holding a funeral,” Randidly forced himself to say. His throat was raw. As he saw DiOrtho’s expression shift, Randidly realized that the members of the Elite Squad would likely also want to pay their respects. That gave him a bit of a headache; he would need to head above the edge of the grasping significance and pick them up. “Let’s save those sort of thoughts for then, alright? For now… we train.”

“Like the Overseer would have wanted,” DiOrtho bowed his head. Randidly’s chest was viciously uncomfortable, so he was very willing to unleash the Fatepiece on the ram demon and share the misery. But of course, watching electricity tweak his muscles into twitching did nothing to improve Randidly’s mood.

It only reminded him of how he had unleashed the Fatepiece on Helen in their last spar.

*****

“...what do you mean…?” Shal blinked several times.

Gabriel Swacc looked up from his desk and frowned. The office was spacious and illuminated by tall windows, yet Gabriel’s expression made Shal feel like he had kicked down the door to a triage tent during surgery. “What is there to say? Originally, we had set your home planet to the side due to your meritorious service, but it appears that in the chaos of those early attacks against the family, your planet has vanished. So no, you cannot have time off to return. There would be no point.”

“Tellus…?” Shal’s hands were clasped behind his back and his arms from the force of his grip. His planet was everything to him. He had sacrificed years of his life, his original image, and his pride in order to obtain the power to protect that planet. And now… somehow, Tellus had been misplaced…?

“If there is nothing else,” Gabriel Swacc’s expression turned stormy. “Get the fuck out of my office. The Swacc Family has been absolved of its crimes politically, but the Pinnacle Seekers have dropped all pretenses; I have raids hitting every base that isn’t on the Swacc homeworld. So I don’t have time for your meaningless quibbles.”

This is my planet. Shal wanted to say. Nothing is more important to me than this planet.

But Shal found himself turning away from the representative of the Swacc Family without saying anything. He could feel his pulse pounding in his head. His feet carried him out of the office, down the hallway, and then out toward the training compound. But a voice caught him before he returned to his bunk, to stare at the ceiling and face the realization that his planet had been destroyed.

“Hey, Shal! There you are, I’ve been looking for you,” Techetadore the six-tailed Vulpine strolled casually down the stone path. After he had acclimated to the image given to him, he had been given more and more responsibility, until he was in charge of their entire unit. About a week or so ago, he had completely recovered from his injuries on the Fifth Cohort and returned to active duty. “I have good news for you!”

Shal numbly turned around. At this point, all he had were his orders. Because his world was gone. Everything was gone. Everything except his disciple… but Randidly had already surpassed him. Basically… Shal now buckled under the realization that he no longer mattered.

Techetadore’s smile was sharp. “We have found a new image for you. A powerful image. With it… heh, anything you want will be within your grasp.”