Pain, fear, and anxiety layered upon the drowned soil of trauma surrounded Latresekt within Ranvir’s Fundament. It gnashed its teeth as it paced the perimeter of Ranvir’s tether-space, claws lightly grazing the surface it plodded across.

Such fertile ground, almost ripe for the harvest. Latresekt snarled and fought down the frustration, the anger, the Wrath. Nearly four years it had been waiting for a moment such as this, for full access to the boy’s core.

Latresekt’s teeth bared as its eyes roved over the torn and ragged barrier before it. Hardly a barrier at all. It actually had to take care to not let its essential construction leak into the space and further damage it.

Another rumble passed through below Latresekt, the damage the boy’s rapid advancement and power growth had done to him echoed forth from the buried stones of the Fundament.

His Disciplines were still strong enough that Latresekt could perceive through both them and his Sight. Not that it did much good. The secondary space the boy had created finally broke under the strain Ranvir was under and a new body filled the space. The woman of light’s corpse slumped warm and pallid against the wall as blood and guts splashed onto the floor.

The shock of her sudden appearance caused another ripple to pass through the Fundament stirring the soil, almost shaking Latresekt off its feet. The blood washed over the boy’s ankles in a small wave, spilling from where it had gathered at the bottom of the previous space.

Latresekt snarled once it had regained its balance, delving senses into his Fundament. The makeup of its creation didn’t allow it to sense Ranvir’s soul as cleanly as it would’ve liked, but it got enough of an impression to see how bad it was.

The kid didn’t have long. As good as four years of preparation, barely living most of that time, sipping on the bare minimum of power that passed through Ranvir as he passed through the world. Only in the six months has Latresekt not felt like it was starving.

Its claws dug into the soil its camouflage to flickering for a moment, not that the boy noticed. He wouldn’t even understand what it meant if he could truly look upon Latresekt, but it was good caution to keep some safety precautions. Latresekt had learned that much over its long life. A thick tainted red-white sludge was rising from the scratches Latresekt had left.

Careful, it reprimanded itself, forcing its baser nature down. A ripple passed through the space Ranvir and the smoke lady, Pashar, resided in. Latresekt knew what it had to do, but extending its senses through the Liminal was difficult for the creature. It would have preferred having Ranvir’s senses to work with, but the boy wouldn’t hold up to such a possession.

Instead, it was forced to seek out its old guides. Hundreds of them left across dozens of worlds. Seeking them with its power was difficult but Latresekt’s memory didn’t decay. Searching through worlds that it had long abandoned on its search for the next step forwards. It knew a dozen worldshards that had the required understanding to restore Ranvir’s Fundament and through it, his power, but they would also recognize Latresekt and excise it from his soul.

Latresekt hadn’t felt the keening howl of the Hive as strongly as it did then for over a century. With a sigh of regret, Latresekt reached for the component at the core of its creation, beyond even its rational mind or its claws. The talon sitting at the centrum, the fang that bit into the heart, sword plunged into the brain.

Echoing furious howls battered Latresekt’s mind as Ranvir’s Fundament blurred to its vision, it scented a day old battlefield, the moaning of wounded still rising, the scent and haze of smoke and powder fire thick in the air. The crackle and snap of hoarcrows pecking at the offerings left to War.

Another field, the howl of man-like creatures of fur and shadows. These were racing through a village at night, battering down doors and haunting the alleyways. Ripping sounds of claws in flesh echoed from buildings as they tore into their victims.

Latresekt was pulled in any of a hundred directions, claws ripped at flesh just like they ripped at his mind. Boulders tore down walls of castles and his soul. Bombs battered buildings and cities and his individuality.

It had been eons since Latresekt separated from the hive and longer still since it had forged from the whole a singular identity. Perhaps it had been too long, for the currents of Wrath tore at it far beyond what the ancient spirit remembered. Its form started to blur, tail fur bleeding from furry into a ridged creation of spines.

Latresekt howled and growled and keened, slamming its huge three-fingered fists into soil of Ranvir’s eroding Fundament. And it allowed itself to express the battle that raged within all spirits of rage as it focus on a far more important struggle. Latresekt delved the hive. It needed their information and it needed their Guides.

Latresekt braced itself against the hive’s eroding touch with methods it had first devised when Vednar was but disparate sections of lesser planes falling through the Liminal. It focused on its form, altered from the original razor-sharp appearance. In its mind, Latresekt visualized the yellow, orange, and red color scheme it had taken on to hide within Ranvir’s mind. The primate body, bolstered with wider-shoulders and fewer fingers and augmented with a tiger’s rear legs.

It focused on the experiences that had never been touched by the hive, never been seen by it. The crimson drifts rising from the sunspot lakes, the tribes that surrounded the water dancing together as the liquid rose to a boil. The evernights on any of Eyid’s hundred moons, locked in place around the Worldshard of the Chroniclers from where the observed the entirety of the Liminal, recording but never interfering. The archi…

Something forced Latresekt out of the scouring acid currents of the hive, pushing the spirit away. Rejecting it. Latresekt gasped as its brethren abandoned it, its creator not just leaving it behind but pushing it out.

The spirit shook itself and rose on shaky limbs. Its form had become blurred from the exposure, changing much of the detail. The colors that Latresekt had once thought of as camouflage, but now recognize were becoming something deeper, had faded into a bleak almost gray. Claws had grown and encapsulated much of its fingers turning them into wicked talons, rather than workable digits. Its fur had largely retained its form but the mane had regrown, though of fur rather than original spines.

Latresekt shivered and reviewed the memories it had stolen. It had gotten away cheap. It didn’t know how long had passed for Ranvir, but the connection with the hive wouldn’t have been easy on him even second-hand. Thankfully, the boy had the grace to pick a strong and enduring Concept, even if it wasn’t perfect.

Latresekt grinned revealing bare fangs sharp beyond reason, as it found what it needed in the stolen knowledge. It not only had a worldshard, it had a location that should do quite nicely.

Latresekt reached through the barrier and into the boy’s tether. First it drafted all the stockpiled power it had been able to gather and formed a seed of itself, then it reached through Ranvir into his Disciplines, “I know it’s painful, but you have to hold on for a little while longer,” Latresekt growled.

Steering the space, Latresekt quickly located the half a dozen Guides the hive had planted on the Korfyi. Swiftly navigating to the right general area, Latresekt didn’t have long as the tether-space was shredding around its intrusion, putting more strain on the Fundament.

Something cracked and its form started truly bleeding at edges as it was forced to take a portion of the strain. But it was nothing to the personality erasing pressure of the hive and Latresekt had borne that well. With a growl it locked in on the location as best it could and sent the space into motion.

There wasn’t distance or space in the Liminal, at least not in the same regard as inside any of the full realms, but they were still traveling through something. Whatever space it was Latresekt suspected it had more to do with the borders around planes, worldshards or otherwise, than the Liminal itself.

Finally, the burden on Latresekt became too strong and its form ripped apart leaving only the tiny seed it had stuffed into Ranvir’s tether.