The sky exploded as he activated his Nether Core to its fullest potential. A nova of howling winds and bolts of crimson lightning blasted out from Randidly’s position. His Nether Core howled and roared as his First Authority reared up and manifested its influence. The explosion of first contact opened up an eye in the middle of Randidly’s storm of force.

Dark, glittering petals of Nether opened out from his position. His significance ripped into the space around him, gathering up momentum for the activation.

Aether and Nether moved in concert through his body, covering the gap between himself and the target. As was broken below in high-tension combat, so above there was balance between the two fundamental energies of the Nexus. As he pressed forward, moving his potency into position, he felt the hairs along his arm straighten and shiver. Already, the world reacted to his intention.

His force of personality practically burned a hole in his chest. His Fateset shivered in anticipation. Loops of Nether tied themselves around his body as he twisted and folded even the flow of his Authority into a sort of Nether Ritual. He wanted as much momentum as possible during that first moment of contact, if just to test the resistance.

His Nether Core rotated so quickly it howled. Authority met the edge of the Nexus with a crackling explosion. The neat patterns Randidly had made in the sky exploded outward. Every cloud within twenty-five miles was practically annihilated, powerful winds shredding the water vapor clumps in their desperation to escape. In the aftermath, Blades of darkness orbited his position, dangerous discharge caught in the swirling force of his power.

Randidly clenched his jaw as the impact that slammed into the sky barely earned a groan from the Aether constructs. His spine straightened as the contact lingered and energy began to snake back toward him.

The force of rejection grew stronger as Randidly’s Authority settled across his target. Discharge and violent radiation burned across his body, but it was only about a third of the intensity of a full Hierarchy of Burden. Randidly showed his teeth, his Nether Core revving even faster. The crushing grip of his authority tightened across the massive Aether constructs. His heart fluttered, burning with a sensation akin to indigestion and also sensing the true scope of the Nexus for the first time.

Randidly released a soft groan as the layered framework of this memory Nexus came to him in those sizzling bursts of energy, along with the truth of its folded existence. His eyes watered briefly, but his Dread Homunculus hummed and chugged its way through the information. All the while, his discretionary significance began to drain out of his body.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1049!

The veins bulged along his neck as he strained to keep all the wrathful forces stampeding through his body from destroying each other. His Nether Core continued to accelerate. Thick streams of Nether wound themselves through his muscles, gleaned some small amount of forceful presence, and then exploded out through his Authority and gripped the grand pieces of the System.

I just need a push. A small shift, Randidly said a quiet prayer. The tension mounted. His muscles strained and stretched, trembling as it struggled to force the giant Aether pieces into motion. He coiled and twisted the building energy, creating patterns of promise in his limbs and joints. Just the smallest willingness to shift. Don’t you want to change, Pine? Can’t you feel the yearning that was poured into this memory?

His Aether and Nether folded and bent. A kaleidoscope of emptiness and gravitational violence formed in the palm of his left hand. A part of Randidly stuffed and stuffed as much energy as he could into a singularity there, so he could anchor his position and get better leverage on the Aether mechanisms.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy (GD) has grown to Level 1011!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy (GD) has grown to Level 1017!

The Songstress of Absence gathered a larger and larger gravitational deviation around her body. While significance exploded out of his chest, his Aether twisted back around and reinforced his images. The combination added an extra element of accumulation as the two energies surged next to each other.

The friction spat out sparks that gleamed in a thousand different hues. Small rainbow mites drifted toward the battlefield, lost in the churning teeth of the black wind.

Gritting his teeth, Randidly lowered his head and closed his eyes. Distortions emerged in the air, both from the gravitational field and from all the frozen kinetic energy that hummed through Randidly’s person. He continued squeezing. The discharge from the System apparatus continued to climb as sympathy built between Randidly and his target. His first Authority sang, each continued moment of holding the note increasing the resonance, increasing the effect, increasing the strain.

Randidly pushed from the outside. His senses tingled, waiting for a display from Pine.

Seconds ticked past with nothing happening. Randidly groaned. Do I really need to do everything on my own?

At the very least… I need to start it. I suppose that’s the burden of being the Alchemist.

Thunder rumbled through the emptied sky above Randidly, as some of his force bled out through the whole of the System. The rapid accumulation of his energy resulted in a dangerous difference in electromagnetic charge: any individual foolish enough to fly up to investigate his display would be vaporized. He wanted to laugh, but didn’t want to waste the energy; at least it proved he wasn’t pouring his energy out for no purpose.

He spread out his legs to a wider stance and bent his knees. While he continued to Seize the targeted machinery, he nudged Yggdrasil and the Dread Homunculus. Alright, looks like we can’t take it easy, even here. Are you ready?

Both nodded. The wind spun, the air flowing in the opposite direction of his Nether Core. More friction, more duality, more humming force. While the Singularity continued to gather energy for the next push, roots and their spectral reflections surged forward to reinforce the Authority. They didn’t approach in a straightforward manner, but whirled and spun in looping arcs toward the target, sketching out primitive Nether Rituals in the air on the way to the target. Some of the strain eased from his Authority. Which just gave the Nether Core more latitude to accelerate.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 987!

Congratulations! Your Skill Erebus’s Baleful Waltz (P) has grown to Level 1041

The images settled across the same broad planes of the function to create Cohorts. Wisps of dense Aether wicked away from the contact point, adding to the bubbling cauldron of the sky. Sulfur squeezed his fingers, latching onto the anchor point. Randidly breathed out through his nose and then wrenched sideways with all he had. In his chest, his Fatepiece shivered in anticipation.

It nudged the imperative revealed to Randidly by Deganawidah. Watch this.

The whole memory vibrated. Not just through the area of significance as it had in the past, but a physical, low-frequency vibration emerged as the cry of the System as it was forced into motion against its will. Below Randidly, the fighting slowed as the various factions began to realize that his actions were worthy of attention.

Randidly’s brain buzzed in response. From his hand, through his body, through the Nether Core, through his looping images arranged into a forceful pattern. The storm spun opposite his own rotation, the sky boiled around him, the dangerous footprint he left on the world grew larger and larger.

From every corner of his body he wrung out force. His resolve settled in for as long a fight as it needed to be. He had fucking fought Time to a standstill. This bit of Aether would concede, eventually.

Randidly pulled.

When he ratcheted up his efforts, more figures took notice. The knife of focus from the Prophet felt especially caustic. Heaving and grunting, Randidly ignored the thrill of satisfaction as they whirled around and stared up at him in the sky. Another groan blasted out as his Authority and two images managed to shift it another small amount.

And then he felt the small push. The shift in alignment as the very soul of the Nexus flowed down and pressed its weight against the mechanisms. The whole of the System parts hummed to life.

Randidly licked his lips in the moment before the ponderous weight of Pine truly began to pressure the framework. For now, he began his second impossible trick. Are you ready?

The Songstress stepped up and opened her mouth, fully charged for her solo. All the significance he could spare joined the Songstress’s song in a triumphant march. A massive black pillar erupted from his left hand, shooting up toward the edge of the Nexus and spearing through the Seized Aether construct. His image’s black and glittering eyes widened. A quiver went through her body. She existed in the depths and through the blurry veil of distance, an Event Horizon manifested.

The black pillar was an entire howling abyss, air hissing away through the emptiness, twisted at the ends and stretching from hand to the edge of the Nexus. And from there… it kept going. It stretched and advanced, its point sharpened, its edges quickly quivering into the shape of a spear.

Randidly hissed out a breath as the Event Horizon reached and reached to achieve superposition. His headache came thundering back as he pushed and pushed up that stretching weapon against the temporal rind around the memory… and punched his way out.

Immediately, Randidly felt strained to the point of trembling. He groped through the confusing array of information being fed to him, as even his Infinite Incendiary Filaments of the Dove Moirae and the Dread Homunculus were swiftly so inundated with information that Randidly felt like he was drowning. He could feel the subtle pulse of time, but with time pulsing much more rapidly, all other sensations were worn away.

The abyss spear thrust up into a confusing morass of impressions. Luckily Randidly had a beacon for a target. From the apparatus within the memory, he homed right in on the grander, modern Nexus mechanisms. To that same structure that could gulp down another Cohort.

He followed the line of sameness from one side of the superposition to the other.

There were several long moments of worry. Randidly’s headache intensified. If the first touching of the mechanism shocked Randidly with the discharge of a new universe, now the full fury of the Hierarchy of Burden slammed into his body, seeking to break down and shred this existence that straddled through two existences, albeit one that had always been tucked within another.

His body burned. He floated in a veritable sea of static discharge, a burning copper storm of electric bolts surrounded by black wind.

Yet Randidly had trained for this load. His Hierarchy of Burden had toughened his body. The pain only made the Songstress of Absence more furious, the silent note rising and rising, causing the air to shiver. The edges of the spear solidified and sharpened as the weapon tore through space and time. Looking up, he tried to ignore the trickle of worries in his overstimulated brain.

The other point of tension in Randidly’s mind was whether the workings of the Nexus would have changed in the intervening cohort. Yet when the unerring pulse of superposition finally found its target, Randidly breezed through a few superficial differences and settled across the same basic shape.

Both were skewered along the elongated absence wielded by the Songstress. His Fateset roared in his chest, searing his Soulspace with its approval.

His Nether Core trembled. Stretched to a second location, his First Authority scrambled for a grip. Desperation became fingers to paw for a solid hold. Time stretched out as Randidly tried to firm up the two sides. And just before Pine pressed the weight of his Universe Soul to help the process, Randidly clicked the full superposition into place. He expanded, the Songstress of Absence achieving two forms across the universes. The image became a harpoon thrust through two different iterations of the Aether foundations of the Nexus, pinning two disparate points into one whole.

Superposition had been achieved, and not a moment too soon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P) has grown to Level 942!

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1050!

Pine shifted and pressed the pedal. The Cohort creation piece began to tremble and move. That force and motion were conveyed through the fabric of the Singularity of the Inhospitable Depths, from one side of the superposition to the other. Born of the same essence, the Cohort Creation in the modern Nexus also began to move.

In his chest, his Fatepiece pulled all the wild conflagration of its euphoria into a tight fist. It gathered itself, preparing for the inevitable backlash.

His skin stung slightly, now submerged in a pool of plasma. He could distantly feel the storm rising into a monstrous, continent-breaking fever pitch, but those impressions felt so distant. All his focus narrowed to pulling off this impossible trick.

Randidly understood that making the memory real on his own would have been difficult. He had a few of the elements necessary for the creation of true life, but crossing the bridge from dream to reality still remained beyond his capabilities. So he needed a little help: in this case, from the Soul of the remembered Pine and the power of the modern Nexus.

With the little of the coordinate controls Randidly could sense, he grasped out through the temporal barrier and turned the target in on itself, to the collapsing Sonora. Significance and Willpower drained out of Randidly more quickly than he would have believed possible. He began to feed on his kinetic storm, rapidly depleting the energy he had gathered to fuel the transition.

The drive from the memory Pine moved through him, ripping through the barrier between real and imagined. The physical act of transitioning into a Cohort would be birth to the wish-forged Nexus, so that Randidly could bless the transition and hopefully add that extra something so the result would be real.

As the wheel began to turn under the prodding from Pine, Randidly narrowed his eyes and settled in to exist as the fulcrum on which all the alchemy turned.