Neveah stood at the edge of her cottage, calmly eating some leftovers from Lowanna and Enmya’s date night. Their happy ending meant that quite a bit of the paella had been left forgotten on the table, which Neveah was only too happy to monopolize. The metal spoon scraped against the clay bowl as she attempted to scoop out every last morsel she could find. Even she felt a stirring of surprise as she tasted the food that Randidly had made, pouring himself into a meal for a night.

He might not have a related Skill with any Rarity worth recognizing, but the methods Randidly Ghosthound had learned from Nrorce transcended the System. With quality ingredients, he just needed to avoid distracting from their natural appeal, rather than needing to enhance it.

After one last bite, she set the bowl down on the nearby table and returned to her previous activity: watching Devick manifesting her image, the crimson-furred Malice swinging the cursed scythe back and forth. A grey and ominous fog followed after every swing, hinting at the crackling destruction that occurred every moment. Yet even that wouldn't dissuade a watcher from losing themselves in the shifting pivots of Devick's form. Put simply, the woman was graceful and beautiful in a way that made Neveah vaguely envious. Each movement flowed smoothly to the next, so the black-grey of the scythe and the red of her hair seemed to be dancing. Even in battle, she seemed more art than a living person.

Unfortunately, Neveah shared too many traits with Randidly to possess that sort of effortless allure while she fought. Rather than graceful, the two's movements could only be called ‘efficient’. Efficient pushed to the limit, but rather unspectacular in methodology.

At the same time, the beauty wasn’t the reason for the observation. In a much less flattering way, Devick could be described in a single word: suicidal. Her image had been irrevocably altered by holding onto the blade that Westrisser had so carefully forged. The dangerous energies remained, increasing the image’s power, but Devick embraced the inclusion too fully.

The flesh of Malice’s arm began to atrophy with each swing.

In the end, Neveah sighed and stood. “Devick, please tell me you don’t plan on letting the arm of your image rot off right in front of me.”

Devick paused in her movements. She flashed Neveah a grin somewhere been impish and sheepish. “Well… I don’t have a solution for it now per se, but from the vibes I felt from Hungry Eye, what comes next won’t be easy. And I-”

Devick’s face scrunched up. “I refuse to be dead weight. I want to possess the power to help him, in this confrontation in his world. Your world. To do that, I need to master this power that I’ve found. Incorporate it naturally into my image. Without it…”

“He won’t leave you behind,” Neveah said with all the gentleness she could muster.

“I don’t want him to even need to slow down for me,” Devick admitted. Her lips twitched, an aura of depression coloring the air around her. “Which, I know, is a bit unreasonable even for me.”

Neveah chuckled. “But necessary. And I think you are missing a very literal way of interpreting that to alleviate this problem. For example, your image is basically that you now wield a power that is so dangerous… even the wielder is damaged, yes? I don’t think its smart to be rid of that aspect now— you would be greatly weakened by trying to extract it. But what you need to do is create a balancing force for it. A way for your body to heal. Why not just… have your body be unreasonable too? And have it heal from this horrific damage through sheer stubbornness?”

Devick rubbed her chin. “Just… refuse to let my body be damaged?”

“Not quite; that would remove some teeth from your power too,” Neveah corrected. “Instead, no matter how much damage is inflicted on your body, it refused to allow that damage to remain. Your unreasonableness overturns everything to revert you back to a whole form. It will mean you need to take some breaks between pushing yourself to prevent long healing times, but more breaks would be smart anyway.”

“I take a break when Hungry Eye does,” Devick sniffed, but her image began to bubble and shift, already trying to incorporate Neveah’s suggestions.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Neveah threw her hands up in the air and spun on her heel. Pointless to argue with you… For Randidly, training is a break…

*****

Randidly floated in the sky above Homewell and looked through the ground with a grim expression; six days had passed since his allies had begun spreading the word regarding this world’s impending doom.

Looking through to the cracks in the memory bubble, this existence would persist for three or four more days. More than he expected, but so much fewer than the innocent people of the memory deserved.

His focus shifted to his Status. Some experimentation and Hank’s assistance had allowed him to push his Fatepiece to Level 86. He had tried several different variations on the Fatepiece activation, but it was clear from the progression of requirements that the outcome must be put into doubt by the usage of the Keystone of the First Ghasthund for experience to be gained.

With Randidly involved, and considering the quality of opponents inside of the memory, that had become almost impossible. So he shelved the idea of getting the Fatepiece all the way up to Level 100 before he departed the memory, allowing him to cease feeding most of his experience to Acri.

Either way, he would probably soon need to do so anyway. Partly to begin benefiting from all the Stat boosts he had accrued during his time in the System, but also to unlock several more Class Skills.

Honestly, Randidly wasn’t sure how they would affect his fighting Style. He suspected they would just begin to fine tune his images, based on how much effort the Pantheon put into tailoring his new Classes for him. But at the very least, they would provide additional methods to gain PP. And with how high the bar was to trigger his next PP Tithe, he would need hundreds of Skills gaining hundreds of Levels in order to bridge that gap.

He slapped his cheeks. All that can wait. My fatepiece is stuck at Level 86. Hopefully, that will be enough. As for the people of the memory…

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Randidly ceased staring at the cracks running up into the fabric of this world and instead considered the flows of Aether and Nether that ran through the populations gathering around Homewell; essentially, he wanted to see how many people had believed his warnings.

Even now, he felt the news about the Beigons’ deaths weighing heavily upon the hearts of the crowds clustering around Homewell. The people had gathered partially because they believed him, but mostly because either they had been strongly persuaded to do so or because they wanted to convince the people already there not to fall for the lies of Randidly and the rest of his sinister cabal.

The accusations made him want to snort, if it hadn’t been so heartbreakingly tragic.

He could feel the emotions of fear and righteous fury burning especially hot in the area directly around Homewell. Randidly shouldn’t feel surprised about this, but he had very few supporters from amongst the Turtlelines. Aside from Kethope and her family, essentially no one was willing to give Randidly the benefit of the doubt after he very publicly eliminated his detractors.

Outside of the city, whole new stretches of slums had sprung up, functioning as transition camps for individuals who had rushed for the opportunity to embrace a better life. Rather than emotional concerns, a lot of these people were motivated by pragmatism. A large portion were groups that Randidly had liberated from the Badlands while he experimented with his Fatepiece, so they were more than willing to overlook a bit of murder.

Groups gathered by Westrisser and Cerulean mostly included elite warriors and their immediate families. These two, at least, had taken Randidly’s warnings about being unsure of how many individuals he could bring to his universe very seriously.

Meanwhile, the Nether contingent…

A vein in Randidly’s temple twitched as he considered the vast host camped out along the edge of the Badlands. Holy shit Lowanna. Was there a single individual within the Netherlands that didn’t listen to your words…? Tch, no wonder the other side is convincing people that we are a horrid cabal.

Just based on numbers alone, the amount of Nether individuals streaming here is almost double the total number of people living in the Aetherlands…

The group was beyond counting, with long trains of individuals carrying only their dearest belongings snaking closer every hour. All told, Randidly’s conservative estimate at how many people were gathered below him sat at around fifty million.

“It’s possible to bring individuals into the Alpha Cosmos, even if I don’t quite have the current ability to make them ‘real’ and loose them in the wider Nexus,” Randidly muttered. “But… how big is that number going to be? Where will all these people settle? She they be broken off into groups, or just dumped in the wilderness somewhere…? Well, I can’t keep avoiding the answer forever.”

Randidly proceeded into his Status screen. He clicked on his full Muse’s Reverie Attribute and shivered. He felt power radiating out of his new Class, synergizing with the concerted power of his Fatpieces.

Randidly closed his eyes as the world before him changed, and he discovered how big a boost his Alpha Cosmos would receive.