Randidly snapped back awake, shocked to find that he was laying on battlements of Lady Iellaya’s camp. The ground was clearly slightly sloped beneath him, but his Absolute Timing informed him that he had only been unconscious for about a minute after the worst of it had passed.

Some of the foundations had been eroded, clearly, but… they had endured. They had survived. Randidly attempted to push himself up to a sitting position, but his arms seemed like rubber and complained painfully when he tried to move them. So Randidly simply focused on his breathing and tried to ascertain the extent of the damage he had endured.

“...Abiodun…?”

A voice filled with horror drifted over Randidly’s form. And in response to the question, there was only silence.

Randidly’s Grim Intuition was barely functioning with the clogged and overstimulated state of his brain, but he could sense the line of Lady Iellaya’s focus going to a figure that was standing in front of her fort with his arms crossed. As Randidly’s focus began to waver and drift apart, he felt that form in front of the fort’s base lean forward and then fall. Lady Iellaya instantly moved, leaping over the battlements and catching the figure below.

Then they were too distant for Randidly to follow further as the sphere of Grim Intuition slowly shrunk. Even capturing that much had been a supreme effort. Every part of Randidly hurt. Everything was throbbing, or rather Randidly’s own attention was throbbing after it had gone through so much in the last ten minutes. He was completely spent.

But even though Randidly was exhausted, that same pride that had let him endure through the Nether King’s final attack meant that his mind was buzzing; as much as he needed it, he couldn’t find it in him to rest right now.

If I was stronger… Even though I know its a futile thought...

His emerald eyes flickered open and stared mutely up at the swirling shadows above them. With the obvious devastation caused by the Nether King’s attack, that darkness conjured by the grand formation had grown fat and rich. Randidly’s Grim Intuition couldn’t currently give him a full report on how the entire battlefield had handled it, but the answer hanging above him was pretty clear evidence.

Thousands of people had died. With more slowly expiring every second. He could practically taste their hatred, fear, unwillingness, and regret that spiraled upward. The shadowy darkness seemed to be humming with it.

Although he was too far away to know what the last words they exchanged were, Randidly felt something change below. Lady Iellaya raised her head and let out a keening wail of grief, unlike anything that he had heard from the prideful figure before. Randidly’s eyes unfocused as even he responded to the death of Lady Iellaya’s right hand.

Abiodun, the solemn companion. The bloodthirsty executioner. Her most trustworthy ally. The first of the individuals to become part of her potential. The first of the individuals to sacrifice themselves for Lady Iellaya.

Just ten minutes ago, he had been glaring at Randidly as his orders took him away from Lady Iellaya’s side and left Randidly in his place. A little over four hours ago, he had been insisting Randidly take a break.

Is it better or worse that he made it back here before the end…? Randidly wondered.

While Randidly’s thoughts wandered, Lady Iellaya continued to cry. With the Great Rift looming above them, beyond the swirling shadow, it was certainly a bleak noise that fit a bleak landscape. The sound of crumbling stone and collapsing walls were the only other noises that reached Randidly’s ears. The emotion of Lady Iellaya’s cry slowly drifted upward, joining the chorus of thousands of others amongst that shadowy energy-

Within the energy, as the emotions began to flow through it, some of that shadowy substance began to condense into small drops of liquid. Randidly’s gaze sharpened immediately.

Is it really that simple…? Randidly’s heavy focus slowly shifted from the condensing drops of liquid above to his own inner world. Eventually, his drifting consciousness flowed into the area of himself dominated by the true Nether cores. Even though the Nether energy in himself was extremely dense, he hadn’t been able to condense another Nether core in a long time. Something was missing. Some glue that would hold the energy together at a density that couldn’t be achieved otherwise

Energy… and emotion. Memories and connection. The Nether at Randidly’s core began to slowly rotate. Is that enough… to become strong…?

*****

Grimacing, Lord Miln pressed his hand to his chest and injected some energy into the wound to knit the flesh back together. Despite the fact there was no one currently with the capability to watch him, he refused to even appear weak. Then he glanced around, considering the losses the Nether King’s last attack had inflicted.

There were only a few figures nearby that were staggering to their feet, but Lord Miln could sense that most of his elite soldiers were still alive underneath the crumbling debris. They were mostly just stunned. The presence of himself and Ileot Swacc had acted as a screen for most of them, allowing them to receive a much less concentrated dose of the Nether King’s power.

But the ground in the surrounding area was destabilized and levitating. Basically the kilometer of broken land that had been between them and the Great Rift originally had been devoured, and now they floated on one of a series of smaller stone islands that were directly before the maw of the Great Rift. And as Lord Miln looked around, the stones at the edge were slowly being corroded and devoured by the vast darkness in front of them.

The situation on the larger battlefield was even bleaker. It looked like the bulk of the Nether Beast forces had been annihilated by that terrible noise, but the real problem was that in other areas the Great Rift had advanced even further inland. The area in front of the Aether Headquarters was now a peninsula sticking out into the darkness.

Lord Miln’s gaze continued to slide sideways. Losses elsewhere were staggering. Aside from Lady Iellaya’s camp, which had inexplicably seemed to endure the force directly, about 50% of the Aether forces had been killed immediately by the attack. And it was difficult to tell how many more would die within the next few minutes.

Continuing to pivot on his foot, Lord Miln spun until he saw the form of Ileot Swacc. With a wince, Lord Miln walked over to stand next to the crouching form of Ileot.

The ancient being was glaring down at the broken corpse of the Randidly Ghosthound duplication that he had made. Ileot’s fingers flexed and danced like a spider, as though he was considering how to deal with this.

Surely he cannot also bring someone back on the dead? That is… a poor choice, even at the best of times. Most people who pass beyond the veil are broken by the passage...

Lord Miln grimaced and shook such thoughts from his head. It seemed that both of them had underestimated the Nether King. Who would have guessed it could still produce such power even when half of its strange formation had been destroyed…?

Lord Miln cleared his throat to be sure Ileot was aware of his presence and then asked about the corpse, “Will this be a problem? I remember you mentioning how complicated karma could get if something happened to a duplication-”

“No, this is only a partial copy. That’s why it’s so inferior,” Ileot shook his head in annoyance. “That’s why I had to make a partial copy; the karma gets too complicated when you fully duplicate someone who is still living. Sometimes there are… consequences if something happens to one or the other. Safer to choose someone without any remaining karma in this life. No, it’s just… I’m angry. Angry things turned out this way. If it’s like this again… dammit, I cannot just- What the hell did I miss…?”

Lord Miln forced a chuckle. “Well, does it really matter now, does it? The losses were worse than expected… but it seems your attack drove the Nether King back. As long as we spin this right to the Nexus council-”

The look on Ileot’s face stopped Lord Miln dead. Ileot Swacc was sneering at him like he was a pitiful schoolboy. “You… you are more of a fool than even I suspected.”

“What?” For a second, Lord Miln was shocked. Then his bewilderment turned to anger. “Without me, none of this would have happened! It was your failure that brought us here, not mine. You were protected as requested.”

“If not for you undoubtedly making some sort of poorly timed lockdown at the military checkpoint, how could this have happened.” Ileot Swacc’s eyes blazed. His jabbed his finger violently forward. “It was your pointless actions that ruined-”

Lord Miln snorted and crossed his arms. “Lockdown…? At the military checkpoint…? Why the hell would I do that? Do you think I have sway enough to do that without someone asking questions?”

“Then-” Ileot blinked. Then a frowned. More to himself, Ileot muttered. “...is someone targeting me…?”

“...I’m going to overlook the implication that you were going to betray me.” Lord Miln turned away with a tight expression. “Instead, let’s figure-”

Lord Miln froze. His entire existence was plunged in ice. There was a figure standing at the edge of their small floating island, its body shifting and rippling. That terrible chill invaded every part of Lord Miln’s body as his eyes struggled to comprehend what he was seeing.

Ileot began to laugh. “Truly, you are so, so young. Do you think that the strike I unleashed was enough to wound one of this caliber…? Sure, we inflicted a fatal flaw in its formation… but its rage has not abated. It was always going to descend to this place to extract a personal price. In a way, it is… karma.”

The Nether King’s two lighthouse-like eyes beamed across the twenty or so meters between them. That gaze seemed to pin Lord Miln to his spot. The Nether King’s body was tall, perhaps four meters tall. It was also humanoid, possessing two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. As for its body, it was made out of a strangely liquid material, so that its flesh always seemed to be weeping down its own body, dripping onto the ground and evaporating into a sizzling mist.

In addition, its form was constantly flickering, dozens of visual projections twitching and sliding sideways around its body. The effect was that the Nether King seemed to be in a constant state of motion, even when it was entirely still and staring over at Lord Miln.

“I suppose this has all turned to shit,” Ileot announced. “I’ll be taking my leave-”

Onnng.

The Nether King didn’t have a mouth to open, its whole body simply vibrated. This noise possessed none of the deadly power that its previous attacks had inflicted on the battlefront, but there also was a strange sense of… constriction that settled around them.

Ileot barred his teeth toward the distant figure. “You think you can keep me here? My caution does not mean I fear you. I have been avoiding that fate for far too long to stumble here. If you force my hand, I will tear you to shreds.”

Ong.

With steps that possessed a thousand cascading afterimages, the Nether King began to walk forward.