“It was a draw,” Vualla said with the wide smile of a woman who was very confident in her victory. She reached behind her head and took a few seconds to tie her azure hair up into a ponytail. After their spar finished, she was flushed and bright-eyed, seemingly ready to go for another session.

You are a monster… Heh, is this what people think when they fight me…?

Randidly, who was covered in dust and laying on the ground, waved his hand in irritation at Vualla’s beaming complexion. “Don’t give me that shit. We both know you would have won if we had pushed it all the way to the edge.”

“Yes, but you are being a sore loser, so I was giving you an easy out,” Vualla chortled to herself. She crouched next to Randidly and smiled down at him with warm eyes that began to melt his annoyance. Then her gaze began to wander across his body. She licked her lips. “I hope you know I’ll still be attracted to you, even if I’m stronger than you. Especially with this armor… mmm… I love how yummy your bare midsection looks.”

Randidly waved his hand again, but he couldn’t keep a smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. Truthfully, he wasn’t all that upset about his loss. “You know it’s not that. It’s just… I want to be stronger. Especially after being so thoroughly thrashed by Velio Dunn. It’s felt like I’ve improved so much, enough to fight against the mid-tier fighters in the Nexus. But after meeting him…”

“I’m in the Xyrt Brigade, which is the most powerful group in the Nexus,” Vualla pointed out, while her eyes continued to drag over his midsection. “And I’ve been doing nothing but training like crazy for the past few months. PLUS the only reason my image has been able to grow so effectively is that you’ve been supporting me from the shadows; I couldn’t have gotten to this point on my own. Besides, it’s not like you didn’t have a few trump cards remaining, right? When you were meeting my eye at the end… as I was smashing my fists against you, you smelled like danger.”

Randidly growled in disappointment, even though Vualla was right. He hadn’t mobilized the grey bubbles in his Nether Nebula that had been so effective in the final confrontation against Kaan Swacc. It was a method that might very well be able to overwhelm Vualla’s force diffusion. In addition, he hadn’t attempted to use All Things Succumb, Yet Time Whirls the Earth as he was still tinkering with the shape of the image. So it wasn’t like he had exhausted every option available to him...

But they had compared base specs and Vualla’s were slightly higher. As her acceleration continued to escalate over the course of their spar, she was practically unstoppable.

“Besides,” Vualla continued as she stood and offered Randidly a hand up. He took it and she pulled him to his feet and slid her arms around his waist. As a backdrop for the sudden moment of romantic embrace, the muddy ditch had been turned into a smoldering ravine. The observation made the corner of Randidly’s mouth twitch.

Vualla tilted her head to the side and looked up at him. “You’ve focused on your attention on your ancillary abilities: you haven’t been pouring as much attention into just beefing up your images. Obviously, you’ve improved since fighting at the Great Rift, but… There is a reason that images are the main focus in the Nexus. Images are powerful.”

“True,” Randidly admitted as he allowed his hand to wander down Vualla’s hips.

She snorted and playfully spun away. “Ah, not today. This is a prize for the winner of our spar, unfortunately…”

Rolling his eyes, Randidly brushed the mud, sweat, and blood off of his torso as well as he could with just his right hand. Most of it had been earned toward the end of that fight, while Vualla displayed increasingly overwhelming acceleration. Her speed had pinned him down and forced him on the defensive. Ignoring the other issues, Randidly asked a genuine question he had been wondering about. “Do you have any advice you learned as part of the Xyrt Brigade that can help me? I’ve seen plenty of examples, but I’ve very rarely received any guidance.”

“Actually yes.” Vualla took Randidly’s arm as though she had completely forgotten about her previous coyness and the two of them began walking back toward Randidly’s apartment in the Northern sector. “Well, not much advice, but some understanding that might help you when you work on your images. Up to the point where you are now, the power of the image comes from specificity and clarity, right? Well beyond that, there are three tiers where you are aiming for exactly the opposite. You’ve already achieved the first, but it’s a matter of mindset: You must learn to trick with your image.

“Fool an observer into doubting his senses. Fool the universe into doubting its laws. Fool the self, step onto the Pinnacle. Those are the phrases repeated ad nauseum by the Xyrt Brigade’s trainers.”

“Fool the self, step onto the Pinnacle, huh…” Randidly muttered to himself. For a method to reach the vaunted heights of the Nexus… it sounded like ambiguous nonsense.

Vualla waved her outside hand rather lightly as she squeezed Randidly’s arm. “That’s the goal, yes. But only two images have managed to make it to the Pinnacle since the Nexus was created; it’s not an easy Path, so don’t get your hopes up. For now, you should start thinking about how your images can negate the universe’s laws. Learning to mess with friction and inertia is how I grew to be this… heh, well, overwhelmingly stunning. So if you figure your own middle finger to this universe…”

Randidly’s lips twisted into a smile. “That final blitz of attacks… that was the first time in a long time that I’ve actually had trouble following punches. That’s how quick you were. So I suppose you could consider me stunned.”

“Stop, you are making me blush,” Vualla teased. She fluttered her eyelashes at Randidly. Then she took off her heavy gauntlets and allowed them to fall to the ground. Unencumbered, she slid her arm through Randidly’s once more. “Now, as the victor of our spar, I demand that you take me for a walk to the training area. I simply love the way your cute little recruits shiver and avoid eye contact when you walk by…”

“Ha!” Randidly snorted. But he allowed himself to be pulled forward by Vualla. Her hair cascaded down her shoulder and brushed against his arm. Sulfur separated itself from his torso and non-existent left arm and plopped onto the ground with Vualla’s gauntlets. Acri was already using its sharp head to nudge the gauntlets over, intent on investigating these powerful pieces of equipment.

As they climbed up out of the remnants of the enormous ditch, Randidly glanced behind him and unleashed a pinch of Mana. Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil became his rapid response landscaping crew, large and thorny roots pushing dirt around to turn the apocalyptic battlefield into a normal pit of mud. He couldn’t help but notice that the ditch was a little deeper than it used to be; they had literally annihilated some of the ground during their fight.

But it would be usable, should the Overseers require it.

Randidly spared a small glance for Vualla as they continued forward. She’s truly strong… and she makes an interesting point. Deceiving the universe… overturning the laws with image… heh, maybe that’s the area I should pursue in regards to the Grim Chimera’s final Skill… It somehow manages to fool space and time...

While Randidly steadily began to brainstorm about his Grim Chimera image, the duo moved toward the training area. Exhausted grunts and the demanding shouts of the Overseers filled the air. Helen and Heiffal were busy leading a physical fitness exercise, but the presence of Randidly and Vualla almost immediately drew the attention of the recruits. They began sprinting forward despite their significant weights and suppressions against them, unwilling to attract Randidly’s attention by being the slowest performer. But what Randidly found the most shocking was that he basically had to do nothing to be an intimidating force in their eyes these days.

He had been almost instantly replaced in a manner that was somewhat insulting. Randidly could read the recruit’s emotions; the brightly smiling Vualla next to him injected them in an even more crippling fear than all of his aloof cruelty put together. To the recruits, the playful twinkle in her eyes appeared to be hellfire.

Vualla deliberately slowed their pace, so the two of them stopped right outside the ring in which the recruits were struggling. If anything, their deliberate pauses made the recruits throw themselves more frantically into the action of exercise. But through the press of bodies, Randidly caught sight of two individuals who were performing remarkably better than the others.

Their eyes were glazed with exhaustion, but they had been going at the frantic pace the entire time. Their shoulders shuddered with their heaving breaths as their bodies struggled to keep up with the physical demands placed on them. And as the other desperate recruits accelerated, so did they, a tiny bit. DiOrtho Vant and Raymund Ballast continued their idiotic training regimen so their issues with images could be adjusted.

According to the earlier schedule, they should be in Randidly’s Soulskill now. However, his own injuries had delayed the schedule somewhat. Looking at them now, it was clear that they were almost ready. Nether continued to linger in their bodies, preparing for a breakthrough.

Helen walked slowly over to where Vualla and Randidly were standing and offered them a short bow. Then she turned away from the recruits so they couldn’t see her expression and raised her hands to her cheeks. Her face eased with the soft edges of pure bliss. “Ah… truly, I admire your, mmmm dedication to the recruits training, Miss Vualla. Randidly here stopped by so regularly and possesses none of your flair for motivation.”

“Please, Miss Helen, I’m simply an observer,” Vualla’s smile grew even wider as she shared a malicious glance with Helen. Those sparks of hell flame shot between the two women. “Without your instruction, my assistance with motivation would be completely useless… heheh, it’s so rare to see such single-minded determination from recruits. You truly must have a gift…”

While the two women continued to chortle, Randidly said a silent prayer for the mental health of the recruits. But he was quickly distracted by a message from Lady Iellaya.

Military High Command finally unfucked itself. There will be a large scale mobilization of forces coming from every frontline to the Fifth Cohort, considering the recent activities of the Nether. In addition, a second wave of recruitment is going to happen, on a much more expedited time schedule.

I’ll be heading to the Fifth Cohort as soon as I send this message. Apparently the occurrences there are fairly disturbing.

Stay on the Fifth Cohort Rally Station as much as you can. The Commandants will protect you from threats, but don’t for a second believe that they are on your side. Something is going on at headquarters; it feels like someone cut a deal to the NLC after the corruption allegations. I bet someone paid a king’s ransom to keep those details from leaking. The report should come out soon, so we might be able to tell more then.

Stay sharp.

Randidly scanned the message a few extra times, gradually beginning to frown. He quickly sent back a response to Lady Iellaya to confirm that they would remain here for the full three months. She sent back an affirmation, but also added the extra warning of being careful of the Engraving Guild.

Randidly rubbed his forehead, which finally pulled Vualla’s attention away from the recruits. Her forehead creased. “Everything alright?”

“Right now, yeah.” Randidly sighed. “But… thinks are starting to get more complicated, aren’t they?”

Vualla nodded slowly. Then her eyes brightened. “Yea… maybe we should spar again?”