Randidly’s heart clenched in a combination of fury and exasperation. The image that smashed into the surrounding Nether and emotions was unfamiliar, but his experiences with Velio Dunn were too fresh in his mind to take any chances. As the impact expanded rapidly outward, Randidly decisively released his emotional tether and dropped about fifty meters deeper into the spine. This only increased the ambient Nether a few percentage points, but it did create some space to gather himself.

“Holy shit,” Randidly muttered with narrowed eyes, as the shockwave of the spike’s arrival spread out into the surrounding space; he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this. His lips curled up into a sneer as his muscles flexed and locked into a strained and agonizing position. Due to the conducive nature of the midnight blue air, it was like he was repeatedly experiencing the grinding sensation of being exposed to that image, even though there was quite some distance between him and the spike. Randidly’s mouth slowly opened, but no sound escaped his lips. The moment slowly stretched.

His fingers twitched and flexed. His knuckles popped. Several veins on his neck bulged outward.

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 306!

Then the wave passed through him, heading deeper toward the horrifying significance below. Gradually, Randidly could force his joints to relax and study the now drifting spike more closely. It truly looked like a giant nail, almost the size of Randidly himself. The metal was some sort of heavy iron, with a large chunk at the top and a spike below that. Yet as the heavy object slowly began to drift down through the gloomy air, buffeted a bit by the emotions that spent themselves on this new target, Randidly saw a familiar-looking Engraving across the surface of the nail.

Gradually, his eyes widened. After re-establishing his emotional tether so he wasn’t devoured by the significance below, he used Tide of the Void to gradually pull the nail down toward his position. As it approached him, Randidly clicked his tongue and looked up at the spot on the wall where the doppelganger’s etchings remained. I can use the Dreamcatcher to examine them… but it’s quite unfortunate that I lost direct access to them. Perhaps… I was a bit too jumpy. But still… the power of that image...

Randidly’s eyes went to the nail again. If those Engravings are truly Neveah’s work, then… Edraine? But why-

Randidly paused as he abruptly realized he couldn’t feel the familiar connection he possessed with Neveah. For a second, he was aghast; it was like discovering he was missing a toe and the loss obviously wasn’t recent. His eyes widened further. Although the connection was still present, a Soulbound wouldn’t be cut without consequences, Randidly couldn’t feel it. Information and emotions couldn’t flow through their intimate bond.

Suddenly, the arrival of the nail made a bit more sense.

Grinning with genuine happiness, Randidly reached his hand up and beckoned. The nail floated down toward him. “Heh, you were always a bit more sensitive than I was. Sorry for being a bit slow on the uptake, Neveah. So you were even willing to come to the Nexus to help me, huh…? I probably don’t deserve you.”

Randidly’s Grim Intuition quickly scanned through the whole of the Engraving. Although he had never seen anything exactly like this before, he quickly understood its function and inserted Mana into the correct area of the Engraving. There was an audible click and the nail split in half. The two heavy pieces of metal fell away, revealing a bronze plate supporting a scroll, an envelope, and some sort of strange brown debris.

Squinting, Randidly picked up some of the brown bits in his fingers. He took a long sniff. Then he popped the chunk into his mouth. “Blueberry muffins…? Or the casualties of the baking wars...”

He shook his head sorrowfully for the tragedy of the impact, then opened the letter. As he suspected, it was from Neveah. It warned Randidly about the lack of emotional temperance he now possessed, now that emotions weren’t flowing freely between them. In addition, she excitedly informed him that she had included some muffins she learned to bake from her pen-pal on Expira. Plus, the scroll contained the finished Engraving for Randidly’s arm.

Randidly couldn’t help his smile from softening. “Heh, at least that explains how wild I’ve been. But if I’m dealing with my aggression… you handled all the caution. How difficult was it for you to face your fear and come to the Nexus, Neveah…?”

At the bottom of the letter, she wished him good luck on returning as soon as possible to the Nexus. She would wait for him in the Nexus, just to confirm that he was alright. The last line informed Randidly that about 30 hours had passed between when Neveah lost contact with him and when the spike was sent down to Randidly’s position.

He considered that information for a while. The letter cleared up his concerns about his insanity, at least; he was undoubtedly being affected by the emotional intensity, but his personality also felt out of wack because his subconscious connection to Neveah had been suppressed. Knowing he wasn’t secretly infected with wild emotions was such a relief that Randidly giggled, then coughed lightly to restore his dignified expression.

In terms of time, Randidly had been down here for about a month in a half, although most of that was above the 50% Nether content line. Sinking to this depth of 63%, the time dilation probably increased rather significantly, due to the increase in proficiency he had seen from the doppelganger’s emotional weapons. As for the exact ratio…

Definitely, at least a month passed here before a day passed in the Nexus. It might even be as much as three months passing down here for a single day.

Still, that sort of shift meant that he couldn’t stay down here for the decade he had claimed he needed to catch up to Velio Dunn, but it would probably be alright even if Randidly stayed here for even a year. Heiffal would be able to handle things in his absence with the trainees.

Then Randidly opened the scroll and scanned through Neveah’s specially made Engraving. His eyes immediately brightened; this wasn’t just good. The arrangement was positively sublime. Comparing the prior Engraving to this one was like comparing a letter to a smartphone. With his first glance at the Engraving, Randidly had quite a bit of difficulty interpreting the complex interactions that made it work.

It was clear that somehow the movement of energy through the metal limb would generate additional energy in a feedback loop to reinforce the joints during impacts, but Randidly was bewildered as to the mechanism. There were small distortions in some of the familiar sigils in the Engraving, but Randidly didn’t understand how those changes would accomplish what Neveah claimed they would. Probably, Randidly would need a few days to understand the Engraving enough to attempt making it.

Even if making the arm was a distraction from the very real danger of his situation, the project would give him some to improve his Architecture of the Primordial Ways before he began to work on the etchings that would physicalize his significance. Randidly nodded to himself. So for now, he would continue to refine his emotional control as a warm-up, then study the Engraving until he had a functional understanding. Afterward, he would ponder the significance of his three images until he had recovered his mental energy.

Randidly scratched his ear and grimaced down at the scroll. This is going to be a bit more difficult than when I can just ask Neveah questions about anything I don’t understand… looks like she hasn’t been slacking off while I’ve been training in the Nexus...

He could direct Helen to gather the necessary metals for his arm in the meantime. Randidly wondered if Wendy had managed to invent any new methodologies for working with metal. Then-

Stirrings from below caught Randidly’s attention. Then he swore quietly as dark, sniffing shapes swam upward through the midnight blue darkness. They were still far away and traveling slowly, but two entities were quickly pushing their way up through the gloom of the murky darkness. Likely they came to investigate that strange wave of force that had allowed Neveah’s message to reach Randidly down here.

“So there really are monsters in the depths…” He whispered.

Strangely, the first thing Randidly felt was a flash of jealousy. He narrowed his eyes and examined the approaching figures; it was clear that they were able to resist the pull of significance and push themselves upward, although their speed wasn’t anything impressive. Yet to Randidly’s surprise, they didn’t appear to have any actual emotional affect to their bodies. His Grim Intuition strained to pierce through the surrounding space. The constant cascade of information through the Nether dominant air continued to be more hurtful than helpful. Yet abruptly, Randidly recognized them.

“Nether Beasts,” Randidly released a shocked breath. Both of the dark silhouettes raised their heads and looked directly at Randidly; apparently this time, they were close enough to catch his voice. Then, with a growl, Nether surged from their body and propelled them aggressively upward.

The beast on the left was a giant newt with a long neck and six eyes on its triangular head. The one on the right was a three-armed monkey, the third arm being a rather slender limb that stretched around its body from the middle of its spine. Compared to the Nether Beasts that Randidly had seen in the past, their exteriors were much more detailed; they weren’t simply malevolent silhouettes intent on ripping Aether beings to shreds. They definitely possessed a more complete Nether flow that allowed them to resist the significance pulling from below.

But other than that… they seemed similar to the Nether Beasts Randidly saw in the Great Rift. Unrefined Nether rolled off their bodies. Although their exterior was more detailed, Randidly still sensed the core of their being within their bodies, sustaining their form. The corner of Randidly’s mouth twisted upward as he felt a surge of cruel glee.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 335!

It had been a long time since two Nether Beasts were able to threaten Randidly Ghosthound. But they would serve as the perfect stress relief.

Without seeming to sense the differences in their tiers of existence, the two Nether Beasts roared and closed the last several meters between them. In their postures was the certainty that they would kill him. Meanwhile, Randidly was a little worried about the way those roars reverberated down into the depths but the enjoyment of a fight quickly pushed away those worries; there was little he could do about that now, anyway.

If more came… then he would just kill those Nether Beasts, too.

The fingers of his right hand glowed in the murky, Nether-filled air as the monkey Nether Beast rushed forward. His Pernicious Fang of the Shade drilled directly through the monkey’s fist and shredded its arm. The blow continued to blow apart the Nether Beast’s shoulder, sending it tumbling backward in agony.

Thick tendrils of Nether condensed from the wound, gradually gathering the ambient Nether into a thick mass that clouded the air.

Meanwhile, the image of the Grim Chimera condensed around Randidly’s body. As the newt launched itself forward, the spiked lower tail of the Grim Chimera whipped sideways into its body and smashed it backward. The movement was almost dismissive. Completely stunned, the newt didn’t even have the capacity to react as Randidly’s upper tail pierced forward through the center of its forehead. In a flash, the deadly point impacted the core of the Nether Beast, causing the entire Beast to tremble uncontrollably.

Randidly raised his eyebrows as he turned to study the newt more carefully. “How strange… your core could withstand that? Looks like you are more genuine than those grunts at the front lines…”

Just before Randidly was about to release his emotional tether and go study the newt’s Nether core, he activated Chimeric Impunity. The monkey’s third arm ripped forward harmlessly, passing through Randidly’s now incorporeal side. But Randidly’s smile rapidly widened as he looked over at the monkey Nether Beast.

Although Randidly had destroyed its right arm, its core had been intact. He had assumed the monkey would be sufficiently distracted to allow him to focus on the newt. And now it seemed that intact core had begun to rapidly spin. Nether surged outward in a particular pattern, strengthening the Nether Beast. But more importantly… the wounds that Randidly had inflicted upon the Nether Beast rapidly began to heal underneath the ministrations of its core.

The healed limb was covered in a chitinous armor that definitely hadn’t been there previously. Its ruined hand now ended in razor-sharp nails. With a screech, the monkey stabilized itself and shot back toward Randidly with its hand raised.

Randidly’s emerald eyes glittered. “Did you really just evolve to fight me…? How… fascinating. Let’s test your limits, then. I suspect you will soon regret the fact that you didn’t just immediately die.”