Helen could literally see her comment hitting Shal from his shifting expression. He had produced some sort of headgear from his interspatial ring, but his movements to don it slowed to a stop as he recognized what she had said to him. Then, gradually, the lines of his face tightened. His eyes burned with humiliation and indignation as he looked at her. Tremors rocked his shoulders.

Somehow, the intensity of his emotion seemed to squish his face into a deformed mass, squeezing all of his features closer together and surrounding everything with deep and unforgiving lines. It took him several long seconds to move past Helen’s comment.

“Don’t speak on what you don’t understand,” Shal rumbled as he placed the headgear on his scalp. Immediately, Helen could sense the shift in his aura; his Valiant Wraith Adder image flickered and was quickly suppressed. In fact, it didn’t appear like Shal possessed an image any longer.

The headgear looked like a thin metal circlet with two draping extensions that went down his cheekbones and followed the line of his jaw. As Helen adjusted her grip on her spear and regulated her newly evolved Depths of Horror Domain, those two protrusions along his jaw stretched and met in the middle. With a click, the extensions settled together and a glowing gemstone formed at the tip of Shal’s jaw.

As soon as the headgear locked into place, something changed within Shal. A formless pressure began to waft from his limbs body, even as he stored his spear and faced Helen with only his bare hands. There was a strange breeze against her skin as energy gathered around him.

She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. There was a whiff of something that had begun to decay on the wind.

“This is an Armament,” Shal said in a deep voice. Some of the rage faded from his features; it was clear to Helen that he had activated this device with a heavy heart. Even now, his eyes were blank and distant, as though Shal wasn’t seeing Helen any longer. It was his own demons that consumed his perspective. “A tool, wrought by the Engraving Guild using the Fates of slaughtered individuals. Each has been carefully selected and adjusted by individuals more powerful than you can understand. They are obviously not perfect. But for those who haven’t neared the Pinnacle...”

Helen smiled at him. “I’m still fucking confident.”

“You are such a fool. It seems my apprentice has infected you with his idiocy.” Some of the sharpness returned to Shal’s expression, but then he shook his head and seemed to banish those thoughts. He gestured to the metal Armament that he now wore. “I cannot deny that it is exactly these Armaments that showed me how foolishly stubborn I was being. When I came to the Nexus first, I was just as arrogant as you; I had learned on the Path to the Pinnacle that I was nowhere near as peerless as I had expected. But even if my image was currently insufficient, I would train and eventually bridge that gap. I received a job from the Swacc Family to help with their image purification. But while I was becoming acclimated to matters in the Nexus… I encountered users of Armaments. The Swacc Family always has one hundred of them on their payroll.

“My first few months, I lost every time I sparred against an Armament user. Only after a year could I barely rival the weakest of them. But still, I remained focused even as they mocked me. I continued to train… until my current second in command came to the Nexus. A Foxman named Techetadore. He was so weak in our first meeting. I crushed him without even using an image. A week later… after he started using an Armament… I couldn’t even touch him.

“That’s when I finally understood that my efforts were… pointless.”

Helen’s face twitched. Around them, the battles between the other Engraving Guild members and the Pinnacle Seekers was growing more intense. Does he really plan to monologue right now…? And I have to expect there was more to this change of heart than a single loss… what exactly has Shal been enduring in the Nexus…? If I hadn’t followed Randidly...

In a way, Helen understood his impulse to speak. It was very likely that Shal’s shame drove him to explain. His pride wouldn’t let someone from his own planet believe that he had compromised for no reason.

Even if his words painted a pale and feeble reason for the listener.

“Even amongst Armaments, the one I am using is special,” Shal gestured again to the headgear. “A reward for persevering until I could rival a weak Armament before I gave in. Amongst the Swacc Family Armament users, I rank 19th. It wasn’t only a single Fate that was worked into this tool. Fully three Fates compromise its body, and with those Fates, I possess three complete and harmonious images. You… probably cannot even imagine the power the majesty of three images working in tandem.”

The twitching in Helen’s face intensified. Is Shal being serious right now? Does he not know that Randidly uses three images himself…?

Shal noticed Helen’s lack of reaction to his words, so he snorted. “Well, if you cannot comprehend, I’ll simply carve the lessons into your body. Rotten Beast!”

His roar solidified the aura around him and intensified the rank smell. Soon, the towering, half-rotten form of a bear spread its arms and screamed its proof of existence toward the sky. As it moved, thick clumps of hair fell off of its limbs. There were hunks of pulsing flesh and small holes in the bear’s side that trembled from the ferocity of the image. Then the bear lowered its head and looked at Helen with beady red eyes. In the next second, Shal bounded forward.

Helen narrowed her eyes and began to swirl her Depth of Horror Domain around her. The black lines that were the edges of her Domain began to accelerate and gather in front of her. Helen watched Shal’s approach and released a breath. Her skin began to tingle. Her entire being was empty, ready, for the attack that she knew was coming.

When Shal entered the space of her Domain, the black wicker lines accelerated and pierced toward Shal. A bear’s arm superimposed itself on his limb, but he could barely bring it up and defend himself from the attack; Helen hadn’t been showing him how overwhelmingly fast the Depths of Horror Domain could be in their previous clashes. Per Randidly’s instructions, she had first given him the chance to fight her with his Spear Style.

Now was the time to go all out. The area of her Domain might have shrunk, but the power and speed had vastly increased.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Helen pressed her lips together; the strikes had neutralized each other. Shal had been melodramatic about it, but his new image certainly possessed more raw power than his old one. Even off-balance and with a hasty swipe, he could meet her Domain directly. Then he stabilized himself and bounded forward. Helen flicked her spear into a thrust but there was a corrosive aura about the bear image that directly weakened the cutting ability of her spear. She drew a thin line across Shal’s side with her strike, but that was it.

Even worse, the horrible smell intensified as the small cut on his body began to leak miasma.

In the meantime, Shal raised his arms above his head and hammered his fist down to crush her. The Depths of Horror Domain writhed together and met the attack directly.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

This time, the attack sent Helen skidding backward. Even worse, Shal recovered quickly despite the massive size of the image. The Rotten Beast was apparently quite spry. With another bound, he caught back up to Helen and swiped his hands at her.

The first attack Helen dodged, but the second followed quickly and she couldn’t avoid it. Helen, still without a breath in her body, felt her skin buzzing as she sank more deeply into her own Domain. She pushed herself deeper than she had ever had the chance to go previously. The pressure she endured was suffocating. But although the horror was great, she didn’t hesitate.

She was just learning about her new Domain. Shal’s attacks were the perfect opportunity to test out its limits.

Congratulations! Your Skill (Domain) Depths of Horror (T) has grown to Level 339!

As Helen sunk into the horror, she felt a supernatural chill invade her limbs. At the same time, the number of horror seeds she could control, the flowing arrowheads of her black wicker aura, grew from three to five. So five erratic black lines combined to meet the attack of Shal and his Rotten Beast.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Again, Helen’s feet skidded across the ground as she was forced back. At the same time, Shal was finding his stride. No sooner than had she been knocked back than Shal pounced forward and unleashed a powerful strike to where Helen would regain her balance.

To buy some time, Helen tapped her feet lightly against the ground in a manner that she had frequently seen from Randidly Ghosthound. She floated an extra meter backward, meaning that Shal had to adjust his assault and take another step forward. Helen’s expression was stiff as she watched him charging forward; the horrifying chill she felt continued to numb her. Her thoughts began to dwindle, but one thing was clear: this new Domain was a double-edged blade.

Yet as she sunk deeper, the number of horror seeds rose again to eight. And at the new depth, Helen could feel an intermittent reverberation that originated from the deepest point in the Depths of Horror. She shivered, even as she adjusted her grip on her spear and steadied herself, both physically and within her Domain. Her descent ceased. For now, she didn’t intend to go any deeper.

Or rather, she didn’t dare go any deeper. But also, she knew that this would be enough.

Although Helen’s body was increasingly numb, it was a mental numbness, not a physical one; her limbs continued to respond crisply to her commands. And at her current depth, Helen could barely capture a fraction of the power of that slumbering heartbeat. A grey haze spread to cover her weapon and her body.

Shal swiped again and this time Helen accelerated and ducked under the blow. She thrust her spear forward and again ripped off a chuck of the Rotten Beast.

Of course, the torn flesh just released another wave of that hissing miasma, but the grey haze could rival the noxious fumes in power. Shal didn’t even appear to notice, intent as he was on following up with his attack. He clenched his fist and hammered it down toward Helen. Her horror seeds had learned from their previous experiences and struck a glancing, knocking the attack harmlessly away.

She did not need to overpower Shal in order to win.

Brutally fast, Helen stabbed three more times before Shal got his defense up. His right shoulder, side, and left forearm oozed miasma that was quickly neutralized by the grey haze. However, Helen couldn’t follow up on her offensive and took a step back. Although she would be able to legitimately hold her breath for hours, she currently needed to suck in a desperate breath.

Congratulations! Your Skill (Domain) Depths of Horror (T) has grown to Level 340!

The mental numbness receded and her grey haze faded away. Currently, she couldn’t stay within her Domain for too long. Even with all the physical training that Randidly forced her to do, it wasn’t enough.

But fuck, who would have thought the day would come when I’d be thankful Randidly forced me through such hell. Helen thought bitterly. If I didn’t get fucking stuck in his Alpha Cosmos for five years, training with the recruits and that hellion Vualla, I wouldn’t be able to handle my own Domain right now…

“Fine! You brought this on yourself!” Shal bellowed. His body began to tremble and his wounds oozed blood. The strange gemstone on his chin began to glow with a yellow-green light. The torn body of the Rotten Beast began to reform. “The Sinking Plague! The Weight of Corruption!”

As Shal spoke, the ground around his feet began to sizzle and disintegrate. Giant stretches of ground fell away as they were eaten by his image. In addition, that Rotten Beast grew more monstrous. A tangible aura of corruption wafted off of its body, emanating from a strange symbol that carved itself into its rotten flesh.

Just as Helen was about to hold her breath and sink into her Domain once more, a new voice spoke. “Perhaps before another… but in front of me? No.”

Raymund Ballast grasped lightly with his hand, once, twice, three times. Suddenly, the aura of power that Shal released vanished and now three enormous, spectral tails flicked back and forth behind the Vulpine.

Spearless, Shal just looked at Raymund. His wounds continued to bleed.