After expanding, the energy from the Sable Rabbit condensed back down to its body so quickly that the void zone seemed to have been imagined. To DiOrtho’s surprise, the archer was still alive within its radius, bedraggled and with an almost extinguished image, but persisting. He scrambled backward as the tide receded, but the Sable Rabbit accelerated and slammed its head into the archer’s chest.

With blood spraying from his mouth, the man fell backward. The Sable Rabbit hopped forward, even as soldiers were rushing forward to assist their commander, but the Nether Prince was too quick. Soon it was standing above the archer and the energy around its body-

BOOOOM!

The Sable Rabbit slammed back into the edge of the Nether King’s dais, a complete reversal from its effortless tormenting of the archer. From the depths of the Military High Command group, a bent old man leaning on a cane walked out. His hair was white and wispy and when he grinned, he revealed gaps in his teeth. But as he spoke, his voice was firm and domineering. “Let’s stop playing around. I don’t have all day.”

“Speculum,” Seeker Thunder Wing said quietly. “Double Hammer Dubois.”

The man leaned against his cane as he took several steps forward, but there was something… unnaturally smooth about his existence. Space seemed to come unmoored under his movements so that those few steps brought the old man to standing directly above the crumpled Sable Rabbit. He stopped on its left ankle to shatter the joint and then kicked it away.

But as the old man moved to follow the creature and finish it off, the dark significance of the crater began to rumble. The old man paused and grinned upward. “Heh, loyal to a fault, like all you dumb Nether cretins. Alright then, let this show get on the road.”

The old man flickered forward, appearing suddenly on the dais. The Nether King had stood and was glowering toward the Speculum. Above them, light blue stars had suddenly appeared as the significance began to spin in intricate patterns. The suppression in the space intensified to the point that DiOrtho had difficulty breathing.

“One,” The old man pointed up above him and a normal hammer appeared above the Nether King. Although the worn implement looked perfectly mundane, as though it had just been taken from a carpenter’s toolbox, DiOrtho couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. The perfect arrangement of detail, function, and form combined to make the image the most convincing example that the ram demon had ever seen. In fact, some of the principles incorporated into it could even be applied to his own Machine Horror-

DiOrtho lost his train of thought as a cloud swirled into existence in front of him and blocked his view of the hammer. Next to him, Seeker Ozaer put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. But before she could speak, the old man created a deafening impact.

“Two. And smash.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The ground trembled and DiOrtho almost lost his balance. Next to him, Seeker Ozaer began to speak in a low voice. “Part of the danger of Speculum is that their images appear perfect to the viewer. They seem to show a glimpse of yourself reaching such heights. Undoubtedly you just experience quite a bit of inspiration, but I suggest you never follow those ideas unless you are very sure of them. Because a Speculum is flawed, just like the rest of us. Otherwise, they would have reached the Pinnacle. Plus… what you don’t see is all of the insights and conclusions they have used to reach such heights. And if you try to benefit from their images without the correct foundation...”

Feeling a chill run down his spine, DiOrtho nodded. Seeker Ozaer waved a hand and the cloud dissipated. Without the obstruction, he could see down on the dais, where the turtle with the wooden staff had interposed itself between the old man and the Nether King.

The old man tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “A convenient power, but do you truly think neutralizing force allows you to stand in this battle, little one? Oy, cronies of Lathis, let me borrow one of those little nails.”

Across the battlefield, the cowled figure that had used the first black spike looked around for a second in bewilderment. Then he pointed at himself. “Are you addressing-”

The old man didn’t wait for the member of the Nether Lattice to finish. He grasped impatiently with the hand not on the cane and the giant black spike levitated off the ground and zipped toward him. And its passage was so close to the man in the cowl that he yelped and fell on his ass to avoid being skewered.

While the spike flew over, the turtle Nether Prince spun his staff and stepped forward. Nether seemed to spiral down from the Nether King’s working and filled that common looking wooden staff to the brim. DiOrtho Vant was reminded of the way that the man from the Engraving Guild had pulled Nether down into his metal club, except the efficiency was vastly different.

Space creaked and groaned as that wooden staff slid forward in a powerful thrust. Without batting an eye, the old man used his can to deflect the attack to the side.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Even as the distant impact smashed DiOrtho Vant in the chest and forced him a half step back, the old man reached up and plucked the Engraving Guild spike out of the air. He spun it expertly in his hands and directed the ominous point at the turtle humanoid’s chest. Even as the Nether Prince tried to regain its balance, the old man tapped his cane against the head of the nail. “Let’s take away your force neutralization power. One, two, smash.”

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This time DiOrtho looked away purposefully to avoid being drawn into the Speculum’s image, leaving him with only the keening screech of pain from the Nether Prince as he opened his eyes to dust and debris. When everything became to clear and the old man’s image disappeared, the man was laughing over the crumpled form of the turtle humanoid.

“Finally willing to move for real, eh?” The old man grinned balefully at the Nether King, who had moved to stand between the Nether Prince and the old man. “Then let’s get this started. One, two, smash!”

The old man flicked his hands to the side, with a bright pinprick of light appeared on either side of the Nether King. In the next second, two things happened. First, the Frost Matriarch manifested their image around the Pinnacle Seekers; they now stood in a fortress of ice. Aside from a slight blue tint, the battlefield below was still extremely visible.

The second thing was that those pinpricks of light transformed into ornate hammers with golden handles molded into the shape of a lions’ heads. DiOrtho squinted when he saw them, but then he realized that the frost image around them functioned as a screen. He could watch the action without being infected with a flawed idea for his image.

The hammers swung downward and the limbless gauntlets floated upward and clenched into fists. Without backing down, the two disembodied punches accelerated to meet the hammers.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!

DiOrtho was dizzy, but the bigger problem was he was coughing so hard that he couldn’t breathe. He was afflicted with the sudden and completely certain belief that he was about to suffocate. His coughs worsened as he began to panic. And he was hacking too much to get a clear view of the battlefield below, but the noises informed him that the battle continued.

BOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOM!

DiOrtho was swaying when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He blinked as the coughs fell away and was faced with the stoic face of Seeker Ozaer’s disciple. Seeing that DiOrtho was paying attention, the young man with white-blonde hair began to speak. “You can think of reality as the most powerful suggestion you ever encounter. When you step, reality ‘suggests’ where and how that your foot should stop. The air against your skin ‘suggests’ that the temperature is cold.

“A Speculum has neared the Pinnacle, and are therefore indistinguishable from reality, up to a point. It can be said that part of your current pain is because you don’t yet have a firm grasp of our current reality. But the hammers of Speculum Double Hammer contain the very pointed suggestion of failure to their targets. You experienced that echo and your body believed you had encountered reality. If you wish to continue to stand here… you must take care not to be misled.”

After offering that alarming bit of information, Seeker Ozaer’s apprentice turned away to observe the battle below. DiOrtho sucked in a breath and rapidly blinked. There was a long moment where he wavered between continuing to expose himself to these threats versus returning to where Overseer Helen and the Head Drill Sergeant were standing.

Yet DiOrtho’s expression hardened. I need this. If I ever want to stop relying on others to protect the precious things in my life… I need to grow.

With this resolution firming up his mental defenses, DiOrtho Vant looked back down toward the Nether King’s dais. At this point, the old man and the Nether King were engaged in a brutally fast exchange of blows, the Nether King relying on his gauntlets and the Speculum wielding his cane. But it quickly became obvious that the image user was being pushed back; the Nether King moved so quickly that even he couldn’t open up enough space to manifest his signature image.

The old man moved and ‘suggested’ that the space around him was different, but the Nether King ignored all artifice and used those horned fists to shatter space and catch up to his quarry.

Even worse for the Speculum, the spinning patterns of starlight above the dais began to assume a malevolent cast. A grand design was quickly assembling itself. DiOrtho didn’t have near enough understanding of what was happening to speculate what the effect would be, but it was clear that the Nether King was bringing to bear a massive Nether Ritual.

Flashes of a concrete-seeming hammer kept appearing in the Speculum’s cane, but it wasn’t enough. Soon, the situation had devolved to the point that the frantically moving Speculum’s face became red and he spat out. “Don’t just stand there and watch! Help me!”

This time, both the Engraving Guild and Military High Command began to move. The cowled man waved his hand and two more black spikes rose up behind him. On the other side, the archer was still recovering but the leader of the Xyrt Brigade took the front and began marching forward with another twenty soldiers.

The Sable Rabbit had its machine gun spit suppressed and one of its back legs was broken. The turtle humanoid’s shell had been cracked by the earlier spike and the being could no longer neutralize force. However, both were still powerful Nether Princes and moved to slow the forces that went to aid the Speculum.

DiOrtho looked at Seeker Ozaer next to him. She shook her head, seeming to read his thoughts. “We wait. It might look desperate, but no one believed that we could capture the Nether King without casualties.”

There was something chilling about that statement, but DiOrtho understood that was simply the way of the Nexus. In their eyes, nothing could be accomplished without casualties.

With the cowled man and the Xyrt Brigade member leading the charge, the two Nether Princes began to endure serious pressure. Massive images blossomed into the sky, proudly resisting the pressure of the pooling significance. Explosions ripped apart the ground and left deep wounds across the landscape.

The humanoid turtle was smashed again and again by powerful blasts from the Engraving Guild, leaving it bedraggled and staggering. Meanwhile, the Sable Rabbit’s lack of mobility meant that the soldiers continued to kite and around it while other squads attempted to rush past the defensive lines and make it onto the dais.

Seeing this, the Nether King paused in his assault on the Speculum and released a bright light from his eyes. The starlight above them finally crystallized into a rigid pattern, centering on the snarling old man who fought with his cane.

The cowled man sprang forward and waved his arm. “This is our chance! I deny you, monster!”

The final two black spikes spun and shot forward at the Nether King’s back. As the humanoid turtle was constantly being knocked around, it wasn’t able to help defend its master. It could only helplessly watch as the spikes surged past and began to release their brilliant runes.

A small noise echoed across the battlefield. And DiOrtho Vant would never forget that sound of the Nether King’s chuckle.

“Are the servants of Aether the only ones who can plot?”

The Nether King’s gauntlet floated up, buoyed only by grey smoke, and he snapped his fingers. The arrangement of the Nether Array abruptly shifted. Lines twisted and reconnected in a new shape. From targeting the old man, the new array had four targets: each of the black spikes. The starlight brightened and before anyone could react, all for spikes cracked and shattered.

The pooled Nether above them was mostly depleted in that move. But before anyone could react, the Sable Rabbit began to spit out its deadly ammunition once more. The humanoid turtle ignored the blows that had knocked it off balance previously and advanced with malicious intent toward the cowled man.