Randidly glanced backward over his shoulder as the group reached the lip of the crater. Even with their significant speed, his instincts warned him that they weren’t moving fast enough to escape the fallout of this conflict.

The ground beneath his feet was constantly shuddering, with growing cracks reaching out and connecting to each other. And each connection seemed to embolden the destabilization. But the situation below was even worse; as the hand of Elhume overwhelmed the Nether King’s destructive blast and began to descend once more, its oppression was indiscriminate.

RUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEE!

By this point, the powerful fingers had completely muscled their way past the boundaries of the spatial wall. An increasingly flimsy layered spatial barrier still persisted, but it could only slow the invasion. Without the Nether King’s beam acting as a support pillar, everything would have collapsed. From the bulging contusions of the fingers, sizzling bolts of red lightning flicked back and forth, casting a bloody glow over the whole situation. These bolts flickered in and out of existence, tiny hairs of radiation that ran up and down the length of the fingers.

In addition to the bolts, the distortions breathed life into a group of accelerating wind currents. Three enormous tornados had touched down, two inside the crater and one massive superstorm three hundred away from where Randidly and the Pinnacle Seekers were standing, centered underneath the meaty palm of Elhume.

Randidly narrowed his eyes as he looked at these tornados. Others intermittently formed but were just as quickly smashed out of existence by the titanic forces in conflict here. But those three survivors started to accumulate power by incorporating the dangerous waves of force. The trunk of the tornados gradually thickened and the near-constant bolts of crimson electricity began to twist down into the central column and tickle along its length.

Even more concerning was the natural image of destruction that was beginning to form by persisting between the two powerful forces of Elhume and the Nether King. At the moment, Randidly felt confident he would be able to brush it aside. But if it continued to grow stronger…?

“Have you learned to regret yet!?!?” A red-eyed Commandant Wick roared, even as he slid sideways through the air to avoid the powerful reverberations between the main clash. “It is too late! Die, poisoned by your own unwillingness! I refuse to release the spatial lock upon this place until your corpse is cooling at my feet.”

Randidly tore his eyes away. As the cracks in the ground widened every second, he had a clearer and clearer view of the inscrutable Nether Array that filled him with such dread. He simply didn’t have time to waste right now.

Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold continued to whisper of the rising tribulation that was rushing toward them.

Randidly gestured and was relieved when the Pinnacle Seekers followed him back to the prepared location. Of course, Randidly had Helen dig the required ditch around where the weaker Pinnacle Seekers were waiting, however, it was hard to say whether they would help willingly once they understood-

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

Randidly could sense from the Nether reverberations in the sky that the Nether King had unleashed even more of its power. The oppressive weight of significance in the isolated space had once more spiked up toward its previous highs. He allowed himself one glance over his shoulder, where he could see that the black beam wrapped in crackling white light that the Nether King shot upward had almost doubled in thickness. Once more, the energy stalled out the descending hand of Elhume.

The hanging stalemate between the two forces was heavy with tension. The number of red bolts of lightning thickened. The winds continued to accumulate and accelerate.

But what really drew Randidly’s attention was that this recent clash smashed open the cracked in the ground. From spiderwebs, they had become fingers, and now they had been forcefully pried open so that the cracks were as wide as a fist in some places. Randidly peered down into those openings and saw thick, liquid flows of Nether. These bands of energy were wrapped so tightly together and layered on top of each other that Randidly could only understand the arrangement of the few surface ones.

They pulsed intermittently like veins.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 430!

“We don’t have much time,” Randidly began speaking rapidly to the powerful Pinnacle Seekers. “The problem is two-fold; when Elhume breaks the spatial wall, the Nether King is going to activate whatever Nether Ritual he has prepared. But I bet Elhume won’t sit by idly; we need to be able to ride both the wave of the Nether Ritual and Elhume’s counter-attack.” Randidly hesitated for a split second, then continued to speak with a determined expression. “Because of the way energy interacts… I think it’s best that you help block the Nether King while I prepare to survive Elhume’s attack.”

When he said that, despite the constant shaking from the earthquakes and the howling wind of the gathering tornados, Seeker Ozaer, Seeker Dusk Jackal, Seeker Thunder Wing, Seeker Three Tail, and the Frost Matriarch all looked at him. Their expressions were curiously blank, as though the faces of dolls had been inserted into their physical forms.

I know it’s hard to believe… Randidly’s hands tightened. Even I’m not sure if this will work. But definitely… an image won’t be able to stand against him.

Even now, the horrifying memory of that mountain range’s worth of crystal Aether haunted Randidly’s dreams.

Influence +7

Influence +9

Randidly understood what they were thinking; although they would likely admit that he capable in his understanding and utilization of Nether, what he currently was suggesting was that he would defend against the greatest power in the Nexus. Even though their group would only be enduring collateral damage…

“I can handle it,” Randidly said again, even as his palms tingled unpleasantly. He was not lying exactly, but hoping. Even he wasn’t sure how accurate a statement he was making. There was only one way to test his theory.

“Pah, and what do I receive in compensation if you pointlessly die here? What of our duel?” The Dusk Jackal muttered, but no one else spoke. Randidly blinked; for the moment, it seemed like they acquiesced. Perhaps it was simply because they were also observing the rapidly changing conditions, but for now, it was enough.

Randidly felt oddly flattered but tried to keep it from his expression. Even now, the ground rattled itself to pieces beneath their feet. He pointed to Helen, who was just dismissing her black wicker image and hopping back up onto solid ground. “I’ve had my subordinate dig a deep ditch around our group. If one of you could use that to create a powerful image that runs both underneath it and around it; ideally, it would almost be solid, so that-”

The temperature around the group dropped and walls of frost grew at a speed visible to the naked eye. Soon, the entire Pinnacle Seeker Group seemed to be sitting inside of a snow globe made with light blue glass. The Frost Matriarch offered Randidly a quiet smile with her massive and blunt features.

Randidly coughed lightly. “Perfect. Now let me-”

Elhume’s hand lurched into motion, pushing through the Nether King’s defenses.

RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEE

CRACK!

The latest bout of shaking sent a resounding fracture that cut up the unraveling land even further. A vast rift opened into the ground about fifty meters away from their current position. Almost instantly, thick Nether began to geyser out of the ground, forcing the already wide chasm to swell even further.

That pressure acted like the signal for the rest of the land. Prying one divide wider started a chain reaction as the ground endured new pressure from every direction. Soon the rumbling changed to the staccato of the ground fracturing to pieces. More and more Nether spewed out of these wider openings, forcing them to expand. At the same time, the spatial walls along the sides of the isolated area began to thin and unravel as the ground fractured into floating islands and they drifted outward.

The original crater area was a jigsaw puzzle being taken apart in slow motion. The shifts were punctuated by the triumphant chuckle of Commandant Wick as Elhume’s hand continued to force its way downward.

Randidly’s hands were trembling, so he took a deep breath. Unknowingly, his heart rate had been steadily rising as he watched the powerful forces tear the area to pieces. His skin was beginning to redden as his body temperature rose, quickly overpowering the chilling ambiance of the Frost Matriarch’s image. When he blew out a breath, he blew out steam.

Randidly conjured Nether down to his fingertips as he walked toward the edge of their stable ‘snow globe’. After visualizing the array he would need to create to withstand the force of Elhume, Randidly began to draw.

The start was simple; Randidly needed to ground the array and make it whole. He needed a seal. There couldn’t be a single flaw in the sense of oneness that he was creating. His fingers blurred as he traced symbol after symbol in quick succession along the icy wall in a circle. After completing each series of runes, Randidly took a step to the left and began again.

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 421!

Congratulations! Your Skill Precise Nether Ritual (L) has grown to Level 263!

Randidly had quite a bit of inspiration by watching the way the Nether King had both made his preparations above and his preparations below. Rather than meeting the hand directly with Nether, what the Nether King was doing was creating a buffer of faux-space. Space was the currency of Aether generally, but the Nether King deftly used it as an insulator to keep Elhume from overpowering him immediately.

Randidly planned on borrowing those principles to create a similar effect, with one notable exception. His fingers continued to move faster and faster, even while his heartbeat increased its pace to keep up. Steam began wafting off his powerful body as he accelerated through the tight motions.

Congratulations! Your Skill Precise Nether Ritual (L) has grown to Level 264!

Congratulations! Your Skill Left Hand of the Nether Oracle (M) has grown to Level 306!

At this point, the crimson bolts of lightning that clustered around Elhume’s massive fingers were constant. The growing tornados howled that they wouldn’t be so easily extinguished, but that noise was blanketed by the rumbling of the ground, which was in turn blanketed by the grinding roar as Elhume’s hand overpowered the Nether King’s strike and continued to distort the spatial walls.

This sound, too, was soon covered up by the horrifying grinding as the carefully woven spatial walls began to tear; they could help hold back the fingers of Elhume no longer. The sky shuddered, screamed, and collapsed.

Randidly’s expression tightened. He had almost traveled 180 degrees around the edge of the frozen igloo area, but from the way the situation was deteriorating, he wouldn’t finish in time. Even after finishing his circuit, he would need to build up the infrastructure of the Nether Array; this was just the base.

He needed more time.

The spatial walls flickered and died. And at that moment, the horrifying arrangement beneath their feet began to move. Standing near the middle of their group, Randidly heard the Frost Matriarch release a hissing breath. Outside of the protective igloo, large chunks of land were pushed further apart as the Nether rushed upward.

Their igloo was originally on one of the largest remaining chunks of land, but the land kept being cracked and split. Huge chunks fell away, revealing a deep darkness that waited below. The darkness had been previously been kept locked away, but now it was given free rein to expand.

And such was the ferocity of that explosion that Randidly watched a nearby chunk of ground, one that started the size of a football field, meltdown to a pebble in only a few seconds. With an entirely different kind of rumbling, those heavy veins of Nether that were hidden beneath their feet began to reveal the horrifying veins that fueled them.