Bodies moved, each action connecting to the next.

Low kick to the side of the knee, folding the joint. A sharp step forward, a knee rising and cracking open a skull. A sidestep to avoid a lunge, a backstep to position to seize the nape of another’s neck and wheel their charging form into another. Screen a third, setting both the feet.

A full roundhouse kick, snapping up the neck of a crouching Grey Creature clone and breaking its spine.

Whirling to the side, avoiding being pinned between six of the monsters. Noticing the glitter of light off their nails. A lashing cut with the hand, shattering a forearm. A heel kick to a temple. Dropping to the stomach, allowing to attackers to crash into each other above. Tossing himself back up to his feet, throwing out several sharp jabs to stun the approaching enemies.

He lived and breathed violence. It felt like a homecoming.

Randidly stepped forward and unleashed a palm thrust aiming to destroy the shoulder of a Grey Creature. To his surprise, it managed to bring its hand up to partially block the attack. Randidly’s eyes flashed in annoyance. He seized the offending arm, squeezed until he felt the bones rupturing beneath his fingers, then slammed a haymaker blow into his opponent’s face.

I was on such a roll, too…

The thing howled as it died and became emotional force, the thread being spun up into the Grand Nether Ritual that Randidly had thrown up around himself. The powerful flows were high above, or more accurately below within his physical body, so they could not be used to restrict the opponents. Randidly really just needed to engage in a massive melee of hand-to-hand combat. Harvesting their emotional force for his own benefit.

This sort of fighting was oddly refreshing. Without all the accouterments of Aether and Nether, there was only the body, momentum, and wits. It was, Randidly rediscovered, a sort of engagement at which he was quite proficient.

To survive in the System, he had learned a brutal efficiency he steadily stopped relying upon. Yet now, against the fake Grey Creatures, that part of himself came to the surface and made short work of these foes.

A thought floated to the surface of his mind, even through his focus. This is why the path of image physicalizations always appealed to me. Especially now I utilize Nether as well, it’s all becoming too intellectually intensive. But if my powerful images just became portions of my body-

Well, it would need to wait until the emotional affects have been stabilized, at least.

Randidly grabbed the neck of one, avoided its punch, then wrenched it sideways into the path of another. His eyes scanned the surroundings as he kicked backward, taking another in the chest and opening up some breathing room. Sweat trickled down from his temples. As time passed, these Grey Creatures, condensed from negative emotion, seemed to be growing more used to his body. Their movements became more proficient.

A Grey Creature pounced toward him. Randidly swept a leg sideways and slammed the thing’s ribcage, but it softened the blow by twisting and seized upon his leg. Two more Grey Creatures stepped forward, lashing out at Randidly with their long fingers. He could see the path of their attacks. One blow came marginally faster than the other.

Randidly hopped up and grabbed upon the arm of the first attacker with both hands. His fingers tightened for a good grip and then he pulled, using the arm as a foundation. With the additional force he could generate with his abs, Randidly spun his body; the Grey Creature holding onto his leg gripped tightly enough that he was picked up off the ground and sent spinning through the air. The other attacker missed as Randidly positioned his spinning body, landing behind the arm of the Grey Creature he grabbed.

He clapped his hands violently, shattering the skull of his victim and extracting its emotional force. Gory pulp dribbled between his fingers. Then he accelerated forward, stabbing his hand toward the other foe. The Grey Creature managed to dodge sideways, shying toward more of its kind. Yet Randidly smoothly planted a foot and accelerated even faster, his hand lancing through the thing’s heart.

His movements put him slightly overextended and four more Grey Creatures lunged at him. Randidly’s hands made small circles in the air, pushing away the clumsy strikes of his opponents. Left-hand deflection, then stab forward and slam against a stomach. Right-hand block, then whip sideways and crack the jaw of the same Grey Creature hit in the stomach. Reaching, grabbing a defenseless elbow, and then yanking so that the body spun into an untenable position for an attack.

Plant the feet. Choose the next target.

Randidly lifted a shoulder to absorb a powerful strike and then hopped over a sweeping leg kick. He didn’t avoid it entirely; he stomped down mid-attack and crushed the lower leg of the idiot. Then he sidestepped another foolish charge and jabbed this idiot in its eyes.

He pivoted quickly, and finding no immediate threats, dispatched both the Grey Creature with the shattered leg and the blinded one. More flows of emotional force went into the grand Nether Ritual, finally giving it enough fuel to begin to slowly chug in a circle. He felt energy stirring through this projection form.

He took another deep breath. The mist of the waterfall phased through his projection body, not landing on him. More and more Grey Creatures phased into existence in the surroundings, their eyes increasingly sharp and wild with hate. They carried shards of the corruption that tormented his heart, given time to deepen and stink. These were not freshly birthed, stumbling opponents. These had been around for longer, given more time to grow in emotional force and understand the workings of their bodies. They gathered up in loose groups, united in their desire to consume him.

Randidly rolled his shoulders as he considered the cautious new arrivals. “If you won’t attack, I will.”

The Grey Creature’s hissed at him. Randidly shrugged.

Dreadful Alacrity gave him cruel wings to cross the distance and impact the front enemy with his shoulder. He rebounded slightly, even as the thing’s chest cavity collapsed and it fell on its back, arms twitching feebly. The others moved quickly in a much more comprehensive series of attacks.

It almost seemed like they had practiced this.

Randidly barred his teeth as the sharp fingers of one monster scratched across his shoulder and drew blood. He jerked his head back as another leapt for his neck and tried to bite him. He caught the neck of the jumper and shoved him sideways to block another. Two more came at his back and Randidly let them approach for a half-second of stillness, then squatted down and erupted backward.

Both sprawled out of his way, even as he took several light steps to escape their encirclement. One slobbering monster leapt over its compatriots, its eyes burning with cruel intentions. Randidly’s foot cut through the air with such speed it tore out the monster’s throat. It took several more steps, unable to figure out why its body began to fail. Randidly stepped past it, raising his hands.

Other groups of Grey Creatures rushed over for vengeance, but Randidly pounced on the still-recovering group he had just clashed with. With a half dozen brutal elbow and knee strikes, they had all been reduced to threads of emotion and scrapes on Randidly’s knuckles. Those emotions flowed into him, adding a little bit of extra force.

Randidly felt himself growing heavier, faster, more potent. The Nether Ritual began picking up steam, incorporating all the gathered force. His carefully constructed arrangement began to bear fruit.

The next wave arrived and this time they were desperate and vicious, tearing into each other on their way to strike him. Randidly gave ground at first, hopping back from a leaping kick and avoiding another pounce. However, the pace of the battle had changed; every second saw more move to encircle him. His eyes blazed as he planted his feet and allowed Dreadful Alacrity to come back into effect. When he blurred into motion, he ripped through two of the Grey Creatures.

For his trouble, he earned several deep gouges in his side. His blood trickled out, thick and a mixture of emerald and ruby. The negative emotions these projections represented gathered around the drops, visibly attacking them. He whipped around, his fist meeting the double-handed strike of a Grey Creature. Both shuddered and took a step back, the blows equal. Randidly recovered more quickly but had to dodge backward as another lashed out with a slash.

They kept coming, bloodthirsty and increasingly sure of their movements. Randidly’s focus narrowed. Block, avoid, strike, block, pounce, finish, avoid, repeat. Blood and emotion swirled through his body amongst the storm of wild limbs, engaging in a vicious, tireless melee.

In the end, Randidly tore his way through, the Nether Ritual becoming powerful enough that his speed of ripping these fake Grey Creature’s increased considerably. He could blow them away without worrying about subtlety, prompting the subconscious to release more and more negative emotions. He felt a deep wariness beginning to emerge in his chest, but his body could proceed like this forever, lost in the sensation of violence.

If anything, it was oddly peaceful. Without images or Authorities, Randidly just had to use his body. His mind and heart could turn themselves over fully to trying to heal from the infection under which they now labored.

From the ether, more Grey Creature came, wreathed in grey auras of malevolence and screeching out horrifying oaths to inflict eternal pain upon him. Randidly’s face remained firm as he ripped their heads from their bodies. When too many came, he was forced to tear off the limbs of some of his victims and use them as weapons, until the bones from the broken arms began to dissipate.

However, a small bit of Randidly’s mind observed the surroundings. Even as his Nether Ritual began to gather more momentum for his slaughter, the feeling in the air didn’t change. The current negativity did decrease as he refined the emotion, but…

What the hell is this feeling? His skin tingled as he paused in the middle of the bellowing crowd of Grey Creatures, his eyes scanning around. Why do I-

Randidly froze. There, amongst the crush of bodies, he saw a figure that wasn’t the Grey Creature, just standing there and smiling.

It was him, his own familiar body, a malevolent grin stretching his mouth.

“Ah,” The other Randidly chuckled and offered a theatrical bow. “You’ve found me. Well then, I suppose I’ve got no choice but to fight you.”

The moment was so strange and unexpected that Randidly swayed, unsure of how to respond. That was a mistake.

The other Randidly erupted in a wave of negativity, so corrosive and dangerous that many of the nearest Grey Creatures to him had the flesh melted away from their bodies. They collapsed screaming, even as the dark Randidly strolled forward, dragging along a wave of dark emotion with him.

When the corruption pressed against Randidly, his giant Nether Ritual began to falter and sizzle; the energies of this being attacked it directly. His eyes narrowed as he created counter-measures and then felt his countermeasures get countered.

This being was utilizing Nether patterns against him.

“What the hell are you?” Randidly said.

Dark Randidly grinned. “Literally? Your own self-hatred. But right now, I’m going to be the darkness that consumes you.”