The Grey Creature flexed its muscles and ripped its arms out of Bleak Sky’s grip, but the small delay was enough. The clouds sunk out of the sky, casting long shadows across the broken remnants of the farm. Thick rivers of significance blasted in every direction, compacting the heavy storm into an even more dangerous form. Wind and vicious spikes made rain swirl around in a massive whirlpool that threatened to flay his skin from his body.

That was even before the buzzard’s true Authority started to manifest in the surrounding space.

The mouths of the cloud heads began to open, revealing lumpy teeth. The tears seeping out of the corners of their eyes trickled off… and instead gushing waterfalls of water vapor began to pour out of their mouths. Each of these acted as a spring of Nether, completely suppressing the Aether in the surrounding environment. The air became almost milky, oversaturated with power. All the while, the rain of cutting wind blades intensified.

The amount of pure Nether trying to restrict the Grey Creature made it sneer in derision. Its inherent nature activated to weaken the effect.

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 932!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 950!

Despite its ability to resist the pull of Nether, the Grey Creature narrowed its eyes as it looked up at the sky. It grasped at Nether currents and tried to weave them in a pattern of resistance against the descending storm, but the ancient Nether King Bleak Sky ran roughshod over his every attempt. If the main body was here, he might utilize Nether better. But if it is me… its power is too great

The Grey Creature’s attention fixated on the other images. Assist me.

The Stillborn Phoenix happily expanded its image physicalizations, devouring almost the entirety of the body’s head in its enthusiasm. Behind his back, Yggdrasil wove together even larger and more domineering wings that spread out and beat vigorously to smash back the rain of attacks. Flames of Nether Weight sprung up across his body, strengthening and grounding him.

All three of his images existed in balance. Their power supported each other, giving the Grey Creature more options.

Yet the Grey Creature looked up at the storm forming, rushing around with stronger currents every second, and knew the balanced efficiency of the three images wouldn’t be enough against this foe. Above, the heads were merging into each other, until a monstrous amalgamation with three mouths spewed out woeful energy and powerful jets of Nether. The environment darkened and sputtered, the memory straining under the weight of someone else’s manifested power.

The main body still is the coordinator. Some of our specialized abilities are impossible to utilize without his direction. His pupils dilated. His heart began to pound, shoving away the pressure of this Nether storm against his body. He couldn’t interfere directly, but his Nether Core was powerful enough to keep him free from its influence. But this… this level of threat…

The Grey Creature’s smile split the face, warping the black hole that had covered his mouth. Hopefully, he will wake up in time. Otherwise… I’ll just monopolize all of the fun for myself.

With a growl, the Grey Chimera launched itself forward and whipped his Acri tail around to slash at the body of the Bleak Sky.

*****

The spark had grown accustomed to exponentially increasing exhaustion. He trudged forward through time, his resolve strong enough to shoulder all of the work he had done to strengthen himself while struggling against the Nexus. Honestly, he didn’t even feel bitter about the struggle. At the very least, it could be said he understood why such work was necessary; he had lived those moments, made those choices the first time and still believed in his decisions.

Even during his time on Expira, when he had allowed innocents to die in the attack on the football stadium, he continued to work his way forward. It might not have been the cleanest method, but he understood why he had done so.

The guilt over the lives lost were his burdens to bear. At the very least, the grey emotional core was correct about this. He would not shirk the responsibility for the world Expira had become.

Yet soon, his momentum vanished.

He witnessed Helen’s body, laying inert on the ground. The emotional exhaustion surged through his veins, tinged with heavy depression and helplessness, forcing the spark to pause in its journey. For a while it simply wept, unable to understand why her death needed to happen. Why he had failed her so completely, why she hadn’t reached out for help.

It was a burden he hadn’t asked for and hadn’t expected. Yet he could not proceed without it.

The spark wasn’t sure how long he lingered there, simply trying to recover from this unexpected source of burden. Compared to the decisions he had made, this was much more debilitating. It had struck so suddenly. His emotions had been drained out of him, leaving him just a broken puppet, unable to process what occurred around him.

Rather than recover, the spark simply had its awareness tugged by its bodily instincts: outside of this mental projection, his body was fighting for its life. The spark could feel the new weight of those injuries, even through the isolation.

The pain forced him to wakefulness, washing up against him.

Groaning, he forced himself into motion once more. In terms of the length of Randidly Ghosthound’s life, the spark was making good progress. Meanwhile, the Stillborn Phoenix’s two extra helpers continued to loaf around and munch lightly on the environment. Their Skill Levels steadily increased, to the point they became the highest Level Skill Randidly possessed.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 1090!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill the Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 1105!

The spark continued to push itself, pulling more and more of the body’s burdens onto itself. The Stillborn Phoenix’s little chicks lazily ate. All the while, the threat against his body grew more and more acute.

The spark gritted its essence and began to push more quickly through the past memories. It knew the exhaustion it held spiraled out of control, but it sensed it couldn’t waste any more time. At this new, sprinting pace, it managed to force its way through until Randidly had started to face the negative emotional cores.

Each of those was another crushing weight of exhaustion, concentrated negative emotion from the Alpha Cosmos cycling through his body. The spark keenly felt the way it could grant him power, but by making each decision and thought overwhelmingly burdened. Randidly Ghosthound was a train shrieking along its tracks, given more and more weight, hoping that momentum would continue to carry him forward.

For the moment, that was true. But the spark could see why the grey doppelganger wanted to prevent him from realizing this. At the same time, it could also see the very primitive equivalent of Phaea forming between himself and the Alpha Cosmos. He had already begun to benefit from those connections, granting him the power to fight way above his level. If he could make it out and make those bonds official-

Of course, the burden would be equivalently brutal. The spark grimaced. It forced itself forward, despite its waning consciousness. At first, the spark thought it had overspent itself, forcing its way through its focus and gripping him with its chill. Yet then the spark realized what was really happening.

His body was beginning to die. Without a body, the spark would naturally begin to fade to nothing.

The realization slapped him in the face, stunning the spark into slowing its journey. It didn’t make sense; considering how powerful both his body and images were, how could he feel the approach of death? A true fear he hadn’t felt in quite a long time crept through his body. He wasn’t the most powerful individual in the Nexus. There still existed beings that posed legitimate threats to him.

The spark could only buckle down and push forward.

Yet he felt the weakness spread through him as time passed. The spark was torn between fear and fury. What the hell had the Grey Creature done since it had escaped this place?!? Challenge Westrisser himself to a duel?

The spark forced those thoughts away; the chill spread through it, dulling its senses. Pain was beginning to pierce through the veil of this place and infect it. It couldn’t dwell on this. The current moment was so close. So the spark brutally forced itself to pick up all the exhaustion of the last few weeks, during its time in the memory.

As the spark neared the end of its journey, it could sense the emotional core forming in front of him. It regarded him cautiously, its eyes torn between frustration and a strained joy. “You now walk before me, with the consequences of your actions draped across your body. I hope you have confidence in yourself.”

“I do,” The spark replied. It took several steps forward. His skin crawled for a moment; he was proceeding through himself proceeding through the process of picking up all the burdens, a recursive activity that always began shorter and always ended with himself endlessly going through the process, deeper and deeper, the pressure and exhaustion around his body building each time.

After what felt like an eternity, the spark completed his last step. The spark blinked, unable to understand how it had broken through the fully contained cycles. His arms felt like lead. The echoes of his images remaining within the spark felt completely suppressed by the pressure binding it. Although it was hard for the spark to tell whether the pressure resulted from the increasingly dangerous threat on his life and what came from the memories.

“Good luck.” The emotional core sneered. “Now that you’ve chosen this, you’ll need to bear the weight for the rest of your life.”

“Actually…” The spark’s shoulder slumped. He was tired. So tired he couldn’t even move without trembling. He felt like a single mistake would send the Grey Creature veering slightly off the edge, resulting in his death. Yet perhaps because of that, he felt oddly sharpened and clear. He raised his head with a great effort of will, grinning at the emotion. “I don’t think I will. Hey, you two Unborn… how much can you fit in your stomachs?”