The spark’s question hung in the air for almost twenty seconds before the targets twisted and flopped around in confusion. The two Unborn Spirits almost seemed shocked to be addressed. They looked at each other, then back at the spark. Because of the attention they drifted closer, even if they gave no outward response.

The spark didn’t move. Honestly, he couldn’t. Every muscle screamed in protest. Truly, the effort of acknowledging all his hidden exhaustion left him almost completely inert.

An ugly fury crossed the face of the emotional core. “...I don’t like the implications of that sentence. The whole point of this exercise is to stop the self-denial that runs rampant through our psyche. You are deeply exhausted by the pace you’ve kept up for years. You cannot continue like this. And I refuse to allow you to live in a delusion.”

Slate spider legs stretched from the emotional core’s back, transforming it into a strange arachnid beast. Yet the spark’s attention couldn’t even note this transformation as a problem. The very real threat on his life continued to such away light and color from its awareness. The Nether Core in his chest began to spin rapidly. Everything ached.

The situation wasn’t ideal.

As the Unborn Spirits neared, the rapid rotations of the core became resonance. A strange energy flooded through his limbs. Yet it wasn’t nearly enough to sweep away the lethargy that resulted from directly facing all his exhaustion. The Spark remained torn, standing with the desire to move forward, but without quite the drive to take that first step. The rotations continued to accelerate.

“Listen to me.” The emotional core growled. “If you do this-”

“I believe we started this process with you telling me that usually, its those with the least understanding of their position that were the happiest. It is better to think you live a good life than to actually possess an objectively great life. Well… congratulations! If nothing else, this nonsense has convinced me you had a point.” The spark looked down at his body. “This… well, if knowing leads me to this, I’m better off not knowing.”

“You’ve already made your choice.” The spark’s Nether Core began to spin so wildly it seemed just a pinch away from tearing its way through centripetal force. However, the spark’s sudden change of heart seemed to incense the emotional core further. It took a step forward, its grey legs clicking ominously. “This exhaustion is your penance for all the foolish decisions you’ve made. It’s too late-”

“It’s not,” The spark tried to smile, but his expression was pained. Even his cheeks were weighed down by his exhaustion. Meanwhile, his Nether Core really felt like it was tearing itself out of his chest, both from the threat against his life and the growing certainty about what occurred within the Core. “Maybe if you were an outside, objective force I’d take your warning about ignoring my exhaustion more seriously… but you are just me. My fears. And yes, you might be right. But you might also be wrong. And I’m going to bet on you being wrong… because I don’t think I can survive if you are right.”

A powerful ripple spread out from the negative emotional core. More and more slate legs ripped their way out of its back and bristled, aggressively swinging back and forth. The pressure from the grey expanse tightened on the spark. Combined with all the exhaustion it had picked up through the process, it really couldn’t move even a pinky.

Meanwhile, the two Unborn now towered over them, huge and silent. They observed the interaction, waiting for the winner of the confrontation.

The emotional core raised a hand and squeezed. The pressure on the spark grew more overwhelming. His ribs popped. “It’s too late. You cannot back out now. You are the main body. Start to take some responsibility. This… cannot be avoided.”

You are wrong, the spark thought. His Nether Core released a keening scream, pushed to its limits. His chest began to feel like it was being torn apart from the inside. He struggled for a few seconds against the restriction, but he managed to open his mouth. The resonance shook the fabric of the surrounding space. He followed his instinct and the words flowed out of his mouth. “The… Third Authority. Intangible… Burial.”

Even the spark felt surprise.

In his chest, something stirred from within the Egg of Depression. That impossible creature’s gaze sharpened, even as power exploded out of his Nether Core. Besides the spark, the two Unborn grinned with massive, misshapen teeth.

To see their companion finally unleashed brought them vicious joy.

An impossibility manifested. All the energy, all the emotion, all the momentum in the surrounding space…

The Stillborn Phoenix bit it all away. It swallowed the exhaustion whole. The shrieking, whooshing momentum left the spark blinded and deaf. Then it had withdrawn, leaving a rift in the world.

The spark floated in an empty void. The grey essence, the restrictions, even the emotional core, all of it had been devoured. Leaving him alone in the darkness of his own mind. A bitter expression crossed his face. The Stillborn Phoenix’s significance comes from my fear that I’m… unusual. Yggdrasil's Authority tried to give me the tools to address my fears, by controlling the environment. But this one… this one just exacerbates it.

What if I really am a monster?

The spark blinked, suddenly noticing that a slight grey stain still clung to his left hand. He hefted the limb, feeling the extra effort required to move it. The spark shook its head but didn’t try to remove the lingering taint of exhaustion from his skin. After all, his Nether Core was now hollowed out of energy and the threat to his life still plagued him; aches spread out through his body as he began to phase out of the mental space.

He didn’t have much of anything left to fight against the one small victory of the emotional core.

But before he departed, the spark grinned at the space where the emotional core had been standing before being so totally consumed by the Stillborn Phoenix. “If you were right… prove it. Fight your way back to me.”

Then the spark vanished, returning to his body.

*****

The wind against his skin felt gentle as it pulled him to wakefulness

Randidly opened his eyes to a surprisingly peaceful scene. He stared directly upward, at first confused at the giant fluffy C drawn in the sky. His senses started tingling and only then began feeding him information. The soft wind continued to push against him.

Blood dribbled out of thirty-six wounds on his body, ranging from shallow to deep enough a bit of organ leaked out with the blood. The silence was the other strange thing; the only nose was an intermittent crick-crick-crick as his healing knee, Randidly winced as he sensed the extent of the damage, torqued itself around until it faced the right direction.

Bones uncomfortably reformed, his tendons rapidly healing. In addition to those wounds, he felt a dull ache in his lower spine, a fractured right wrist, and a pounding headache from overdrawing his mental resources.

As he lowered his gaze, nausea swept through him. Biting his lip, he kept himself from collapsing and tried to gather more information. The first thing that was obvious was that all the Aether and Nether in the surrounding air had all but vanished; the environment around him was curiously dead and lifeless. His pupils dilated as Randidly finally noticed the humanoid buzzard figure standing on the hill opposite him.

His opponent looked at him with a strange expression of vigilance and disgust.

Information began flowing into Randidly from the Grey Creature. He currently faced off against Nether King Bleak Sky, the warrior sent by Wyndaos to attack Malloon and Westrisser. And despite the acknowledgment, the Grey Creature couldn’t utilize all of Randidly’s abilities to their maximum effectiveness, it was indisputable that he had gotten his ass kicked while he was unconscious.

His knee continued to twist and rotate, the cartilage around the joint painfully giving way so it could fit back into its proper socket.

However… Randidly fought through another wave of dizziness. Looks like the Third Authority is pretty indiscriminate. It managed to even devour Bleak Sky’s own Authority… fuck, just from the memories, its power-

“You…” Bleak Sky spoke, interrupting Randidly’s train of thought.

Instantly, Randidly’s expression tightened. Despite his own situation being a schoolyard shove away from total collapse, Bleak Sky seemed unscathed. While Intangible Burial seemed ridiculously powerful in its ability to annihilate energy… it had not inflicted even the slightest damage on his opponent.

Randidly began gathering Nether to his body. His Core might be drained, but he had a fallback; if he destroyed the weather-modulating grand formation covering the surrounding area, he would be able to unleash a single, domineering blow. From there-

From there, I’ll find other ways to struggle. Randidly narrowed his eyes. More and more Nether spun around his body, first whispers and then more respectable streams, empowering him and reinvigorating his physical body. His heartbeat began to pump with more vigor as the wounds across his skin closed up.

Congratulations! Your Skill Marred Yet Reliable Foundation of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 901!

Congratulations! Your Skill Motif of the Hungry Deep (P) has grown to Level 1000!

Mille number four. Eat your heart out, Nexus.

“You have potential.”

Randidly blinked.

The buzzard lowered its arms. The intense pressure it had been releasing began to ebb. After a small hesitation, Randidly allowed his own preparations to lapse. Bleak Sky spoke again and almost seemed… contrite. “Ahem. That sort of Authority… is an asset to Nether Forces. Please, forgive my earlier aggression. You… well, those images you house within your body… I had assumed you were the result of some experimentation. The rumors I have heard about this city Malloon…”

Congratulations! Your Skill the Grey Creature Glimpses Providence (P) has grown to Level 930!

The lines around Bleak Sky’s eyes tightened. For a split second, Randidly’s instincts screamed at him to get as far away from this individual as possible. His Nether Core still had enough wisps of energy to sense the presence of Phaea in this Nether King. The connections had grown faded over uncountable years, but as his temper rose, it became possible to see the way Phaea weighed him down. If Bleak Sky wasn’t bound by those Phaea…

Randidly’s left hand, or rather Sulfur’s hand, twinged in recognition of that weight. Sulfur hummed in confusion, but enjoyed the pressure.

But just as quickly, that power vanished. Bleak Sky’s expression became inscrutable. “This was… diverting. I have not fought in a like this in two hundred and eighty-two years. For the small spark of joy you’ve allowed, let’s end things here. But hear me, Randid… if you are associated with Malloon or its masters…”

Bleak Sky shook his wings. Above, the clouds began to reform into horrifying faces. “I will not show you mercy again. Your power… is not enough to live so flippantly. This is not the age of mercy.”

With that, the Nether King turned away, heading away into the low hills surrounding Malloon. After a few minutes, his heavy aura dissipated; apparently Bleak Sky had chosen to hide his presence.

Randidly sagged to the ground with an explosive sigh. Fragmented bits of the Grey Creature’s fight against Bleak Sky came back to him, but with huge chunks that still remained chunky blurs. It took about twenty minutes of inspecting the memories to figure out what had caused the gaps; the Grey Creature had utilized the trick it had created to escape the grey against Bleak Sky. Several times, in fact, pushing Randidly’s mind to its limits.

It had compressed all of the emotions it utilized, resonating until emotion and movement had blurred into one unstoppable force. It had reached the sort of intensity of a true warrior of the Nexus with its image. And it had turned that weapon on Bleak Sky.

And had its blade broken by raw power. Over and over again. Which, at least, explained the origin of the horrifying headache that now plagued him.

After a few seconds of panting and recovering, Randidly groaned and pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t just wait here until he finished recovering. He should return to Jotem’s farm-

Randidly paused. The corners of his mouth turned downward. He reached out and prodded the Grey Creature. “You… did you fight this random, ancient powerhouse…. Directly on top of my farm?”

Standing on the smoking ruins of the farm, the Grey Creature twinged in guilt.