The former squirrelking, now officially the central figure in a high-stakes guerilla campaign, fussed with the woven grasses around his waist. As he gained Levels in his Skill evading the spreading humanoid plague and sabotaging their supplies at great personal risk, his mastery of his body had increased by leaps and bounds. He was almost embarrassed by how easily the current him could wipe the floor with his previous self.

If nothing else, the arrival of the humanoids had shifted the wildlands to a different era. One of growth and strife.

Next to him, the blind carp swam fitfully through the air with quick twists of her tail. Her attention snapped to the two distant treelines, despite the scars covering the ruined sockets of her eyes. “Are you not yet finished? We cannot tarry long-”

“We are too low to the ground,” The third of their intrepid crew, an forrest green armadillo rumbled as he delicately split open tubers and took small bites of their delicious interior.. “They will not notice.”

“We cannot continue relying upon that,” The carp snapped back. “Sure, a small problem we might be while we are considered to be walking corpses, to be hunted and eliminated at their leisure. But now that they have unknowingly ingested our excrement, cleverly hidden within their food? Had you heard their howls of vengeance…”

“I’m done,” The squirrel-rebel said. He straightened while trying not to fuss with his creation. The grass around his waist rustled. Pride surging up in his chest, he decided to test out his new additions immediately. He didn’t control his speed at all, streaking across the forest floor and then shooting up a nearby tree like a rocket. He looked over his shoulder and there, fluttering in the wind behind him-

The familiar weight, the glorious fluffiness, the majesty of two squirrel tails-

He slammed face-first into a tree branch, so enthralled in his replacement tails that he completely ceased to look forward. With a pained squeak, he fell to the ground. The carp sighed. The armadillo chuffed in amusement, as was his way. The two approached and the squirrel-rebel knew the carp would take the opportunity to lecture him. He wasn’t looking forward to once again being told how silly he was.

Luckily, a figure manifested between them all. “Amusing, but its time, young’ins. Are you all prepared?”

Their guide, the member of this ‘Pantheon’ that provided blessings to the humanoids of Expira, looked around with his blunt features. The animals nodded. The squirrel-rebel could barely contain his anticipation; their quality of character had earned these three the honor of also receiving the guidance of the Pantheon.

The woodland creatures followed the dirt humanoid as it strode forward without any apparent effort. Yet its speed was horrifying. Each step of this creature could cross unfathomably vast distances, half of a forrest disappearing at once, so they needed to push their small bodies to the limits in order to keep up. They ran and ran without rest for an entire day, just barely managing to keep this oracle within their sights. By the end, the carp could only feebly drift down and lay upon the squirrel-rebel’s back. She bit onto the remnant grass belt around his waist.

She was, the squirrel-rebel reflected, almost a size with him. The situation was not at all comfortable.

But he would never dare vocalize that thought.

Soon, they caught up to the Pantheon member, who stood at the mouth of the cave. He pivoted and looked at the three of them. “You may proceed forward, one at a time. I recommend you take the time to recover you faculties before you proceed; what you will find in the interior of this cave are discarded aspects of the Ghosthound. Even discarded… they have been dragged toward the cusp of evolution by his Legend. As such, you should not take them lightly.”

“Who is the Ghosthound?” The carp asked. Both the squrirel-rebel and the armadillo straightened, curious about the answer.

For several long seconds, the Pantheon member thought in silence. Around them, the forest seemed to be listening too, not a single peep of a mouse or chirp of a bird sounding out from the environment. Only the cave made noise. The squirrel-rebel felt a warm and damp wind flowing out through his fur, as though this were the mouth of a beast, breath hot with anticipation.

“...the Ghosthound is the one who changed the way our world worked,” the Pantheon member finally replied. The humanoid shrugged. “Is that not what you seek to do as well? Because we do not wish to be victims of circumstance.”

*****

Randidly Ghosthound stepped forward, out of the fading memory and into the harsh light of the present.

The small movement was a long time coming, but he believed his time within the Sonara was well spent. Not only did he manage to confirm several truths about the past, and draw up several theories about the situation in the present, but he had also contacted the past version of the Patron of Feathers, who was recuperating with Neveah while she considered whether to help revive her present self.

Randidly snorted out a breath and refocused as the veil of memory completely vanished. Now, he stood back in the Nexus proper. He felt a oily pressure against his mind almost immediately and had to grimace; he could feel the System overly coming back online as he returned. The Pantheon had stopped up all the gaps in the Alpha Cosmos, but that didn’t mean it would be pleasant to have the overlay System poking at him to find a way through.

Yet that wasn’t the end of the developments.

Likely most of the overwhelming feeling resulted from his evolved senses— he could suddenly feel the radiances of so many more halos, as the relatively simple memory was abandoned in favor of the complexities of reality. But also another factor was the screen had been ripped away and once more he felt the unconscious but glutinous gaze of that monster Pine had become, sitting at the base of the Nexus and sucking down scraps.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

And that didn’t even take into account all the insidious images layered atop one another, the bids the various old monsters of the Nexus had made to control their area. Suddenly, all the careful preparations in the Nexus were laid bare before him.

Behind him, the last chunks of the Sonara shattered and split. Rock and metal and shattered Engraving stone fell like rain. He took his second step since returning, moving from the middle of the chaotic collapse to the area outside of the Sonara. His senses instantly expanded, tasting and categorizing the different layers.

Congratulations! Your Skill Emerald Eyes and Dove Whispers Certify the Objective (GD) has grown to Level 1505!

The vast and sparkling nebulas spinning above his position. A sea of celestial bodies drifting in complex paths, all the worlds of the Nexus and their associated Rally Points, floating in a cluster of light and life.

The low, sour undercurrent of the System, categorizing and judging them all.

Below the happy vista sat the maw of Pine and the towering edifice of the Nexus proper, with the various citizenship layers constructed on top of one another, creating a convoluted, four-dimensional labyrinth. With Randidly’s new awareness, he could peer through and see each corner, watching the way the halos interacted with one another.

Congratulations! Your Skill Emerald Eyes and Dove Whispers Certify the Objective (GD) has grown to Level 1506!

In the more immediate area, Randidly felt hundreds of images flaring. The air was hot with tension. The undulating body of Tuthak Eloise stood at the center of his Upper Sonara Society, marshaling their forces outward. Nearby to the octopus creature Randidly recognized two of his companions: Pullas, whose image floated dangerously close to death, and Fiona, former spouse to Dullys Ambar who had been pursued and taken by Actus Suprem Devick while they were climbing the Sonara. Both met his eyes and looked at him with expressions of relief.

But thoughts of the Actus Suprem briefly brought Randidly up short and made him shiver. Although he had gained a great deal of power, he still had some difficulty predicting how a fight between them would proceed. He scanned the surrounding space… but the current Devick wasn’t present. One less immediate problem, while Randidly tried to figure out what his next move would be.

The Devick whose fate had been altered was currently within the Alpha Cosmos, staying on the skyisland farm he had brought from the memory, with the Nether Herald, Bogart, and all the assorted Arakis Beasts. Already, Randidly had a small headache thinking about when to release her in the wider Nexus the longer he put it off-

Ah, more pressing issues, Randidly snapped to focus as an image tightened around his body. He raised his head and looked beyond the tight ranks of the Upper Sonara Society, floating in space. He didn’t see the ominous and disapproving figure of Elhume which was at least something. But his stomach did flip-flops as he saw the army arrayed around Eloise’s resistance force, possessing almost ten times their number.

And it wasn’t just any military force either. The Xyrt Brigade itself had been assembled, now manifesting a powerful image array to apply pressure.

But the core image that released the pressure-

Randidly’s eyes widened. Standing at the center of the floating force was a core of pure destruction, focused and clarified by the energies running through the broader image array. It burned neon to Randidly’s senses, emphasized and sharpened beyond the limits of safety. Just by looking at that streamlined image made Randidly feel horrified at the Nexus’s capacity for destruction, and that was with the Sonara steadily collapsing behind him.

Even worse, he knew the wielder.

Her eyes were clear, despite the bags under them. Her body was one of iron spine and streamlined muscle. Her azure hair had been cut shorter than Randidly had ever seen it on her, reminding him of the older version of this woman, one a little bit too scarred and worn and used. But while the haircut and drained expression spoke to exhaustion, her uniform was expertly pressed and the many buttons across her lapel shined.

Randidly couldn’t help but think of the kiss he shared with Devick. His heart twisted with confusion and hesitation.

He cleared his throat, suddenly aware of the tense silence of the battlefield. “Vu…Vualla. It’s… you.”

Vualla Matteo’s lip curled upward as she considered him in the same methodical way he had examined here. In her expression, Randidly could see the same disdain and implacable will that had made the two feel so connected in their desire to tear down the Nexus. Yet now a strange gulf separated them. “Randidly Ghosthound. What an utterly insufficient greeting after such a long silence. Well, I suppose the situation is somewhat awkward; let’s clear something up quickly. Are you with these rebels?”

Guilt and surprise warred in his chest. Guilt because he had allowed so much time to pass, allowed the connection between them to become so distant… in a way, he felt like he blinked and they teleported from the frontlines to the ruined pieces of the Sonara, to standing at the highest heights of the Nexus. Yet his relationships with others had grown and bloomed while this one had been in stasis.

Or rather, Randidly considered it in stasis. He looked away and forgot about it. Looking into Vualla’s eyes, he could tell their bond had rotted.

Surprise because of all the rewards that Vualla wore on her uniform. Surprise because of how powerful Vualla’s image had become since they last met— her image was a more general aura of destruction versus a punch, but she would have been slightly better than Elhume from within the memory. And she also sat at the core of the formation?

His mind was distracted, trying to process so many emotional inputs at once, so he responded without thinking. “Aren’t you on the side of the rebels?”

Instantly, any small vulnerability in her expression vanished. “What an amusing joke, Mister Ghosthound. I must caution you to take this interrogation seriously. Although you have a known relationship with Actus Suprem Devick, the Xyrt Brigade exists outside the bounds of military command, exactly to identify and eliminate rogue elements. I will not ask a third time: are you allied with the rebels?”

“Vualla, what happened?” Randidly said. Her power was one thing, but it was extremely difficult to understand why her priorities had changed so much. Why did she now support Elhume? “We were going to-”

“Enough!” She snapped. Her hands clenched into fists that buzzed with the collapse of worlds. Some of the ranks of Xyrt Brigade members glanced at her, their faces impassive. Her shoulders shook as she raised her hands. “All those here, suppress your image and allow yourself to be taken in for questioning. Otherwise…”

Tuthak Eloise spoke up, even as Randidly searched his mind with a way to bridge this gap that had emerged. “We refuse.”

At the very least, Vualla’s smile was just as sharp and vicious as he remembered, from those sparkling-eyed days plotting to tear down the Nexus. “Then we fight.”