The first thing that needed to be done was a quick check on the rest of the people in the stargate with Arden and Vera. Just from interacting with Volis and Kralis told them that they didn’t get a paradox message, but they needed to make sure it was that way for everyone, or if the pair of guild scions were the only ones.

  As Arden and Vera made their way across the campsite, they glanced at everyone they came across. None of them looked interested in their Status’, so it was safe to say that the paradox message was localized to Arden and Vera.

  “Goddamn it,” Arden muttered.

  “Last time this happened it was your doppelganger,” Vera said quietly. “Any idea what it is this time?”

  Arden saw one of the people he needed to speak to. He quickly changed directions and started walking towards her.

  “I have an idea. I’m sure you do as well,” Arden said. “Lodi can give us an answer.”

  The instructor and proctor of the field assessment sat in front of her own fire. She was holding a tablet with a glowing pattern along its back as she scanned over everything that was displayed on the device. Lodi was looking over the profiles of everyone with her on this assessment, making notes on their accomplishments, their personalities, and how they handled themselves. All of it would be important to decide who would pass and who would fail.

  She looked up from her work to see Arden and Vera coming towards her, both of them looking rather pale. They didn’t just look unwell, either. Their body language screamed worry. Realizing that they had a reason to come to her, she turned off the tablet and greeted them.

  “Are you guys alright?” She asked. “You don’t look so well.”

  “I feel fine,” Arden lied. “I have a quick question.”

  “I won’t pass or fail anyone until we get back. Don’t worry.”

  “It’s not that. What are my targets?”

  Lodi eyed the pair wearily. She was about to dock him points for losing his pictures until she realized that Vera wouldn’t be looking disturbed if it was just that. There was something more. Something was amiss.

  “Did you forget them?” She asked.

  “We remember everything just fine,” Vera said.

  “Just please answer the question, Instructor,” Arden asked.

  “...Your targets were the hemorrhage hornet and the dune splicer.”

  Arden and Vera shared another worried look with each other. It was obvious to Lodi that they were not a fan of the answer she gave them. Arden asked the next question.

  “How did you get the pictures of the Celestials for us?”

  “I just printed them off back at the Association. We have a log of every Celestial that can potentially spawn in here. Its standard procedure for tests like this.”

  “So, you have records of everything we have to hunt.”

  “Of course.”

  Arden pulled out the picture of the dark matter beetle from his inventory. He looked at it, making sure that it did in fact show a picture of a shimmering white rhinoceros beetle with black beady little eyes.

  “What if it has no information?” Arden asked. “Like this?”

  Arden showed her the picture. Both he and Vera watched her intently, gauging any reaction. Unfortunately, there were none. It looked more like she was looking past the picture rather than actually looking at the picture. Arden was about to say something, but what he saw stopped him.

  Both his and Vera’s breath got caught in their lungs when they saw a small silver light begin to glow from the recesses of Lodi’s wide eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “If you’re just here to waste my time, I will be docking points.”

  “So you can’t see the dark matter beetle?”

  Lodi scowled.

  “If you aren’t going to say anything, get out of here. Just because you’re bored doesn't mean you should come and annoy me for entertainment sake. I have to keep doing the writeup.”

  As soon as Lodi said that, she dutifully ignored the pair of Starborn and turned the tablet back on to continue her work. Arden and Vera both knew that getting anything else out of her was going to be impossible, so they turned away from the instructor.

  “That confirms it,” Vera said. “That beetle is the cause of this.”

  “Yeah,” Arden replied. “Just like with Volis and Kralis, anytime the dark matter beetle was brought up, it was completely ignored.”

  “More like they didn’t even register it. What next?”

  “We find Sya. She was able to read about it. That means she hasn’t been affected by it. After that, I’m not sure.”

  “We need to find out how to resolve this one, fast. We can’t have anymore Archons…” she stopped.

  Before Arden could ask what was wrong, Vera kicked him in the stomach, knocking him backwards a few feet. He looked up with confusion at the spot he was at just a moment ago, and saw a spiderweb of thin glowing wires there. Vera was right next to him and quickly pulled him to his feet.

  Arden realized what happened almost immediately. They both looked in the direction where they just came from to get ready to fight back against Lodi, but when they did, they saw that it wasn't Lodi anymore.

  Her face was twisted and malformed like clay molded by a child. All of her features were disproportionate, especially her eyes. Her right eye took up half of her face, and the large white beetle that was half in and half out of her face. She had an expression of agony that looked like a plea to be put down to end the suffering.

  “Run!” Vera yelled, summoning her armor from her inventory as Arden did the same with Stoneflesh Shroud from his soul cluster.

  Killing the parasitic paradox was out of the question. It was already capable of body snatching, and the one it chose was Lodi, an orange-tier main sequence. This would be a battle that could not be won.

  Swallowing his guilt, Arden ran like his life depended on it, which it did. His, Vera’s, and everyone else's lives were thrust into danger by the dark matter beetle inhabiting Lodi. He felt the wires before he saw them. One moment, he was running away from the berserk orange-tier with his going back and forth, the next he was overwhelmed with pain and he was down an arm. Vera heard his cry and faltered for a moment, but was quickly urged along by Arden’s voice.

  “Keep moving!” He shouted, already trying to regrow his arm.

  By this point, the other Starborn were alerted to the commotion, and caught a glimpse of the fleeing Arden and Vera with the being that used to be Lodi in hot pursuit. Some screamed, some fled, and some even ran towards the monster.

  One such Starborn was Volis, who bravely stepped forward to buy some time for the rest of his time to escape.

  “Don't do it!” Arden yelled.

  Before Volis could even attempt an attack, thin red lines appeared throughout his body, followed by the glint of Lodi’s wires, and Volis fell to pieces. There were no pieces of him left that were larger than a finger.

  Like that, another Starborn was dead.

  Inhuman tears wept from the gaping voids of Lodi’s eyes. Arden and Vera didn't spend much time looking at her. They stuck around just long enough to confirm Volis’ horrific demise, and tried to run away faster. The only thing they saw from that was that Lodi was apparently still alive, and her personality was still intact as she was forced to watch her body murder an innocent Starborn.

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  ‘What do we do?’

  Arden’s guilt for inadvertently causing this gnawed away at him, but he stuffed it down for later. For now, like his trial, survival mattered more than anything.

  “What do we do!?” Arden shouted, cradling his injured arm.

  “We need Sya! Her blood is the only thing that can hurt Lodi!”

  The frenzy of the campsite had reached a peak. The majority of them were scrambling to escape, having come to the same realization that there was no chance of winning against an orange-tier as a red-tier, no matter how many red-tiers there were. The gap in power between an orange-tier main sequence of the Association and red-tier applicants was just too large.

  The only thing keeping the rest of the Starborn alive was Lodi’s targeting of only one person.

  Arden felt the weight of a red-tier aura pound into him. It was stronger than his, but it was undoubtedly still only red-tier. His pace faltered from the aura assault, and Vera was the one to save him from another wire attack again.

  “Why is she only after you!?”

  “I don't know! The picture, maybe!?”

  “Dodge!”

  Both of them threw themselves out of the way of another barrage of wires forged in stellar essence. They just barely missed them, and instead found another person, cutting her to pieces in their stead, as well as the tent behind her. Arden recognized the victim as Kralis’ team member.

  Arden and Vera picked themselves up out of the mess that the unfortunate woman had become and again continued their escape.

  “It has orange-tier power!” He said. “Why can it only barely keep up!?”

  They narrowly avoided another attack from the being Lodi had become. It eviscerated anything that the wires hit, but it was still unable to land another attack on Arden since the first. Vera realized why after the next attack.

  “The bug!” Vera said. “It's only red-tier! That's why Lodi only had a red-tier aura! It has the power, but not the technique!”

  “That’s barely a positive! If it even brushes against us, that's it!”

  Vera's hair changed color for the first time in a while. Normally, she'd try to keep her secondary set of powers, along with her appearance when using them a secret, but the danger of the situation forced her hand. If she didn't go all out, then they would die.

  The plan was clear to both of them. Play defensively to avoid every attack, and end the fight with a single attack. That was the only way out of this. With a swipe of her sword, Vera erected a wall of ice. It wasn't a great defense against the monster in human form, but it was something.

  The ice wall shattered immediately, with wires boring through it, then twisting, rending it into shards just fit enough for cooling a drink with Omnigul blood. But it had served its purpose. Arden and Vera were a bit further away now. The monster kept following.

  “We need to do something more!” Arden said, flexing his new fully regrown hand.

  The voice that Arden and Vera were looking for found its way into their ears.

  “We finally found you guys!” Sya said with immense relief.

  Kepler was with her as well, shaking in fear and pale in the face. She looked like a withering leaf, but miraculously, she was still with Sya and hadn't fled. Even more surprisingly, she didn't question Vera's new appearance.

  “Keep moving!” Vera ordered.

  As they ran, Arden realized that this might be the best chance to ask the question.

  “Sya! Did you get the message too!?”

  “Of course I did!” She said. “I got it then all hell broke loose!”

  “It's gaining!” Vera said, creating another ice wall between them and the monster.

  “How many of my targets have I killed!?”

  “None!”

  An arrow of wire flew through the air towards Arden. It would have pierced his skull had Vera not changed back to her sword form and brought her sword down on the arrow. Arden’s next question was directed at the openly crying Kepler.

  “Kepler!”

  “E-eep!”

  “What do I have to kill aside from the hornet!?”

  “U-uh, t-the dark m-matter beetle!”

  His party was clean. But why was no one else? What made them different?

  Vera's hair turned white again and she continued to create more walls of ice between them and their pursuer. After the fourth or fifth, she was panting harder than Arden and ever seen, even more than when she used the Dance of the Nine Phases against his doppelganger. She was depleting both of her cores of essence at a horrific rate.

  When one of the ice walls were shattered, one of the shards flew like a dart into the back of Sya’s arm, causing her to grunt in pain. An idea took root.

  “Kepler, the slingshot!”

  “Y-yes!”

  RedShift sparks danced in the air around Kepler’s hand as they ran, looking like a comet trail. The Rascal’s Pocket Rocket appeared in her grip, and Sya pulled out the shards of ice in her arm and passed it over to her.

  As soon as Kepler had her improvised ammo, she twisted her body and fired. Once again proving Vera right about the thing's raw power and technique having a large disparity, the thing was not able to properly avoid the shards covered in Sya's blood, nor was it able to knock it out of the air with the wires it controlled.

  The shards of bloody ice embedded itself in the thing's neck, and the reaction was immediate. It roared like a banshee being dragged to hell, both in Lodi’s voice and the white beetle's buzzing cry. The body swelled in different places, and for the first time, the beetle half in and half out of her face moved. It tensed its body, and the white material that made up its chitinous exoskeleton shimmered.

  It was the next moment that decided that this was not a good thing.

  With the thing's horrific screech, its aura exploded out, this time with Lodi’s full orange-tier power, stopping the fleeing party of Starborn in their tracks. The three experienced ones managed to stay on their feet, but the same could not be said for Kepler, who fell to the ground and convulsed.

  It seemed like Lodi’s existence was tearing itself apart. Something was superimposed over body, and a vast amount of wires appeared around her, like she was surrounded by a web. More and more wires appeared around, and the Starborn were still unable to move as the orange-tier tier aura held them.

  ‘This is it…’ Arden realized. ‘We're going to die here…’

  Everything that they had been through, from the Maverick to Domah, had been reduced to nothingness in the face of the next paradox that worked its way into the world.

  Every one of the single wires that made up the tangle that was larger than Lodi exploded outwards in every direction with the speed of a rocket, whipping around as they did. There was no way to avoid what came next. It was indeed a hopeless endeavor to fight this thing. One of the wires burrowed through Arden’s chest and into the cave wall nearby. He was the unlucky one. He had to watch what happened to the rest of his party.

  When the wires exploded, Kepler was the first one to be slain. She was ripped to pieces just like Volis and the woman on Kralis’ team. Sya was next. Her end was not as quick as Kepler’s. Like Arden, she was caught by a wire air, but instead of carrying her into a wall, it quickly brought her back into the tangle where other wires rushed out to meet her. Her body shook as the many wires bored their way through her. Just like Kepler, Sya was killed.

  “No…” Arden whispered.

  His eyes turned to Vera. She was looking at him with a sad smile. Arden felt that smile tearing him apart. Tears fell from both of their eyes. Neither of them wanted it to end.

  Arden recognized the smile for what it was. It was a goodbye, and a hope that they'd meet in the afterlife. Blood leaked from Arden’s hands as he tried and failed to snap the wire. But he wasn't strong enough.

  Arden could only watch as the wires descended on Vera next. She didn't resist as she was turned into a pile of shredded flesh. There was nothing she would be able to do anyway.

  Like that, Arden was the sole survivor of his party. Somehow, he alone managed to survive the dark matter beetle's onslaught. Guilt turned to sorrow, sorrow turned to indignation, and indignation turned to fury.

  “What did we ever do that was so wrong? Why does the broken world persist in trying to take them from me!?”

  Arden tightened his hands around at the wire anchoring him to the wall as Lodi continued approaching. He lost feeling in his fingers as several of them were severed by the force he applied to the wire.

  “What did they ever do, huh!? All we wanted to do was live! Is that really such a crime!?”

  The image of everyone in their final moments came to Arden’s mind. Kepler curled up on the ground. Sya being dragged into the maelstrom of wires. Vera smiling at him.

  Arden didn't want it to end.

  Every ounce of his remaining biomass flooded into his arms. They swelled and changed to a steely grey color, like it was tempered bone. His arms were bigger, tougher, and more durable. He tightened his grip around the wire and pulled it apart, then fell to the ground.

  He was going to die here as well. That much was certain. Even still…

  Arden sprinted forward towards the monster that killed the people he loved. In his trial, he was able to make the one responsible pay. He would make sure to do the same now, even if it was an empty effort in the end. He knew he would die soon. He would try to at least take it with him.

  Arden swung his fist covered the biotic alloy forward, only for it to be caught in countless wires, and shredded just like it had before.

  “Fucking monster…”

  Arden’s momentum carried him forward as he fell into Lodi, defeated. In a final hail Mary, Arden extended his one remaining hand into her face, and was determined to devour as much of the dark matter beetle as he could. Through it all, he remembered everyone's faces. He didn't want their time together to end.

  As tendrils bit down on its horn and it shrieked again as Arden began to devour the paradoxical being. As soon as he did, he felt something inside of him drop.

  He was tasting infinity. It couldn't be described in any other way. It was an impossible existence, and he was devouring a part of it. It was a haunting kind of high. The vast cosmos were being stuffed down his throat. The only difference between right now and his encounter at the end of his trial and with Domah was that this time, he swallowed. All at once he felt larger than the universe and smaller than dirt. He was an ocean crashing against a cliffside that was also him. He was the shadow cast by him, the sun. He was-

  “What are your Celestials?” Volis asked.

  Arden stared at the man in front of him in disbelief. Volis was alive. Somehow, whatever happened with Lodi hadn't had any lasting effects.

  ‘If he's alive…!’

  Arden whirled his head around just in time to see Vera pounce on him, knocking him to the ground. Not caring that they were in public, she wrapped her arms around Arden’s neck in a vice grip, not wanting to let him go. He reached back to her

  “You're alive…” she whispered.

  “So are you!”

  Volis and Kralis stood up from their seats and began walking away. They could tell when they would only be in the way. Without looking back, Volis extended a hand into the air and spoke.

  “Good job killing the dune splicer earlier. Good luck on the last one.”

  The reunited pair of Starborn paused, registering what he said. The world was still wrong. The dune splicer was a target again.

  The dark matter beetle was still alive.

  As if to prove that point, the Status popped up with a notification. Arden and Vera both stared at it with a cold fury.

  Paradox in progress.