Disappointment lashed into Angar like a whip upon unrepentant flesh, the Oracle’s response nonsensical, unhelpful as a Heretic granting absolution.

  The words were just a cruel jest, offering no clarity, no decree to seize upon, only foolishness, purely useless.

  It echoed the ancient scripture his Psy Crystal was named after. ‘The way that can be spoken is not the eternal way.’ It was pure gibberish that fools parroted as if it held profound truth.

  He scorned why they revered it, claiming deepest truths supposedly transcended conceptual understanding and language, beyond words or grasp, attainable only through direct experience, inner stillness, and non-attachment.

  He had already proven inner stillness to be weak and pathetic compared to inner rage and hatred.

  And non-attachment to what? Weapons? Armor? Those same fools that spewed that line never faced Hellspawn bare-handed and unarmored.

  To family? The Genitoriums and Cloisteranages proved that folly.

  To faith? Becoming a filthy, unholy Heretic?

  It was all drivel, save the notion of direct experience, but how did that aid him?

  He directly experienced everything life hurled his way, as every man did right up until death claimed its due. There was no choice there, nothing actionable in that vapid nonsense.

  A complete waste.

  He steadied himself and his mind.

  It was nonsense, but still, he’d meditate on it later. Perhaps some sliver of value lurked within, though he highly doubted that.

  But such a gift, poor though it may be, still came at a cost. The lights intensified, a blinding conflagration that ravaged his form, fraying it like ancient parchment consumed by flame.

  Agony transcended thought, like a flaying that peeled layers from his soul, exposing vulnerabilities raw.

  He clung to his resolve, enduring it, but the expanse itself began to unravel, curling and crumbling into pure madness.

  With a final wrench, the Mindscape expelled him, hurling his consciousness through the void to reality, back into his flesh once more, slamming him against Abyssalhome's warped soil.

  His body convulsed once. Blood trickled down his face, mingling with the ash, as a wave of fatigue crashed over him.

  He shook it off, pushing it away.

  As he wiped his face with a cloth, a new presence materialized, hovering in the thin air.

  Eeshek’tik had come.

  Angar knelt upon the warped earth, bowing his head.

  Before him hovered the astral projection of the ancient Gray legend, rendered in a spectral golden monochrome that seemed to defy the tainted air's thin grasp.

  The alien was transcended frailty, his diminutive body, feeble as a decrepit twig, overshadowed by the colossal swell of his giant head, a repository of psychic might that had shattered the mighty and bent his people to his will.

  From the corner of his vision, Angar marked the ripple of deference spreading through his companions. Garioch sank to one knee first, then Simo, his movements stiffer, confused, just following suit.

  Angar turned his head slightly, and there knelt Saint Salvador too, bowing his helmed head in solemn obeisance.

  Surprise filled Angar, witnessing Salvador, a legend himself, humbled before Eeshek’tik.

  The Gray's mind-voice resonated then, not as sound but as an intrusion, blaring through his mind. “Hunter-Collector,” it stated, turning its vast gaze upon Salvador, “it gladdens me to behold you once more.”

  Salvador raised his head, his voice calm but wary. "The sentiment is mutual, Venerable One," he replied in a formal tone, like ritual respect. "In what manner might I render aid to your purpose here?"

  “No aid is required of you, Hunter-Collector.” Eeshek’tik's projection inclined its enormous head toward Angar. “My presence is drawn to this one, Skre’eek, Son-of-a-Chief. I would claim his company for a time, if it is not too inconvenient to your plans.”

  Salvador dipped his head once more, his armored pauldrons grinding as he shifted. "Not at all. As you deem fitting, I obey and assist, Venerable One."

  Angar claimed his helm from the ashen ground and donned it, the seals hissing, then grabbed his hammer as he rose.

  Without a word, he fell into step behind the hovering form of Eeshek’tik, the Gray's projection gliding forward like a golden specter.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  They ventured forward for a while, where the twisted flora clawed at his legs, and the ground grew more treacherous, riddled with fissures that exhaled foul vapors, crunching through brittle thorns and scrub.

  They traversed a goodly distance more before Eeshek’tik halted. The Gray turned in the air, his golden form casting no shadow, somehow seeming to absorb the ambient gloom, and regarded Angar with that unblinking, inscrutable gaze.

  The Gray's vast cranium inclined slightly, and his mind-voice projected once more, an invasion that bypassed the ears and burrowed directly into the mind. “As you have previously granted me leave to peruse your thoughts concerning intrusions into the Mindscape, I have availed myself of that permission. What I gleaned lacks sense and coherence. Explain.”

  Angar met the gaze unflinchingly, and the weight of the ancient's scrutiny pressed upon him like the judgment of an inquisitor.

  "In my attempts to attain the Mindscape, Venerable One," he replied, "I chanced upon something like an ancient and abandoned hub-plane riddled with portals. One such led to the Mindscape itself. It required many attempts, as the ethereal form in which I manifest there dissolves with merciless swiftness. Only through perseverance did I reach the threshold."

  Eeshek’tik fell silent then, his golden form immobile, as if the Gray had withdrawn into some profound inner sanctum of contemplation. The moments stretched taut, only the distant thunder of the tormented planet filling the hush.

  Angar waited. Finally, the mind-voice returned, both measured and deliberate. “Though I delved only into the shallow of surface, initial memory, I discern none pertaining to this plane of portals. Intriguing. But first, the inaugural lesson I am bound to impart. Before we commence, however, your encounter with the Oracle. How fared that communion?”

  Angar's jaw tightened. "Strange. The revelation itself proved useless, just nonsensical garble."

  “Ah, the Oracle's gifts are ever thus for my kind as well,” Eeshek’tik said, “bestowing wisdom that eludes the grasp until fate deems otherwise. Come, then. Let us seek a suitable creature for your psionic exertions, and inaugurate your first instruction.”

  Angar scanned the horizon, his cybernetic eyes whirring as he flipped through modes and zooms, calibrating against the haze of ash and embers that danced like damned souls in the feeble wind.

  There, among a twisted thicket of thorned flora, lurked a lone Hellspawn, some monstrous aberration, an amalgam of chitin and festering flesh, skulking in ambush, waiting for prey.

  The distance was vast, nearly akin to that which had separated him from Osenas, the Wraith Prince, when he had wrenched the boundaries of his power to their uttermost limit.

  Pride ignited within him. Here was an opportunity to demonstrate his supremacy before this ancient warrior. "I can strike that one from here, Venerable One," Angar declared, gesturing toward the distant Hellspawn with a gauntlet.

  Eeshek’tik's projection regarded him with a tilt of that colossal head, radiating disbelief. The mind-voice, filled with a skepticism, stated more than asked, “From here? At such a range?”

  Angar braced himself, girding for a siege upon the very laws of existence. He extended his will, channeling the raw fury of his Electrokinesis through his unbreakable resolve, determined to prove his superiority to the ancient Gray.

  As always, the struggle against the possible was titanic, a war waged in his body, mind, and soul.

  Reality resisted, like a wild beast bucking the yoke, and doubt whispered insidiously, without respite.

  He teetered on the brink of failure, on giving up. It seemed too impossible, regardless of the fact he’d already done similar. Perhaps Osenas’ colossal bulk explained his prior triumph, a factor absent here. Or maybe he misjudged distance, and it stood much farther away than Osenas had.

  But he wouldn't quit. All he could do was forge ahead, applying more effort.

  Sweat beaded upon his brow, his eyes blurred, his synapses blazed in agonized defiance.

  A minute stretched into an eternity of strain, his muscles quivering, his breath ragged from the massive exertion.

  He would not yield. He couldn’t. He hammered at the barriers of the possible, crushing frailty beneath the heel of his indomitable spirit.

  As another ship flew by overhead, he struggled. He pushed. And kept pushing. Refusing to accept failure, to look the fool in front of Eeshek’tik.

  His whole body trembling, reality finally bent to his demand. Invisible currents surged forth, bridging the impossible gulf in a silent cascade of psionic torment.

  The Hellspawn quivered, its profane body seizing, shaking as it convulsed with spasm.

  The corpse slumped to the blighted earth, smoldering, thin plumes of smoke rising from its charred flesh.

  Exhaustion flooded Angar, and he swayed on his tripod-feet.

  Eeshek’tik remained impassive, but the mind-voice resonated with astonishment. “Impressive indeed. That span eclipses the reach of usual psionic attacks by normal Psychics. Your gift bears the semblance of Electrosynapticism, though deviates. A cousin, not the true form. By now, it must bear a System designation. What name has been bestowed?”

  “Electrokinesis, Venerable One," Angar replied, his chest swelling at the compliment, but a pounding headache and fatigue blunting it.

  The Gray nodded its head. “When last our paths converged, I explained that your method errs grievously from the correct path, forcing what ought to flow, a brute imposition upon the natural currents. You have spurned that counsel, eschewing finesse for raw force.

  “Rather than being the grease that eases the seized wheel, you wrench it with crude might. Instead of wielding the lever to move the boulder to its destination, you hoist it upon your shoulders and bear its weight through muscle and strain. This method is fundamentally flawed, wasteful, and inefficient. It is all wrong. Worse still, it is now embedded far too deeply to correct.”

  Angar's jaw tightened as defiance filled his chest, washing away some of the fatigue.

  He exhaled, then took a calming breath. "I’m aware, Venerable One. Circumstance forced my hand. I confronted a powerful Nofelim Psychic, necessitating the expenditure of every Skill Point I could to improve my flawed method as much as I could. But I’ve come to find it’s not flawed, just different and clearly superior. You’ve witnessed it. I extended my reach to the impossible, attesting to that.”

  “No, not in the least,” replied the Gray. “You know of the scientific method? Understand it?”

  “I do, Venerable One," Angar affirmed.

  “Then you should know that true validation demands comparison, a control against which to measure. Had you cultivated Electrokinesis through the harmonious flow, its range might surpass even this feat. We cannot ascertain without trial. And as for your Nofelim adversary? Doubtful. At your Tier, confrontation would end in swift death.”

  Angar closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply.

  After releasing the breath, he said, “I speak no lies, Venerable One. Inquire of Saint Salvador, the Seraph you called Hunter-Collector. He bore witness. I landed a dozen hits and survived. Ask him if I vanquished an arch-druden and Osenas, the Wraith Prince, too. My ways are superior. If you’d just entertain the notion with an open mind and assist in refining this method, we can make it even more superior."