Convergence is not the kind of realm that cared about your thoughts or your clever interpretations of concepts. It's the most dangerous realm of the Hidden Citadel for one reason.
It's where the Krepsunas first appeared and where their hive-maddened evolution began. Now the entire region was saturated with them to the point where the air itself felt contaminated.
Frostdeath was extremely large. The snow was not soft or pristine but packed down and stained in places where battles had taken place over and over again during the forty-sixth and forty-seventh days since the Second Epoch Cycle began. We've been fighting almost non-stop, and by we, I really meant him, because I was stuck hovering beside him like some useless ghost that could talk and analyze but not physically intervene.
Technically, in the current state he was in, Justice Veneri is the weakest of the Pentarchs, which was something I never thought I would seriously say without laughing. He only has access to his Aeterium capabilities and his Justice Divinity and while both of those were terrifying in the right context, they were not built to handle the specific nightmare that was Convergence.
His Justice Divinity relied on individual convictions, sentience and conflicting perspectives, and the higher-ranked Infected Krepsunas did not function like normal sentient beings.
Once they reached above Forgotten Rank, their hive mind became so dominant that their personal sense of self was basically drowned in the collective directive to infect, multiply, and dominate. There was no nuanced morality to clash with or an internal philosophy to overpower. They were a swarm wearing individual bodies.
The Divinity had nothing to measure itself against, which meant it provided him with almost no enhancement in those encounters. The only advantage he had was that his Aeterium constitution made him immune to the K-Virus, so while everyone else would have been dead or worse within minutes, he could at least keep moving without worrying about infection.
Because of that, our strategy for most of those days had been brutally simple: run, avoid, and only fight when there was no other choice. That did not mean he was weak. Being extremely strong in general and being well-equipped for a very specific type of enemy are two completely different things.
The Scavenger Rank Krepsunas in Convergence are nothing like the ones he had faced in other regions. These are at least ten times stronger than the ordinary Scavenger Rank variants we had gotten used to, and in Spheraphase's scaling, that meant they were operating at levels equivalent to Seventh Enlightenment Divine Rank beings in raw strength alone.
Their bodies had fewer of the grotesque mutations that lower-ranked infected often displayed. Instead, they were disturbingly humanoid with elongated limbs, reinforced muscle fibers, and faces that still retained just enough structure to resemble the species they had once been.
That made them faster, more coordinated and far more skilled in combat, because they could actually wield techniques and tactics rather than just charging like rabid beasts. When an Infected Krepsuna climbs all the way to Forgotten Rank, which in normal terms is Deity Rank, things become even worse, because that's when they start manifesting elemental abilities in ways that made closing the distance with them feel like trying to sprint through a storm of knives.
I couldn't even give him the comfort of my physical presence in this version of him. With Love, Protection, or Water Veneri, I could form a body, hold a weapon, or at least physically anchor myself to the battlefield, but Justice and Time were different.
Their Divinities were too abstract and detached from the mechanics of Body and Soul Reconstruction for me to piggyback on, which meant I existed only as a translucent, digital-looking projection that hovered just next to him.
Only he could see me, which was equal parts convenient and frustrating, because it meant I could whisper warnings, point out patterns in enemy movement and scream at him to dodge, but I could not physically block a strike or shove him out of harm's way. Watching him fight like that felt like being locked behind glass while someone you cared about was being hunted by monsters that refused to die.
One of the worst fights during those days started when we were trying to cross a narrow ridge that curved along the side of a frozen cliff. I spotted them first. Three Scavenger Rank Krepsunas stepped out from behind ice formations.
"Veneri, three ahead, left and right flank movement behind you."
He didn't answer verbally. He just tightened his grip on Calimostria. One rushed towards him head-on while the other two tried to circle around to cut off any retreat. The first clash sent a sharp metallic crack echoing through the mountains as his glaive intercepted the Krepsuna's clawed arm. The force of the impact pushing him half a step back even though he dug his boots into the ice.
Normally, he would have used a wide array of abilities to control the battlefield but here, stripped down to just his Aeterium capabilities and the passive support of Justice, he had to rely on raw technique, footwork, and the absurd durability that came with his race. The Krepsuna's second strike slipped past his guard and went across his shoulder, tearing through his armor and flesh.
I saw the wound open and then watched in both relief and frustration as his Body Reconstruction immediately began knitting the tissue back together. His Nanorune Armor also repaired itself.
The problem was that healing did not stop pain or exhaustion. Each time his body reconstructed itself, it drained energy and focus and against enemies this strong, he was taking hits far more often than he was used to. One of the other Scavengers lunged in while he was still recovering from the first exchange, forcing him to swing the glaive that barely managed to keep the creature's claws away from his throat.
"You can't hold them here for long!"
He clicked his tongue in irritation but adjusted his stance, using a precise kick to shove one Krepsuna into the path of another, buying himself a split second to create space.
Things went from bad to worse when a fourth presence made itself known, stepping out from the swirling snow further down the ridge. This one was taller and when it opened its mouth, frost-laced breath curled out as it spoke in a hoarse but unmistakably sentient voice, ordering the others to corner him.
It was a Forgotten Rank Krepsuna.
The moment it raised its hand, shards of ice erupted from the ground around Veneri, forcing him to leap back to avoid being skewered.
"Elemental manifestation? This one's above Sunderer. We need to disengage now!"
He fought like someone cornered but refusing to panic, using Calimostria's length to keep the Scavengers at bay while constantly shifting his position to avoid being boxed in. His movements were still elegant but there was a strain in them that I haven't seen in a long time.
A claw managed to pierce through his side at one point and for a split second, my projection flickered as my focus wavered. He gritted his teeth, ripped himself free with a wet, sickening sound and used the same motion to spin and slash, creating a deep line across the attacker's chest that sent it stumbling back. The Krepsuna regenerated.
We only survived that encounter because he finally abandoned the idea of winning and focused entirely on escaping. Using the ridge's uneven terrain, he baited two of the Sunderers into overextending, then slid down a steep slope of packed snow.
I floated beside him as he descended, constantly scanning behind us and relaying their pursuit patterns, while he forced his battered body to keep moving even as it tried to reconstruct itself mid-sprint. By the time we reached a narrow ice cave that cut into the mountain's side, the Krepsunas had lost direct line of sight and the blizzard-like winds helped cover our tracks long enough for us to slip deeper inside.
He finally slowed down once we were several turns into the cave, leaning heavily against the wall as the last of his visible injuries sealed themselves shut. His breathing was rough. I hovered in front of him with hands on my hips even though they passed right through his chest when I tried to touch him.
"You're pushing yourself way too hard."
I know full well that he would do it again the moment we stepped back outside. He glanced at me, tired but still annoyingly calm, as if almost getting torn apart by Deity-level infected monstrosities was just another inconvenience on his schedule.
Being stuck as a ghost like that made everything feel more tense than it already was, because all I could do was watch, analyze, and talk while he was the one actually bleeding and risking being overwhelmed by creatures that his Justice Divinity could not even properly respond to.
Convergence forced him to rely on the bare minimum of what he had left. Seeing him struggle like that made it painfully clear just how dangerous Frostdeath and the Hidden Citadel truly was, even for someone like Veneri who, in any other realm, would have been the one everyone else was terrified of instead.