The being kept reaching around to chunks of rock, pulling itself forward, as it had always done.

  Its was a simple world. Somewhat empty, maybe, and often unexciting. But stable and comfy. And there was a quiet contentment in the background, a sense of familiarity, that if things stayed like this forever, that wouldn't be so bad.

  There was one good, fated place that it should be. Forward.

  One bad, wicked place it should flee. Backwards.

  One act that it should avoid at all costs. Stillness. Stagnation.

  And so its flesh rolled forward, shifting mass around to form extensions that allowed it to make progress in its endless quest. Slow and steady.

  As it had always been. As it always should, and always would be.

  ... or should it?

  Of course, there was no reason to ever stop moving forward. But while contracting itself was necessary to conserve mass, stretching wide, expressing outward, growing... that felt so much more pleasant. As if the very act made the being a bit better. A bit more.

  If only it could do less of the former and more of the latter...

  But maybe... Maybe it could try to grab some essence around... and increase its mass with that? There was just so much nearby!

  A reasonable course of action, pleasant and informative.

  Something truly new might even come up in the process!

  The being kept reaching around to chunks of rock, pulling itself forward, as maybe it had not always done.

  It still kept extending between rocks, an unrelenting advance, but was now contracting the least possible, slowly building outwards.

  It was hard.

  And not just because incorporating and converting essence into mass was a slow process, far slower than the speed it needed to maintain.

  There were things clinging above and below its form, prickling its surface and breaking its focus. The being couldn't ever shake them off, no matter what it tried: at best it could manage to make them shift a bit - and temporarily stop the irking - but they would soon enough be back at it. Endlessly aggravating.

  Though much worse was what it felt behind.

  A creeping feeling, looming menacing at the edge of its perception. Something there, and yet not.

  The only certainty was that it should do everything in its power to avoid whatever that was, since the one time it had been too slow to contract a tendril and made contact, its flesh had been torn off cleanly. Something was... wrong, back there.

  Still, all this was just further encouragement to keep going and no true obstacle to its fancies, was it not? To keep doing what it must, and still growing while doing it, if it wanted to. So what was problem?

  In fact, ignoring the bizarre unease that had crept in, the being had truly started to get into the right rhythm, and found its mission quite relaxing and comfy: complex enough to keep its interest, but not so demanding that it needed too much focus.

  Its mind was free to wander, and with each bit of mass grown, it felt like its mind improved in many ways! This should be good, shouldn't it? But what should it think about, with its impressive and ever-expanding mental faculties?

  There wasn't much outside, other than the rocks it needed to grab onto to move forward. And they were boring.

  So what else was there?

  Oh! There were the things inside, probably. What a smart being it was!

  There were a few points of interest suspended in its body. Two things specifically: a bundle of stuff that felt tremendously important and precious... but that couldn't be interacted with in any obvious way. The being knew nothing more about this one, past that it needed to be preserved. So it was a bust.

  But the other was a strange, spirally thing, slowly rotating around the center. This one was different, and could be interacted with: it clearly wanted to be filled with some of the other stuff that was abundant all around, and the being had a mind to oblige. Yet, annoyingly, the stuff was slippery, and simply ignored every command. But it couldn't ignore essence, could it? And though the being's control was far from enough to affect it outside, once the stuff was caught in its flesh, it was easy to guide along, with essence as a conduit. And the being's body had grown to a respectable size by now, so it didn't take long for its efforts to fill the spiral completely.

  ... This was new. Or not quite, since there was a vague feeling of annoyance rising up in the recesses of its mind. Also, it popped away after barely a touch from the being's attention, so it couldn't have been anything important.

  In any case that had been funny, but far too easy and quick.

  So what could it come up with to occupy its mind after? Maybe there was more to find about the slippery stuff?

  It felt... intriguing. In the same nostalgic way that the strange annoyance had been annoying. Like a remnant from the far past, something that had been important long ago. Though where this sensation came from the being had no clue, since there had obviously never been a 'before'.

  Still, it would keep at it. Maybe some clues would come up once it had grown a bit more. And wouldn't it be nice to learn to control the stuff even outside of its body, like it could with essence? If nothing else, that would be a good retaliation!

  The being kept reaching around to chunks of rock, pulling itself forward, as it definitely had not always done.

  At some point, its mass had grown past a threshold and it had become smart enough to... not quite remember, but to least make sense of things and to better understand its situation.

  What it had found was deeply troubling.

  Without its will to... do something to help? the coherence of the world had taken a plunge: everything was shaking wildly, outside of its more stable flesh. If there were always more than one never ending humming ongoing at the same time, that wouldn't be too surprising.

  Immediately, the being had started trying to fight back and calm down the world. But the effect of its attempts were moderate at best. There was probably nothing that could be done to fix things at this point.

  Everything at its back had felt strange and menacing not because of any hostile creature's actions, but because it was fundamentally collapsing, ceasing to exist. The world itself was receding towards the destination, like a horrible, all-consuming void in pursuit.

  The little things prickling its top and bottom must be the few creatures that had been strong enough to survive to this point, clinging to their only means of delaying annihilation.

  Worse, much worse, the being couldn't shake the feeling that things where even more dire. That there was an even tighter deadline. A looming event that would mark complete defeat even if it reached its destination ahead of the collapsing world. But it just couldn't remember what...

  Luckily it had instinctively built in the right direction even before having a clearer understanding of the situation, so it hadn't wasted much time. Nor did this finding change things much, since what it needed to do was the same as before, and it couldn't really speed up more than this.

  Still, there was no time to waste on musings now, since its attention needed to be outwards, in case there was anything that could positively affect its-

  The being's thoughts were interrupted, as the chunk of rock it had reached for next turned out to be different, and gave under its touch.

  It immediately recognized the material as essence. But not quite. This one was more solid and aggressive than essence normally was, and would have subsumed any other creature that came into contact with it. Still, the being wasn't any other creature and so wasn't overly spooked. Far from causing hurt, this thing was pulling it forward faster!

  Though there was something a little alarming: the material was far more resistant to its commands, and refused to obey. Which became far more than a little alarming when it was finally engulfed completely and found out that the stuff deformed with its movements, pushing rocks away from its reach.

  But if it couldn't reach rocks...!?

  The being started flailing about wildly, trying to shake off the blob, or to at least protrude a tendril far enough to pierce the shell and grab onto somewhere... but there was nothing to be done: it couldn't get out, couldn't command the essence, and couldn't move from its relative position at the center of the essence blob.

  While hummings increased in power with its panic, the edge of the world creeped ever closer, and that other, mysterious deadline loomed over its head...

  The being was stuck.

  The dreg landed easily on the last floating island of bleached rock.

  The rift was clearly visible from here, no more than a little stroll away, though still too clouded and shifting to distinguish enough details and understand what it would have to contend with. It started walking leisurely.

  Everything crackled, crumbled and sometimes exploded all around; the ground shook under its feet, cracks opening and expanding out at the slightest touch; the thing inside struggled against its foul, usurping grasp. The dreg didn't care. For the realm might be rapidly reaching a state where weak mortals with no sidhi - like it now was - couldn't survive. But it could endure a little longer yet. Certainly enough time to enjoy the last stretch.

  The dreg had won. Only one last step remained.

  Judging by the refusal within, it would truly have to rely on that rebel Guardian, hope that the legendary, so-called Divine Forge', took an interest and forced the process to completion in its stead, and it definitely should. The dreg had done its research: its circumstances, both future potential and current sheer strangeness, were beyond the average legends that the Forge had supposedly helped start out, let alone the true, documented requirements it had found.

  And once that was done, and the dreg was alone outside, without anyone or anything aware that it was not just still alive, but returned as something even worse...

  There must be people significant to it.

  Situations to resolve, problems to patch up.

  Revenges to be had.

  With the Divine Forge's help, a bit of time and progress on the right Echoes, the dreg might truly remember something. Especially if it ever met people and places from its past.

  Though some part of it still hoped something would stop it... there really was going to be 'transformation' at the end of its path, after all. Just not the kind it had expected. Far from it.

  The Forge was perfectly neutral, known for helping anything and anybody with enough potential to reach it. Good and bad either, with no discrimination. Perhaps not even a thrice cursed abomination would be refused. There was a reason why it was considered rogue.

  And with the dreg's current situation, nature and likely past... that potential would be a monstrosity, only capable of ruining whatever it touched. A blight upon whatever element of its past it would meet.

  Yet again, it hoped something, anything, would happen to stop its path. Maybe the realm's surroundings could turn out less safe than expected, and something would crawl out to eat it as soon as it took one step outside. Maybe even as soon as it approached the rift. Because there wasn't anything else that could hope to stop it inside this realm now.

  And it had given up on trying itself long ago.

  TLDR: Usual schedule is still not guaranteed beyond 1 chapter per week.