Chapter 176 (2/2)

And that hunger in its blank eyes…

Randidly did now have a more concrete ideal about the Phantom’s embrace as a move, although he wasn’t sure how it worked. It was a skill that produced an overwhelming psychological effect, and pressed your opponent backwards. It turned the momentum of their fleeing against them, becoming increasingly powerful the more that they attempted to dodge.

But, if someone did not flee, or did not attack, it was useless.

However, the face didn’t seem to fit into Randidly’s impression of the move. It felt like that was a larger part of the image within the book, and less to do with the actual skill. Or perhaps even it was a spectre of whatever the 6th move of the Spear Phantom was…?

Either way, this was far beyond the current Randidly. For now, he could only concentrate on the goals that would yield positive results. So he stood and began to practice the Inevitable Phantom Arrives. His strikes were slow and even, but even though he hadn’t gleaned any true insights from his studying of the 5th move of the Spear Phantom, his Battle Intent was increasingly strengthened by the exposure.

The ticking grew louder. His own temporal phantom became more definite, and Randidly began to add more and more details. Almost unbidden, small memories of his mother floated to the surface. As Randidly remembered how worn her clothes always were when she wasn’t going out, the robe the phantom wore became threadbare and grey.

He remembered how she smelled, like honey and flowers just starting to rot, and how she smiled, almost as if she was apologizing with her eyes, while her mouth was stretched wide. And as these details began to accumulate in the image, Randidly’s feelings about the image balloon outward in his heart.

With Aether thundering in his ears, a vicious icy flow, Randidly’s rage and frustration, that he had buried for years began to surface, filling his image with potency.

Randidly remembered how he had sat in his room in the dark for long hours, afraid and confused by the long nights of laughter his mother had with strange men, even on weekdays. The way he would hide in his room while the men were there, even as he grew hungrier and hungrier. But he refused to allow himself to be dragged out and paraded out in front of them.

He remembered the men and their callous hands and their patronizing smiles and their eyes all for his mother. It igniting something hot and vicious inside of Randidly. Helpless, stuck, torn by emotions, dragged in 1000 directions…

As Randidly focused more and more on that small boy, his arms wrapped around his knees, sitting in the dark, the ticking grew louder and louder, almost to a deafening degree. With each tick the hours would slide past, the child’s hunger would grow more desperate and gnawing. But the laughter, tinkling and light, and low and dirty, grew louder and louder, a droning noise that began to rival the ticking.

Abruptly, Randidly became aware of the fact that he had been standing still, and he thrust out with his spear, not bothering to use Haste or Empower, just thrusting forward with the spear. And as he completed the motion, now much quicker than it had been when he trained before he went into the prison, there was no feedback, no cracking of the air, no vacuum created.

There was just silence, and a strange sensation in Randidly’s hand: that his spear was as heavy as the world. Randidly sighed, letting the silence grow. This was part of his image too, the powerful silence that surrounded that boy in the darkness. The ticking was scary, in a way, because it demonstrated the passing of time, and the inevitability of resisting time. But by the same token, the silence was even more horrifying.

Because in that silence, time could twist and morph, becoming an abomination that no longer obeyed objective rules, but stretched to fill subjective spaces. In that silence, that darkness, even a minute felt like an eternity.

The Aether was howling within him now, and he held that image in his mind for several minutes, feeling as thin tendrils of Aether split off and flowed down into his skills, strengthening them slowly.

After a while, the sensation ceased, and Randidly checked his status screen.

He had gained one Skill level in Spear Mastery, 2 in Empower, 1 in Body Control: Freeze, 3 in Engraving, 2 in Rejection, but then 7 in Battle Intent and 11 in the Inevitable Phantom Arrives.

Randidly distributed the PP he earned, netting 3 Resistance and Willpower, but as he made to stand afterward, his chest began to ache. Grimacing, Randidly sat back down and put his hand on the spot where his Soul Skill was whirling wildly inside of his chest. This wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous incident, but still. It felt like the kind of heartburn that could kill you, eating you from the inside out.

Luckily, it passed relatively quickly, but still it made Randidly annoyed. This wasn’t something that Randidly wanted to deal with right now. He would be participating in the tournament soon, and if it happened in the middle of a match…

This level was nothing. But Aether activity seemed to exacerbate the issue. In a tough match, there was a very real chance of the Soul Skill escalating beyond the point that Randidly could control. Based on this pain…

If the Soul Skill spun so fast it ripped itself apart…

Randidly wasn’t really sure about the physical consequences of the Aether backlash, but if it was just ripped out of his body…

Shuddering, Randidly meditated until the pain had passed.