Chapter 248 (1/2)

Blink.

Images of Drak and his… associate Liam disappeared, and Randidly found himself deep, deep within a strange viscous black. There was only darkness, all around, and the cage. The cage couldn’t be seen, but Randidly knew somehow, instinctively, that it was there, blinding him.

Time seemed to flow past, and Randidly was carried around, and the thin stream of energy he produced was syphoned off, elsewhere. This continued, and continued, until the day that the cage broke. This brought Randidly a great joy, but at the same time, the cage had kept him from sinking deeper into the darkness. Without it, he began to slip down and away.

But at the last moment, he saw a pinprick of light in the black and reached for it. They touched.

Suddenly Randidly was syphoned away, and found himself in a new blackness. This place was smaller, in terms of space at first, but it was constantly growing. Randidly fed his energy into this new blackness, filling it, even as it grew, demanding more and more. Luckily, now that the cage was gone, the limitations on Randidly releasing energy was gone, and he created more and more.

Too much. Very soon, the black space was full, and the energy began to pack downwards, condensing into a liquid energy form. And then it filled up around him, even the liquid, more compact form still being too much for this space. It was expanding far too slowly.

So Randidly was submerged in his own energy, and began to feel profoundly sleepy. His eyelids drifted downwards. The pressure…. It closed in on him, slowly sealing off his sense of this black space, and leaving only…

But then, something brushed up against Randidly. A current. An eddy in the liquid energy. His eyelids fluttered.

The flowing began again, more insistent, more volume of energy moving. And with that movement, Randidly struggled, and found the strength to open his eyes. He saw a wide darkness, and to his surprise, himself, sitting in the darkness, his eyes closed. Other Randidly had an extremely pained face, and opened his eyes slowly, too.

“You must…. give to others…”

Randidly blinked in surprise. He remembered saying this, in the darkness created by the Creature. And the thing that was speaking…

Yes, here. Give.

Randidly’s chest vibrated, confirming that the… other that was connected to him had witnessed everything too, and knew what needed to be done here. Then why-

Ah. Randidly smiled ruefully. So he could see… from the perspective of the creature that was in his chest. That it really was something with intelligence. That it knew it was stuck inside Randidly, and was overall… very thankful.

The dream Randidly nodded slowly. “To connect… us all….”

Us.

US.

Randidly snapped awake, his skin absolutely burning, feeling like it was on fire. He tried to straighten, pushing himself up off the ground, but it seemed that the skin of his cheek had melted, fusing to the molten rock of the ring beneath him. His whole body was screaming in agony, and waves of pain crashed down on him. The heat too, was an oppressive weight, physically grinding away at him.

As he tried again to move, Randidly realized that he was much weaker than he realized; he wasn’t sure how long he had been out, but it had reduced his health to around 25% through sheer heat through that time.

Instantly, he activated Golden Roots of Yggdrasil, feeling that energy from the core of this world flowing up into him, healing him as rapidly as his body could manage. Bacterial Regeneration was working as hard as it could, but seemed to be largely neutralized by the high heat.

With no other choice, Randidly ripped his head upwards, long chunks of skin lying on the ground, burning and sizzling. He was on his hands and knees, and those weren’t much better. Only after 5 minutes and several ripping, agonizing struggles, did Randidly manage to ascend to his feet. The bottoms of his feet instantly began to scream in protest, but Randidly had no time to bother with them.

While manipulating Living Blood as best he could to heal the worst of the damage in any small way, Randidly looked around. He was… already on the 9th circle, his leap apparently carrying him one deeper into the trial than he needed to go. With more effort than Randidly would have believed, he raised his gaze and looked at the floating face of lava and stone.