Chapter 453 (2/2)

If the Creature had pushed his Class towards having the ability to interact with Aether, it wanted him to get more powerful, and to develop ways to fight against the System. That, generally, made sense, as the Creature was clearly very anti-System, and his Zone 33 appeared to just be a casualty of its quest to avoid the System’s eyes.

After all, the Creature had empowered him. Sure, to its own ends, but those ends did involve the concentration of Aether on Earth. Simply, the methods that the Creature had employed would have too many casualties for Randidly to be satisfied with it. Which was why the thought of leaving the Creature here, with another 500 years or so, was unthinkable; what if she decided to just burst out of the dungeon, enacting another plan that Randidly wasn’t ready for, that would sacrifice Earth?

At the same time, the Creature needed a source of Aether, which was likely why it had taken the Regalia, bringing Randidly into its base. Only then, would it either obtain the coin he had from the early days or cause him to create a new one, giving it the Aether it truly needed.

Randidly’s thoughts were interrupted as he arrived in front of the giant Aether manipulation sculpture. At the base, there was a wide ramp that led up into the strange building's insides. The entire thing was lined with golden busts of Gemma. In spite of himself, and the situation, Randidly snorted, then he began to climb the ramp.

The closer he got, the more he realized that the scale of the thing was far beyond his imagining. The inner sculpture was so large that a smaller city could fit within its space. The other notable feature of it was that the closer he drew, the more the air began to howl. Although it was primarily designed to manipulate the Aether in the air in some way, it also drew the air along with it, causing strange wind currents in the air above him.

Randidly took several terse minutes to study the Aether, part of him impatient to continue on, but Randidly recognized that was his stress, and not that a few extra minutes would have much meaning. He gained several Levels in Aether Understanding, but he was still unable to figure out what the thing was supposed to do. It seemed to be skimming just the top bit of Aether from everything around, but then it rejected that skimmed portion and only allowed the bottom portion into space.

However, when it came to understanding the purpose… Randidly was still a fair bit off from that.

The inner hall was done in obsidian, and Randidly crossed a walkway that appeared to be made from cast iron, only to look down. Below him was a deep, deep hole, leading down into darkness. Across from him, on the opposite side of the circle, was a ramp, one that spiraled downwards slowly, rotating around the outside of the middle circle, also disappearing into the darkness.

Randidly felt a pang in his heart; this would have likely been much easier if he had brought the Grey Death Cultist into this thing, to help with this nonsense. But, it’s not like Randidly didn’t have his own tools.

Focusing his will, Randidly pulled on the nearby plant life, bringing out something in the shape of a Root Spiderling, only much larger. Then he enlarged it further, double strengthening the legs so that they were thick with vines and roots, springy and tough, so thick that they dwarfed most trees.

Then, while he sat on his back, Randidly focused again, and a small cage of roots surrounded him, with just enough room to see through. Then, just for good measure, he strengthened the legs once more, pumping more and more Mana into them.

With emerald eyes, Randidly grinned and had his small contraption leap off of the walkway and begin its descent.

Although he probably could have just dead stopped at the bottom, Randidly didn’t really see the purpose of finding out whether or not his body was strong enough to survive a drop that had him reaching terminal velocity, and instead had the spider thing leap towards the wall, its legs latching briefly onto the solid patches of wall and propelling itself towards the other time, so that it fell, but its speed was continually checked.

There was the awkward moment that Randidly leaped towards a spot where the outside was spiraling downward, and he had to elongate the legs, pressing and launching again in quick succession, carefully controlling the exertions of strength so that the spider thing wouldn’t be set to spinning.

Not that dizziness was a real issue, but it would be incredibly annoying to stop, once it had started.

For the first time in a long time, while maintaining an accounting for so many different variables during the fall, Randidly felt the limit of his current Control. Recently, it had been so high that he hadn’t even need to question whether he could manage certain tasks. But now, doing this…

To his surprise, it took almost 3 minutes of falling to reach the bottom. Randidly said a very thankful prayer that he hadn’t decided to try and walk down here. Just imagining how long that would take made him realize how long it must have taken to dig this hole this deep.

At the bottom, there was a wide bronze door, and beyond that, there was a room shaped like the bottom of the Roman arena: there was a dirt floor, and the walls were lined with dropped portcullises, behind which monsters undoubtedly waited. The walls around those opening were intricately carved, depicting strange monsters and the sharp, angular form that was somewhat similar to angels. Pictured front and center was some sort of slender dog with bat wings.

Two figures stood in the center of the arena, waiting. One of the figures smiled at his arrival. “Ah, so we can finally begin.”