Chapter 454 (2/2)
The Creature’s mouth twisted into a smile, “Is the parlay portion of the evening over? Excellent, onto the fun part.”
Like a sharp swimming among minnows, Randidly sensed the two probes sent by Lucretia ripping through his spinning wall of Aether like it was nothing. Very quickly, it had penetrated through ¼ of his defenses, heading straight for his Soul Space, aiming to establish a direct connection to him. Randidly didn’t doubt that at the same time, the assault in his Soul Skill grew more desperate.
He wished he had a few more seconds, to check in on them, to determine if there were any forms of assistance that he could give. But instead, he remained in the moment, his eyes narrowed. From his spatial ring, Randidly produced a pistol and raised it to aim at the Creature.
It clicked its tongue at him, amused. “A firearm, yes? You must be aware that such things would do little but destroy this pretty little body. So why bother? Do you have a plan-”
The probes had slowed somewhat, wary, but they still had gone through 60% of the outside of the maelstrom of Aether constructs, even as Randidly and Lucretia combined to churn out more and more. As he had expected, he was still far from the ability to repel her by simply relying on his Aether Skills. In that, he was a distant second to her.
Randidly fired the bullet. When it hit the Creature’s body, the capsule inside of it collapsed, and the Tellumurite continued with it ignited in the air. As Mrs. Hamilton had discovered and showed him, all that time ago, upon being released, there was a slow burn in an average person’s Aether, thick and impure and constrained as it was. But in pure Aether, it ignited in a second, burning it out of the air.
Even though he had prepared for it, the immediate conflagration and disappearance of his Aether seemed to knock the wind out of him. Immediately, he felt extremely weak. But his emerald eyes flashed in a pleased gleam; the Creature’s two probes had been annihilated in the explosion of his Aether.
If Randidly was somewhat knocked off his balance, the Creature was completely floored. It stood stock still, its face twisted and hideous, almost double as much as usual. Immediately, it recovered and sent three probes rushing towards him. All the while, Randidly had been flooding the air with more Aether, that Lucretia shaped in those same simple concepts to slow the Creature down. Calmly, Randidly raised his pistol again, taking aim once more.
The Creature’s probes paused, hesitating before it sank into the thick cloud of Aether around him. Grinning, Randidly produced more and more, thickening the air with energy, trying his best not to get carried away by the expanding energy.
After a time, at which he was more confident in holding against her for a few seconds, Randidly said, “... you were interested in my ability to create a Class because you have no way of obtaining more Aether than you already have, right? So you wanted to isolate yourself with a VIllage and do experiments, finding a way to obtain your own Aether through the System. Failing that… you would take mine.”
“Which is less than desirable at this point, because you are marked by the System,” The Creature finished, its face healing back to immaculate. But the Creature’s voice seemed tired now, and extremely acidic.
“It must have hurt you a lot to have lost those probes,” Randidly said slowly, unsure of how true that statement was. It was a loss for it, yes, but as to the extent of the damage… the Creature said nothing, nothing bothering to humor his fishing attempt. Undeterred, Randidly said, “I have to ask though… seeing my strength… why are you so intent on causing our Zone to fail, and fall off from the Earth? Did you ever consider combining forces to fight the System?”
Honestly, one of the worst-case scenarios was that the Creature would immediately agree it was a good idea, and ask to be allies against the System together. He already had to deal with Lucretia as a possible traitor constantly, and although that stress had become a constant, the Creature was an existence on an order of magnitude higher. Maintaining constant readiness against it…
Luckily, it shook its head, the blonde hair swaying. “You do not understand. There is… even together, although how that would not just be myself with you as cheerleaders I an unable to fathom, we cannot escape at this point. If the Calamity comes, it will take us all.”
“You cannot know that.” Randidly retorted, frowning.
“Ha, how foolish you are. If your puny planet passes the first three tests of the Calamity, and the final test descends… well, that fourth test might as well be an executioner’s blade. All of us will die.”