Chapter 571 (1/2)

It was like a rose bloom of Aether slowly unfolding in the sky. After it spread to its full height, the petals would wilt and fall away, spreading to the distant reaches of Zone 1. Randidly did some quick calculations and was aghast to sense how wide the Creature’s Aether would spread. Logically, he understood that after he had severed the source of Aether in what remained of the Creature’s body, the connection between them was finished. What was floating around now was simply ambient Aether. But to feel the distinct touch of the Creature in the Aether…

It wasn’t a good feeling.

Likely, this would end up being a boon for Zone 1 in the short term. The extra Aether in the air would fuel growth for all manner of Classes and Skills. It had a distinct flavor that was more cumbersome to manipulate than Randidly’s own, but it was still much, much better than the System’s Aether.

In a very perfunctory way, Randidly removed a bit of debris from his hair and stared glumly at the Aether explosion.

Because that knife they had worked so hard for, for six months? It had destroyed nothing but a gateway. Randidly had these terrible images of the Creature in his head when he had struck, but that version of the Creature had been reduced to nothing but a mouth. Randidly recognized the state the Creature was in; he himself had almost been caught up in something similar when he pumped out Aether so his Zone could last a little longer before the Raid Dungeon.

There was a… catharsis to pushing Aether out of one's body into the air in that way. It was easy to lose oneself to that feeling, and miss the current of Aether that began to form, out of you and into the air. So much so that Randidly had felt keenly if he had let himself go a little bit farther, he would have been unable to stop. The momentum would control you.

Just like the Creature had somehow been made to push out Aether, and then was unable to stop.

Lucretia suggested that it was a ploy to draw out that weapon they had worked on, and it was a successful one. The Creature had left a lesser version of itself to find. After all, that insectoid machine seemed to be possessed by the Creature. But Neveah’s opinion hung silently in the mental space. Neveah understood Aether and its mysterious. That body that they destroyed was the real thing.

If the Creature remained, it had cut itself off to any supply of Aether. It was just… a being, a regular monster.

Tykes and Dinesh stood near Randidly, waiting. Tykes expression was surly, and he was constantly flexing his hand. Apparently, the fighting had grown so intense that Tykes had been injured, and forced to use some of his more revealing Skill to hold out against the strange swarm of exosuits that had descended upon them.

They noticed three types. The basic cannon fodder type, a larger version that possessed cannons mounted on the shoulders, and the leader, which had used its blue energy mode to blow past Dinesh and Tykes to confront Randidly. It was the middle types which had given Tykes and Dinesh so many problems.

All the while, Randidly couldn’t help but wonder where all the pilots of the exosuits came from. It was clear that they were affiliated with the Unity Church, but how could they train so many individuals and produce so many exosuits without someone noticing? And how the hell were they all so uniform in the way they fought?

Randidly’s curiosity drove him to pull the helmet off of one rather intact body, and all he saw was how young the girl that was piloting it was before he turned away. Disgust. How could the Unity Church weaponize teenagers?

But what recourse did he have now, after he killed their leader? Should he attack their base directly?

That was probably the best bet long term, but he was slightly leery of fighting more children. No, perhaps he should lie low for a few days, see how the Unity Church responds, and then make use of his identity as Baloo Erickson to physically investigate one of the refugee camps?

What a fucking hassle.

The three men stood and stared at the remnants of the large base, which had been largely destroyed in the explosion. It just seemed so… tedious to Randidly. In the past, his enemy was always a boss or the Creature. Slaying that meant that he had won. And yet after killing Father Foster, Randidly didn’t feel like anything would change. There were no doubt lieutenants who knew the terrible organ harvesting that they were doing, and enjoyed the benefit of it. They would continue to do it.

The technology had been created. Pandora’s Box couldn’t just be simply closed.

Sighing, Randidly turned away. It was time to go home.

While they were running back under the cover of Dinesh’s illusions, Randidly considered what he had gained over the past several weeks.