Chapter 810 (1/2)

Drawing the vast sea of energy that he had gathered from Tellus to himself took Randidly quite a while. In fact, it took so long that he very nearly thought that he had missed his chance to alter the course of his Soulskill.

The pain in his chest began to pulse with increasing regularity as he struggled to manage the tides of power. All the while, Randidly sat with gritted teeth and funneled more and more energy into his body. The problem was the same one that he had encountered when spreading Aether throughout Earth; energy movement was a cascading phenomenon.

The more of the stuff he moved, the more he had to resist its urge to accelerate even further. Honestly, Randidly had a secret worry that if he allowed the energy suction to cascade, he would end up draining Tellus dry. He wasn’t willing to completely turn this place in an energy desert just because of a Soulskill situation that he himself caused. Such was the heavy weight of responsibility.

It was a game of tug-of-war on a tightrope. Every second seemed to stretch. More and more energy went inside his body, where the strange egg that was born of his broken Skills waited.

This would be the seed of the new world. His world. But he needed the energy in order to force it to grow.

And not just his own energy. He would need the Soulskill’s assistance as well.

But one hurdle at a time.

Finally, the last of the energy slithered into Randidly and he sealed his body to prevent any leakage. Already, the ground on which he sat had been crystallized in a strange wave formation. For the rest of Tellus’ existence, it was likely that this spot would remain a mystery as to what caused the strange crystallization phenomenon. Maybe he was sitting on the site of a future paleontological dig.

Or perhaps they wouldn’t wonder as to the cause, Randidly reflected. After all, word would spread that this was the spot on which the Wights were defeated.

Keeping himself sealed was difficult, so Randidly devoted a lot of Willpower to holding the energy within him. Slowly, he could feel the interior of his Soul Space changing, which was a good sign. Just also a dangerous one. But now wasn’t really the time to worry about the consequences. With the energy handled for the moment, Randidly finally dropped into his Soulskill.

What he found was devastation. The people of the upper lands struggled to rebuild their lives after the Procession had descended through them and took everything required to survive, leaving the remnants practically nothing. Some fled, trying to follow the Procession. Most of those died on the journey. It was just impossible to continue in the wake of that disaster.

There were some small to medium-sized communities outside of the Procession that survived. But Randidly was horrified to see that the experience of dealing with the Procession twisted those communities into extremist communes. Religious elements ruled the roost there, relying on superstition and fear to keep the people under their control.

Aside from the lowest Land, all lands were filled with vast stretches of countryside that were just lying fallow. Discarded farm equipment and trampled towns dotted the landscape. Likely they would heal in a generation or two as vegetation reclaimed the space, but… it was just spooky.

No longer was solely the highest Land haunted by ghosts.

And in the lowest Land, there was war.

Randidly breathed in and breathed out. He felt the fabric of the Soulskill. Then he stepped and reached out with a hand that surrounded his target like a net. “Gotcha.”

Lyra’s reaction was quick, but this time Randidly was prepared to deal with her. His fingers were every root and vine in this entire world. His was the wind and the skies. There was nowhere she could escape.

She was in the middle of beating up a group of people led by the Monster Prince who wore his face. That was somewhat amusing for Randidly to see. For all her other faults, being weak was not a problem Lyra possessed. When Randidly intervened, the Monster Prince flinched as if expecting another blow to smash him backward.

Randidly favored him with a withering glance. Snot-nosed brat. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

Seeing that the Monster Prince was just staring, Randidly turned back to Lyra. Pouting, she threw her hands up into the air.

“Doggy, you’ll never believe how cathartic this is! Punching someone with your face-”

Randidly shook her once, jarring her soul painfully. Although she wasn’t here physically, she had split off a portion of her soul to slip into his Soulskill. He couldn’t inflict any real damage to her, but harming this bit of Lyra would definitely cause her no end of pain. But honestly, that wasn’t Randidly’s goal.

Perhaps satisfying, but ultimately only a short term satisfaction.