Chapter 1007 (1/2)
Randidly’s mouth twisted into a grimace as his head continued to pound. I knew raising the demands on All Else Succumbs would hurt, but actually going through the activation of the Skill… plus with the accumulated damage from the process of forcing Nether Resistance to increase in Skill Level… And now…
With a hand that trembled from accumulated mental strain, Randidly reached out and touched the final square stone that had been a part of his tower experiment. There was a poof of air and the stone disappeared, brought to the assembly site within Randidly’s Soulskill where Wendy continued to diligently work herself to the bone in order to accomplish Randidly’s assigned tasks.
Honestly, Randidly was a bit worried about her. In the beginning, he had set a pretty brutal pace in order to tease her, but she had stoically accomplished all of the tasks well within his very optimistic deadlines. She was working herself with a zombie-like fervor that even Randidly found somewhat intimidating.
She must really enjoy the project… Randidly thought as he sprawled out on the ground and looked up at the sky. It was another cloudless day in the Dungeon. Laying as he was directly below the edge of the plateau, no wind came here. The temperature was ideal; when he closed his eyes, Randidly couldn’t tell where his body ended and the air around him began.
For several seconds, he simply savored the feeling of being intimately connected to the surrounding world.
Although Randidly hadn’t been able to improve his own images much, he had still been slowly learning how to recognize lessor images present in the world. His sensitivity was initially numbed by the constant exposure to the image of timelessness, but as he learned to balance that force with his own images, a strange sort of clarity came to him.
Perhaps it was because he could use the image of timelessness to check his own images that Randidly had long subconsciously released into the surrounding area. But Randidly felt shadows of old images that once ruled this land. In quiet moments like these, those shadows seemed to shiver and seep out to brush against Randidly’s skin.
The bold and bright gallantry of the monkeys. The modest determination of the Ki-Kunot’s heron people. The speculative patience held by the poisonous toads. The geography that Randidly had steamrolled might have been erased, but the spirits of the different people that once inhabited this land weren’t so easy to eradicate.
Randidly opened his eyes and looked down at the sparkling glove of Chulroon. The energy flow Engravings on the metal gleamed with Mana as Randidly used them to manipulate his replacement limb. The individual pieces of chainmail shimmered dully in the light of the sun. Honestly, the result of his arm remake was very satisfying.
Everything is finished here… the Riders have gathered everything they can… Randidly reflected. Then he checked his absolute timing.
There were three minutes remaining in his self-imposed year time limit.
“Has it really been a year already?” Randidly asked the sky. Truly, it would be too easy to hide away in a Dungeon and let the exterior problems fade away to a stretched out future. Plus, as Randidly’s experiments with Engravings grew more intense and intricate, it seemed like the avenues he had to advance grew more diverse every day. Even despite the diminishing returns to his other Skills, Engraving was a wondrous wonderland of knowledge he was just now approaching.
Yet the isolated genius was not the Path he had chosen. The Crown of Upheaval and Gloom hummed in pleasure at the firm declaration he carried with him.
After all, Randidly was the Lord of the Baleful Wood. And it was after a year here in the Dungeon that he finally felt comfortable bearing the full weight of that mantle. It was not just an individual image that he carried. Behind him was an entire court.
With a light hop, Randidly flung himself to his feet. His gaze swung outward, taking in the 860 Riders that waited patiently around him. His mouth curled upward into a mocking grin. “Fine then, it’s time to ride. Let’s confine ourselves to just this Dungeon no longer.”
His Rider’s didn’t smile or rejoice. After all, they were beings that were born of Randidly Ghosthound; they were cut from a stoic cloth. But they rode after him with wide eyes, like a murder of crows gliding toward a battlefield, with their mouths open just slightly.
*****
“Tatiana? There is something that you need to see.”
Tatiana didn’t bother to stifle her yawn in response to the barking terminal. Although her sleep had been interrupted once again, her assistant hadn’t sounded too worried. So she took her time stretching her arms up above her head until her shoulders released a satisfying pop. Then she twisted her torso around, savoring the series of spine-tingling cracks she earned there.
Only then did Tatiana rub her eyes and wander over to the terminal itself. “Bring it up on the screen?”
“Screen’s way too small,” Came the slightly tinny response. “You should get dressed and head up to the outer wall.”
For a split second, Tatiana didn’t move. It felt like someone had shoved a needle made of ice deep into her heart. Too small? Something that I need to see? The tingling numbness woke her up immediately. Tatiana drummed her fingers nervously against the edge of the keyboard below the terminal. “Understood. Two minutes.”
Why the hell did I just assume that Helen would take care of the monster problem…? Tatiana thought furiously. I should have at least told her to investigate. But to just assume she had it handled when she was wandering around… fuck! And now...