Chapter 1040 (1/2)

Randidly who-might-just-be the Grim Chimera spent two days in quiet meditation as he got used to his current surroundings. Even though he could manage the strange visuals of this place, he still had a lot of investigations to do in regards to his own status and capabilities. This place was a warzone; one of the most dangerous mistakes he could make was to forget that.

What is within, without. What is without, within. If I don’t even understand my self… it will be that much more difficult to survive here.

So Randidly approached the problem of what he could do very seriously. For now, he decided that it was for the best if he set aside the question of what exactly he was. He also would have liked to speak with the incarnation of Yggdrasil and Ignition of the Emerald Essence, but both immediately collapsed into a deep sleep upon arriving in their assigned tent. Randidly also had a secret fear that they would soon wake up and transform into versions of Randidly, thereby proving that the current Randidly was nothing but the Grim Chimera wearing Randidly’s face.

Following this line of thought, Randidly tried to image his own face made of the bark on Yggdrasil’s trunk. Then he tried to picture his face floating above an emerald flame. Certainly… a bit more off-putting than intimidating. But until the images woke up, those issues would need to wait.

Therefore, Randidly was on his own for now.

What he discovered in his experiments was that while he couldn’t access his Soulspace, he could still train all of the Grim Chimera specific Skills. Rather than having any sort of ability to detect Aether of directly examine his Soulspace, Randidly seemed to have returned to the days of earning a rather bland notification when he had gathered enough experience for his Skills to grow. Randidly shook his head the first time it happened.

Congratulations! Your Skill Reaper’s Mantle of Catastrophe has grown to Level 93!

Clicking his tongue, Randidly closed his eyes and continued to get a feel for the way that the Grim Chimera Skills flowed through his body. Because they certainly felt natural in a way that they hadn’t previously. Which made a certain amount of sense; this body was constructed to use the Grim Chimera’s Skills. All the movements and energy expressions that Randidly had to painstaking learn in his human body were completely natural to this body.

In addition to checking in on his capabilities mentally, Randidly also wanted to spend some time actually getting used to the movements of this body. His mind responded instinctively when he wished for a certain movement, but that didn’t change the fact that a lot of the actual mechanics of this body were different. It was mostly human, but the joints of Randidly’s new knees were revered so that they bent backward.

In addition, one of his arms was an oversized claw and the other was simply a bone spear covered in dried blood.

It shouldn’t be a problem to fight, but Randidly would rather not discover that he was wrong while he was standing in front of a monster of the Nether.

The real reason that Randidly hadn’t gone out to get a feel for the body yet was that even with Randidly’s now limited senses, he was quite sure that practically none of the surrounding spirits that he had sensed within the nearby tents had moved since Zagnal had led them here. The aisles between the tents had remained completely clear; none of the other spirits had seen any reason to wander out of their temporary resting places.

Rather than a camp for mustering an army, this place seemed more like a graveyard done in grey canvas.

In addition, Randidly was mindful of the fact that if not for whatever process had brought Randidly conscious in the Grim Chimera, he would likely be as completely insensible as both Yggdrasil and Ignition Essence currently were in the wake of being torn away from his body. Randidly didn’t believe that they would investigate the image too closely now that his real body was isolated in that chamber, but that didn’t mean he was willing to take that risk of alerting them to the fact something wasn’t going as it should.

The System really seemed determined to fuck Heretics over. Randidly sudden felt like it might be the most desirable option to simply serve out his sentence peacefully and leave without the System noticing the change in his images.

Assuming, of course, that the System truly planned on honoring the time limit of the punishment. Which, because Randidly was considered to be ignorant of the actual reason for his presence, hadn’t been given to him.

Honestly, the situation doesn’t look good.

Without Randidly even being able to witness how they had accomplished it, Randidly already had a deep respect for their ability to shape Aether. He couldn’t even imagine what sort of Aether constructs would be used to extract and manifest images like this. Without being given a chance to examine the relevant Aether constructs, Randidly probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out on his own even if he had one hundred years.

And really, it was exactly Aether Detection that Randidly sorely missed as he sat in his small tent and focused on exploring his current capabilities. All that information that he obtained by using Aether Detection was now suddenly gone. He felt incredibly limited.

Still, there was a silver lining to the fact he had been torn from his body and didn’t have access to most of his Skills; this body wasn’t completely numb to Aether.

Perhaps it was because the Grim Chimera was such a creature of paranoia and survival, but its body had an instinctive sense of the presence of Aether in the surrounding area. Not anything specific, but it was certainly useful. It felt somewhat similar to the ambient heat that radiated outward from an open flame. So while Randidly couldn’t figure out what sort of Aether hijinks were occurring, he did eventually discover that the tent itself in which they were currently located was heavily covered in Aether constructs.

If he sat near to the edges of the tent for too long, a strange anxiety began to creep into his heart. Which reinforced his unwillingness to attempt to leave the tent when he could sense no others doing so.

So he continued to meditate while sitting in the exact middle of the tent. And likely would have done so until he was called to the front lines by Zagnal, if he hadn’t been rather suddenly struck with wariness on the third morning. Cotton and fuzz seemed to press down over Randidly from every direction. Such was the intensity of the sleepiness that Randidly could only grit his teeth and then slump to the side.

Did I reveal myself somehow? Was the Aether in the tent some sort of observation based construct? All the things that Randidly didn’t know became prickly balls of frustration in his chest as sleep swept him away.