Chapter 1053 (2/2)

From there, Randidly shifted toward the Ashen Kata. These moves were much less refined and smooth, but they were built on a monstrously powerful base of Aether that elevated them far beyond their technical strength. Randidly could see now how he had relied on Aether for much of the move’s potency, a lot like those images today let themselves be inflated by the Aether Fountain. But still, there was value in revisiting the seeds for what he would soon become.

After all, Randidly still was unsure of exactly what the current him was. But he couldn't deny that the Grim Chimera was intimately related to his current existence.

The air around Randidly stirred as he used his right arm and moved through the old motions. Fragments of images that he had forgotten floated into the air around him. The face of his mother, half flesh and half bone, staring out as his phantom. The ominous ticking of a clockwork world as a doom slowly approached. The curling smile of Aemont, his broad back and wild determination spreading away from him like wings.

Although Randidly had no body with which to physically breath, he found himself panting after transitioning through the moves. Perhaps it was the weight of memories that dragged at him, but that wouldn’t slow Randidly for long. This was only a warm-up.

Randidly's eyes glowed emerald as he began to move through the motions of the Grim Chimera. His muscles bulged outward. The joints of his legs flexed and pulsed. Small motes of ash began to drift outward from his body. Although he couldn't sense it, Randidly was almost positive that there was a connection of Aether between himself and the main body. Otherwise, even with Yggdrasil's help, he wouldn't have recovered so quickly.

Now, moving through the vicious and desperate movements of the Grim Chimera, Randidly pulled as much as he could at that connection.

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Avoidance has grown to Level 200!

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Appetite of a Wraith has grown to Level 251!

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Appetite of a Wraith has grown to Level 252!

Congratulations! Your Skill Monstrosity's Appalling Physicality has grown to Level 220!

Congratulations! Your Skill Reaper's Mantle of Catastrophe has grown to Level 99!

Randidly pulled and pulled and pulled. His body began to blur further as he accelerated through motions. He hardly had to think at all before his body instinctively moved. In the Grim Chimera's moves, Randidly found a familiarity that made it difficult for him to try and claim that he wasn't something deeply connected to the Grim Chimera. While performing these moves, Randidly felt completely at ease. To the point that it was illogical.

Because Randidly remembered the feeling of using the moves while he had possessed the main body. Or at least he thought he did. And the ease with which he could grow now was extremely high. His Skill Levels continued to shoot up at a pace that would be ridiculous if he were still on Earth.

It might be his imagination, but it seemed to Randidly that the flow of Aether into himself was slowly growing as he continued to so insistently pull on it.

Congratulations! Your Skill Molten Fang of the Pariah has grown to Level 189!

Congratulations! Your Skill Man is Proud, but the Chimera Takes has grown to Level 171!

Congratulations! Your Skill The Chimera Weeps as Man Mourns has grown to Level 155!

Main body, watch me grow, Randidly thought as his body became a veritable whirlwind of ash in that abandoned strip of land between camps. Although I might not have all of the tools at your disposal, I'll prove my worth by growing so strong that you won't even believe it. So strong that it will never be in doubt how much you need me-!

Congratulations! Your Skill Monstrosity's Appalling Physicality has grown to Level 221!

Congratulations! Your Skill Molten Fang of the Pariah has grown to Level 190!

”For an image... you are extremely strong. Incredibly so. Even the visual fluctuations caused by the Great Rift are diminished around you.”

Randidly froze. Then he blurred into motion once more, spinning around and opening up some space between him and the speaker with a light hop.

Three figures had appeared in that same no man's land between the two camps. The woman in the center watched him with extremely amused azure eyes that matched the waterfall of hair that went from her scalp to the ground behind her. On her hands were a pair of thick metal gauntlets, so heavy and worn that they were likely older by far than she was. At her side were two men, one tall and broad-shouldered and the other slender and slight. Both wore short capes around their shoulders that were the same color as the woman's hair.

And most annoyingly, Randidly could immediately sense that the implication of the woman's words was true: all three possessed their actual bodies.