Chapter 1055 (2/2)

Not that his sphere of detection was very wide. But there simply wasn’t much around him. So Randidly settled down and prepared to wait for his foe to arrive.

And then, over the course of the next six hours, Randidly was taught an extremely aggravating lesson: Not all defensive missions involved engaging with an enemy. Sometimes, all you needed to do was head out into the vast darkness and repeatedly destabilize the blue veins that flowed through the surrounding air.

Without the threat of Nether beasts, the mission dragged on even longer than either of Randidly’s previous two sorties. Time seemed endless in the darkness. After a certain point, Randidly stopped destroying the blue veins that sometimes swam curiously around him. At least staring at their strange movements provided some small amusement.

In addition to the wide expanse of monotony, the slow and bitter resistance against Nether’s corruption was especially exhausting. Perhaps even more so than it would have been normally because the exertion was so relatively light. It couldn’t be described as easy, but it also wasn’t difficult. It was just… constant exertion.

Randidly couldn’t get his tension up at all to face this thin Nether. In small spurts, he would focus his mind enough to cause waves of ash to radiate out from his body, but the effort didn’t seem worth it.

Inwardly, he vowed never to allow himself to fall prey to his cautious attitude again; this test of endurance was completely intolerable. Even worse, he could suddenly hear very clearly Iellaya saying that there was about a 20% chance that the location they were sent to in the Great Rift would be so remote that no Nether beasts would bother to defend it.

So Randidly did his best to refine his image while fighting off the fearsome opponents of boredom and darkness. Perhaps even worse, every time Randidly would resign himself to his situation and take a breath, something would begin to resonate in his chest. The sudden sensation was such a surprise that he was knocked out of his trance and completely destroyed the resonance.

With only five Levels of his new Skill Nether Acclimation to show for it, Randidly was replaced by another and sent back to the camp.

There, at least, Randidly was met with excitement.

The very sky seemed to have cracked far to the East. Those thick golden shapes that had so often passed in the sky previously were completely gone. The light orange of the sky seemed pale and thin, and the maroon clouds had darkened to dried blood. Thin tendrils of blackness lined with thick veins of blue wormed their way deeper into the sky from the Great Rift. Randidly took several heavy steps away from the staging area and joined a slowly increasing crowd who were staring upward toward the sky with worried expressions.

Those threads of blackness continued to writhe in the sky above, speaking to their continued offensive against the Aether of this place. The visual variance on the ground was even more aggravating than usual. When looking at the grim faces around him, it was immediately clear to Randidly that this wasn’t a usual occurrence.

It took a few seconds for Randidly to spot her, but he very quickly scanned the crowd and saw Lady Iellaya standing in the shadow of a tent at the far side of the staging area. She stood with her hands folded and her obsidian feathers pressed tightly down against her scalp and neck. The familiar form of Abiodun loomed next to her, an even deeper blackness in the shadow marked only by the unpredictable light of his eyes.

Iellaya’s lips moved and Randidly surprised himself with his ability to read them. “Lord Miln is a fool.”

Even more surprising to Randidly was the fact that even as Abiodun’s mouth barely moved, he could clearly intuit the words he was saying. “Should I voice a criticism? If it does not come from you-”

Iellaya’s expression turned bitter. The feathers on her head twitched. “It matters not. Even if we cannot afford a loss on this front, those who already possess citizenship always choose to take the long view of these things. The flood of new recruits are being tempered, he will say. A loss of a single camp means nothing.”

Leaning forward, Abiodun said. “Was the entire camp lost?”

“Thankfully not, or I would have proceeded over there myself and damn the consequences. It would actually be a relief to strike at their Leviathans.” Iellaya showed her teeth. The feathers along her neck spread outward. “But a Nether Well used a corrupted image to travel back to the staging area. It expended itself to radically destabilized the space on this side of the line. It will take weeks to repair, and I suspect that Lord Miln won’t bother to spend the Aether required to do it. He has found other uses for it, apparently.”

Abiodun made a sharp gesture that Randidly wasn’t able to spot through the crowd. Immediately, Iellaya shook her head. “I don’t know the Commander over there; he’s new as well. Better to continue to strengthen our position here then try to expand.”

Before Randidly’s eyes, Abiodun nodded and then faded into the shadows next to the tent, leaving Iellaya alone. The feathered woman continued to stare upward for several more seconds, considering the invasion of blackness that was slowly eating into the brightly covered sky over the forces of Aether.

Briefly, Randidly wondered what would happen if Aether actually lost this war. Based on the forces he had encountered so far, Randidly could only manage to be a soldier here. Even with his main body, he held no secret hopes that he would be able to affect the outcome of this confusing war in a short amount of time.

Perhaps the most frustrating part about being here is that so many of the battles had been fought alone. Fighting on this front was about influence over space, rather than about any real combat between individuals. It was more important to establish territory and weaken the opposition's grip on their own area. Therefore, Randidly hadn’t seen the strength of anyone-

Of course, right as Randidly was thinking that he saw Iellaya gesture sharply with her hand. Distantly above, so distantly that Randidly almost believed that he had imagined it, the sharp cry of an eagle rippled across the strange maroon clouds.

To Randidly’s disbelief, one of the tendrils of blackness up in the sky was cleanly chopped off. It began to lean and fall toward the ground, slowly dissipating as it crashed downward. It was difficult to get a sense of scale from here, but by comparing it to the looming rocky outcropping of the headquarters, that huge chunk of blackness was the size of a skyscraper.

When Randidly looked back down toward Iellaya, she was smiling at him. Then she calmly turned and walked back toward the Commander’s tent.