Chapter 1108 (2/2)
Valor also refocused as Vye continued to twitch so obviously as the energy ran rampant through her body. He pushed his golden blonde hair back away from his eyes. “Eager to start, Vye? This time, I solemnly swear that I will overcome you.”
Vye rolled her eyes, not even bothering to answer. All three shifted from foot to foot in expectation and turned their focus to Naffur. Very soon, he would ask for an explanation of the image stones and one of them would be chosen to walk forward through the image as though it was nothing to them so the new arrivals would be suitably impressed. Of course, it really was nothing to approach now compared to the original strength of the image stones.
Ajax had let them known to be prepared last night before they even left to track down the Raid Bosses. It was just part of a broader strategy to demonstrate Kharon’s strength for the newcomers, so they understood what they were up against. And also so word of the impossibilities of the Order Ducis would spread.
But in the short term, it was a harsh lesson to teach these recent arrivals how hard it would be to stay in this recruitment camp for the Order Ducis.
Yet just as Naffur finished speaking and his eyes moved toward Vye, the electricity made her shudder once more. All the power that had shot outward through her limbs was suddenly spiraling back to gather in her core. Abruptly, there was this terrible weight on her chest and she couldn’t breathe. She could only watch Naffur move slowly to meet her gaze.
Am I… having a heart attack? I thought most normal ailments were just cleared up by the System… Vye panicked as she found herself unable to move her body. The electricity in her limbs continued to build as her body rigidly refused to move. Larger and larger, pulses of power blasted outward from the tight ball in her chest. Frantically, her mind carefully examined the food she had so casually eaten in the last several months, cursing herself for not really caring about calories or fat content.
No… I… Tears formed in Vye’s eyes as her only possible movement was blinking. I refuse… like this...Not like this…
Don’t let this be all you ever accomplish.
Vye heard once more. Clenching her teeth so tightly that her jaw began to ache, Vye wished she could scream at the fucked up energy that bound her.
I will NEVER give up.
Then the pressure was gone and she collapsed to her knees feeling extremely light. Her body seemed practically insubstantial as Vye tried to recover her bearings. Strangely, when she looked up, she thought she saw the figure of Randidly Ghosthound walking forward toward the image stones. His steps left the impression of boots in the mud. For a brief moment, he stopped and smiled over his shoulder at her. And then he continued forward to press his hand up against the stone.
Something so much more powerful than the electricity passed through Vye’s body then, worming its way into her body and then metaphysically ripping itself out of her chest and out into the world. Even as her vision went empty and spotty, she could feel the huge, impossible darkness that stretched between Randidly and herself as she knelt there on the ground and he reached out to touch the image stone. They were intrinsically connected.
Or to put it another way, they were one. That strange darkness bridged the distance between them and there were no lines between their existences.
As they brushed like this, Vye was suddenly swimming in Randidly’s mind. She could not hear his thoughts or emotions, but she could see an endless string of memories leading back into the past. Every emotion or action he had ever taken, stored as memories like some sort of DNA for his personality. Those brief moments of memory began to flicker in front of Vye’s eyes, too quickly for her to follow or truly understand. Yet some whole of them seemed to be coalescing inside of Vye’s core as she was exposed to them.
Suddenly she understood his determination. She saw the long and agonizing moments of his struggle. Vye saw how difficult the Path was that Randidly had to follow in order to rise to this point. The horrible lows he had experienced at the hands of the powers of the System had taught him valuable lessons that he refused to forget. She felt the bitterness he felt as he could only lower his head and endure his situation. For years. The memories of his thoughts while he struggled against that task of enduring flowed around Vye. And one of them…
Don’t let this be all you ever accomplish. The inky black connection between them pulsed with power.
And suddenly, she was Randidly, standing in front of the image stone with her hand on it. Once more, her body possessed weight, but this heaviness was so terrible that Vye was inwardly shocked. The image leaking out from the stone in front of her seemed fragile and mild to her sensitivities. Which, considering that these stones were made by Randidly-
The situation was exceedingly strange. Electricity danced through her body. Somehow, she seemed to be Vye, but this was clearly Randidly’s perspective. Perhaps the worst part was not the strange heaviness that his presence added to her body, but the weight it gave her attention. The heavy shift of his focus eviscerated Vye's mind with spikes of pain as he poured over the state of the three images in the stones. The raw weight behind his Willpower…
Then, Randidly or Vye or whatever mixture of them that stood before the image stone grinned. A hand reached across the void, through Vye’s body, and pressed against the image stone. Something bright and precious passed through Vye.
Suddenly the sense of Randidly was gone, but Vye still couldn’t control her body. Her stubborn limbs turned her away from the image stone and stiffly walked back toward the watching group. Dazed by the strange series of teleportations she just experienced and feeling incredibly drained, Vye wondered what had just happened. The whole of Order Ducis training camp looked blankly at her as she walked back to join them.
Then the image stone behind her seemed to awaken. The seed that Randidly’s hand had passed through Vye to plant began to sprout. Huge banks of grey clouds began to swirl outward. The air smelled like ash and spilt blood.
When she reached the group, she stood still for a few seconds. Finally, after what seemed like quite a long time, the electric energy in Vye disappeared.
There was a dull roar and suddenly Vye could move again. She spun around and looked up at the image hovering about the image stone. Although the area was now thick with ash, the towering figure that stood in the center of this storm was clear. It somehow was the same Grim Chimera of ash and loss from the image stone Vye trained with most often, but something had changed within it on a fundamental level.
For one thing, the image revealed itself clearly before one even approached the image stone. The Grim Chimera was no longer obscured by clouds of ash that needed to be pierced through to see him. There was a wild challenge in his naked presence that was shockingly palpable. For another, the Grim Chimera now possessed Randidly’s face.
More than that, the pale skin of his torso now seemed almost translucent, illuminated from within by a strange light coming from his chest. Meanwhile, the skin around his neck, arms, and legs was much rougher and almost… corrupted looking. Long blue veins curled up from his claw-like left hand, which had been greatly expanded. His long, dark talons gleamed in the mid-morning sun.
But setting aside all the aesthetic changes, the more obvious change was the feeling. The image that Randidly had left here was an unconscious weight that demonstrated to the people of the Order Ducis the power than an image could possess. But this…
This was a living, thinking predator. It watched the surrounding people with amusement as the weaker ones went pale and the stronger ones trembled as they more fully understood this ungodly powerful image that suddenly appeared in front of them.
Is this… is this really the same image? Vye wondered as she considered the shudder-inducing intensity of the image that had descended before them. Its gaze swept back and forth as though measuring them. If this image is really from Randidly… what has he endured over the past two months to reach this point…
...and if he can endure, I…
Suddenly the image smiled. Then the swirling clouds of dark matter and ash around him withdrew toward the image stone. A split second later, the air was clear and the day was bright and warm. Even so, the ominous feeling remained while you looked upon the stone. Everyone knew that the new version of Randidly’s Grim Chimera image waited within for challengers to approach.
After several heartbeats of silence, Naffur coughed light. “Ahem… thank you, Vye, for activating the image stone. So which of you new arrivals would like to try approaching it first?”