Chapter 1138 (1/2)

It was difficult to capture the monstrous horror inspired by the tide of Nether Beasts that came in the wake of Nether Gatekeepers. For while the stronger Nether Gatekeepers had foes above to keep them company, the Nether Beasts were free to swarm below across the cracked and floating boulders and then only the solid ground.

Inch by inch they came, devouring the color of the orange ground by screening it with their bodies. They were so densely packed that Randidly couldn’t even begin to count them. It was like watching an army of ants, thick enough to blot out the ground, crawling on top of another army of ants thick enough to blot out the ground.

All marching forward to reach the Aether’s fortifications.

To make matters worse, Randidly had imposed a rather strict, and likely necessary, limit on himself. Because he still needed more time to prepare himself to condense a Fate, he couldn’t reach Level 50. So none of the Nether Beasts could be killed by his Absolute Grasp. Or at least, not enough to actually affect the outcome of this fight.

Which, considering the fact that very few of these Nether Beasts were below the three-star level, wasn’t such a big deal. It would be extremely time-consuming for Randidly to kill more than a couple, especially when he was attempting to intervene across the battlefield on such a wide scale. But then the battle continued to drag onward.

It was liked the Nether had heard the compliments that Randidly could stop any number of Nether Beasts and decided to test it. And honestly, Randidly did not think he faired so well when presented with the challenge.

One hour passed, then two, then three. Still Nether Beasts roared forward and still Nether Gatekeepers pinned down the Aether Commanders.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 267!

Randidly’s headache rapidly accelerated from dull ache to ice pick in the back of the brain stem as he sat cross-legged at the back of Lady Iellaya’s forces and orchestrated the entire left flank of the battlefield. Although his grip weakened the more images obscured his senses, he was still able to use mass, blind attacks of roots to at least hamper the Nether Beasts’ advance up to three camps away. Yet beyond that...

One problem was the images, definitely. When so many powerful images were going on at once, there was a lot of different information signals to comb through. Randidly’s Skills and more directly his Grim Intuition gave him the ability to handle a lot of information at once, but this was more than simply ‘a lot’. It was also a lot of information flooding into his brain in situations were a few shreds of a second decided whether one of the Aether soldiers lived or died. Randidly needed to be constantly sharp.

Or someone else would end up paying the price.

Randidly’s emerald roots, gleaming with sharp thorns and golden engravings, came up in huge bands to cut sideways and hamstring the absolute flood of monstrous Nether Beasts that surged downward and crashed against he assembled fortified Aether forces. But even more than wounding the Nether Beasts that were actually engaged, most of what Randidly was doing was acting as a levy that could buy some precious seconds for the Aether soldiers to actually deal with the Nether Beasts in front of them in a fight, rather than needing to swim through the tight bodies of their enemies.

The grand fortifications that Randidly helped build were certainly the most deadly of all the Aether’s defense points, but even with several inner gates and outer gates, those areas filled up fast if the Nether Beasts were allowed to continue forward unimpeded.

Row after row of thorns jabbed upward and ripped into the soft underbellies of the attacking Nether Beasts. Although these wounds would probably heal very quickly without any follow-up attacks, it delayed the Nether Beasts slightly as the stumbled and tripped. This, in turn, caused the Nether Beasts behind those Nether Beasts to growl and flow away from the areas where Nether Beasts were slowed up by Randidly.

Drops became currents, currents became eddies, eddies became rivers.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 268!

Like a maestro, Randidly waved his hand and orchestrated the entire battlefield. His far-flung roots reported where the surging masses of Nether Beasts was headed and Randidly made minute adjustments to slowly round them up and create conflicting currents of movements among their lines. Then, less than a second later, Randidly reviewed the information he could have and made minute adjustments.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 269!

Besides, this is the role that only I can play. Randidly’s eyes burned with emotion as his gaze flicked up to Lady Iellaya. Then it drifted back to the unending tide of Nether. And even if it cuts me to the bone, I won’t abandon the people here.

The order to act as a field commander was a mission that Randidly took very seriously because he was somewhat moved by the fact that as the Nether Gatekeepers descended, Lady Iellaya had called him up and asked him to be the acting commander while Lady Iellaya and Abiodun were engaged with the Nether Gatekeepers above. Randidly guessed that it was a test of some sort, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t agree.

After all, no matter the broader schemes, there were lives at stake. Lives that he could save. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t work as hard as he could to save them.

Wincing, Randidly was forced to close one eye as the pain of his Skill overuse headache grew difficult to manage. Without saying anything, Zauna passed Randidly a Mana potion provided by the Nexus exclusively for the frontlines. Randidly knew that relying on external sources would exacerbate the problem later, but he was simply burning through too much Mana too quickly. Even with the absurdly low cost of the Skill, there were simply too many Nether Beasts that he needed to affect.

The area that he covered was monstrous. Slowly a single Nether Beast wasn’t enough. He had to juggle an entire sea.

Congratulations! Your Skill Pain Resistance has grown to Level 149!

Yet Randidly gritted his teeth and pushed forward. And as he did so, a million issues tugged at his attention, all pulling his formidable Control to feeble tendrils as they were unwound and forced to operate independently across the battlefield.

One of Lady Iellaya’s Captains stomped his foot twice on the ground, which was the signal to draw Randidly’s attention. Then the man growled out. “Good here, send more.”