Chapter 1165 (2/2)

“Hahhh….” Randidly released his breath again. The pressure continued to build from the outside as his Skill sigils absolutely churned through Aether in order to withstand it. Weirdly, time seemed to lose meaning. There was only the pressure. And under that pressure, Randidly seemed to have a tiny inkling of a plateau he was facing, one akin to what he felt when condensing a true Nether core.

Down this road there would be a qualitative change, if he could reach it. If he could generate enough pressure.

But a notification distracted him from this line of thinking.

Congratulations! Due to the sympathy between the Skills, the Pinnacle Skillset “Yggdrasil, the Universe that was First a Tree,” has been created! The Skills Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M), Glittering Leaves of Yggdrasil (L), The Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L), the Emerald Sap of Yggdrasil (L), the Yyrwood Flesh of Yggdrasil (L), the Deific Mien of Yggdrasil (L), the Cruel Indignation of Yggdrasil (L), Reign of the Eidolon Crucible (L), and Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) have all been added to the Skillset! The effect of Skill Levels for each of the affected Skills is slightly increased!

The power of your related images grows!

Randidly held the image for one more second in the flimsy grip of his weakening mind. All of the small, gradual changes to the visual variation across the frontlines rapidly accelerated as the empowered images were given the chance to flare to live. Randidly was positively burning through Aether at this point, using it to strengthen the effect of his Skillset as the many Skills slowly snapped together.

Most of all, Randidly could sense that this wasn’t the limit of these Skills’ power. And the notification from the System hinted at the same with its rarity of his Skillset.

Pinnacle. A word that had a very special place in the vocabulary of the Nexus. A word that seemed to refer to the absolute.

Then Randidly’s clenched breath gushed out from his lips and he collapsed to his knees as the roaring image became too much to maintain. The Skill sigils in his chest were humming with the strain of containing the new amount of power that now flowed through them. Their effects became fuzzy without a tight grip and then slowly lost that roaring momentum to settle back down to normal.

Laughing, Randidly allowed himself to fall down on his back and just bask in the satisfaction of successfully merging all of the disparate Skills together. Achieving that moment of harmony hadn’t been as difficult as he had feared, but it had been exhausting. A quick check of Absolute Timing informed him that Randidly still had twelve hours remaining until the agreed-upon time for the Nether Prince.

Thank god. That will give me plenty of time to recover a bit before I spend the rest of the PP in order to upgrade the Skillset-

Yet just as Randidly was thinking that, he felt a tremor run through his subconscious. Very quickly, that tremor turned into a vast tiredness that began to encircle the edges of Randidly’s consciousness.

...seriously Eidolon Crucible?! Randidly thought furiously as his body accepted the exhaustion quite easily and began to still around him. Of all times, you choose now?!?!

Yet there was little that Randidly could do to fight against it now that it had arrived. The world was swallowed up by darkness and Randidly felt himself spirited away, very quickly arriving at a small hill below a mountain range. Below the hill was a grassland that seemed to stretch forever, a sea of waving grass and wildflowers.

Randidly’s first reaction to the sudden change was rage, but as he looked around, that emotion slowly seeped out of him. For all that it was an inconvenient timing, it was better that it occurred before the Nether Prince. There seemed to be a subconscious component involved in the timing because otherwise, it would be extremely dangerous. Falling so deeply asleep while he wasn’t safe was a quick way to die.

And honestly, based on his previous time, it would only last a few hours. The extra mental strength he could gain here would also be useful-

Randidly paused in his rationalizations as his gaze landed on a small monolith of stone that was sticking up out of the top of the hill. His eyes softened as he slowly walked up to the object and ran his fingers across the words. Although he had been told by Naffur about the situation, it was another thing entirely to see the gravestone himself. Even in image form, its simple lettering drew the eye.

Aldo Ghosthound

“When we pick the way we live our lives, we can’t complain about the deaths we find waiting for us at the end.”

“Is this a warning for me, I wonder…?” Randidly said softly. But then he shook his head. Because he agreed entirely with the sentiment on the gravestone. Through his experience in the System, Randidly had to learn very quickly how powerful the small connections that people made were. Each interaction became karma. Each memory became the fabric of an image. Endlessly forward, endlessly colliding with other lives and traveling in unexpected directions.

Endlessly being changed by the smallest of coincidences.

“Still…” Randidly grinned wolfishly up at the sky of this false place. Clouds began to slowly gather as the spirits of Kharon were transported to stand against Randidly. “It’s a big deal that this is the first time that you’ve pulled me into your image, isn’t it Kharon…?”

The clouds pulled tightly together as a low howl drifted up from the gathering winds. Soon they faded from white, to grey, and then finally to black. The spirits of Kharon became a twister that wound itself sinuously downward to the ground below the hill. Very quickly, the airspeed reached the point that Randidly could feel all of the air around him slowly stirring.

“If you think this will be enough,” Randidly said softly. “You have another thing coming.”