Chapter 1222 (2/2)

“Jesus, I almost died.” Vualla blinked and patted her singed clothes. “But what happened? How did Ileot get so much strength all of a sudden? I thought he was wounded from his fight with the Nether King.”

Randidly opened his mouth as he remembered those dark tears on Ileot’s face, but then he suppressed the impulse and glanced at Lady Iellaya.

As he expected, it seemed like she knew understood something. The arrival of her and Ileot’s power wasn’t a coincidence. Lady Iellaya’s face curled into a scowl. “...that would be my fault. I believe… I believe that he absorbed whatever power I was relying on to match the Nether King previously. I… was forced to cut that power out of me-”

Neither of the other two figures resisted as Randidly reached out and seized both the women’s wrists. Ileot had released another huge river of white lightning and, right before it arrived the three of them, they vanished. But Ileot’s face that was stained by black tears just sneered. River after river of white lightning forked and flowed throughout the surrounding area. Seemingly no longer caring about how much Aether he was spending, he forced Randidly to repeatedly activate his Nether Ritual to move them out of the way of the destructive blasts of energy.

These attacks aren’t nearly as strong as they look, but the image within is brutal. And all this energy…

Finally, Lady Iellaya shook off Randidly’s hand and drifted back away from him. Although the dominant expression on her face was grief, she still jabbed her finger determinedly down toward Ileot Swacc. “We cannot dodge forever. We need to attack.”

Gritting his teeth, Randidly reached out and grabbed onto Lady Iellaya once more. In the next instant, another river of white lightning rushed through the location where they had just been standing. This time, however, Randidly willingly let go of Lady Iellaya’s arm as it became clear that Ileot had given up on trying to hit them with his horrifying rivers of white lightning. Instead, he simply began to unleash barrage after barrage to hit Randidly’s image directly.

The first directly blast shocked Randidly so much that he almost lost all of it. Yggdrasil flickered ominously before he had gathered control of the situation, quickly understanding the way to make all of the connections redundant and not reliant on a core area to make the Nether Ritual work. So even as Ileot methodically carved out huge portions of the World Tree’s trunk, Randidly maintained the ritual. Which, at least, gave them time to talk.

Vualla cut in first. “If my guess is correct… that source of energy is actually… another version of myself. The original copy of me… who gathered up all the energy of death from across the battlefield right now. That’s the energy that he’s now slowly receiving.”

Randidly frowned toward Vualla, but Lady Iellaya already leaned forward and began speaking with obvious wariness in her voice. He tried to avoid looking at the stumps of torn flesh on her back. “All the more reason we need to strike quickly before he recovers his energy. These huge blasts might be powerful, but we can avoid them. If we combine forces-”

“He’s using those powerful but predictable blasts to buy time,” Randidly said slowly as he looked toward Ileot. His frown deepened as he examined the Aether in the Duplicator’s chest. Basically all of the Aether constructs that formed Ileot Swacc were once more back online. “Every second, he absorbs more of that energy. By the time we finish planning… he will back to full power. And then…”

“So we strike now,” Lady Iellaya said again. This time, she turned her focus to Vualla. “She’s your duplication, huh? Well she’s damned fucked up about how she treats people. Do you know her weakness? As long as we can strike her and cut her off from Ileot, he will lose his access to energy.”

...probably pointless to point out that this Vualla duplication was the greatest energy utilization genius in the history of the System. Randidly felt very cold. Even if she had a weakness, we...

While Vualla’s face creased in thought, a final blast of white lightning shattered the protective image of the World Tree around them. The tear-stained face of Ileot slowly swiveled to look up toward their current position. Once more, the black veins on his forehead bulged and Ileot sneered.

After a brief hesitation, Vualla said, “...she’s definitely… mentally weak. And both of them are so obsessed with karma, so I think that if we use me as a distraction to establish contact, you two will have an opening to strike.”

Vualla’s confidence returned as she smiled brightly toward Randidly. In her expression, there was so much trust that Randidly felt a deep fear that he would leave Vualla disappointed. Lightly, she said, “I told you I would open up a path, after all.”

Left unsaid was the realization that Vualla had almost died before and Randidly had not acted in time to save her. Randidly’s hands continued to tremble behind his back. His palms were sweaty.

“Then we strike to crush them both,” Lady Iellaya said as she pounded her fists together. “He won’t let us live and we aren’t able to escape... the only thing we can do is fight our way out of here.”

...that might not actually be true… With that terrible, chilling pessimism, Randidly met Ileot’s gaze. Crying black tears, he looked like a child who had discovered mascara for the first time. The effect was comical in a horrifying way. But as Randidly looked down at Ileot, he admitted in his heart that he couldn’t beat Ileot in power, even with a distraction. And certainly, it seemed like talking about karma would only incense him.

The whole of Ileot’s capabilities seemed to have now returned. He was an ancient existence who could somehow create world-sized projections and nurture duplications. Even with a miracle, even with a drop of liquid Aether and Inspiration, even with the perfect weapon that he could find with All Things Succumb, Yet Time Whirls the Earth, Randidly couldn’t see a way to win.

But he had learned his lesson from Azriel in the past. Assuming you had to win in every situation left you ignorant to other avenues of escape. Which had been drawn into even sharper focus when Vualla had mentioned karma and Lady Iellaya reminded the group that Ileot wouldn’t let them escape.

...is that really the case…?

Lady Iellaya's determination was admirable, but Randidly knew that there were things in this world that couldn't be overcome solely with determination. He looked now at Ileot's black eyes and saw that baleful wall. So with slow movements, Randidly draw the Philosopher’s Key from his belt.

Even if the only path forward Lady Iellaya could see was through destruction, Randidly had the capability to open a door.