Chapter 1223 (2/2)
In a way, the duplicated Vualla had pursued power so long that she no longer knew what she wanted.
...well, I can help with that, Randidly light touched the drop of liquid Aether in his chest. He might not need it to affect Ileot and the duplicated Vualla, but he couldn’t take the risk of failing on the first attempt. Besides, just glancing beyond the barrier of the serpent image and Randidly’s rather fragile bubble revealed how minuscule Randidly’s power was here. He was an adrift sailor as the darkness of a night time sea threated to drown them all. Storm clouds were heavy overhead.
Seven huge veins of white lightning smashed aside a huge wave of caustic Nether. The titanic collision jarred Randidly teeth, even through their defenses. Strange, twisted masses of grey putty the size of small houses were produced as the two types of energy were forced into close proximity. Just as quickly as they formed, the swirling Nether eradicated that putty by devouring it in small, rapid bites. Weird currents of Nether gathered to force the river of white lightning backward, but Ileot’s power continued to climb.
All the while, the Nether King’s keening cry continued.
OOOOOOoooooNNNNGGGGGGgggg.
BOOOM!
Three of the riverlike veins of Aether spun together and smashed apart another wave of thick Nether that the Nether King’s cry had created. Then two more rivers forced its way forward, attempting to cut through the extremely dense Nether directly around the Nether King that continued to shroud its body from view. Ileot wielded them like massive whips to viciously dismantle the Nether King’s defense.
Ileot’s eyes were completely blank now, as the strange side-effects of hosting the duplicated Vualla continually stained him. Those terrible emotions that the duplicated couldn’t handle slowly overwhelmed his reason. His attacks hadn’t the slightest hint of artifice at this point; Ileot simply used ferocity to smash its weapons forward and bludgeon the foe.
Perfect. All I need now… Randidly narrowed his gaze, then blinked as Vualla turned him to face her directly. Her eyes were shocking azure.
The corner of her mouth quirked up as they gazed at each other. “You don’t need to handle everything yourself. You still need a path opened up?”
Apparently Randidly didn’t hide his hesitation as well as he thought, because Vualla rolled her eyes at his response. “Relax. I won’t be doing it alone… isn’t that right? Will you help me make this choice?”
Lady Iellaya frowned as Vualla just looked down at her own feet while asking the question. “Me?”
But Randidly immediately understood that Vualla hadn’t aimed the question at Lady Iellaya. Instead, Randidly could feel the other Vualla, the original Vualla, stir within his Vualla’s chest.
The original Vualla hesitated. Vualla simply smiled shyly at the ground and waited. Outside of their little alcove, Aether and Nether howled its eternal fury and ripped into each other. Nether and Aether grasped and ripped at each other in desperate struggle. The original Vualla sighed and seemed to ask Vualla a question.
“I trust you because we are the same person.” Vualla spared Randidly a glance. “...and because no matter what happened in the past, we would make the same decisions about our future. Those decisions are how we earn our karma.”
As Randidly felt the other Vualla slowly agree, Randidly returned his golden key to his belt.
“Ready?” Randidly asked lightly.
“Ready,” Vualla responded, and Randidly could sense the difference in her voice. In fact, he abruptly realized that the Vualla he interacted with earlier in the day hadn’t been the usual Vualla.
...which explains her strange words when I kissed her earlier… Randidly thought. But he dismissed that thought as less important than the current crisis.
Sighing, Lady Iellaya shook her head. “Even if most of the front is destroyed, I’m still the highest ranking soldier remaining… yet why do I feel like you two are ignoring me…?”
Yet despite Lady Iellaya’s complaints, she lowered her image at the same time that Randidly pulled back his Nether Gatekeeper bubble. Instantly, the three were buffeted by the roaring discharge that washed outward from the struggle between the two powerful figures below them. In that moment of hesitation, Vualla stepped forward with such unassuming and determined movements that she cut cleanly through the unpredictable energy.
First one punch and then a second, the original Vualla paved a pathway down toward Ileot’s back. With his Grim Intuition, Randidly felt the way that the skin from Vualla’s knuckles bubbled and then was torn off, revealing cartilage and bone. Flecks of blood dribbled down her fingers but Vualla didn’t slow in the slightest.
Each punch cut open the wave of energy, but there were so many waves that each punch only freed up a single step. So Vualla took another step forward and punched again, perfecting that image of sharpness to keep abreast with the increasing frequency of the energy waves as they neared Ileot Swacc.
Randidly’s Willpower tightened around the thrumming drop of liquid Aether in his chest. It was as though it knew that its time would soon come and it was trembling excitedly. It was the last bet that Randidly was going to make, and the one that might see him quite dead if it failed.
But there is more than enough fear present here already. I won’t waver. Ten more meters.
OOOOONNNNGGGG!
“JUST DIE ALREADY!” Ileot roared with enough volume to briefly suppress the groaning sound of the Nether King. But just as quickly, the Nether King continued to steadily grind at the surrounding individuals with its powerful and monotonous song.
Randidly reached back and seized Lady Iellaya’s wrist. In a low voice, he whispered. “Don’t look when I produce this light. But after the light ceases, grab Vualla and me and pull us back as quickly as you can. Flee right back to your fort. Hopefully, my plan will take care of Ileot and then we can wait out the Nether King.”
After nodding, Lady Iellaya gave Randidly a somewhat helpless look while inclining her head toward Vualla. Both tried to not look as Vualla in front of them wavered from the constant barrage of energy. No matter how much her image improved, she still couldn’t improve the body she currently possessed. And that body had begun to fail. But Vualla quickly took another step forward and continued to chew through the intervening distance.
Five more meters…
They were nearing Ileot’s back now, so when he screamed in fury, Randidly could see over his shoulder to the black drool that extended in ropey clumps from his mouth and drip across his torso. The quantity of Aether in his body was almost blinding to look at with his Aether Detection. There seemed to be no limit to his power as the horrible speed of the rivers of white lightning increased. Two or three smashed down against the Nether King’s defenses every second. The reverberations became increasingly violent as Ileot steady beat the Nether King back.
Two meters…
Vualla threw punch after punch. The bones of her left had been almost completely exposed along her knuckles and now smoked ominously. For every one punch of her left hand, she threw five with her right. Yet because of the disparity, the flesh on her right hand was quickly suffering a similar fate.
One meter. But this is Vualla’s limit.
“You are gonna need to push me-” Randidly began, but before he had even finished his thought Lady Iellaya grunted with exertion and forced him forward. Vualla glanced sideways as he was moving forward but she graciously stepped to the side as he passed.
Give me a chance to gather myself! Randidly thought with an aggrieved expression as he dove headfirst into the chaotic energy in front of him. Even with his the Nether Gatekeeper physique that Randidly possessed, submerging himself in that sea of dense Nether was like diving into an artic stream. The energy chilled him to his bones.
But still, Randidly was a half meter short. So he groaned from the exertion and forced himself to dive a small distance deeper into the Nether. His limbs flailed but he managed to cross the important distance. He had arrived close enough that the powerful energies around Ileot Swacc’s body began to ease the pressure that Randidly was under.
Finally, the drop of liquid Aether ignited. Randidly’s power surged upward. He wasn’t close enough to reach out and touch Ileot, but he was only a few short inches farther than that.
“Hey, Ileot, Vualla.”
More instinct than reason drove Ileot to twist around in suspicion. His black eyes locked onto Randidly’s figure.
Randidly smiled sadly as he looked at those pitch-black tears. He thought about the woman who imagined herself as a miasma hanging over a battlefield, then as wings that were so large and heavy they functioned as an anchor to bind someone to the ground, and then settled on horrible tears. Even though he thought he already knew the answer, Randidly still asked the question he needed in order to touch on the duplicated Vualla’s weakness.
“Why are you doing this?”
Reflect, Vualla. Just for a single second. Look at who you’ve become.
His liquid Aether burned through the Lantern of Harsh Truths vastly increasing its power. The passive effect became an active one as he forced the Skill to pulse with power. His eyes began to glow until it seemed like emerald beams of light were shining out of his irises.
Congratulations! Your Skill the Lantern of Harsh Truths ® has grown to Level 50!
...
Congratulations! Your Skill the Lantern of Harsh Truths ® has grown to Level 82!
Almost immediately, the tears stopped from Ileot’s eyes. Something vital in the duplicated Vualla fell to pieces. Vualla looked at herself and faced a truth she had run away from for most of her life. Probably since the moment she had used Eliot’s life to seize power.
The air seemed to whisper the answer that the entire battlefield could hear. Nether didn’t obscure the words in the least.
“I... hate myself.”