Chapter 1280 (2/2)

When Randidly stepped through the portal he was greeted by the sound of waves. The smell of salt and dead fish was thick in the air as Randidly glanced up and down the rather deserted beach on which he found himself. Froth pooled on the sand as waves pulled themselves back and crashed down once more. There was an elderly couple quite a bit of distance down the beach next to a salt-soaked pier, but after waving casually without much worry toward the suddenly present Randidly, they returned to the task of hauling their nets up onto the dock.

As another wave splashed against the shore, the ground began to rumble. The shaking was currently low enough that it was hidden by the noise of the sea, but every second that passed meant that Randidly could feel the reverberations more strongly through the bottoms of his bare feet.

Before the couple detected the change, Randidly rolled his eyes and stomped his foot once with enough force to send a tremor back down. “Don’t worry, just let me come to you… I feel like you will cause a scene otherwise.”

Immediately the rumbling stopped. Then, while the couple turned and watched him in bemusement, Randidly stripped himself to a pair of loose pants and waded out into the salty ocean water until it rose to cover his head. Then he twisted his body and dove forward, savoring the sensation of the cool water running across his bare torso. When he was satisfied, he unleashed a few weak strokes to drive him deeper along the bottom of the sea. Kelp and curious fish watched him pass while they drifted along with the current.

Once Randidly had created some distance from the shore and surface of the water, he became much more serious about his swimming. As his arms pumped, huge volumes of water were used as springboards to shoot himself forward like a torpedo. The water in his wake trembled from the force of his strokes. Fish in the surrounding area quickly scattered.

Seems like Nether Brawn packs some serious punch, Randidly noticed as he left a trail of flattened seaweed in his wake while zipping along the descending slope of the sea. The further he went, the higher the water pressure became. However, it would still be quite a bit before Randidly’s Nether infused body would feel any strain from this sort of pressure.

Such a presence was practically reassuring. All of the flecks of Nether-induced strength and aura that Randidly generally kept bottled up for other’s safety finally started reasserting themselves. To the point that Randidly found the pressure he released more than overpowered the weight of the water above him. His speed began to increase as he experimented with how to use that pressure.

Even with the rapid pace Randidly kept up, it still took him almost fifteen minutes to reach his destination. And as he swam closer, he could help but release a mouthful of bubbles into the surrounding water as he laughed. Sensing its creator’s approach, a veritable onslaught of seaweed blasted out of the ground as Thorn excitedly went in for a hug.

Randidly continued to laugh freely as the slimy tendrils of seaweed that were simply drifting around Thorn’s main body quickly wrapped him up and reeled him in like a foolish fish. Although it seemed most of Thorn’s body had been converted to seaweed, Randidly didn’t miss that beneath the floating green exterior each plant protrusion was lined with sharp spines.

Thorn was still just as deadly as previous incarnations. Just this one also could exist in the near-infinite sea.

Thorn’s main body hadn’t changed much since apparently developing gills, aside from its size. The shuddering, green and pink flesh core was now almost as large as a house as it floated here near the edge of the sea. Several strange muscles pulsed and twisted as Thorn manipulated both the ropes of seaweed as thick as tree trunks shooting off into the distance and also the roots that spread out from its floating position and dug into the ground nearby.

It hung there like a slimy, ominous heart, with the thick veins stretching out in every direction.

As Randidly looked further around, his smile widened. Nearby, there was a deep tunnel in the ground that had been obviously excavated quite recently. Randidly once again laughed. “Did you really intend to just dig yourself up to see me…?”

A strand of mental communication blossomed between the two as Thorn happily agreed with Randidly’s assessment. Feeling helpless, Randidly could only shake his head at the plant’s enthusiasm.

Then Thorn, through a confusing slew of images and sensations, began to joyously explain how it had been spending its time since it had seen Randidly last. It talked about working on the coast, preventing people from the Toad World from landing. It talked about painfully shifting itself to live in the sea after drinking copious amounts of blood in order to be more proactive in its task.

Of course, Neveah’s direct intervention into the Toad World rapidly lowered the need for Thorn to assist, so it had turned its attention to exploring the largest Zone currently on Earth: the sea Zone. Especially since every day recently saw the ocean rapidly expanding, Thorn’s seaweed could spread even farther afield. Generally, it avoided killing the monsters it encountered, so Thorn conveyed how it had become an almost seawide entity. It bragged about some fish made use of its seaweed strands to hunt other fish.

“That’s honestly amazing,” Randidly communicated back as he parsed apart the image. Thorn likely couldn’t hear the words Randidly spoke into the deep water, but it likely could understand the emotions he conveyed. And then, shyly, Thorn asked Randidly to play.

He considered saying no, but in the end, he couldn’t deny Thorn. Although what Thorn had accomplished was amazing, Randidly had peered through the memories that Thorn had shared; he knew how lonely his Soulseed had been since Decklan had left. And since that was one of the reasons he came…

So Randidly played with Thorn for almost six hours. After Thorn created a more convenient algae body that could travel with him, the duo shot across the ocean floor with enough speed that Level 50 Raid Bosses were knocked senseless just by the slipstream they left in their wake. Thorn was an endless source of enthusiasm, conveying to its creator all that it had learned while exploring the mysterious bottom of the sea. He took Randidly to deep trenches and to see strange, glowing types of monsters that didn’t come anywhere near the surface. And such was the depth there that even Randidly felt a little pressure in his chest from the intense weight of the water around him.

Thorn even took Randidly to a crack in the Earth’s crust were gouts of silver flame roared upward even at the frigid floor of the ocean, sending a cascading rush of bubbles toward the sky. The sight was oddly beautiful and alien, like the pressure from the water had completely pressed against the concept of space until it had created its own miniature Domain.

Randidly made a mental note to investigate the phenomenon further when he had time.

With their powerful bodies, they crisscrossed the ocean floor without a care; for now, sharing the joy of this strange exploration with each other was enough.

But eventually, Randidly turned to Thorn. After wavering for a moment, he reached out and pressed the warm skin of his human hand against Thorn’s avatar “This has really been amazing. But I think it’s time to talk about something. You… could you sense it when Decklan died?”