Chapter 1281 (1/2)

“You… could you sense it when Decklan died?”

As Randidly asked the question, the sharp strand of nettle that formed the core of Thorn’s algae body twitched and froze. Another long strand of Thorn that was nearby also trembled. Randidly just waited. They floated there for several seconds in silence, Randidly reaching out and touching his plant while the other did not communicate any emotion through their connection.

Part of the reason that he had been so hesitant to come out and see Thorn was that he knew this conversation would be difficult. As he prepared the Earth to handle the Calamity, Randidly needed to start taking responsibility for the ways he affected Earth. And in a lot of ways, Randidly had left his Soulseeds to their own devices since he had created them and felt deeply guilty about his lack of follow-through. That guilt was one of the main reasons that he hadn’t made more, despite the Soulseeds’ obvious power.

Especially now, feeling the internal turmoil of Thorn’s hidden emotions, Randidly felt devasted by his own thoughtless actions in the past. He had left Thorn and Arbor on Earth to find their own way, and although both had succeeded, there were consequences. The path that Thorn had chosen was a brotherhood with Decklan. And after seeing what Decklan’s unstability had led to...

Not that Randidly believed there would be any permanent adverse effects from associating with Decklan. His involvement in the Red Revival had come as a surprise to Randidly, but it didn’t seem like Decklan had tried to convert Thorn or anything. It just seemed that the temptations of Ileot had broken something within Decklan.

Something inside of Decklan had died along with Terra.

But now Thorn had to deal with the sad truth that his most meaningful relationship outside of Randidly had ended. It needed to deal with fact and the method was important. After all, a bad choice here meant Thorn could be damaged in a way that would lead to unpredictable results down the line.

Pain. Thorn eventually replied with an exhausted bleakness to his earlier question. And that was really all the answer that it could manage. Randidly sighed.

Along with the word came an image of a section of ocean that Thorn hadn’t been completely peaceful with. It seemed like Thorn had sensed Decklan’s passing and had been briefly overwhelmed with rage. All of the aquatic monsters in that area had been torn into thick pieces of flesh that floated in the murky water. Bloody water hung there like mist on a cold morning on land. There were no monsters at all in the surrounding several miles, because some instinctive fear drove all the sea creatures away from that place.

It would likely take quite a bit of time for that area to recover. Gore and algae mixed in thick clumps that hung unnaturally still in the water. As Randidly removed his focus from the memory and used Grim Intuition to speedily ascertain the actual location where the slaughter had occurred, he was shocked to discover that the images in the area had been marked by what had taken place there. Thorn’s rage had been strong.

Randidly’s eyes softened further as he looked at Thorn. “I know how much it can hurt to lose someone. Especially when Decklan was one of your few close friends.”

For I lost my best friends, again and again, Randidly’s heart ached as he thought about the strange distance between him, Sydney, and Ace. He truly hadn’t lost them, but for the longest time, he thought he had. He had been devastated.

Especially because of the way things ended between them, with Ace never understanding why his girlfriend was so intimate with his best friend. Never knowing that Sydney had hidden her illness from him and entrusted the secret to Randidly.

This time, emotions flooded out from Thorn. Its thoughts and impressions were mashed together in an overwhelming tide that threatened to sweep Randidly away. Luckily, the negation effect of Nether rapidly reduced the powerful and emotional images into still-frame pictures that were quite manageable to handle. Yet as Randidly quickly scanned Thorn’s emotions, he gritted his teeth.

Overall, Thorn had one thought that was expressed in dozens of ways through the memories he passed to Randidly. Why did this happen? This shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t deserve this. What do I do now?

Randidly consciously stopped himself from pointing out that Decklan had chosen this path himself. That wouldn’t be helpful. He knew that when it came to such a painful situation, the real question Thorn was asking wasn’t the details of why something happened. It was just the first time Thorn had felt such pain in its existence. And it didn’t know what to do with the hole that Decklan left in its heart.

“...Decklan had lost someone very important to him in the past, just as you are feeling the wound of losing Decklan now. And he bottled up those emotions for a long time until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He looked for ways to run from the pain, to fix the pain, to cover up the pain, to blame someone else for the pain…” Randidly shook his head. “But the truth is… the pain doesn’t go away if you don’t face it. Sometimes you just need to… cry. Let it hurt you. Because that is the only way to eventually live with that pain.”

Randidly’s mind wandered a little. If I had a Level for every night in that first Dungeon, after being trained by Shal during the day, that I cried while thinking about them...

Thorn was confused. Cry?

Unwilling to share his actual thoughts, Randidly provided a few memories of him crying alone in his room from his younger days while his mother was spending time with one of her many boyfriends. Even now, Randidly felt his stomach dropping as he remembered those long nights. The Grim Chimera, who still had a strand of that emotion Randidly had put into his Spear Phantom image, shivered in sympathy.

Immediately, Randidly could tell that something had gone wrong with the communication because Thorn immediately brightened. So I just need to secrete liquids like humans do? I do not have eyes, but I watched Decklan secret fluids in several interesting ways-

“No, that’s not quite right.” Randidly winced. He had come here to talk with Thorn about death, not sex. Who would have thought that the System would transform him into a parental figure to a giant thorny monsters…?

Then Randidly waved his hand in the cool water. “There… there might not be any easy answer for this. But the important thing isn’t the liquid, but that you… follow your body’s natural instincts for how to grieve. When you face the pain… some weird things might happen. But you need to just… let the pain affect you, alright?”

Thorn was still confused, but it assent. Randidly felt it withdrawing most of its focus along the thin trail of algae between this avatar form and its main body, so Randidly quickly began to swim back toward the beating heart of Thorn. Through their mental connection, Randidly could feel Thorn begin to face the emotion.

It wasn’t an easy thing to face the things you’ve been hiding from in your own heart. You couldn’t just will it to happen. But you could move the distractions out of the way and wait for your heart to be honest. And that was exactly what Thorn did. For several minutes, it sat in silence as it tried to grasp the place that the pain waited. Then everything started to happen at once.