Chapter 1326 (1/2)
In those few silent seconds after Randidly had arrived and the whole ballroom had noticed his presence, Isabella didn’t know what she expected to happen. But what she didn’t expect was the quick and easy smile that crossed the Ghosthound’s face. The youthful glow that covered him as he grinned was a stark reminder that Randidly Ghosthound was young. Probably not much older than Isabella herself.
Yet he was the most powerful individual on Earth.
And then, while he still smiled cheekily out at the room, his body rippled and split.
The original version continued to stand in his original position with a half-smile on his face, but three other versions stalked purposefully forward, descending onto the glowstone tiles with all the blithe confidence of giant carnivorous cats.
The most normal of these three split forms looked exactly like the Ghosthound in normal clothes, except that tongues of emerald and orange flames flickered freely across his body, ruffling his hair and leaving his clothes undamaged. His eyes glowed and the area around him warped with heatwaves.
Another form was clearly the iconic image of Yggdrasil, the vast tree with glowing emerald leaves and a trunk that was covered in golden runes. This version was scaled down to be a three-meter tall treant, but that only made the plethora of detail of its form all the more impressive. Vibrant life oozed from every inch of the World Tree.
Yet as Isabella looked too closely at the writing that wove itself through the craggy bark, she grunted and had to press her eyes quickly closed. A thundering headache pounded at her senses for several seconds before it began to recede.
Feeling slightly skittish, she resolved to not peer too closely at that writing in the future. It was not just life that Yggdrasil bore.
The third figure was similarly well known by individuals who kept track of the images of Randidly Ghosthound. It was a slim, almost skeletal figure, with a pale torso and corrupted skin on its arms and legs. It had two tails that flicked lazily side to side as he moved. Its left arm was a claw with razor-sharp talons and its right arm was a spear of bone that had been stained by old blood. Its eyes were still green, but it was the green of rot and death. The Grim Chimera leaned forward as it moved, releasing a chilling ferocity that pushed back the lights that floated in the surrounding area.
In the same moment, the three images descended onto the tiles. Almost instantly, the floating bonfires, torches, and candles of light that the images of the various people were able to produce were heavily suppressed by the difference in power between them and the new arrivals.
He can create THREE images like that…? And they move independently… all at once… Isabella tried to image the mental strength that it took to do that and couldn’t even begin to figure out how it was done. I don’t even know anyone that can reliably create a discrete image that isn’t somehow grounded around their own body! And he…!
The light on the glowstone tiles continued to shift. Those images that had been candles became pinpricks. Torches became slightly larger pinpricks. Bonfires became several of the slightly larger pinpricks of light crammed together in a small spot. All the while, the light beneath the feet of each of the Ghosthound’s three images began to grow.
“I think I’ve kept my message consistent, but sometimes I don’t think you all really understand what I mean,” Randidly Ghosthound’s true body continued to survey the surrounding people with that amused smile on his face. “The Earth… the people who live here… we are growing. But we aren’t growing fast enough. We aren’t powerful enough to be anything but just another one of the millions of planets that will be chewed up and spat out by the Nexus.”
The word ‘Nexus’ was punctuated with blasts of images radiating outward from each of his three bodies that stood across the glowstone tiles. Burning heat, the radiating glow and tantalizing secrets of life, and finally the chilling and almost obsessive need to survive.
Isabella grimaced as she was buffeted by the nearest image to them, Yggdrasil, and was suddenly very grateful that Mrs. Hamilton had moved them off of the floor prior to this. Because the image was so potent that Isabella couldn’t image how her body would cope if it was conveyed directly through to her.
The throbbing remnants of the headache she had obtained when she looked a little too closely didn’t cease.
The lights beneath the three images continued to grow. To the point that the difference between them and the other people on the floor was so vast that there was nothing beneath the feet of some people. Even more dramatically, the direct connection to conducive material saw those people being pushed backward by those images. Slowly by surely, people were driven from the tiles.
Isabella Cortez suddenly became aware that the people that had remained on the floor were all relatively minor characters. Assistants, guards, individuals from various Orders. Everyone of power had done as Mrs. Hamilton did, moving off of the glowstone tile even before Randidly arrived.
As though they all sensed something… and I didn’t. Isabella gritted her teeth. There is something that I am still missing, some instinct. I suppose they aren’t the most powerful people in the world for nothing…
“Let me be clear: In the Nexus… the power of my images are nothing special,” Randidly continued. And along with the word special cave a wave of potent images. Each of the three image bodies that Randidly had split off from himself erupted in an explosion of blinding light. The aspects his images had been throwing off grew more intense and complex as he released more and more of his hidden potential.
Isabella couldn’t tear her eyes away. The display of power was… breathtaking. To think that an individual can be so dominant even before a whole assemblage of people…!
The people that had remained on the glowstone tiled area of the floor despite the earlier pressure now gasped and were thrown backward. They rolled helplessly away until people rushed to their aid and helped them to their feet. But the Ghosthound didn’t stop there. Each image blasted outward with such force that the surrounding individuals, even as the most powerful people on Earth, couldn’t help but tremble.
“This is why I’m worried,” Although she could hear Randidly’s voice, Isabella could no longer see his expression. She was forced to cover her eyes in the face of the light the Ghosthound’s images caused in the floor. “None of you seem to understand the danger that approaches. And I won’t always be around to remind you of how small the Earth is on the scale that the Nexus exists… so I’ve invited someone special. Everyone, please join me in welcoming Octavius Shrike, Overseer of the Seventh Cohort.”
Isabella’s awe in the face of Randidly Ghosthound’s power soon gave way to relief as his introduction seemed to imply that the pressure would soon cease. Discussions were about to occur. But to her surprise, the waves of images continued to smash against her mental defenses. In fact, the power of those reverberations grew as a new figure walked calmly onto the glowstone tiles.