Chapter 1335 (2/2)

As Helen had pointed out the prior night, Randidly’s physical gifts were nearing the point that it was hard to judge them by normal means.

Congratulations! Your Skill Innate Violence (Ru) has grown to Level 188!

Randidly planned on embracing that fact.

Aegiant immediately went pale as Randidly seemed to slip around the strike and threw out a Talon Strike that ripped toward Aegiant’s chest. Even if the Skill Level was low, his Nether Brawn still gave it a horrifying amount of power. Aegiant responded by immediately twisting his flaming spear to destroy his thrust’s momentum and whipped the weapon around to sweep Randidly to the side. Randidly, for his part, simply empowered his Ignition Essence Image and allowed the collision to happen.

Congratulations! Your Skill Talon Strike has grown to Level 101!

Congratulations! Your Skill Innate Violence (Ru) has grown to Level 189!

Congratulations! Your Skill Ignition of the Emerald Essence (L) has grown to Level 252!

As soon as the two blows landed, Randidly could feel Aegiant throwing himself backward with the force of the Talon Strike. Ignoring Aegiant’s rather pitiful sweep attack that whacked ineffectually against his side, Randidly stamped his foot and rushed forward to follow. With a roar, Aegiant unleashed a blast of terrible heat that erupted in a wave. Lightning quick, he crossed his hands and an enormous spear descended from the sky to pierce through Randidly’s torso.

A hint of a headache began to form, but Randidly ignored it for now. His Nether pulsed and seethed as he whipped it into a frenzy, spreading to fill the surrounding space and largely blunting the effects of Aegiant’s image. What was left was a relatively weak image and a powerful Skill, which Randidly weakened further with the image of Ignition Essence and then endured the damage with his body.

The huge molten sky-spear smashed into Randidly’s chest. It forced Randidly to release a grunt and pause for a half-second, but just as quickly Randidly was rushing forward again and throwing out Talon Strikes.

Their battle so far seemed to have caused Aegiant to rapidly update his assessment of Randidly in an unpredictable way, so Randidly was quite surprised for a brief moment when the arrogant man simply turned and fled across the slowly solidifying field of stone around him. But honestly, it was probably the worst move that Aegiant could have made.

First, Randidly unleashed a barrage of Phoenix Slaying Bolts that slammed into Aegiant’s back. They weren’t quite powerful enough to wound him seriously, but they did delay the spear-user for a short amount of time. Which was enough time for Randidly to do two things. First, he created a literal wall of Talons of the Restless Immortal that erupted from the ground in a spray of emerald and orange fire.

In addition, Randidly brought more of his Nether to bear on the surrounding area. The thin crack in which Nether was usually suppressed under the System was forced to open wider. The Nether Nebula in his chest shivered in anticipation. Some visual variations began to appear around Randidly, including four thin black cracks extending outward from his back.

Aegiant smashed into the sharp talons that were the gates to his freedom and exploded through to the other side by dint of the potency of his image. Watching, even Randidly couldn’t help but be impressed by the overwhelming power of that image. The heat released almost invalidated anything that stood in its way.

It was a quite effective imitation of the way Nether literally invalidated all the images around it.

Aegiant was barely slowed at all, but he was slowed enough. The Nether Randidly released burrowed quickly through the world and caught up with him. The cracks in the world spreading from his back grew larger and split into various branches.

Already, Randidly’s headache had grown as he attempted to utilize Nether in this manner. But he pushed forward, determined to see the effect he could wield. And the moment of connection between the two of them was jarring in that a strange amount of thoughts and sensations flowed through the sudden connection between them.

Even as Aegiant’s speed slowed down to stillness, Randidly’s headache spiked upward. Gritting his teeth, he mobilized his body and rushed over to stand at Aegiant’s side. Because as he forcefully accessed information through Aegiant, Randidly came to the realization that what he was accessing was… much different than what he had felt with Alta.

It’s because this is ultimately just an imitation, Randidly realized around his throbbing headache. I can apply similar pressure to the physical world here, but I can’t really use stuff inside of the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night to understand fully how to use Nether. It is based on Nether principles, but it’s not designed to train my Nether…

Randidly pulled back his Nether and raised both his hands above his head. Aegiant’s clarity rapidly returned to his eyes, but Randidly gave him no chance to dodge; he brought his hands down and crushed him into the still partially molten ground beneath them.

With the assistance of Nether Brawn, Randidly felt Aegiant’s shoulder shatter from the impact.

The only problem was Randidly’s headache continued to get worse. Agonizingly worse in a way that told Randidly that he had missed something. For a split second he panicked as he frantically checked his Nether and in that moment Aegiant vanished from his perception. But that also reminded Randidly of something he had forgotten.

Swearing softly to himself, Randidly left the memory world and returned to his real body. The headache went with him. “It’s the fucking mental cost from using the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night… I got so used to those short attempts with Illym. And from how exhausted I feel… it might be that the cost increases the more it deviates from the original memory…”

Making an oath to himself that he would return and make the attempt again in a more efficient manner, Randidly returned to his hut and collapsed on his bed.