Chapter 1358 (2/2)

“For now. And now after meeting her, I sorta expect that she would be the one to someday break it off with him.” Tatiana shook her head. “But I suppose our Naffur is quite pretty, in a sort of pale and vulnerable sort of way…”

Shaking his head, Randidly quickly switched the topic. “You said you also had news?”

“Donnyton and Zone 11 are about to assault the inner sanctum of the Corrupted Invaders in their Danger Zone. It shouldn’t be over extremely quickly, but you’ll likely have to head over now if you want to be there for the finishing touches,” Tatiana said. “Based on when I received the message… the attack started about ten minutes ago.”

Humming to himself, Randidly slowly nodded. He looked down at his hands. He had spent the entirety of the last twenty-four hours training to familiarize himself with what he could manage with his new amount of Control while also testing the glove he received from Alana. Yet his physical training still made Randidly a little dissatisfied, as he felt that even with the fine-tuned Control, he was still missing something to truly harness his physical gifts.

Probably need to rely on some experimentation with the Grim Chimera image to get a handle on that power… but that will have to wait.On the other hand…

His lips twisting upward at the pun, Randidly pulled his Frostscale Glove out of his interspatial ring and put it on. THIS worked as he had hoped with his Control, giving Randidly an unparalleled ability to manipulate both Aether and Nether in the surrounding area. It was only after experimenting with the glove that Randidly was able to reign in his Nether disc to its original levels.

The process created an uncomfortable feeling of being bound with a too-tight belt, but at least lowered the probability that the Special Investigator would find justification to bring his full power to bear based on a chance mistake by Randidly. Also, his experiments had made Randidly extremely fond of the built-in air-conditioning system within the glove.

It was like a refreshing breeze now followed him around. Assuming he kept his emotions under control, of course. Otherwise, winter descended in a ten-meter radius around him...

As Tatiana departed, Randidly shot a message to Mrs. Hamilton and then produced the Philosopher’s Key. He dragged the tip of the key through the air, tasting the different threads of karma. It always took Randidly by surprise just how wide the net that the Key cast was. With this simple key, he could see pathways to thousands, millions of places that were an unknown distance from his current circumstances.

For the first time since obtaining the Fatepiece, the thought that Randidly could escape from all this and hide occurred to him. He could mirror the Creature’s attempts to try and buy some time to escape the System. All it would cost was his home planet.

Randidly’s smile was sharp and his eyes were bright. Not a chance.

Finding the desired karma in the air, Randidly pushed the Philosopher’s Key forward and opened a portal. A second later he stepped out in a surging rush of Aether as the higher density energy on his side of the portal flowed to fill the vacuum in front of him. And because of the movement of energy, some of the silver moonlight spirits flitted through as well and billowed outward.

Inwardly, Randidly sighed. What must it look like, a portal suddenly appearing and silver energy flowing through in front of me…? People are going to start to believe that I have a special effects budget…

When Randidly stepped through to the dimly lit cave in front of him, however, Mrs. Hamilton was waiting beside the portal and smiled at him. “Ah, Randidly. Just in time. Welcome to the Broken Caverns. We believe the core is right ahead.”

They were standing next to a gleaming pile of shattered crystals. The cavern around them was relatively spacious, but he rapidly noted this wasn’t the only pile of crystals in the area. In fact, as Randidly glanced around him, basically everything appeared to be various sized mounds of shattered crystals.

The roof in some places was low, but a jagged fissure ran above the long, meandering stretch of caverns around them. Strange green light filtered downward in wild refractions, earning Randidly’s attention. The more he looked at it, the more Randidly believed that the caverns had been created by a giant dragging a sword across the ground and leaving a scar. As the green light shone down through the crack, it reflected off crystals and bouncing around until the surrounding area was practically a paradise for unpredictable shadows.

Up ahead, he could sense Paolo and Kayle’s familiar images dealing with a relatively weaker resistance than he would have expected. But he supposed he was slightly late to the party. As Randidly’s Grim Intuition spread outward, he quickly got a better picture of the situation in the next cavern. The strangely insectoid corpses of the Corrupted Invaders littered the ground, creating a path of bodies to a normal building that was extremely queer within the surrounding caverns.

From within that building, Randidly detected the signature Aether constructs of the Nexus.

“This world…” Randidly glanced around after locating his target. His Grim Intuition spread outward in every direction, revealing more and more meandering cave systems.

Mrs. Hamilton nodded. “Yes. As far as we can tell, the surface is inhospitable for all but the strongest people. The radiation from the nearby sun is extremely violent; how life survived on this planet before the System is a mystery to me…”

“Guess they just dug deeper holes,” Randidly commented. Then in the next instant, the surrounding crystals shook as Kayle and Paolo clashed against the image of the leader of the Corrupted Invaders. Some of the crystals that lined the passage to the next cave cracked and crumbled.

...not quite as strong as Alana, but not a pushover. Still, what does that mean about the foe waiting in the Epic Danger Zone… Randidly chewed on his lip. Then he shook his head, admitting that predicting a foe’s strength was not his strong suit. After all, look at what happened to his plan to overpower the Special Investigator with Nether…

“Anything?” Mrs. Hamilton asked with a casual smile.

Randidly shook his head. He wasn’t surprised in the least that she understood the true reason for his visit, even though he claimed to just want to understand the test the Nexus was giving the Earth. But truly, although the Aether he sensed was clearly the Nexus’, it didn’t seem malicious. It seemed to mark a trigger of some sort.

“...but let’s not jump to conclusions. For the good of Earth… it’s time we started getting rid of these freeloaders before we get stuck with them for eternity,” Randidly said. The two walked forward toward the next cavern, ignoring the increasingly violent clashes between images ahead of them.