Chapter 1398 (1/2)

Randidly’s powerful regeneration fueled by Yggdrasil kicked into high gear immediately, but he still felt a sweeping wave of dizziness run through him. He had simply lost so much blood in a short amount of time. Another gushing blast squirted out through his fingers. His previously thunderous heartbeat began to falter as his blood pressure dropped.

Releasing a quick breath, Randidly mobilized Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil to buy himself some time. Waves of razor-sharp roots slithered up out of the ground and stabbed at Kaan Swacc. The stone and dirt of the slope was turned into swiss cheese in an instant. But Kaan just rushed forward while one of the two pyramids that he had tuned to himself rose up into the air. With a shimmering wave of light, it released a powerful, and very much borrowed, image of rot and destruction. That image impacted Randidly’s root spears and thoroughly reduced their piercing power.

Randidly grimaced. That was the trouble with extended fights against Kaan Swacc. Eventually, he would tune his pyramids directly to your image and release a counter-image at you. The image he could produce that way was only some fraction as powerful as his usual image; it was not easy to so quickly develop a solid image. But it was an image created by resonating with the weakness of a target image. Even if other images would overpower it easily, against the targeted image, it was an unasked for Achilles heel.

Randidly responded to Kaan’s tuning with a blast of Nether to thoroughly crush this weak image, but by that point, Kaan had already ripped through the slightly withered roots and was racing toward Randidly. Neveah was surging to help, but there was too much distance. Randidly needed to help himself.

The sensation of blood spilling through his hand that kept the pressure on the wound was strangely distant. Rather than any pain, Randidly only felt a strange buzzing. Perhaps because a more reasonable part of Randidly realized that was not a good sign, he shook himself quickly to keep himself focused on the fight at hand.

He raised one of his legs and stomped on the ground at the same moment he unleashed another torrent of root spears. But this time, Randidly’s target was not Kaan Swacc. Instead, he simply destroyed the ground in the surrounding area. For thirty meters in every direction, stone and dirt was blown upward in an explosion of plant matter. Huge chunks of rock cracked and splintered, only to smash into each other in the air and shatter further. A wave of dust and debris filled the chaotic air.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 290!

In that hectic environment, Randidly slipped behind a large rock and rapidly focused on the image of Yggdrasil. A pulse of energy spread out from his chest. His fingers tingled. The aura of life-

Even if he couldn’t find Randidly’s location, Kaan’s pyramid once more released a wave of a suppressing image. This time it was tuned further. The pyramid contained an image of the Implacable Price of Exodus running wild, beginning to devour the World Tree. Because it more easily fit into Randidly’s existing image, the effect was more pronounced; the lifegiving aura of Yggdrasil wavered and began to fade.

Randidly pressed his back to a particularly large stone slab that drifted through the air. As two other large rocks collided, pebbles and small shards of stone peppered Randidly’s skin. Even with his weakened image, as long as he had a few moments to recover-

Snorting, Randidly smashed his elbows against the stone behind him and thew himself forward. Another fistful of emerald bubbled up and dribbled along the ground as his healing wound was ripped open once more by the sudden movement. Randidly spun around and unleashed a Piercing Gaze of the Egg that hit a slightly surprised Kaan Swacc, right as the Xyrt Brigade member had been about to smash through the stone and attack Randidly.

Still, with one pyramid still releasing an image of strength to empower his body, Kaan quickly recovered and launched himself forward. Randidly’s feet hit the ground and he unleashed the Tug of Tragic Silence. The image of the Stillborn Phoenix condensed once more in his left eye, turning it into an orb of darkness. The Skill Tug of Tragic Silence was the disintegrating aura of the event horizon, gradually ripping away space, light, and even time.

Randidly became the black hole, the edge of his Nether bubble became the event horizon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Tug of Tragic Silence (A) has grown to Level 145!

With the additional boost from the Nether Nebula, which was only too happy to join in the feast on the surrounding Aether-bound space, the Skill quickly exploded outward and covered more and more space. As the ground beneath Randidly’s feet was beginning to come to pieces under its influence, Kaan charged forward into the area of the Skill.

Congratulations! Your Skill Tug of Tragic Silence (A) has grown to Level 146!

Congratulations! Your Skill Tug of Tragic Silence (A) has grown to Level 147!

What Randidly didn’t have in Skill Levels, he quickly made up for by completely throwing his Willpower behind the image. The Egg of Depression hated and the physical world slowly came unhinged under that pull. Plus, the Nether he radiated outward quickly took up the cause and added its own caustic effect to the mix.

Visual deviations began to appear in the area around Randidly but Kaan gritted his teeth and continued to approach. Randidly narrowed his eyes, once more with his right hand apply pressure to his neck.

Congratulations! Your Skill Tug of Tragic Silence (A) has grown to Level 148!

As the destruction of the surrounding ground intensified, Kaan frowned and gestured. That same pyramid that had tuned to Randidly’s Yggdrasil image, he could see now it was the copper pyramid, illuminated once again and released a new image. This time… it was an image of peace and fulfillment. It struck at Randidly’s aura of destruction.

Snorting, Randidly watched as the Stillborn Phoenix eradicate this tuned image. In his haste, Kaan had chosen a poor strategy for reducing the Stillborn Phoenix’s power. In that opening, Randidly began to coil dense ropes of Nether in the surrounding area, vastly increasing the aura’s power. Kaan had cut the distance between them to two meters, but by this point, Randidly was positively twitching with visual distortions. The ground and air around him was devoured by his Skill at a visible pace, creating a whirlwind of pressure.