Chapter 1408 (2/2)

He was larger than life. He was more than human. The light around his face bent inward toward his left eye. He was a monster. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath. The wind whispered past him.

The tightrope that Randidly walked to manifest all three images was bucking widely; he released a hissing breath as his heart began to pound. The unfortunate side effect of the improvements that Randidly made to his images was that each was more unwilling to work with each other without the outside pressure of Kaan Swacc forcing them together. The muscles in Randidly’s body tightened as he channeled the powerful energies through his flesh.

Each passing second voraciously fled away with significant bites of his mental energy, but with his improvements after the fight against Kaan and the Eidolon Crucible, Randidly could just barely keep up. The Grim Chimera roared and Randidly carefully balanced it with the howling of the Stillborn Phoenix and the rustles of the World Tree. All of the images were in his body, stubbornly refusing to expose that weakness that allowed them to work together in the past.

The three images stubbornly refused to easily mesh.

Randidly was hesitant to add those weaknesses himself, worried that it might weaken his own images when he utilized them alone. It was always a possibility that he could consider in the future, so, for now, he simply tried to will the unwilling into cooperating. After he had achieved a basic balance, Randidly began activating individual Skills, feeling his balance shudder from the force of a Skill activation. Yet Randidly doggedly kept at it, gradually developing the requisite mental balance in spite of the unruly images.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 301!

Congratulations! Your Skill Monstrosity’s Appalling Physicality (A) has grown to Level 307!

Congratulations! Your Skill Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 262!

Randidly’s eyes flashed. Honestly, it was rapidly becoming apparent that activating individual Skills while he was in this state was almost harder than activating three at the same time. Not in terms of mental energy, because three simultaneous activations were the reason that he was dizzy for several days, but rather in terms of balancing the image. With three Skills activating together, they largely kept each other in check.

The images saw a single Skill as a chance to upset the balance.

Of course, any minute imbalance that Randidly had missed before that triple activation would be magnified until the point he collapsed. So instead of rushing to utilize three at once, Randidly steadily went through the process of training with single activation. This was the Path that he would take to power.

The habitual inspection of the three images’ interaction would be his foundation in the future. If what he suspected was correct, this utilization of multiple images and Skills at once would allow him to reach unprecedented heights. Besides, Randidly had some time to develop himself; he was in no rush to fight an impending foe right now.

Precisely for that reason, Randidly had sent a message to Octavius Shrike a few hours ago, asking whether there were any dangers to him using Dungeons.

Keeping his breathing even, Randidly stretched out his right hand. With the adjustments of the images around him, it manifested physically as a spear of bone that stretched out from his elbow joint. But that was just the dominant image in that location on his body. Randidly could also curl his hand into a claw through Yggdrasil or Stillborn Phoenix.

Steadily, Randidly worked through each Skill in his three Skillsets. He spent a bit more time on the relatively high-Leveled and low-Leveled ones, just so he had exposure to their specific reverberations. Hours slowly passed. The sun gradually set toward the horizon. Occasionally he would take breaks to re-center himself, but then Randidly would return to the images.

This balance needed to be perfect.

Of course, that wasn’t something that could be accomplished in a single day. This was just the beginning.

The sun was now setting, obscured behind the heavy grey clouds that seemed to hang perpetually over the Earth since the temperature changed. Randidly’s eyes flashed as he resolved himself. Despite the fact that he was using single activations to improve his foundations, he began to marshall his mental energy for a triple Skill activation. Not because he wanted to rush forward, but because Randidly had a theory about another problem he had noticed recently.

Randidly’s mouth stretched into a lopsided grin. Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil, Tide of the Void, and Cursed Appetite of the Wraith activated all at once. When he then took a breath, he pulled at the surrounding area. Initially, he expected that his Skill activation would only reach his island, but he felt his scope expand rapidly beyond that.

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Appetite of the Wraith (L) has grown to Level 289!

The core of this Skill combination was the Grim Chimera, pulling energy from the surrounding area. But supporting it was Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil and Tide of the Void. Spectral claws of manifested in a large radius around Randidly, sweeping through the surrounding area. These spectral claws pulsed with golden veins as Randidly inhaled.

And where the claws came, they took.

In Kharon below, at some time around 7 P.M., Randidly Ghosthound extracted a small amount of energy from every soul in his city. The sense of immense physical power that he experienced in the few moments after that was intoxicating. The sense of mental strain that came with it was less enjoyable but still manageable.

However, Randidly’s true focus was not on the Skill combination. Instead, his focus was intensely on his inner area. And as it turned out, his suspicion was correct.

Randidly’s expression was bitter. “So, that’s where the liquid Aether was going. The physical image manifestations require it as well.”