Chapter 1488 (2/2)

Lucifer shivered.

*****

He had to wait several hours for his psyche to recover, but it was worth it for this result. Randidly grinned down at the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night. Thin strands twisted across each other, setting into an entirely new pattern. The dense intersection of strands gradually settled toward order. A shape began to emerge. Jackpot.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night has grown to Level 93!

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night has grown to Level 94!

To make sure that Expira’s strongest wouldn’t start thinking it was okay to attack him randomly while announcing things like ‘this is an assassination!’, Randidly had pilfered some significance from their memories with his Fatepiece. But it wasn’t until he had completely won and knocked Alana Donal unconscious for good measure that he understood that he was taking a bit of their innate Nether while he did so.

Which made Randidly scratch his head and go back over the unconscious bodies to examine the phenomenon. He didn’t take more memories the second time around, but he used his Nether Nebula to steal even more of each person’s Nether. He waffled for a while but ultimately decided to just take a flat 70% from everyone. Which resulted in a surprisingly significant boost to his Nether Nebula. He could sense that one of those grey bubbles was very close to being produced within that intensely compacted core.

In addition, the loss of Nether was an injury that would probably linger for quite some time. When he had tried it with Derek Moss He had taken memories from him without also reaching for some Nether on top of that. And even so, the man who was famously chipper had been listless for four days.

The Nether he took should gradually recover, with plenty of time to spare before the Calamity, but Randidly recalled the helpless feeling he had when Kaan Swacc used the Nether Suppression Cell against him in their duel. Even if you didn’t rely on it consciously, your significance within the Nether of your body grounds your image. Without it…

Ding!

There was an internal chime. The churning threads of his Dreamcatcher settled into place. A mystical, glowing pattern floated in front of Randidly’s eyes. He grinned and leaned forward, going into that place of chimes and intersection. And once he was there, Randidly thought of a specific moment and felt himself arriving in front of it. The smile on his face stretched wider and wider as he witnessed the result.

With the support of so many memories on the same moment, Randidly felt how much more stable this memory had become. The strands became thick supports, twined effortlessly together into thick cords. The memory itself hung fat and pulsing in the corner of his Fatepiece, on another tier altogether than his other memories. With so many perspectives, it had become its own, small world.

He released a breath and reached toward it.

Randidly entered into the memory as Alana. The world blurred and then he found himself looking at his own confused face, right at the beginning of the attack. The rest of the anti-Randidly faction was shifting into formation. Here, Alana would have delivered her inflammatory opening line, but Randidly didn’t bother with that. Instead, Alana rippled and vanished, replaced by the towering image of Yggdrasil. Wind whistled through the emerald leaves.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 317!

Real Randidly lashed out freely with Absolute Grasp, sending hundred of blindingly fast roots whipping at the various fighters around him. Taken by surprise, most were knocked away before they understood what was happening. A veritable wave of plant matter knocked them senseless and pushed them away.

Which just showed poor planning. Randidly shook his head rather sorrowfully; why weren’t they prepared to deal with his Yggdrasil Skillset?

Well… I suppose it makes sense that they would underestimate its true power… I haven’t demonstrated its capabilities much on Expira… but it IS a Transcendent Skill… You can’t just ignore it.

Meanwhile, the memory Randidly instantly realized something was wrong. His Absolute Grasp reached out and seized onto the spreading roots, and the two silently struggled until the roots stilled. Both Skills seized upon the roots with the same absolute power, resulting in a stalemate. Compared to the rather calm activation of Grim Chimera that had actually happened in the fight, the tight fury in fake Randidly’s eyes as he considered the real Randidly was an entirely different beast.

All three images had activated as he glared over at the new arrival who used his Skills. He snarled. “Who…. are you?”

Randidly paused. Ah, perhaps explaining this situation might be slightly awkward. Especially after my experience of Kaan Swacc.

But in more positive news, despite the deviation from the original memory, Randidly didn’t have much of a headache at all. Having so many memories form this recollection truly strengthened its boundaries.

Which meant he had some time to explain.