Chapter 1557 (1/2)

“This feeling…” A bitter smile stretched across Randidly’s face. His emotions… to describe them as chaotic would be understating the issue. Several parts of his body were tingling as his nervous system was flooded with adrenaline. Despite the aches in his recently healed right hand, he stretched it outward and grabbed at the air. Every breath was still difficult. His heart beat rapidly, but it was accompanied by a pounding headache that made it especially taxing to focus.

Considering the fact that Randidly had to maintain the Stillborn Phoenix and keep a tight grip on the reins of his Nether, the exertion was all but impossible. He walked along a precipice where a single failure would lead to the long fall toward death.

“Yea…” Randidly said again, looking to his left. Although there wasn’t much meaning to it, he had drifted toward the side of the hollow spine since figuring out his situation. A yellowed and bumpy bone was next to him, gnarled like an ancient tree. As he looked at it, the wall seemed to be warping before his very eyes. Yet if closed his eyes and touched the bone, he knew that this distortion was an illusion; the bone wasn’t being warped, Randidly was. “This sensation. The tingling approach of death…”

WHOOOOOSSSSHHHHH!

Randidly endured a raging torrent of emotions that smashed into the Stillborn Phoenix from the side and then checked the Nether content of the air. 46%. After two hours of floating and stabilizing his mental and physical state, the mass of significance below tightened its grip on him. He was getting pulled downward, faster and faster.

Yet, some part of Randidly couldn’t hate the tension. It was almost a nostalgic feeling.

The Stillborn Phoenix howled around him. Randidly had a sensation in his chest akin to volcanic heartburn from the wide assortment of emotions and energies his Egg of Darkness devoured, but it was necessary. It was only because of the buffer his image created that Randidly had been able to nurse both Yggdrasil and the Grim Chimera back to a stable state.

The Grim Chimera had endured the brunt of Velio’s first attack. Even though it had been with a sword still tucked into a sheath, the hit had been a direct one. Yggdrasil’s situation was slightly cleaner; it had been taken by surprise, but at least it was a weakened image that reached Randidly.

At that thought, there was a flash of fury in Randidly’s emerald eyes. Velio’s attacks turned out to be more insidious than even he had expected. It was just another piece of evidence that despite his brash persona, Velio Dunn was very deliberate in his hunting of the young talents of the Nexus.

He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but Velio’s sword left some trace remnants in the wounds left on his images. Of course, he had immediately sensed that the wounds were… for lack of a better term, frozen, by the strike. Their natures were heavily suppressed. Yet it was after the healing process began that he discovered the latent danger: there was a sense of rot and degeneration to Velio’s chill as well. Those more dangerous elements were almost completely masked by the chill, and might have completely ruined his images if he had not taken the time to inspect them closely-

WHOOOOOSH!

Randidly grimaced as another blast of emotion hit him from the side. This spear of emotions was strong enough to pierce through the Stillborn Phoenix and directly impact Randidly. For several seconds, angry red lines of infection appeared on Randidly’s side where he had been impacted. They burrowed underneath his skin, spreading rapidly outward. Sensing the danger, the Stillborn Phoenix increased its suction, devouring more and more in an effort to protect its bearer.

The swirling whirlpool of suction spread, pulling more and more of the dark surroundings toward him.

The smoldering pain in Randidly’s Soulspace increased as the Stillborn Phoenix ran rampant, but it did give him some time to deal with this new threat. Growling, Randidly slapped his hand against his side. As he smashed the insidious emotions with what little Nether he could maintain for himself, the spread of those red lines on his side slowed.

I don’t like using my Nether like this, but otherwise…Heh.

With the problem under control, Randidly pushed back more aggressively against the invading emotions. The red lines retracted. When the emotions had completely been forced back into an angry red boil on his side, he simply ripped away the chunk of flesh and tossed it to the side.

It tumbled quickly through the murky air below him, warping and mutating before his eyes. The irritated flesh bulged and twisted. By the time the flesh had vanished into the darkness below, it had warped into a tiny, misshapen imitation of Randidly himself. And it turned to glare hatefully up at him as it was sucked downward.

Randidly shivered, yet his lips still twitched into a smile. His eyes were bright with the particular brand of madness that he had learned from Shal. Heh, hopefully, whatever horror waits below is just as dangerous as advertised; I don’t want a doppelganger running around, plotting to kill me and steal my Fate…

Chuckling to himself, Randidly reached out and touched the wall. The surface was so smooth that it almost felt wet to his fingers, so much so that the first few times Randidly touched the wall he had assumed his shattered hand was still bleeding. Such a gnarled yellow surface was conveyed to him as smooth. Even the sensations being fed through Randidly’s nerve endings was somehow being curtailed by the significance below.

The situation he found himself in was quite serious. Plus, due to the fact he hadn’t heard from Edraine, despite the several messages that Randidly had sent…

Absolute Timing informed him that time was passing, but he already knew there was a time-warping effect within the Web. At this depth, beyond the ‘event horizon’ of significance… the effect was probably even more pronounced. So the small worry that his recruits would be sent off to the frontlines without any more instruction could at least ease. Randidly Ghosthound likely had as much time as he wanted to deal with this problem.

Gradually, Randidly’s expression shifted as he looked around. Although his images were still recovering, he could ease up somewhat. Time to address the impending danger head-on.

Randidly rapped his knuckle against the weird, wet-seeming wall with his knuckle. His wicked smile was still firmly hung across his face. Honestly, what I’m most curious about is the origin of these bones… how are they so powerful that this significance hasn’t ripped them down…?

Truly, the Nexus is a mysterious place… Randidly’s smile widened. He knew it was somewhat crazy, yet he couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable surge of joy. THIS was what he was missing. This impending sense of doom that he had so commonly encountered due to the System in the past. His encounter with Kaan Swacc had the resemblance toward it, but Randidly was much more prepared in that situation. It wasn’t exactly the same.

He had his Fatepiece to practice the fight against Kaan multiple times. Although the foe was strong, Randidly held some significant advantages.