Chapter 1562 (1/2)

Randidly’s heart clenched in a combination of fury and exasperation. The image that smashed into the surrounding Nether and emotions was unfamiliar, but his experiences with Velio Dunn were too fresh in his mind to take any chances. As the impact expanded rapidly outward, Randidly decisively released his emotional tether and dropped about fifty meters deeper into the spine. This only increased the ambient Nether a few percentage points, but it did create some space to gather himself.

“Holy shit,” Randidly muttered with narrowed eyes, as the shockwave of the spike’s arrival spread out into the surrounding space; he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this. His lips curled up into a sneer as his muscles flexed and locked into a strained and agonizing position. Due to the conducive nature of the midnight blue air, it was like he was repeatedly experiencing the grinding sensation of being exposed to that image, even though there was quite some distance between him and the spike. Randidly’s mouth slowly opened, but no sound escaped his lips. The moment slowly stretched.

His fingers twitched and flexed. His knuckles popped. Several veins on his neck bulged outward.

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 306!

Then the wave passed through him, heading deeper toward the horrifying significance below. Gradually, Randidly could force his joints to relax and study the now drifting spike more closely. It truly looked like a giant nail, almost the size of Randidly himself. The metal was some sort of heavy iron, with a large chunk at the top and a spike below that. Yet as the heavy object slowly began to drift down through the gloomy air, buffeted a bit by the emotions that spent themselves on this new target, Randidly saw a familiar-looking Engraving across the surface of the nail.

Gradually, his eyes widened. After re-establishing his emotional tether so he wasn’t devoured by the significance below, he used Tide of the Void to gradually pull the nail down toward his position. As it approached him, Randidly clicked his tongue and looked up at the spot on the wall where the doppelganger’s etchings remained. I can use the Dreamcatcher to examine them… but it’s quite unfortunate that I lost direct access to them. Perhaps… I was a bit too jumpy. But still… the power of that image...

Randidly’s eyes went to the nail again. If those Engravings are truly Neveah’s work, then… Edraine? But why-

Randidly paused as he abruptly realized he couldn’t feel the familiar connection he possessed with Neveah. For a second, he was aghast; it was like discovering he was missing a toe and the loss obviously wasn’t recent. His eyes widened further. Although the connection was still present, a Soulbound wouldn’t be cut without consequences, Randidly couldn’t feel it. Information and emotions couldn’t flow through their intimate bond.

Suddenly, the arrival of the nail made a bit more sense.

Grinning with genuine happiness, Randidly reached his hand up and beckoned. The nail floated down toward him. “Heh, you were always a bit more sensitive than I was. Sorry for being a bit slow on the uptake, Neveah. So you were even willing to come to the Nexus to help me, huh…? I probably don’t deserve you.”

Randidly’s Grim Intuition quickly scanned through the whole of the Engraving. Although he had never seen anything exactly like this before, he quickly understood its function and inserted Mana into the correct area of the Engraving. There was an audible click and the nail split in half. The two heavy pieces of metal fell away, revealing a bronze plate supporting a scroll, an envelope, and some sort of strange brown debris.

Squinting, Randidly picked up some of the brown bits in his fingers. He took a long sniff. Then he popped the chunk into his mouth. “Blueberry muffins…? Or the casualties of the baking wars...”

He shook his head sorrowfully for the tragedy of the impact, then opened the letter. As he suspected, it was from Neveah. It warned Randidly about the lack of emotional temperance he now possessed, now that emotions weren’t flowing freely between them. In addition, she excitedly informed him that she had included some muffins she learned to bake from her pen-pal on Expira. Plus, the scroll contained the finished Engraving for Randidly’s arm.

Randidly couldn’t help his smile from softening. “Heh, at least that explains how wild I’ve been. But if I’m dealing with my aggression… you handled all the caution. How difficult was it for you to face your fear and come to the Nexus, Neveah…?”

At the bottom of the letter, she wished him good luck on returning as soon as possible to the Nexus. She would wait for him in the Nexus, just to confirm that he was alright. The last line informed Randidly that about 30 hours had passed between when Neveah lost contact with him and when the spike was sent down to Randidly’s position.

He considered that information for a while. The letter cleared up his concerns about his insanity, at least; he was undoubtedly being affected by the emotional intensity, but his personality also felt out of wack because his subconscious connection to Neveah had been suppressed. Knowing he wasn’t secretly infected with wild emotions was such a relief that Randidly giggled, then coughed lightly to restore his dignified expression.

In terms of time, Randidly had been down here for about a month in a half, although most of that was above the 50% Nether content line. Sinking to this depth of 63%, the time dilation probably increased rather significantly, due to the increase in proficiency he had seen from the doppelganger’s emotional weapons. As for the exact ratio…

Definitely, at least a month passed here before a day passed in the Nexus. It might even be as much as three months passing down here for a single day.

Still, that sort of shift meant that he couldn’t stay down here for the decade he had claimed he needed to catch up to Velio Dunn, but it would probably be alright even if Randidly stayed here for even a year. Heiffal would be able to handle things in his absence with the trainees.

Then Randidly opened the scroll and scanned through Neveah’s specially made Engraving. His eyes immediately brightened; this wasn’t just good. The arrangement was positively sublime. Comparing the prior Engraving to this one was like comparing a letter to a smartphone. With his first glance at the Engraving, Randidly had quite a bit of difficulty interpreting the complex interactions that made it work.

It was clear that somehow the movement of energy through the metal limb would generate additional energy in a feedback loop to reinforce the joints during impacts, but Randidly was bewildered as to the mechanism. There were small distortions in some of the familiar sigils in the Engraving, but Randidly didn’t understand how those changes would accomplish what Neveah claimed they would. Probably, Randidly would need a few days to understand the Engraving enough to attempt making it.