Chapter 1573 (1/2)

As always, Randidly gradually lost himself to constant repetition of training. In a way, it was a relief. It helped him avoid undue stress, due to his current, precarious situation. The only problem was the addition of the left arm periodically pulled him out of training as it attracted the attention of the escaping emotions from below, no matter where he positioned himself in the shaft. While those emotions would react with fear and aggression when they came close to him, curiosity still drove them to investigate.

If I die here, I’m going to leave a BOMB’s worth of negative emotions… I’ll haunt all of you...

Despite his vindictive impulses, Randidly wondered what exactly the arm felt like to these semi-conscious emotions. But ultimately, the flows of emotions weren’t the problem: the problem was his fights against emotions attracted the attention of the Nether Beasts.

Which, as he had predicted, could quickly escalate.

BOOOOOM! BOOOOOM!

There were no true noises from his strikes, but the reverberations in his hands were viscerally powerful. His knuckles were white. Randidly gritted his teeth as the Grim Chimera manifested across his body to strengthen his physique. He used his powerful left arm to simply smash back a giant centipede Nether Beast while his right hand flicked out and inflicted several deep gashes across two other Nether Beasts that rushed toward him. These sheep-like Nether Beasts! Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone?!?! Fuck, they are going to make me lose my grip on the emotional tether…

More than destroying the Nether Beasts he attacked, his blows knocked his opponents into the path of their reinforcements. They came up in a malicious wave, surrounding Randidly and seeking to strike at him from every angle. But Nether Sensation kept him a step ahead, allowing him to predict and interfere with their shitty tactics.

Yet as the Nether Beasts in front of him stabilized himself, he felt an all-consuming fury that they would push him like this. And that emotional blaze was exactly what Randidly was waiting for. In front of him was almost thirty Nether Beasts, with two that he just struck transforming Virtue into Stature and surging forward, but sudden the edges of his Grim Chimera manifestation began to shimmer with cracking power.

The left arm of the Grim Chimera grew heavier. The right arm flexed and grew sharper. A grey aura rippled outward and soaked the surrounding space. The Nether Beasts within that area found themselves mired in the shade, their movements significantly slowed.

Congratulations! Your Skill Reaper’s Mantle of Catastrophe (L) has grown to Level 272!

Randidly couldn’t trigger this reaction at will yet, but when someone pushed him emotionally…

Within the depths of the Grim Chimera, Shape and Emotion moved in tandem. Balance was briefly achieved. The air around the Grim Chimera grew sticky as its grey aura released a horrifying amount of suppression. His physical manifestations grew bright and lethal. As the two tails of the Grim Chimera flicked back and forth, the nearby Nether Beasts screeched in pain and were inflicted with near-fatal wounds and left with cracked cores.

A few Nether Beasts had the presence of mind to lash out with their claws and tails to strike back as the Grim Chimera gathered itself, but Chimeric Impunity meant that their attacks were harmless.

Then the Grim Chimera grinned as they crowded around his empowered form. The Chimera Weeps, But Man Mourns.

Congratulations! Your Skill The Chimera Weeps, But Man Mourns has grown to Level 251!

The fingers of the Grim Chimera shot out in several directions, aided both by shape and emotional energy. Typically, this Skill unleashed about 10 to 14 thrusts in the area around him. The damage of each of those wasn’t especially impressive, but rather the utility of the Skill came from the fact that each thrust was near-simultaneous. Randidly could inflict quite a bit of damage in his surroundings in a short amount of time.

Yet the boost from the emotional energy made all the difference. When Randidly’s hand shot out to rip away the life from the Nether Beasts in front of him… huge cones of force followed in the wake of his attacks. They silently swept outward, ripping through the Nether Beasts’ bubbles and annihilating their core. For a brief moment, he was a flurry of activity. Both arms lashed out wildly; Randidly seemed to sit at the center of an explosion and launched shrapnel in every direction.

With eyes glowing with fury, Randidly panted and looked out across the empty space in front of him. Severed limbs fizzled and began to disintegrate, no longer supported by the Nether Cores that had sustained them.

He released another breath as his emotions steadily drained out of him, leaving the Grim Chimera in its more typical form. A similar process to condensing drops of liquid Aether and using a hyper powered Skill, but the efficiency is much better. I don’t need to gather emotion for near as long this way. I’ll be able to wield this power much more frequently if I can just master my emotions…

That thought earned a rueful smile from Randidly. He shook his head. Mastering emotions…? It wasn’t a realistic goal, even if he gave up his wish to overthrow the Nexus and became a monk. Then he glanced around his position, sensing the movements of Nether Beasts to investigate that last image burst he released. Without much urgency, he drifted across the whole of the shaft to the other wall. Currently, he felt like he had reached his limits with his Engraving attempts; it was time to activate the Visage of Obsession once more.

So far these sacrifices haven’t been much… but there are quite a few more to go. I only have so many senses… what could be coming next…?

Before he produced the Fatepiece, Randidly wove himself a Nether Ritual to seal the surroundings, as he had done for the forging. It was especially necessary now to have a refuge, with his arm constantly drawing emotional ire his way. Once he had his protective barrier up, he pulled out the old scroll, hyper-aware of how grainy the canvas paper in his hands felt.

He unrolled the Visage and looked at it with his blind eyes, wondering whether his sight would pose a challenge. But, as he expected, it did not.

The longer Randidly looked, the more emotions began to flow out of the blank canvas, coloring his vision. His point of view was gathered and pulled forward. Instead of just being able to see from the perspective of the painting, Randidly felt like he was sinking directly into that strange world of ambient colors. With the experience of sensing the surrounding through Nether, he realized that the colorful painting displayed a view that was extremely similar to Nether Sensation.