Chapter 1580 (1/2)

Wheezing a breath out, Randidly finally reached up and seized upon his emotional tether. This time, he needed to squeeze his eyes shut and helplessly grasp for… well, he couldn't know how long the process took, but he felt like it took much longer than it had previously. Not only were the emotions more stretched and strained as he proceeded deeper, but he was absolutely exhausted.

His broken ribs steadily knit themselves back together.

The automatons had doggedly pursued Randidly as he had tumbled deeper into the shaft, smashing him against the walls and each other whenever they could. The physical form that he had once held with such pride had certainly been humbled against Velio Dunn, but it was now as he was pushed deeper and deeper, that his arrogance was completely broken. His bones repeatedly cracked and blood sprayed from his ruptured skin.

In darkness, he fell downward, dogged constantly by the automatons. But at a certain point, his Grim Intuition’s constant warnings eased. He took a few seconds to gather himself.

I’m still so weak… Randidly wiped blood from his mouth and glared around him into the empty space in the direction he believed to be up. No attacks came and he continually scanned the surrounding space; soon, his expression eased. He now had the confidence to hold his current position. Because although he still couldn’t detect the automatons until they were right on top of him, he sensed the change in the air.

Randidly ran his tongue across his teeth as he furiously studied the surrounding environment in order to keep his obsessive motivation happy. 90% Nether content in the air… I’ve proceeded very deeply. And this situation…

Randidly sensed several powerful creatures floating below him. Their auras stained the air a variety of colors, a precariously balanced series of territories in the darkness. Nether Heralds and Nether Gatekeepers glared up at him briefly as he arrived, but they quickly turned their attention back inward. They were thickly clustered in this area, all hovering in a meditative stance with surrounded by their various boundaries with each other.

Combing through the air with Grim Intuition, Randidly was shocked to discover that he could feel almost a thousand of these powerful Nether soldiers just in the area around him, each more potent than any of the Nether Heralds he had fought on the front lines. In his mad flight down the shaft, he had completely lost sight of the walls; he now simply felt alone in the vast darkness. The bones had receded gradually, leaving only emptiness.

The worst part of his current situation was that his grasp on his emotional tether was steadily slipping. He could shift his grip to steady himself, but in that moment he would go a little deeper into the abyss. Randidly silently clicked his jaw shut, testing how the bone was healing. For the moment, it was still quite sore.

We are all now truly caught by the significance below… those automatons can move relatively freely, but even they dare not come down here. They batter any strong Nether Beasts that escape upward and force them back downward… in a way, they are the jailors for all the Nether forces down here…

Scanning the significant Nether power that the nearby Gatekeepers possessed, Randidly shivered inwardly. But on the other hand, he couldn’t help but be excited; much more than the areas that housed the weak Nether Beasts above, this place provided a lot of helpful examples of successful Nether Cores for Randidly’s experiments.

It was only a matter of acquiring the relevant data.

For several seconds, Randidly eyed the closest Nether Gatekeeper that floated in the darkness. It was a humanoid creature with dusky and hairless skin for a torso, but its legs were covered in black fur and ended in hooves. Upon its head were an impressive rack of black antlers. Then he shook his head.

Studying could wait. For now, he needed to reestablish his equilibrium. Yggdrasil flared to life in his chest, illuminating his veins with golden light and expediting the healing process. And, to his relief, there were no interfering pulses from above. But honestly, his body was the least of his worries.

Unleashing all that Nether bought him some time, but his current Nether Nebula had weakened significantly. Even with the incorporation of his Nether Engravings in the expanding flow, he was steadily losing Nether to the significance below. So Randidly ignored his aching body and hurriedly mobilized his Nether Nebula with his Willpower.

The Nether Nebula spun faster and faster, churning out Nether. Randidly gritted his teeth and forced himself to reaccumulate his own dense Nether.

When he had once more built himself back up, Randidly released a sigh of relief. Then, without the ability to take a break, Randidly forced his tired mind to focus its efforts on his images. He carefully refined the details while his body gradually healed from the beating it had taken during the descent. The fire in his chest continued to urge him forward, forcing him to push at his limits.

Then, although his flesh was still tender and recently healed, Randidly needed to once more strain himself against the current of significance and focus his efforts on physical strength; his mind just couldn’t take any more effort. He was dangerously close to the foggy exhaustion that would have him struggle down here for years without any effective improvement. He needed the chance for his mind to recover.

So he forced his reknit flesh to move. It was especially painful training. As his muscles trembled, Randidly felt the unfamiliar impulse to surrender; he truly wanted to give up and just surrender. But his instincts told him that he couldn’t. Although it was much less obvious than his body’s current situation, allowing the oblivion of the mind to swash him away was just as dangerous.

The pain and anguish of his current struggle had Randidly wandering in his memories, to those days where Shal took him into a Tellus prison and forced him to fight against the inmates there. He remembered the endless field of tall grass swaying in the wind. He could picture perfectly the color and shape of blood dripping off the tip of his spear.

And gradually, the pieces of Randidly’s consciousness came back together while his body bought him time. He could allow his strained body to relax and turned to other pursuits. Namely, he had stumbled across some insights into the significance of the Grim Chimera while being bludgeoned by the automatons.