Chapter 1603 (1/2)

Without the Nether Herald stabilizing the situation, the backbone of this invasion force crumpled and collapsed like a rotting tree. A huge wave of Nether Beasts surged out of the giant Nether Sphere after the Nether Herald’s death, but even with such numbers the enemies were quickly herded together and slaughtered. Under the leadership of DiOrtho Vant, the dozen Nether Gatekeepers were weakened and defeated.

Soon, the ground in the surroundings was littered with broken Nether Cores.

Randidly simply sat on top of the sphere and watched the fight settle. There were a few minor injuries to the recruits, but after an hour of fighting, they stood at attention before him with crisp salutes. Their first battle ended in a decisive victory.

Influence +5!

Randidly nodded slowly as he examined them all. This was the most difficult step and they had taken it impressively. “Set up patrols for the surrounding area. I’ll report our success and see if we have any further orders.”

His troops dispersed in groups, with the Squad Leaders acting closely with the core Riders of the Baleful Court to coordinate their efforts. After fighting against the Nether forces together, the groups were getting along splendidly. Randidly wondered if he should leave the troops with Raymund Ballast after the Foxman recovered and could take up the mantle of his own identity once more.

It would certainly address the problem of the group’s low numbers...

Influence +4!

Randidly’s lips twitched. Plus, the interactions between the factions seemed to be accelerating the growth of his Influence. Or at least, he thought that must be the cause of the increased accumulation. Truth be told, he understood very little about Influence. Rather than a measure like Weight which described his own, observable power, Randidly suspected that Influence described the power that he couldn’t conscious exert, but still possessed.

At this point, his Influence had climbed to 3101. He wasn’t sure about the exact count, but at this pace, Randidly figured he could delay his growth to the next Nether Core Rarity to 10,000 Influence.

Opening a dialogue with Neshamah will be useful, if just to get a handle on the aspects of a Nether Core… Randidly reflected. But I don’t want to appear too desperate, especially when she seems to think I’ve thrown my lot in with the Engraving Guild. But as long as I give her a nice surprise after this war… heh, I suspect she will be quite a bit more amenable…

Humming to himself, Randidly sat on top of the sundered Nether Orb and looked up at the sky. The bands of black lightning were becoming thicker every minute as they streaked across the sky. Intermittent rumbles created a constant thrum of background noise on the planet’s surface. The strained confrontation between the Nether King and Commandant Wick was becoming more and more apparent. Their struggles became ambient ‘weight’ that suppressed Nether and Aether activity alike in the surrounding area.

Even being beneath this fight would be enough to kill weak creatures. If there were any natural wildlife on this planet, Randidly suspected that they were now just corpses.

Despite the obvious drawbacks, Randidly took some mental notes about the general suppression to test for the next time he needed a training array. But he took a quick break to write up a report that he sent through to Lady Iellaya directly, who was the superior of the elite recruits’ superior. Technically, she was within their chain of command. While he waited for a response, Randidly studied the Nether Sphere that was used for the incursion.

Very quickly he could only click his tongue and shake his head. Damn, it’s more impressive than I realized that the root drill only inflicted a flesh wound on the Nether Herald. The Nether Sphere was completely annihilated by its passage… all the valuable weavings were torn to shreds in the attack…

Influence +4!

Without anything to see below him, Randidly’s focus turned back upward. While studying the conflict in the sky was somewhat interesting, Randidly would need to manifest a significant portion of his image and Weight in order to push his Grim Intuition close enough to sense the true conflict. And with no desire to draw the attention of the two figures locked in conflict, Randidly suppressed his curiosity.

In the meantime, his attention turned to the state of his Nether Core. Despite the fact that the actual Nether Core sat within Kharon Academy on the hidden Expira, Randidly’s connection with the core meant that he was always acutely conscious of its state. Since it was at the bottom of Kharon’s labyrinth, Randidly would likely be able to see every individual who reached that prestigious depth.

But that was all for the future; the Academy would only be opening in a few more days. At the moment, Randidly began gently manipulating the Nether currents that ran along the surface of the established Nether Core.

During his confrontation with the Nether Herald, Randidly had used Cursed Appetite of a Wraith to bite off a chunk of his opponent’s Nether Core. Partially that functioned as a way to introduce a weakness in the Nether Herald, but that chunk was also truly was absorbed by Randidly. After steadily digesting its principles, Randidly had a few small bits of inspiration that he believed he could incorporate.

Obviously, he couldn’t just carve these new things into his Nether Core; blindly adopting an untested energy flow would be reckless.

But what Randidly could do was control the surface flows around his Nether core, mimicking what he had been forced to do for so long within the shaft, before he had the physical object to form his Nether Core. Randidly’s eyelids slid down until he stood with half-closed eyes. He tweaked his Nether and then watched for several minutes to study the changes in the way the energy behaved. Then he made a few more changes.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 399!

Sometimes the changes were clearly much, much worse than the current Nether Core Randidly possessed. In fact, most of the changes ruined some subtle balance that Randidly hadn’t even noticed previously. He hastily had to banish those flows and allow the destabilized Nether to return to normal before he could continue. But occasionally, Randidly stumbled across a change that led to a small increase in density, Nether fluidity, or a spiritual sense of peace.

Randidly made careful note of those shifts and incorporated them into the surface flow. He wouldn’t change his Nether Core directly, but the gradual flow of Nether along the surface would adjust his Nether Core. It was growth on the scale of months, but it was still a consistent improvement.