Chapter 1661 (1/2)

Randidly tilted his head to the side and regarded the armored woman in front of him. “You are going to be my guide to Seeker Dusk Jackal’s base?”

Claudette nodded and favored him with a wide grin. She truly had exquisite bone structure. “Of course! I wouldn’t miss this rare chance to observe you fighting. I’m quite interested to see how you can combine your powerful physical body and your capability with Nether into your image during battle. Just in terms of breadth of tactics, it is an arsenal worthy of study.”

The blonde-haired woman seemed genuine enough, so Randidly ultimately nodded and turned away. He was strangely paranoid about connections to the Engraving Guild when she mentioned his ability to use Nether, but he reassured himself that she was the Frost Matriarch’s disciple and had seen him stave off the shockwave of Elhume. Anyway, most of his bad mood was due to the state of the planet he visited. Even after dunking himself in ice-cold water, he couldn’t get rid of that strange itch to destroy something.

Hard to say if it is the Grim Chimera’s lingering destructive impulses or just the Nexus that’s under my skin right now…. Randidly’s eyes flashed as he waved a hand and gathered the few personal items he had left laying around the room back into his interspatial ring. He traveled quite lightly. But… right now, I don’t want to keep hiding myself. I can’t bring myself to care too much about taking this arrogant shits by surprise. Hopefully, what they said about the Pinnacle Seekers not working with the orthodox factions is at least partially true…

Pah, I think it’s time to run a bit wild...

“Then let’s go,” Randidly said lightly. Claudette nodded and led the way through the passages of the Frost Matriarch’s base. Helen would want to watch the fight too, but she was currently training within the Alpha Cosmos. So it was enough for Randidly to send her a message and follow after Claudette Beigon.

Helen could be hand delivered to the battlefield via the Philosopher's Key.

As they walked, Randidly mentally went through the different activation procedures for his Hierarchy of Burden. In a way, he relished the chance to activate the Fatepiece. This would add a whole new dimension to his physical training. He now understood his new physical limits a little better, but how did that match up against those warriors in the original version of the Nexus…?

In the central area of the Frost Matriarch’s base was a wide teleportation formation modelled after the Nexus’ grand astroid constructs. But Randidly was interested to notice that there were quite a few differences in the actual Aether mechanisms that made this formation work; it looked like the Frost Matriarch had made some personal modifications to the base formula. He was equally fascinated that she had the know-how and by the particular adjustments that he could learn from.

Claudette led the way, taking several quick looks at Randidly as they settled into place.The two of them stood on the platform and Randidly tilted his head to the side, annoyed by her despite himself. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “Is there something you nood?”

Claudette, who had been favoring Randidly with sidelong glances even before they had entered into the teleporter room, blinked. Then she looked at him with a slightly heavier gaze as the portal beneath their feet began to activate.

Randidly sighed and shook his head. His loosened the muscles of his neck and the annoyance dissipated. “...sorry about that. I’m not in the best mood.”

To his surprise, Claudette laughed. “No, it’s actually quite alright. In a way, it’s a relief. You’ve been so… stoic and focused since you woke up from your cocoon, constantly training and seeking to improve, despite the fact that you almost died. Knowing that you have a very short-tempered and flawed side to you makes you seem more real. And truth be told, I did have something I wanted to ask of you…”

Claudette opened her mouth to say something just as the teleporter activated. The runes flared to life beneath their feet. The space around them wrenched and threw their two bodies across the Nexus. They landed with a lurch, much more roughly than Randidly had experienced in any other teleporter. The arrival was so abrupt that his tail subconsciously snapped out from his back and he bent his knees to absorb the force. Claudette stumbled and put a hand on his metal arm to prevent herself from falling over.

The teleporter beneath them buzzed and thunk’d audibly, like an old lawnmower that wondered if this would be the day its engine shook itself to pieces.

Randidly had the strange suspicion that Claudette hadn’t really lost her balance, but was just reaching out purposefully to create an excuse to touch him. The realization made him frown slightly, but he didn’t know how to feel about it. That occurrence and his inability to categorize it satisfactorily became one more strand of agitation coiling around his heart.

Randidly took a step away from Claudette and glanced around. They were now standing on a rather sandy hill above what appeared to be a dried riverbed. The teleporter was clearly in a state of disrepair. There wasn’t another soul in sight. “So? What was it you were going to say?”

“Ah…” Claudette blinked. From the long pause, it was clear she was making some sort of mental adjustment. “Just… how well do you know Neshamah Rex? She reached out to me, wanting to contact you. I wasn’t sure whether you knew each other.”

Claudette gestured and started walking down into the riverbed and Randidly followed while he considered that information. Did the same mechanism that prevented Neshamah from appearing in his encountered individuals list and and letting him send a message also work in reverse? Randidly hadn’t sensed her presence in the final isolated space, but Neshamah seemed like someone who had reliable sources of information in quite a few places. That she had heard word of Randidly’s usage of Nether wasn’t a surprise.

I told you Neshamah. A ghost of a smile flickered to life across his face. Didn’t I promise you a surprise?

Influence +17!

“Just an acquaintance,” Randidly finally said with his eyes straight forward. Perhaps before he was exposed to Nether King he would be more interested in arranging a meeting with Neshamah, but now Randidly was rather content. He had a lot more experiments to do before he exhausted all the inspiration he had from seeing the intricate way the Nether King could guide energy. Plus, Randidly’s accumulation of Influence had been steadily rising; he just recently broke past 10,000 Influence, which meant that he would likely earn some extra Weight when he attempted to advance his Nether Core.

His investigations of Expira and the Alpha Cosmos while he searched for the source of the time dilations also revealed that his growing Influence was accumulated through the support of the population in those worlds. Randidly stood in the sky of the Alpha Cosmos and could feel ethereal threads flowing up from those that thought of him, being inexorably pulled into his Nether Core. With that in mind, Randidly anticipated that the speed at which he could gather Influence would sky-rocket once he had a workable method of incorporating the Nemesai’s planets into the Alpha Comos.

And I never thought I would admit this… but this is only possible due to the proselytizing actions of those fanatical Frost Dragons. Randidly winced. Who knew that Nether would respond so positively to religion…?

Claudette seemed to accept Randidly’s noncommittal answer, because they walked in easy silence for five minutes as they proceeded along the dried riverbed into a canyon. At the bottom, they found Seeker Dusk Jackal, standing with his arms akimbo and watching them approach. The whole situation was eerily silence; not even the wind dared gossip as the duo approached.