Chapter 1670 (1/2)

Randidly released a hissing breath through his teeth as the red lightning sparking across his flesh intensified. If a normal human was afflicted with a similar level of radiation, he didn’t doubt that they would be roasted from the inside out.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has reached Level 5!

The prior increases in the drag Randidly experienced had mostly been increases in the severity of the electrical spikes. But this Level was different; after Randidly activated it, he experienced a constant barrage of electrical current through his body. Every moment felt like a spike. He could feel the air around his body ionizing as so much electricity moved through his flesh and polarized his skin.

Randidly had the sneaking suspicion that if he were to touch someone else, he would experience a quite unpleasant static shock. The electrical discharge might be enough to kill someone below Level 60.

But the new permanence of the spasms was secondary: the real problem was that Randidly’s strategy of relaxing his body was no longer sufficient to endure these forces. If Randidly were truly just to let himself go and relax, the constant electrical prodding would very quickly have him contracting every muscle in his body as hard as he possibly could. The interval between these electrical pulses had given him time to recover in the past.

No effort on Randidly’s part would result in him ending up in a truly agonizing fetal position, with every muscle in his body doing its best to squeeze itself into oblivion. But luckily, the past week of familiarizing himself with the Fatepiece had been relatively effective. His mastery of his body wasn’t perfect, but his efforts with Ripple of Amenonuhoko taught him much out more subtle forms of resistance against the electricity.

Randidly spread his trembling arms and legs, keeping them from curling inward. His emerald eyes were bright in the darkness. If my prior strategy was acceptance… I now need something closer to temperance to endure this Hierarchy… and this is only one-fourth of the way through the first layer…

Well, this was never supposed to be a short term project…

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 334!

Influence +15!

The crimson electricity was pernicious and ubiquitous within his body. From the starting discomfort, these more recent waves of energy lapped closer and closer toward being objectively painful, even for Randidly. But he didn’t flinch. It was only by exposing himself to forces like this that he would grow.

Once Randidly stabilized his physical state, he spent a bit more of his time carefully observing the way the electricity physically manifested. He watched the visual distortions and sniffed, catching the tang of ozone in the surrounding air. Then, while he still remained under the Fatepiece’s influence, Randidly began to steadily refine the manifestation of his Stillborn Phoenix image. Dark emotions swirled more deeply around him, thickening the very air.

Randidly couldn’t help but crack a smile. This method of image refinement is definitely effective… it’s only been a week, but this sort of ominous aura…

But Randidly soon dismissed those thoughts; the less he thought about how much he had been improving down here, without any other demands on his attention, would just distract him from training. He decreased the sympathy between himself and the Fatepiece so that the electricity wasn’t so distracting and dismissed the Stillborn Phoenix. Then Randidly raised his hands and the image physicalizations of the Grim Chimera appeared around him.

Nether spun around his fingers. With remarkable grace, the Grim Chimera began to weave a massive envelope of Nether in the air. Below him, Randidly could sense the nearest Nether Gatekeepers looking up curiously at his actions; he wasn’t sure whether it was the accomplishment or the speed of his improvement with Nether that surprised it.

Influence +14!

After an hour of weaving, Randidly finished this project and finished the Ritual. The weave flashed and solidified. All in all, Randidly had created an envelope large enough to balloon outward and fill the entirety of the shaft. Based on the sensation of creating it, this wasn’t Randidly’s limit either. The current envelope was about the size of an extremely large city, but he should be able to push himself to make an envelope ten times that size.

However, his current concern wasn’t size. It was structural integrity.

Once the envelope was established outside of himself, Randidly created probes and drills of both Aether and Nether to test the resiliency of the barrier. His earlier failures to penetrate it only lit the fires of his competitive spirit. Ten minutes later, Randidly grinned in satisfaction. His efforts could warp the edge of the envelope, but he would truly need to expend himself in order to break through the outer barrier.

And most of the defensive strength was a result of the woven significance between himself, his Nether Core, and the protected planet. In essence, the current envelope he created without anything of note inside was the weakest the defenses would be. When the significance of a planet was added to the mix, Randidly didn’t need to worry about someone casually inflicting a wound on his barrier.

Of course, considering how many enemies Randidly Ghosthound had, the casual tragedies were the least of his worries. But it was a start.