Chapter 1697 (2/2)

It should be fine here. I doubt anyone is going to assault this farm… Randidly continued to his methodical massacre of everything non-butterfly and bee crawling through the field. The fingers of his gloves were covered in gore, but those insects' guts were just as quickly baked into charred crisps by the heat rolling off of his gloves. His tail swam lazily through the air, leaving a hanging trail of Nether for several seconds. But for the Alpha Comos… huh. Yet at the same time… as long as my body is fine...

Randidly made one final adjustment to the Nether Array beneath the farm, finally setting it up in the inspired style that combined its previous shape and Randidly’s understanding of himself. Then he obliterated the remaining safeguards. Rapidly, the currents of Nether changed and began to accumulate within those thinnest and most fragile strands of Nether. He could sense the subtle vibrations released by those slender strands was rapidly intensifying. Soon, the energy began to vibrate at such a quick frequency that the Nether Ritual began to sing.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 344!

The cacophony of Nether was so demanding that Randidly finally stopped his physical body. The undulating movements of his tail began anxious as he crouched down and pressed his right hand against the ground. He could sense that the Nether Ritual was about to snap. Randidly could see no way for the arrangement to endure this intensity of energy that was coursing through it.

And yet, Randidly was still and solemn, as he looked down unseeingly into the energy flowing within the ground. ...I suppose that’s why I called the half-step of Nether a ‘Penance’. This is an act… done with faith.

So despite how fragile everything seemed, Randidly held himself back and just watched. He tried to trust his gut.

The central pillar of the Nether Ritual was vibrating like a flicked guitar string, sending ripples through the entire construction. Then it began to fray, small piece of energy splintering off and radiating outward as some sort of natural significance by-product. The process was interesting, but Randidly felt a flash of regret that he had held himself back a second prior.

And yet-

When the snap Randidly had been dreading finally came, it was not the snap he had expected. Instead of the whole support structure collapsing, all that pressurized Nether finally forced itself through that central pillar. A dense squirt of Nether pushed its way downward, rapidly circulating through the preprepared flows. By the time that Nether had gone all the way through the Nether Array and reached its original position at the top, the pressure had dropped to the point where the flow as constant, but manageable.

Gradually, the tremors in the Nether Array ceased.

Randidly sat back on his heels in wonder. I mean… I did this, but… I almost did it on a whim… to think that it actually…

When he studied the phenomenon more closely, Randidly realized that Nether possessed a quality similar to drag as it rubbed up against itself. Two types of Nether, one flowing, one still, would stick to each other. So even though the pressurized Nether flow circulating through the array and then came together in a massive gush through the central pillar, with enough force to blast it outward… the movement of the Nether became the greatest source of support.

“To think that there’s still so much more to learn about Nether…” Randidly shook his head in wonder. Then he became even more tempted by Claudette’s offer. As long as she could provide him with information about Neshamah and the Engraving Guild and the way they used Nether… Randidly had no doubt that he would continue to improve his mastery at a rapid pace.

Randidly idly reached up to scratch his chin as he considered the problem of refining someone else's image, but he wrinkled his nose and stopped himself. He looked in horror at the gloves on his hands. For whatever reason, the melted corpses of thousands of bugs covered his fingers. There was an extremely strange smell wafting off of them, and the metal braces with the Engravings were so heated that the leather seemed to be bubbling a little bit.

Randidly chuckled. “Okay, better move slowly for a while and let these cool off…”

So Randidly sat on the ground and meditated for a bit, his mind traveling through his images. If he planned on helping Claudette, he might as well make sure he did a damn good job.

A good enough job that she could finally force her father to acknowledge her.

*****

“Did you feel that?”

Claudette looked up from the cutting board in front of her. “Huh? Feel what?”

“Like… a shift in energy. Like something profound just came into alignment. Maybe there was a little bit of an earthquake, too.” Nrorce hopped off his stool and hobbled to the window. He peered out the glass, but the window was only barely above the ground, because of the depth of the building, which meant that the goblin couldn’t see much beyond a screen of grass.

“...isn’t that a good thing?” Claudette asked slowly. She had arrived quite peeved at the situation, but the process of cutting up herbs actually was quite fulfilling. Time cooled her temper. So she once more had the poise to smile.

“Ehh…” Nrorce shook his head vehemently. “Unexpected blessings are a sign of future calamities. Such a hassle…”