Chapter 1991

Chapter 1991

Randidly scratched his chin as he looked at the busy forces of the Order Vulpis arming themselves and checking prepared supplies. Ballast insisted they be ready for a full campaign on an alien world and Randidly could only acquiesce. With the System, food and clothing weren’t as necessary before. But it did make things convenient.

Watching them work so hard almost made the waiting Randidly feel guilty.

He was sorely tempted by the idea to sit and push his first Skill to Level 1000 with this opportunity. To achieve his first Mille. But something had been weighing on a while, and he felt like it was important that he accomplish this task it first. Just in case it affected the reward he expected to receive for reaching such a milestone.

And accomplishing that task meant leaving.

No time like the present. I shouldn’t need anyone from the Order Vulpis for a bit anyway. Randidly closed his eyes and shifted himself. His body within his body vanished. At the base of the shaft, surrounded by the horrible maw of significance that compounded itself and devoured everything around it, Randidly opened his eyes.

All at once, his senses began to tingle. The environment seemed to tighten around him. Huge currents of significance whooshed past him. Even touching the grounding Engraving that divided the body of Pine from whatever phantasms lurked below, Randidly swayed underneath the constant barrage. Powerful eddies of Nether whipped back and forth above him. Strange, shadowy shapes slammed themselves against the gleaming plateau below, as though they could feel Randidly’s presence through the barrier and wanted to devour him. ViiSiit novelbi/n(.)c/(o)m for latest novels

His heart sunk, realizing these shades must have steadily gathered while he was within the Alpha Cosmos.

The gleaming, light sucking sphere of Pine hung just overhead. It begged to be stared at, to allow it to devour your attention with its perverted permanence. Yet even beyond the dangerous forces he had been prepared for, Randidly felt a new pressure in the area: a raging pressure emerged from the sleeping body of Solomon Rex, resting beneath Pine.

His Nether senses spread out through the air, seeing and understanding so much more than what he had been able to glean when he arrived here. Gradually, he could make out the shape of the ancient engine around Pine, although Randidly still had some difficulty understanding how that fueled so much energy production for the Nexus.

But he could read deeper into the half-finished and dismantled Engravings around Pines body. Some to protect, others to destroy. In a way, the history of the war over this being was written in mostly eroded shapes right here.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 991!

Congratulations! Your Skill Right Hand of the Nether Polymath (M) has grown to Level 821!

Right about the time Randidly refocused himself, there was a shimmer next to the sleeping Solomon. The projection appeared again, smiling at Randidly like they were old friends. “Did you have a good dream?”

“A dream?” Randidly asked, trying to speak casually. His mind began to race. He had never truly known how much a watcher could understand about the process when his consciousness turned into his Alpha Cosmos. Whether he displayed some outward sign. He was especially leery of someone as powerful as Solomon Rex being able to study him at his most vulnerable.

Of course, considering the situation, it wasn’t like Randidly had much choice.

The projection nodded easily. “You seemed lost in your dreams there for a bit. Hopefully, you dreamt of a more peaceful world. Away from the backstabbers of the Nexus and their plots.”

“...good luck to you as well,” Randidly replied. Then he whirled his Nether Core, took a deep breath, and hopped off of the ground. Instantly, the hungry significance of that broken universe fragment Pine had become grasped at him. For a second he wavered, but Randidly released a dismissive pulse of Nether; a being that hadn’t yet condensed a true Nether Core couldn’t threaten one who possessed an Authority.

He began to accelerate upward, leaving the bottom of the shaft behind. As he moved up through the thinning Nether, rushing past the floating Nether Heralds and Gatekeepers, the Stillborn Phoenix spread wide within his chest. All those violent emotions that Pine regurgitated upward, it devoured. It had been quite well behaved in the Alpha Cosmos. But here, it licked its lips and began to feast.

Destructive emotions were absorbed. Then, a few seconds later, it would blow out an even more violent emotional typhoon, marked by the impossibility that existed at the core of the image.

Congratulations! Your Skill Volatile Breath from Beyond (T) has grown to Level 703!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill the Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 930!

Congratulations! Your Skill Volatile Breath from Beyond (T) has grown to Level 740!

When he reached the midpoint and the strange porcelain drones began to flock out, Randidly curled his fingers and Seized those nearest to him. For a second they resisted, protected by small threads of significance, but he quickly snapped those. They became an honor guard, protecting Randidly as he zipped upward.

Interesting, Randidly reflected as he mobilized his Nether Storm. So long as I keep using Nether, the small flaws in my Core’s rotation vanish. While fighting using Nether, I don’t need a Penance to balance myself. Of course, the consequence of that is probably that too long without using Nether will make my Core increasingly unstable...

Noting that down, he continued his rapid ascent. He didn’t slow until he reached the level where Edraine’s hideout was. He paused at the heavy iron door along the side of the shaft, releasing a powerful belch of emotions from the Stillborn Phoenix and reaching up to sense the situation in the Nexus as best he could. The layer of Nether here was suppressed, but-

Randidly couldn’t help but chuckle as he felt the unease and fear of the Nexus. The events prior to his trip into the Alpha Cosmos came back to him. The terrorist attacks, the violence between factions in Military High Command, the sudden rebellion against Elhume to rush for the Pinnacle, Elhume personally hunting down and eliminating the Swacc Family, the mysterious death of the leader of the Nether Lattice...

The people of the Nexus were worried. Most of the commercial districts in the Nexus that Randidly could sense were completely abandoned. Most forces had returned to their home planets, to figure out the situation.

Nodding to himself, Randidly went into the base. As he found the building, he released Raymund Ballast, Jieu Ronault, and a dozen other members of the Order Vulpis. They rapidly swept through the building and the surrounding buildings for any signs of interference or surveillance.

Randidly went back to his own room and settled down. He produced the eight coins given to him by Edraine and was about to head to Edraine’s room to acquire another token when Raymund Ballast wrapped against his door. “A problem?”

Raymund Ballast was trembling. “Not the sort of problem we were looking for. But-”

Then Randidly felt it and felt stupid for missing it. A pure tether of significance ran off from the Vulpine man into the distance. The connection pierced through the walls of the neighborhood and stretched out across the Nexus. It hummed every second, resonating with the bond between them. Randidly’s expression twisted because a similar vital bond was stretching out from him to the same location.

Randidly felt his hackles rising; he didn’t believe in this sort of coincidence. After being purposefully hidden from his senses for so long, suddenly Shal and Techetadore’s location rang clear.