Chapter 2060

Chapter 2060

The purple porcelain doll glowed with pulses of power space-bending power, wielding gravity against Randidly from afar. It raised its hands and tightened the tiny fingers into fists. Randidly felt daggers of inverted gravity attempting to rip holes in his flesh, but Egg’s Illusory Plume easily shrugged the attack off.

He tilted his head to the side as he felt the strange, almost cosmic notes to the weakened image. This one was probably the Patron of the Deep.

However, what drew Randidly’s eyes most about the strange tableau in front of him were the heavy cables that ran up out the ground and plugged into the dais. A complex, multilayered Engraving covered the base of the dais and fed all the energy stolen from powerful individuals in orbs below into those three blue tubes.

Randidly’s eyes narrowed. He tried to calculate how much Aether was being supplied to these devices, near constantly. What the hell is-

“I bet you are wondering what’s inside those three strange tubes. Do you want to know their secret?”

Randidly pressed his lips together, immediately suspicious about the invisible speaker. The disembodied voice earned a sharp jerk from Xershi, whose liger was not faring well against the combined forces of the Patrons of Abyss and Blades. “Creator! You really are here?!?”

The indigo Patron of Feathers doll raised its arms, unleashing a flurry of fluttering darkness that blossomed out from its torso. Then, with a remarkably sharp movement, it streaked across the intervening distance and smashed into Xershi’s side while he was distracted. The Patron of Blooms struggled back for control of its conjured plant matter, but Randidly twisted those growths and tossed them against the beams of sunlight aimed at his back by the Patron of the Sun.

As a group these dolls were difficult to handle, but their images were only three-fourths as powerful as the real thing. Against his grip, the fake Patron of Blooms could only sulk.

Congratulations! Your Skill the First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 897!

The disembodied voice laughed as the ligerman skidded across the ground and scrambled back to his feet. “Ah, Xershi. I’m impressed you managed to climb this far. But it looks like you have your own problems at the moment; without capability, I think it would be inappropriate for us to speak further, don’t you?”

To Randidly’s surprise, Xershi’s mouth snapped shut. He flared his liger image, using fang and claws to lash out against feathers, the void, and gleaming slashes that continued to brutalize him. Fiona and Pullas stepped through the portal and looked around at the chaotic mess with very little surprise on their faces. The three standing dolls launched into motion, targeting Randidly; perhaps they believed if they could eliminate him in time, they could handle the rest.

Snorting, Randidly allowed the Grey Creature to flare around his body. All those dangerous emotional elements crashed back and forth across his mind, obliterating any mild thoughts that had been minding their business in that wild emotion’s path. What remained was a wild, dark rage with enough intensity that the Aether in the space around him shook with tremors.

Randidly planned on obliterating a few dolls as quickly as possible.

“What is inside those tubes?” Fiona raised her finger and pointed, voicing the question they probably all were thinking.

Randidly rolled his eyes at how direct she was, but his focus started to get pulled toward one tube in particular. The left tube seemed to guide his attention to it. No sort of aura flowed out of the surface, yet he felt so sure of a familiar being within its confines. He grasped for Aether and Nether and only received slight responses on both.

He took a tentative step closer. After several long seconds of staring, Randidly blinked. It must be... some portion of Yystrix.

“Originally, the Sonara tried to recreate a perfect version of the past. An alternate history relived with the superior capability they had earned of the last few centuries.” The voice of the Xershi’s creator whispered. Randidly tore his gaze away from the left tube and examined the surroundings, trying to figure out where this figure hid. “Do you know much about the Pinnacle? Several elements are required. A foundation, an image, and a perfect moment. Elhume sought to reach the Pinnacle with his entire family, as he craved it to be. He took a piece of each of them for the image, the energy of the captured fools as a foundation, the completed Sonara as the moment of transformation.

“That was the plan, anyway. Problems emerged immediately. First, the image was fractured. Despite his wife generously donating half of her power to fuel the process, Elhume couldn’t part with even a drop of his power, even to achieve what he claimed to be his dearest held wish. And of course, Pine couldn’t be conveniently subdivided and brought here. Attempts to gather up Pine’s energy... had consequences.

“As far as I can tell, the foundation functions fine. Obviously moot, without the other two. Ah yes, the most interesting part, in my opinion: as the Sonara neared completion, the moment never quite manifested. Most have since theorized that the moment must be extemporaneous. Grasping for the past will never allow one to climb to the Pinnacle. Perhaps facing this very same truth, Elhume’s attitude experienced a full one-eighty. He built two extra layers, shifting the perfect image reverberations to the fifty-first layer. Reinforcing that destructive enterprise he later invested all his efforts.”

Randidly licked his lips. He started walking forward, almost unconsciously, until he stood right up in front of the left tube. He pressed his fingers against the glass, surprised by how chilled the exterior felt. “Why are you telling us this?”

“Oh, just as a favor. Besides, I’m going to take everything apart once you’ve moved through.” The voice laughed. “Honestly, I should be thanking you. Due to certain restrictions, overcoming the Patrons would have been difficult for me. Without your group's appearance, I would have needed to design a perfect foe to overcome them, allow it to grow, and then bring the lifeform to bear. Of course, if you hadn’t also started the collapse of the Sonara, I would have had plenty of time-”

“Wait. Creator,” Xershi’s head whipped up. His eyes once again had that watery quality of panic, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. His gaze fixated at the space on top of the central tube, of which Randidly made note. “Are you suggesting- you would go through the profound process of creating life just to accomplish a goal? But that goes against all the precepts-”

“Those rules are designed for my precious children, to keep them from crossing lines and walking into the abyss.” The voice from the invisible being dropped even lower, until it was just a hiss against Randidly’s skin. “But considering how important it is that I plunder the power just sitting here... yes, I am willing to compromise some of the protections I have laid in place. If that burden must be carried, I will endure it.”

“You-” Xershi gritted his teeth. “Nothing can justify the improper creation of life! Is it not your words that creating a tool-entity must plunder its life from somewhere? Tear pieces out of your soul to come into existence? If you are submitting yourself to oblivion-”

“Ah, Xershi,” The voice sighed. Yet Randidly’s skin began to tingle. While the voice seemed so gentle, he could almost feel a condescending sneer unrolling itself across the hidden face. “So much of what I have left to my people is aspirational. I wish I was as considered as those rules would make me seem. Yet it is not so.

“I have walked deeply in darkness. And now that I have caught the scent of a method to break out of this stagnant Nexus... do you think I have compunctions about diving even deeper to seize an opportunity? I need power. So I’ll claim it.”