Chapter 2064

Chapter 2064

Pullas felt incredibly light. Her stomach flipped over itself. She lifted her arms even higher, facing the three long fingers whipping around to smash the group, rat-tat-tat, in quick succession. More tiny hands marched around the group, a grand current of Nether rising to smash over the group. The strange towers on this layer continued to release pulses of image suppression, squeezing at Pullas’s edges.

Death snorted.

Almost without effort, the primordial heap of death Pullas wielded cut a jagged flaw in the suppression. The towers flared with alternating violet and teal colors. She forced herself to concentrate and glance around, even as her image demanded more of her attention. She could barely stop herself from swaying with the rising music. Even with the power I feel rushing through me... I cannot imagine fighting against the tentacle fingers and the suppression and the tiny hands-

Fiona shifted uneasily next to them, even while Death pouted at Pullas’s doubts. “The little ones are starting something.”

Xershi looked sideways at Pullas. His eyes were strange in a way that made her chest feel extremely hot. Death wiggled her eyebrows at Pullas, but no one else appeared to notice. “Keep those tentacles off our backs, I’ll rip up the little guys.” He glanced sideways and made a face. “Maybe it will help Randidly get out of his head, too.”

Before Pullas could respond, Xershi turned away and accelerated. The metal liger stretched and roared, filling the air, a veritable force of nature stampeding into the group of black hands that wove a Nether Ritual around them. His claws scythed their way through the thick groupings of enemies.

Trust. We trust each other. Pullas purposefully ignored the growing pain in her Soulspace. Ignoring the serious surroundings, Death began to sway to the music. More and more energy dripped out of her broken Great Fate, but for now, she had plenty to spare. That’s how we can get through this. Together.

Almost immediately, the strangely lit towers shifted back into a unified teal, gathering an Engraving of suppression toward Xershi’s destructive form. With blazing eyes, Pullas waved her hand and released a radiant wave of energy that passed through the suppression like it was naught but cobwebs. The restriction fizzled and dispersed. Xershi didn’t even glance at the attempted impediment.

“Escaping is the real issue,” Fiona continued. Her mauve light spread out around Pullas’s image, keeping the tugging flows of Nether from affecting her. Her eyes narrowed as she peered around. “Even more than the attacks-”

The three tentacles whipped down. Pullas found herself growling as mobilized her image. With the pressure of the attacks, her emotions were wound together into a dense mass. The details sharpened in response to the threat. Death’s steps in the dance quickened.

The first two attacks arrived, both summarily repulsed. Fiona reached forward and gripped Pullas’s waist, keeping her upright. Death just sighed and shook her head, trying to gather more of all the shredded bits of power still tumbling within Pullas’s wounded Soulspace. Her mind buzzed with the horrible tang of the finger-tentacles substance. Yet the third tentacle pivoted and whipped sideways, aiming for Xershi’s back as he ravaged the tiny hands.

Death’s smile only widened. You, a mechanized system bounded by tight rules and regulations, thought you could fool me?

The knuckles of Pullas’s left hand popped. She released a pure blast of milky death that slammed into the side of the tentacle and knocked it just off, so when it crashed into the ground with enough force to shake the surrounding layer, it only crushed black, psuedo-Nether hands. Their still twitching fingers tumbled in every direction.

It simultaneously produced the energy and was bombarded by it, setting his body to trembling. It benefited from being a part of him, a physical being who housed an isolated universe, but it still ached. The Nether around him, the Nether manipulated by patterns against him, accelerated around his exposed Nether Core, drawing more speed and applying more pressure due to its presence.

Wincing, Randidly let himself sink back to the core of the trap. I cannot force my way out. I also have to admit... if this trap was enough to bind the Nether King, even with my insight, I cannot think my way out.

He felt himself grinding his teeth. But at that very moment, he felt a pulse of pure faith, carried along through the Ascension Pact to him. Pullas, believing wholly that he would soon break his way out and help them escape. His heart sank as he thought about that prospect.

And then Neveah was there, pressing against him. Just let go of the other worries. You’ve found good, reliable friends. Focus on the task in front of you.

Easy for you to say, Randidly grumbled back. But he forced himself to do as she said. He isolated his consciousness from the sensation of Nether. He allowed everything to fall away. Then he very deliberately began switching off worries and musings in his mind that weren’t currently helping him.

The training with the Visage of Obsession, once more coming in handy in more controlled doses.

Randidly felt a little bit like standing on top of a small city and looking down as the light were cut off, block by block. Not until he began culling energy to his ancillary worries did he realize how much of his focus was lost to them. Then, when all that swirling intellectual potency snapped back to the chilling and overwhelming tide of Nether, he quickly reviewed his situation.

An idea came to him. I am not strong enough to just rip my way out of this trap. And I am not quite clever enough to think my way out with deft manipulation of energies... but I really don’t need to be, do I? Not when I have both.

Randidly once more pressed himself forward into the raging rapids of Nether. The pressure built on his Nether Core as the Nether accelerated. Randidly ignored the pressure; the Nether Core of an entire universe wasn’t so fragile to quickly shatter under this. Instead, he looked at the rapid flows of energy, traveling around his Nether Core.

The strange thing about Nether patterns is that two flows heading in opposite directions almost stick to each other; the friction becomes a line of support. So with these accelerating flows...

Randidly began to rotate his Nether Core, spinning on a horizontal axis, while the restrictive flow moved on a vertical one. The counterflows began to stick to each other, forming a firm bond. He gritted his teeth as the pressure intensified, but into that sticky bond of Nether he could insert more energy, churning in a minuscule whirlwind between the two flows.

His smile widened. Gotcha.

He unleashed wave after wave of Nether into that tiny little inflatable, building up some space for himself to work. Bit by bit, he pried open the Nether trap, taking the brunt of the forceful restriction on his body and playing with the slack.

Outside, his Ascension Pact was waiting for him. And they needed to keep climbing if they wanted to survive.