Chapter 2305

Chapter 2305

A dark mist wafted around the massive spider's feat. And the first emotional note that spread out from its bleak and fractured form was very clearly learned from all the scattered sparks of significance imported from the memory's dead. The spider hunched under the weight of the grudge it carried.

Randidly felt a chill run through him as he considered the very real possibility that this had been a bad idea.

A monster towered over him, oozing potent Nether and wild dissatisfaction. Energy crackled through its joints and broken body, the form clearly hastily assembled and poorly conceived. Gushes of significance poured out of the cracks of its body as the Nether Ritual beneath it began to dissipate.

On the one hand, he felt immense power in the massive spider. Its standing body was about as high as a ten-story building, with probably just a little less than one-half of the memory’s significance gathered into the form. A baleful danger seeped to seep out from the chitinous body, a genuine impersonation of those frightful statues that Randidly had discovered in that strange sea connected to his Nether Core.

Ice-veins ran through its long limbs, the legs ending in slightly curved talons. It possessed probably twenty eyes stretched across its torso, all in various shades of bloodshot, rolling, unfocused.

Randidly wondered how long it would be able to survive with so much energy seeping out of the flaws every second. It had been forged from the significance of the memory, but it didn’t quite all fit together correctly. The wishes of Randidly and those hard-working deceased, those innumerable dreams of becoming real, currently bridged those cracks. But Randidly wasn’t sure how long that would last, either.

A ripple of Nether rose from Deganawidah’s location, but the Nether Monster did not wield his significance to strike at the manifestation. However, it did set off a small but intense series of fights between Aether and Nether forces once more.

Strangely, it was Elhume that reacted most visibly. He paused in his efforts to invalidate the reality of the memory and glanced at the giant spider. Then he looked at Randidly. For a brief moment, the energy distortions around his face began to settle, revealing amber eyes with slit pupils.

Their eyes locked. Randidly felt the hairs along his arms prickle. Whereas the current Elhume seemed to buzz with emptiness, this Elhume was rather overstuffed. Randidly could sense hundred of emotions ragings within his foe’s body, crashing against each other in constant struggle.

Emotional force like Randidly couldn’t even imagine containing crashed across those irises, reminding him of the heights Elhume would someday reach.

Yet it was the words that really made Randidly feel fear.

“Randidly... Ghosthound.” The memory pulsed with Elhume’s words. Through the press of conflicting emotions, something ravenous, protective, and quite unhinge began dominating within those amber eyes. “Such a familiar energy. So you are where she hid-”

A shattering dong of a noise cracked the air as the spider deftly raised one of its long legs and stagged it directly toward Elhume’s heart. The sharpened leg smashed against the tear ripped by Elhume and shook its occupant.

The spider opened its mouth, speaking with the shrill voices of children, the dying gurgle of warriors, the calm insistence of priests, the absolute surety of addicts. “I’m real!”

“Bug, do not-” Elhume began to speak again, annoyance clear as his attention shifted, but the spider stabbed once, twice, three times, each gathering more and more momentum. The third strike hit the tear so hard it began to stretch outward with micro tears from several locations. Elhume seemed genuinely alarmed, likely by the damage to the memory.

Randidly blinked. “Am I.... just going to succeed here?”

The memory vibrated. With small tremors at first, but growing larger as the web became more comprehensive. The pulses added part of the indefinable quality the memory lacked. Chewing on his lip, Randidly sat down on more rubble and began to meditate. He gently eased his Nether Core back to rotation, guiding it, protecting it, healing the flaws he could find in the Nether within his body. Soon, he had achieved a sustainable ‘base’ rotation. Because if this process was to succeed, Randidly would probably need to add a bit of life with Animation Nova.

Yet another problem soon presented itself, clearer with each thread tossed out into the web. An enormous chunk of dead weight sat at the middle of the memory, grounding it. Muting a portion of the echoing reverberation produced by the spider. Huge plates of Nether rock, some the size of rooms, tumbled off the spider. It settled down on its belly, continued to work. It threw thread ups to Pine, floating in the sky, bringing its web near completion.

And sitting below as the memory began to fizz, Deganawidah and his vast sea of significance refused to be brought along for the ride.

The spider threw four last webs out, touching last corners of the memory and completing the complex pattern of connections. More chunks of Nether had fallen off the flawed shape, so it really only had three full legs remaining, the two smaller ones throwing those connections and one sharpened front leg, the same one that had stabbed at Elhume over and over again.

“Why?” The spider screamed at Deganawidah. “We’re real!”

To Randidly’s surprise, the significance of Deganawidah rippled in a genuine emotional reaction of pity. His energy pulsed and sent his voice up to the spider. “This will accomplish nothing, false idol. Your hollowness dooms you. And to make the poorly conceived attempt, the greatest insurance of our people will need to be sacrificed. It is not a deal I am willing to make.”

“Real!” The spider raised its sharpened leg and struck.

The point sunk into Deganawidah’s massive sea of Nether without even producing a ripple. The spider flailed its leg, but could produce no disturbance. That pure and untouched corner of memory remained placid.

Randidly narrowed his eyes and wondered whether, with his Songstress of Absence otherwise occupied and his Nether Core completely depleted, he would be able to assist in another conflict with Deganawidah. The spider didn’t have much time remaining; soon its shape would completely collapse into disparate pieces of dead Nether.

Just as he decided to move, a voice spoke next to him. “The Fourth Fist: Timeless.”

Randidly barred his teeth and the Dread Homunculus roared. Sulfur flashed up, catching Elhume attack that had been hidden in the air for a moment of distraction. For a second the two warred, the Soulseed arm absorbing the kinetic force a hair away of allowing the attack to blast through and smash an already unsteady Randidly to the ground. Yet the attack must have been weakened by delaying its execution-

“The Second Fist: Vengeance.”

The second punch caught Randidly in the side of the jaw and knocked him out.

The impact against the ground was not enough to wake him back up.