Chapter 2445

Chapter 2445

Devick could barely breathe, she was so filled with (questionable) intentions for this dashing hero. Taking several steps backward, she allowed Randidly space to face off against the Eternity. She barely noticed the monkey sidling next to her, until it spoke. “So. This is the man who is going to change the Nexus. Isn’t he... a little bit of a braggart? Hmph hmph, I know from experience the difficulties of supporting an entire universe. Yet he dismisses my concerns out of hand!”

“Little monkey, I didn’t realize you also had this cute side to you. You definitely have a lot of experience supporting a universe... but do you think that Randidly would miss your inclination toward self-sacrifice, after all he’s been through?” Devick patted the monkey’s back. Her expression turned more serious. “I know how difficult it is to let go of control. But you can trust him.”

“Trust has earned me little in the past.” The monkey said.

“If all we needed to learn about the future was the past, we would be like Laplace,” Devick countered. “Time isn’t fickle for a reason. Because the context of our decisions matters. Because the tiniest detail can change everything.”

She could sense the monkey’s unwillingness, but it remained silent. So the two watched as Randidly Ghosthound walked toward an Eternity.

*****

“For a cosmic dimensional entity, you sure bleed a lot,” Randidly felt quite invigorated as he stepped forward to examine Laplace. He almost felt like he hadn’t been going through a constant series of fights and crazy arrangements over the past six hours.

Waves of temporal pressure derived from all the frozen fabric of time stuffed within the Eternity washed against him, ground against him with a physical intensity that set his teeth on edge, but now he was mentally prepared for it. Even as it pressed against him, Randidly’s aura began to unravel the tight grip Laplace maintained over time. His Grand Fate flared and grappled with the Eternity’s aura directly.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 1050!

Congratulations! Your Nether Penance Empty Vessel Forsakes the Path has grown to Level 1050!

Laplace gnashed its teeth. Those hollow eyes, hemorrhaging blood due to the clock hands stabbed into their soft flesh, fixated on Randidly. He could see the agitation in the quivering of the Eternity’s fleshy body; it understood that he had broken through its Samsara to return here.

It hated him, with every ounce of its ancient being.

“Enduring the Eternity sucked. Worse than almost anything else, because it was all of my most agonizing memories, intensified. But it didn’t kill me.” Randidly settled down into a crouched ssfighting stance. Acri slithered out and settled into his spear form. The bright chip of emerald that was his pupil flashed. “Now it’s my turn for some attempted homicide. You will regret waltzing into the Nexus without any fear.”

Randidly took a few seconds to speak for two reasons. First, because the return to reality meant that his two versions of Yggdrasil merged. Even now, the World Tree spread its roots deeper and deeper into the fabric of the Nexus, meeting and fighting against the insidious world-state image of the Eternity.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1429!

For as long as possible, Randidly wanted to beat back Laplace’s more subtle influence. Even if he managed to expel the Eternity itself, it would be a pyrrhic victory if the Nexus was warped by his presence to have an altered view of time.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1480!

Randidly’s toes curled, preparing to launch his body forward. Laplace roared, conjuring a wave of floating tomes, each containing a complete history of a universe.

Secondly, he didn’t launch an immediate offensive because he wanted to give his other two images some time to adjust. Both the Dread Homunculus and the Songstress of Absence were implicitly connected with him and sensed the changes in his person, specifically the long-awaited condensation of his Nether Penance. But the isolating effects of the Samsara meant that his newly developed muted quality, which could by itself be considered a growing world-state image, hadn’t had the chance to wash over them.

Randidly felt the subtle shifts in his Vessel, from the development of the Creeds and from the +10 to all Stats spending 10k VPs earned him. With all that new physical power, he practically evaporated from his position, right out of the grasp of the Samsara.

Appearing right above Laplace, Randidly spun in the air with his spear raised. But his eyes remained fixed on the bulging edges of a Samara, quivering with all the intensity of a breaking storm cloud. Tsk, based on what I’ve seen of the internal mechanisms, it will continue to reform and attempt to devour me... Unless I want to watch my back for the rest of this fight-

The Alchemist mused over the issue briefly and came up with a countermeasure.

“The Second Authority: Hollow Needle,” Randidly announced. His Nether Core spun and seethed, its translucent significance gleaming like fresh honey.

He kicked off the air, shooting directly toward the Samsara. It twisted, bulged, opened, and snapped toward him, but Randidly had already skated sideways out of the danger area. Laplace hissed and spat out a concentrated blast of temporal energy, which slammed into Randidly’s back. He gritted his teeth and endured it.

Because when the Samsara missed for the second time and snapped shut, Randidly raised Acri, which had become a needle. His Grand Fate fed reinforced, healing time into the needle to create a thread. His spear thrusts were quick and seamless.

Randidly Ghosthound sewed the ‘mouth’ of the Samsara shut.

The sophisticated working sensed the change and yanked on the threads. After a few strained fragments of time, they held. At least in the short term, his Grand Fate was enough to restrain the Samsara. Instantly, the Samsara rolled back on itself, accepting the sewn portion into its interior and exposing a new mouth that stretched wide.

In front of Randidly, the Samsara snapped forward with all the subtlety of a starving wolf. Behind him, Laplace conjured another five tomes and unleashed them toward his back. Pinched between them, Randidly only offered a wicked grin.

In the touch with Pine earlier, Randidly had absorbed the tiniest wisp of unrefined Aether. Breaking down the tomes coughed up bits of untouched Nether. He cupped the two in his hands and pressed those two extremely rare energies together.

Part of him wished to save this move, but he also knew it would be foolish to surrender the momentum he had gained.

Congratulations! Your Skill Apostate Moirae’s Seditious Touch (GD) has grown to Level 1400!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill Alpha Cosmos Births a Shallah (S) has grown to Level 1491!

Randidly held the birth of endless potential in his hands. He might be deaf to Truth, but he felt his Vessel seared on a fundamental level just from being near the ignition point. The radiance blasted outward, annihilating the tomes and knocking back the Samsara. He tossed the brilliant seed at Laplace and flitted in the other direction. Acri thrust out a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times. He drew thread after thread of reinforced time and bound the Samara shut.

For the second time, and with a lot less suffering, the Samsara had been beaten.

By the time he pivoted around, his brief blossom of potential had spent itself. Laplace roared again, but no sooner had the sound ceased than it released a hiss of pain— Randidly had bounded back across the distance between them and drove his spear into its forehead, right between its bleeding eyes.

Vessel and Grand Fate immediately began a land war with the horrific amount of time stored within the Eternity’s body.