Randidly shook his head, almost sadly. The emotions from the recruits in front of him swiftly turned extremely chaotic. So much so that he knew there were multiple that likely had made some sort of deal.
Yet amongst these recruits, there was one that went beyond that; someone was trying to bring something foreign in.
Randidly wouldn’t have been as confident in his discernment a day ago, but Commandant Wick had given him some hands-on experience with drawing out an unwanted foreign image. As the recruits paused and turned around to face Randidly, he calmly mobilized the Nether flows in the surrounding space.
It would have been difficult out in the broader Rally Station. But under Randidly’s training area, he was king. A foreign entity passing into his territory meant that it was governed by his laws.
Also, Randidly was aware that he couldn’t completely shield his recruits from the mundane persuasions that other entities could offer them. From the uneasy guilt wafting through the air, at least a dozen had reached a verbal agreement with the enemies of Military High Command. They might even be curious about the elite training being conducted by the Head Drill Sergeant.
But Randidly had a suspicion that the waves made by Military High Command’s report on corruption might push individuals to do something rather… drastic. He didn’t have any real awareness of how the population of the Nexus would react, but Commandant Wick’s obvious relish of the event informed his understanding.
This was big. Which would make the NLC and its allies desperate. And desperate individuals took risks.
Randidly spread his arms. His Nether Nebula began to accelerate, resisting the immense inertia of its weight. His body became the mouth of a river of Nether. It came out of him in waves, flowing through the recruits in front of him without much resistance; they were used to the strange effect the energy had on them.
But when that flood of energy passed through the recruits, at a depth and density that was many times higher than what they had normally experienced, their eyes went wide and they swayed where they were standing. Many of them tensed and frowned; no doubt suddenly accommodating Nether at that density was uncomfortable even with their powerful bodies.
A few looked like they were about to faint.
But Randidly didn’t relent. He narrowed his eyes and scanned through the recruits as the Nether flowed ceaselessly out from the sea contained in his body. It was an unintended benefit, but it appeared his array was preparing him for a situation exactly like this. And, when the Nether wave had resonance through almost all of the recruits and hit the squad that was second from the front that was following Helen…
“Ah…. AHHHHHHHH!” A recruit began to scream. His hands went to his right side, as though one of his organs was rupturing.
Instantly, Helen barked out an Order. “Everyone back away from Recruit Quewn. NOW!”
The recruits twisted around and looked at their fellow recruit, bewildered by the sudden intensity conveyed by Helen’s order. Randidly didn’t bother to wait for them to obey. All three of his images spread out in the surrounding space, but the one that cast a long shadow over the situation was Yggdrasil. The World Tree erupted upward like a long frustrated volcanic explosion, a geyser of rune-covered bark that sent emerald leaves spinning across the surroundings.
In the next moment, Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil manifested. Thick golden roots erupted out of the ground and swelled until they were large enough to overpower a normal-sized human. Still, Randidly was glad to see that most of the recruits were already reacting to the sudden actions, proof that the training was having some effect; a month ago, they would have stood around slack-jawed for long enough for them to be dragged into the confrontation. But there were a few exceptions.
Djark Quewn was a Squad Leader that had been chosen primarily for his leadership abilities, and his fellow squad members were especially hesitant to the sudden shift. In this case, the current orders clashed with their previous training. They were not supposed to abandon an injured squad member.
So Randidly forcefully smashed them backward with Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil as the Nether spiraled around the panting recruit. They skidded across the surrounding dirt with pained cries; he hadn’t attacked them, but Randidly Ghosthound didn’t bother to treat these recruits with kid gloves.
Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 322!
Seeing Randidly intervening directly with impunity, the other Squad Leaders realized that this wasn’t a joke and seized the initiative. In their small groups, they rapidly retreated from the area. Very quickly, it was only three of them on the dirt road back into Randidly’s territory. So he barred his teeth and slowly walked forward. It was time to see what sort of image he was dealing with.
Helen folded her arms across her chest. Her expression was stormy.
Meanwhile, Recruit Quewn continued to scream. “Ah…. what… what the hell is happening?!? I didn’t-”
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His words were cut off as the flesh by his waist began to bulge outward. A half-formed image flickered around his body and the young man collapsed. He looked down at his side in shock, clearly unaware of what was occurring within his body. Randidly did possess some sympathy for the recruit; it was very likely that he hadn’t understood what he had agreed to. But he wasn’t willing to give him the benefit of the not, considering how powerful the incomplete image was that was clawing its way out of him.
Not that it’s having an easy time...
Randidly chuckled as the image tried to break out of its hiding spot in the recruit’s body but couldn’t quite manage it. Some of the tension he felt eased. Based on its strength, this image wasn’t a pushover. But the lessons that Randidly had learned on the frontlines during his time as an image held true. Maintaining an image’s clarity while it was submerged in Nether was extremely difficult, especially when you didn’t have much experience in that area.
Randidly tapped a finger against the side of his jaw. Cook in there for as long as you want. I’ll be out here when you are ready.
Helen quirked an eyebrow upward if she should intervene, but Randidly shook his head and gestured for her to retreat a bit. As he walked forward toward the now-howling recruit, Randidly concentrated on Yggdrasil. Around him, his golden roots wove themselves upward to form a dome around Randidly and his quarry. “Seal off the surrounding space. This thing can’t threaten me, but I don’t want it to target the rest of the recruits when it gets desperate.”
Helen nodded and Randidly cracked his fingers. The image inside of Djark Quewn’s body finally seemed to recover itself from the shock of being flushed out with Nether, bursting out of the recruit's lower abdomen in a spray of gore. There was a horrible hissing as the image shifted from the milder Nether inside of recruit's body to the caustic and openly hostile energy in the air, but now the image had come prepared.
In a flash of pale green light, the image forced the ambient Nether backward and manifested in all its splendor. It was a dark-skinned humanoid that stood proudly before Randidly with his chin raised. His eyes were wrapped in dirty bandages and both of his arms were severed. But unlike Randidly, the image seemed completely whole even without his two arms.
The golden greaves lovingly wrapped from the man’s foot to his knee radiated a formidable amount of power. This one wasn’t a pushover, despite the image’s obvious discomfort to be exposed to Nether. Randidly’s smile widened. “Who do you work for? For what reason did you infiltrate my recruit?”
On the ground, Djark Quewn spasmed slightly. His side steadily knit together due to the System, but it was obvious that the recruit’s own image had taken some damage as this image had forced itself out of his body. The image remained silent, his wrapped eyes focused on Randidly’s person.
As Randidly calmly walked forward as he was speaking; when his opponent didn’t answer, he shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t really matter. I have too many foes; identifying one won’t make a difference. Instead… your annihilation will do great to send a message.”
The image pressed his mouth into a thin line, but still, he didn’t respond. Instead, he kicked with his right leg, bringing the limb almost immediately from a relaxed position to straight upward, his toes pointing to the sky. A wave of force blitz forward due to the brutality of the motion.
Randidly’s heart began to pound. Besides, it’s about time to test the limits of this new image.
A ripple spread through Randidly’s body as his image physicalizations snapped into place. This time, it was only the Supremacy of the Grim Chimera that roared to life. His skin paled until his flesh seemed almost immaterial, but at the same time, a black lacquer surged out from his torso and spin around him.
In a split second, his left shoulder was soaked in this material, to the point that it dripped down his arm. It ran across his collarbones, covering the highest part of his torso. The material flexed and settled into heavy armor. Just as quickly as the physicalizations took form, Randidly raised his left arm and spread his oversized, blunt figures. A massive black gauntlet seemed to cover his hand, making the limb seem ominously solid.
As the lacquer further refined its shape on his left arm, it became increasingly sharp and brutal. This was the gauntlet of a conqueror. That conqueror’s hand reached outward toward the wave of force rushing at Randidly.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Congratulations! Your Skill Grit of the Ascendant Bane (T) has grown to Level 375!
Those heavily armored fingers simply seized that wave of force and crushed it to oblivion. Thin lines of that lacquer continued to run down from the heavy armor that concentrated around his shoulders. Two relatively thick strips ran down Randidly’s chest from his collarbones to his waist, where they spun around and formed into a tightly woven belt.
Just as the lacquer continued to spread outward and drip onto a segmented tail behind Randidly’s body, the blindfolded image launched himself forward. Despite the fact that it was only an image, it moved quickly and in a physical manner; it seemed that the image was focused on the mechanics of physical movements, quite like Vualla.
Which meant that this was a very, very bad matchup for the image.
The image pivoted sharply in his charge and arrived at Randidly’s right side, unleashing a brutal roundhouse kick at Randidly. The black lacquer continued to draw faint accents across Randidly’s legs and feet, but it never touched his pale right arm with his long fingers sharpened to points. And aside from those two thick lines on his chest, Randidly’s torso was only the faintly luminous flesh.
So as the attack streaked forward, Randidly’s uncovered body turned translucent. The air hummed with the brutality of the images force. And the attack passed directly through where he had been standing without affecting Randidly at all. His body was insubstantial. The ghost of the Spear Phantom had returned to the Grim Chimera.
Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 337!
Before the image had recovered from its whiff, Randidly’s right hand slashed out and drilled into the place in his chest where a human’s heart would be. In that half-beat of time before the image jerked backward, Randidly unleashed a powerful pulse of Nether directly into the image.
The image instantly retreated with a blurry hole in its form, but almost instantly the details returned to startling clarity. But a lot of the pale-green luminescence of the image had dimmed.
Randidly’s smile was a slow one; more than most other people, he understood how unsustainable it was for an image to keep receiving Nether wounds. “No need to rush. Let’s get to know each other a bit.”