“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Randidly’s mouth twitched as he surveyed his surroundings. His tongue danced along the inside of his teeth. Then, despite the dangerous circumstances in which he found himself, he began to laugh.

Truthfully, he wasn’t just engaging in a short laugh. It was a guffaw of such madness tinged mirth that he curled up slightly, like a shrimp, as he experienced it. Some part of Randidly urged him to suppress the laughter, but he didn’t want to. It was enjoyable. Despite the fact that he had now been stuck, hanging by a thread of emotions in this place for a week, he was having fun here.

The constant threats were fun. With the unsatisfying confusion about his Skill Levels, these attacks helped break up the monotony.

Gradually, his laughter slowed, like a sprinter moving to a jog and then beginning to casually walk. Soon, all that remained was a smile stretched across his face. Randidly also had to admit to himself that there were some serious emotional deviations occurring within him. It was just difficult to care too much about that.

As the Stillborn Phoenix stopped its defensive absorption, it released a worried keen. The fact that the previously misbehaving image was now so meek almost incited another round of giggles, but Randidly managed to suppress that impulse. Besides, he was prepared this time. As the danger surged from below, both the Grim Chimera and Yggdrasil filled the void left by the Stillborn Phoenix. His Nether Nebula was relatively feeble compared to his previous heights, but it was far improved from the version with which he had arrived at this depth.

Still, the sinister currents from the depths spiraled upward. A chill ran down Randidly’s spine. He narrowed his eyes. Even with Grim Intuition, the movements were disguised as first, slippery grey knives hiding within the misleading distortion of the wild emotions that surged to and fro. These grey eels were condensed emotions too, but they were anything but wild. Dangerous, but not wild.

Randidly barred his teeth as he stared downward at the stalking emotions that toyed with being a predator. His emerald eyes were luminous in the darkness of the spine. This was the third time that the Stillborn Phoenix needed to take a break to exhale the refined emotions. The first attack Randidly had thought was just a coincidentally powerful blast of emotion that took him by surprise. The second attack was even more aggressive and clued him in to the fact he was being targeted, but it was clumsy. Meanwhile, this attempt…

Just as the Stillborn Phoenix completely withdrew its own event horizon of absorption, Randidly sensed sudden movement from the emotions around him. But instead of those slippery grey beings below, the attack came from below.

As Randidly twisted and looked up at the torrent of infectious emotion that struck him from above, his smile widened. Well, looks like you really are getting smarter, aren’t you? But if its just this… it’s not enough.

This is not nearly exciting enough to hold my interest.

Yggdrasil’s branches spread outward around Randidly. The leaves rustled, releasing a horrible rumbling through the surrounding space. Somehow, the soundwaves reflected off the nearby wall and escalated to a crashing landslide’s worth of noise. A brilliant, purifying light flared to life from within the World Tree’s canopy. Before the attacking emotions could even react, they were cleanly annihilated. As that light dimmed, nothing remained of the infectious energy.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Inscrutable Mien of Genesis (M) has grown to Level 301!

Below him, the grey eels surged upward. Yet Randidly giggled. Again… this Skill has reached Level 301 again. The first few times I had figured my intellectual state was worse than I feared, but now… I’m definitely gaining the same Levels over and over again. Is that another effect of this significance below? I don’t earn PP…

But will I receive a large gift-wrapped package of Skill Levels for real when I eventually leave this place? Hehehe…

This is a throwback to those days where I completely cut myself off from Skill notifications.

Randidly didn’t bother to look downward at the eels that were weaving their lithe bodies amongst each other as they attacked him. Because while Yggdrasil protected him from above, the Grim Chimera protected him from below. He had absolute confidence that this attack could be easily handled by his images.

Although the Grim Chimera continued to be bothered by its lingering injuries, it roared in fury and threw itself down to combat the emotions directly. Its massive right arm splattered a grey eel like it squished a bug while its right arm scythed through their bodies back and forth without any perceptible resistance. The eels attempted to writhe around the strikes, but their movements were clumsy. Whatever was animating them was getting better, but they weren’t yet proficient.

Or even interesting, Randidly thought as his lip curled upward.

When the eels realized that the Grim Chimera was like a god of death compared to them, they gave up their attempts to rush past at Randidly’s body and simply targeted the image itself. The eels opened their mouths and bit down at any exposed flesh they could find. These small bites added up as they injected chaotic emotions into the Grim Chimera, exacerbating the lingering wounds left from Velio Dunn’s attack.

Yet Randidly didn’t mind. In the real world, a continued stacking of wounds would eventually lead to the degradation of the Grim Chimera’s strength. But in this strangely imbalanced state, hanging by a rope of emotions in an area that was beginning to break down under the influence of Nether, Randidly saw with a remarkable amount of clarity that while images were easiest to make when they were grounded in reality, they didn’t need to be. Although it was actually impossible for one to grow stronger like a berserker the more wounded they were…

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The Grim Chimera was one such impossible existence.

Fooling the universe’s laws, huh, Randidly reflected. His glee instantly vanished as his thoughts turned. Somehow, the rational part of Randidly was more disturbed by the capricious changes in his emotion than the giggle fits, but it was rather convenient when the shifts moved toward reflection and gravity. This can perhaps be considered a transgression against common norms… but laws? Heh, and this Path leads to the Grim Chimera becoming omnipotent by dying… a dangerous gamble.

I cannot deny I’m tempted. I’ll need to think about it more...

Congratulations! Your Skill Grit of the Ascendant Bane (T) has grown to Level 378!

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 340!

Below him, the Grim Chimera finished its grim work on the emotions. Its shoulders heaved for several seconds, exulting in the triumph before it faded as it returned to Randidly’s Soulspace to lick its wounds. The Stillborn Phoenix steadily began to release refined emotions that earned Randidly’s envy by being able to swim upward out of the event horizon.

Randidly sighed. Still with a serious expression, he looked downward. His lips moved purposefully as he spoke to the darkness. He knew the target of his words couldn’t hear him… but he spoke anyway. There seemed to be some meaning to that. Nether stirred around him, even through the mass of significance pulling it away. “A sneak attack huh… that’s certainly new.”

Congratulations! Your Skill Tide of the Void (L) has grown to Level 289!

Of all the repeated Skill growth he had seen, the most was definitely Tide of the Void. A portion of his attention was now constantly maintaining the pull on emotions that resisted the grasp of the significance below. The strain was tiresome, but compared to the alternative… Randidly reassured himself by checking the Nether content in the air: still 49%.

Yet he twisted his mouth as he looked downward. “I might need to come to kill you, huh?”

Just like how the connected emotions could hold Randidly up… there was a sinister existence that persevered below, using its connection to him to prevent itself from being pulled any deeper into that grinding power plant on which the Nexus was built. A hunk of flesh that had apparently gained sapience and the desire to survive.

Randidly scratched his chin. Aside from the attacks, no information flowed upward. Truly, he wondered how the warped thing below managed to sense him.

What was most frustrating about the connection was that the growing piece of flesh Randidly had cast away had one significant advantage over him: the time dilation was even stronger where it was because it was closer to the significance. This was why its control over emotions was rapidly increasing to the point that it could launch concerted attacks against Randidly from its position. He had to assume its ability to detect him also stemmed from a mastery of emotions that he didn’t possess.

Randidly tsk’d, but he had a smile on his face. The madness in him liked the presence of this hateful doppelganger. It’s attacks brought him a threat; the scent of danger was back in the air. Randidly could sense the precipice of death once more, and his growth again quickened due to its proximity.

But it was a dangerous gamble. Made worse by the very few recourses Randidly had to deal with the problem.

The ideal situation was to figure out a method to pull himself out of the Web. In the past week, he had been familiarizing himself with the behavior of Nether in the air non-stop. He didn’t have any true results, but the accumulation of such experience was important. He also used small scraps of Nether to experiment with different Nether Rituals, but he didn’t have much to spare. His resources were still limited.

Ultimately, if Randidly needed quite a lot more time to figure out how to escape, he would probably need to deal with this escalating threat in order to have that time. It was possible that the doppelgangers attacks would plateau… but it was foolish to rely on that possibility. The System might be displaying misleading Skill Level notifications, but the pessimistic part of Randidly assumed that the more unfortunate possibility was the true one.

Below him, that weird chunk of his flesh that had been infected by strange emotions was gaining Skill Levels. Even if it wasn’t quick, it time on its side.

Descending further also seemed manageable. After all, Randidly had a method to hold himself steady against the pull of the significance. So he could annihilate the doppelganger now, while it was weaker, and simply establish a new equilibrium.

Ending the threat would make this place insufferable… but on the other hand...

One moment there was a fluttering of excitement in Randidly’s chest at the thought of going down to seek a fight with the doppelganger, but the next he sighed and shook his head. Heading deeper had some disadvantages. Right now, he was steadily accumulating more Nether. As his ‘weight’ of the Nether Nebula increased, the speed of his accumulation accelerated. Deeper in the spine, accumulating Nether would be much more difficult. His experiments with Nether Rituals would be slowed even further.

In addition, Randidly suspected that the strain of holding himself against the grasp of the significance would increase as he went deeper. Based on the fact the emotional doppelganger managed it, such an effort wasn’t herculean. But Randidly was still a bit from his peak capability. Based on the increasing sophistication of the attacks from below, he still had some time.

Besides, there were also some advantages to staying here. First, there was an increasing complex Nether flow around him that had nothing to do with either his own efforts or the significance. It seemed that this extended confrontation between him and the emotional mutant was triggering something from the Nether.

Which made sense; such a confrontation was significant. The patterns, due to their strange relationship, were unfamiliar to Randidly and extremely educational.

In addition, even time Randidly’s images crushed the emotional attacks, they naturally absorbed a portion of the shattered emotions used as weapons. From them, Randidly could feel he was incorporating some… instinctual understanding of how to utilize emotions. Just from that, the emotional weight that each of his images possessed grew more profound.

Due to the time differential, Randidly had quickly set aside the idea that he would practice weaponizing emotions in a similar way; his opponent simply had more practice time. Besides, wouldn’t he just absorb those same lessons by defeating the attacks with his own strengths?

But Randidly’s emerald eyes looked down with a hint of greed. The connection and desire within the emotions that attacked him…

Didn’t that hold a hint of resemblance toward Nether?

“I’ll come down for you, one way or another,” Randidly whispered to the air. Then, feeling like he was saying the lines of a villain, Randidly began to laugh once more. But while his face was crinkled in revelry, the fingers of his right hand continued their controlled movements. A small Nether Ritual was formed, tested, and banished upon that palm, over and over again.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Ritual (A) has grown to Level 201!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Ritual (A) has grown to Level 201

“Holy fuck, I might be going insane,” Randidly grinned downward. He blinked several times. Then he snorted.

He didn’t hate the feeling.