“You…” The Master released his words in a soft whisper. The air around them stalled, covered by the strange restriction that came along with the challenge. He looked from his own fist to Randidly’s chest. “How is your body so powerful?”

Randidly squeezed his fist until his knuckles popped. His blood stampeded through his veins, bringing with it more and more physical power.

He then leaned forward and whipped his arm around. The motion was sharp and natural. Just like when Randidly had been stuck, the Master’s muscular form remained rooted to the ground. Perhaps when the Master had looked like a frail scholar he could have dodged, but his swollen body was essentially a punching bag to Randidly. All fourteen hundred and ninety-two of his Primordial Nether Juju burned to life. Each of those individual Stats burned with a little extra potency at the moment, due to the significance of this challenge.

BOOOOM!

As soon as Randidly’s blow landed, the challenge zone shattered. The Master’s chest caved in beneath his fist, revealing shards of broken ribs poking up through his fleshy sides. Randidly’s connection to the sky immediately reasserted itself, stronger than ever.

However, Randidly narrowed his eyes as the locked foot position vanished and the Master flew backward. He seemed to have immediately sensed his inability to defeat Randidly in that way and threw himself to lessen the force of the blow. And now, borrowing the power of Randidly’s strike, he rushed right back toward his cup.

Number One grinned now that the barrier had vanished. He had recovered more quickly than the Master and had been furious conjuring tiny whirlwinds. “Do you think I’d miss this chance?”

Randidly flexed his fingers, savoring the heat. Another wave of attacks rushed toward the Master. Despite having a fist sized depression deforming his chest, he adroitly tumbled and grasped with his left hand. The challenge had given him some time to deplete the suppressed ripples, so he handled Number One’s attacks in a series of two quick snatches. Then he waved his right hand, physically backhanding Number One and sending him sprawling. Compared to the average person, the Master was probably quite imposing.

This time, he just picked the wrong opponent. The heat in Randidly’s body flared.

“You two will pay-” The Master began, but his words were cut off as Randidly landed in front of him with enough force to crack the ground.

Randidly bent his knees, his eyes wild with glee. His image physicalizations flared, an event horizon forming in his left eye, grey-black armor covering his torso and legs, thick golden veins pulsing in his limbs. The physical restrictions of the mountain were rapidly tightening on his body, but for a few seconds, Randidly had access to his actual dominant physical prowess. He whipped a left hook around and slammed it into the Master’s side. Even as the Master spat out a surprised gasp, Randidly released disruptive ripples directly into his body. That should slow down his healing.

The Master was blasted sideways by Randidly’s strike, but Randidly spun sideways and brought a vicious kick around that stopped the Master dead and folded him over like a sheet. Burning with heat, Randidly raised his hands and hammered the Master down into the ground. By the time he bounced back up, his preparations were complete.

Randidly’s fingers curled into a palm strike that he slammed against the Master’s side. A dangerous core of grey energy ripped forward.

Can you strike now that he’s been pummeled? Randidly asked the Unborn as his attack landed. Spiraling patterns swam around his arm and dug into the Master’s side, spraying blood in dribbling arcs across the stone ground. Finally, the restrictions caught back up to Randidly’s body.

Congratulations! Your Skill Dragon Queen’s Sinister Tongue (T) has grown to Level 516!

“You!” The Master howled as he was bounced away and slammed against the ground. Perhaps under the same returning restrictions as Randidly, his inflated body began to shrivel. Behind Randidly, the Unborn chittered to each other in their misshapen mouths but ultimately shook their heads.

The Master needed to be weakened further before they could devour him. A physical beating was not enough.

I suppose that makes sense, Randidly straightened, once more bound by a 99% physical restriction. The Master scrambled away, nursing his wounds and releasing hissing breaths. If this was all the Master had, he wouldn’t have lived here for so long. However… can you devour that?

He tilted his head toward the floating cup, which was all the encouragement the Unborn needed. They swam out with wide-open mouths.

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Fates of the Unborn (M) has grown to Level 200!

Influence +7,073!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Fates of the Unborn (M) has grown to Level 234!

Not noticing the feeding frenzy that had begun behind Randidly’s back, the Master flipped up to his feet, once more grasping and obliterating the whirlwinds tossed by Number One. His eyes were bright with madness. “Fine then! Consider yourselves successful; I have not been threatened like this in two thousand years. But it ends now.”

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A strange pulse spread out from the Master. A split second later, the air changed; Randidly felt the fundamental shift and frowned. All at once, in the entire surrounding space, ripples were frozen. All energy ceased to spread. As a consequence, Randidly found that he could not move. The Unborn’s strange bodies seemed unaffected, but otherwise, the lock was complete.

Energy grew stagnant all across the mountain. Just like that, the Master had reasserted his dominance.

The entire isolated space ground to a halt. The Master raised his head and laughed. “Do you see? The Grand Pattern is just a toy I generated. Do you know the secret of true power? Real estate. I made this environment; I control everything that happens here. Nothing can challenge me. Yes, you two have imprinted on my Paths, but you remain within my world. As such, you have no chance of escaping.”

The Master strolled first toward Number One, who stood with hunched shoulders as he prepared to create more whirlwinds. Blood dribbled between his broken teeth as he smiled at Number One. “As for your punishment, I will show you the new hell that is the Path of Dreams. DIscovering how long you can last will be a useful data point. Then, at the end, when you are nothing but an empty, blubbering wreck, I’ll mercifully end your life.”

Meanwhile, Randidly’s mind was racing. The restrictions on his physical body and images remained in effect. And it appeared that the Master had thrown some switch, ceasing the spread of energy in this world. Even mobilizing everything he had, he was unable to elicit even a twitch from his body.

His Nether Core continued to churn out Nether that appeared to be able to spread freely, but other than that-

Randidly had an idea. Instantly, thick waves of Nether spread out into the surrounding space. It swirled into complex, organic patterns. He felt some of his tension dissipate as more and more Nether gushed out of him without the Master noticing. Now I just need him to be distracted for a bit-

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Fates of the Unborn (M) has grown to Level 251!

He couldn’t see him, but from the Unborn returning to his back, he sensed that the obsidian cup had been sucked dry of color. Now it was just a grey chalice floating in the air. The mist had vanished. He knew that this shift would be the moment he needed. Because that pulse gave Randidly a theory as to how the Master had this power; it was more than just a supreme mastery of patterns. He released more and more Nether, rapidly creating a massive array. The scope of it rapidly sharpened into place.

Right on cue, the Master reached Number One. With a haughty snort he raised his hand, miming that he was gripping a cup. His fingers didn’t cause a stir at all in the ripples. “Now, sink into the realm of dreams and- hmm?”

The grey, masterless Path floated in the air behind Randidly. His Nether accelerated, trying to finish the working in time. The lines around his eyes tightened; it would be a close thing. The Master pivoted, his face pinched with confusion. “How is this possible? You’ve erased my connection to the Path of Dreams? Well, no matter. So long as you exist within my realm-”

The Nether Ritual finally arranged itself and activated. Randidly felt a humming resonance in his chest but otherwise experienced no discomfort. Compared to swallowing words, a single Mountain Path was much easier. Randidly used his authority to seize upon a strip of the isolated space and ripped it out.

Congratulations! Your Skill Precise Nether Ritual (L) has grown to Level 440!

Below them, the summit, the storm, the mountain paths, everything vanished. While everyone else was locked by the frozen ripples, the Master began to fall down toward a howling gash in space. Much more than when he had been physically struck, he now was half-mad with pain.

Randidly felt the restriction steadily loosening. His face steadily shifted toward a frown. I could steal the Path of Blood because of the connection I had with it, but I technically didn’t steal the whole mountain. This place… the Master layered the Paths on top of each other. I took the outside of the mountain, but the inner portions still exist. However… my forceful removal appears to have wounded this place.

And wounds to the space...

A flickering phantasm of the mountain surface Randidly had just gobbled down waxed and waned. The significance of it held it briefly in place. Crackling bolts of electromagnetic discharge snaked up and down along the boundary. The Master twisted in his fall, looking down with wide eyes. Whatever rend had been generated in the layered fabric of this place gradually weakened the restriction on ripples. Slowly at first, then returning to a normal velocity, Number One and Randidly began to fall.

Number One eyed Randidly suspiciously, but ultimately he appeared to bury the hatchet. “I will remember this favor. You have weakened his dominance in the area. But I can take it from here. The Master is my prey.”

Randidly nodded, not really minding if Number One did the dirty work for him. Whirlwinds condensed around the old man’s feet and he accelerated downward after the Master. Meanwhile, Randidly kicked lightly off ripples and hopped back up. His hand reached out and he grasped the grey cup that symbolized the connection with the Path of Dreams.

As happened before, he immediately felt some new connection form to a distant area. There, waves of color and emotion surged in an endless, chaotic sea of neon flashes and confusing shapes. The cup in his hand lightened to become emerald and began to leak black gas into the surrounding space.

Randidly’s overtaxed mind buzzed, barely able to support the additional strain. Just as soon as he touched the Path of Dreams, he rapidly retreated his consciousness and allowed it to shift naturally. He didn’t have the spare attention for it now. That place is quite different than the Path of Blood.

Luckily, it seemed like no one else noticed Randidly had taken over the discarded Path; likely they had only noticed the development related to the Path of Blood based on the fact that they were standing on it.

Number One rushed downward, flanked by fifty of his small whirlwind missiles. The Master twisted around and grasped with his left hand, but the limb had once more taken on the revealing slowness. The whirlwinds vanished, but Number One had seen this move too many times. He only created only six this time, shooting them rapidly downward.

The Master gritted his teeth. He splayed out the fingers of his right hand and unleashed force spikes that deflected the whirlwinds away from him. “In the end, nothing has changed! I rule here.”

“Feel free to rule from your grave,” Number One descended on wings of judgment. His deflected whirlwinds swam in long arcs, racing toward the Master’s back. With agonizing slowness, the Master closed his hand one more time. The attacks vanished before they could harm him.

But Number One just grinned triumphantly. Whirlwinds appeared on his hands and feet, granting him a boost of speed. The Master roared and once again all the ripples lurched to a stop. But only a second later, that effect frayed and vanished.

The whirlwinds allowed Number One to close the distance and bring a whirlwind-covered fist down on the Master’s stomach. The impact ripped through his robe and sprayed chunks of flesh. Behind Randidly’s back, the Unborn began to whisper excitedly, it was almost time.