A single mad strike. Randidly didn’t blink.

Devick’s chain exploded from stillness into motion, aiming once more for Randidly’s heart. However, his mind continued to churn through his options in the current situation. Despite using Seize earlier on MacDuul, Randidly still possessed a significant portion of his significance and Nether; using it with a single target lowered the difficulty by a lot. He was tired, but it wasn’t as crippling as it had been in the past.

In addition, both the Stillborn Phoenix and the Grey Creature were itching to fight. They still resonated clearly with the emotional energy he held. Plus force still churned through his body, swirling through the patterns in the grey firestorm. At this point it was just coasting, but he still had about two seconds before the chain would reach him. That was enough to strengthen it.

He had tools at his disposal. He could mount a resistance. And obviously, he would.

However, his face-off against Devick was only one piece of a larger puzzle. And it was those ancillary details that posed the largest problems.

First, his Willpower felt like the corpse of a rose garden after a wildfire ravaged the area, leaving only charred remnants and the horrifying recognition of how changed the landscape had become. Handling the force of MacDuul’s image had come with several steep debts. He had seen his Marred Yet Reliable Foundation of Yggdrasil sky-rocketing in Level as his brain choked down the power, but for the moment, he was weakened.

Similarly, Yggdrasil itself sluggishly gathered energy to Randidly’s body, doing its best to help him recover but clearly struggling. The core of the image had sustained damage, handling that potency. For the moment, he was down an image.

Congratulations! Your Skill the World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 692!

The energy flow was slow, but at least it was growing. The chain released a ringing clink as it had crossed a quarter of the distance; even compared to the speed of Randidly’s mind, it was fast. He watched its approach with half-closed eyes. If I need to, I can use Moirae of Ripples Skillset to substitute as part of the triple image activation.

However, the obvious answer to halt Devick’s attack-

Behind Randidly, Moonlight Blade howled and unleashed a stronger wave of primal force from his muscular body. His wolves, animated with bloodlust, rushed forward at the dueling duo of Claudette and Tyune. Tyune used his nearly infinite tentacles and the strange sticky humidity he added to the air to hem Claudette into a small area. Clarent sung with destruction and released rippling waves of frost with each sweep and slash, but the opponent’s image wasn’t made for power, but for control.

Beyond those fighters, a coin sat on the dais, waiting for someone to claim it.

-The obvious answer is to simply Seize her chain with my remnant mental energy and stop it, but I don’t dare, Randidly stared intently at Devick’s blank golden mask. He released a surge of Nether that reanimated his firestorm. Flames of Nether Weight sprung across the whole of his body, emphasizing his efforts in that magical way that Nether possessed. Because that’s the reason she’s chasing me like this, isn’t it? Not because she lost when we dueled with my body or because I disrespected her by refusing to answer… but because for a brief instant when I activated the First Authority earlier, it stilled her.

Damnit. Even more obnoxious is how she practically tore my psyche in half in response. Yet she’s the one with a grudge?

Yggdrasil was weakened, but as Randidly straightened, the golden veins in his body glowed with a bold declaration of resistance. His other image physicalizations concentrated their power, unwilling to be outdone. The left side of Randidly’s face succumbed to a swirling black hole. Along the event horizon, light turned milky and sizzled with dangerous electromagnetic discharge.

Along Randidly’s arms and legs, the natural armor of the Grey Creature covered his limbs. The sharp lines and glossy chitin thickened and hardened, becoming lighter and more powerful as it drank from the significance of this moment.

The chain crossed the halfway point between Randidly and Devick. Moonlight Blade unleashed his vicious attack. The fabric of space rippled with the passage of his image, his proclivity for violence on full display.

At nearly the same moment, a new surge of foreign Nether gushed into Randidly’s body. He swayed, not because he had been attacked, but because he hadn’t expected such a wave of significance to make itself available to him.

What, surprised? Neshamah still stood by the staircase and watched the proceedings. There was the ghost of a smile on her face. She made a flicking gesture with her hand. Take it. If nothing else, I’m old enough that there is plenty of significance to spare. And against Devick, you will need it.

Time was tight, so he didn’t think too deeply about this decision. Randidly’s eyes glowed as he considered the energy flooding into him. The First Authority, Seize.

Perhaps Neshamah didn’t expect the donation to be permanent, but when Randidly felt that well of energy piling into him, he didn’t act politely; he didn’t have that luxury, at the moment. He spent a significant percentage of his remaining significance to seize the energy that Neshamah passed to him, but he earned it all back and then some.

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A bit more mental wear accumulated on his mind, but he still was sharp enough to persevere.

Then Randidly’s eyes widened as he struggled to contain all the energy that Neshamah donated. The First Authority took it easily, sensing the act of giving and making the interchange permanent. But just as quickly as his body became seeped in Nether, the clinking of the chain reminded him that he didn’t have much time to revel in the boost.

His mind split into several parts to make sure he survived. One part observed, keeping an eye on every fighter. Another part flared his Nether, again and again, shooting out flaring bursts like a machine gun to bombarded the antagonistic competitors. These bullets also exploded repeatedly in the path of the chain, but that horrifying red madness ripped right through his best efforts. The chain would not even slow.

Another portion of his attention went to the lighthouse's original state.

The final part of his mind-controlled the storm of energies flowing through his body. Even as Devick’s chain rapidly devoured his Nether, he rapidly pushed his dominance over the environment to new heights by gathering the remnant ripples. Despite her aggressive attack, Devick did not try to destabilize the Nether environment that Randidly caused with his thick flows of energy. In only a half-second, he squeezed the surroundings toward his version of Nether flare perfection.

He fixated on the chain, only a few meters away from his chest now, with a defiant glare. Randidly bared his teeth. Wind, Nether Weight, and patterns spun together to push his potential a single step higher.

Congratulations! You have made a new achievement! Synechdochence has been raised to 110%!

Congratulations! Your Skill Right Hand of the Nether Polymath (M) has grown to Level 599!

Under the tremendous pressure that Devick released, Randidly found the perfect synergy in the space directly in front of him. The range was short, but he didn’t care about that drawback. He released a flare of Nether that manifested like a blade. Not just any blade, but the head of a spear, thrust into the world straight from the void to wreak havoc.

The tip of the weapon crashed into the rust-weeping chain.

BOOOOOOOOM!

For the slightest second, this new attack stalled the chain. Randidly’s eyes flickered as the many portions of his mind clamored for attention. Then, rather than quickly siphoning away the ripples and preparing for an even more powerful Nether mobilization, his attention turned to the raging battle behind him. Claudette blurred back and forth to sheer her way out of Tyune’s restrictions, but she wouldn’t make it before Moonlight Blade pounced on them both.

Randidly followed the chain of significance back through the strange bracer Moonlight Blade wore, which possessed the powerful influence of Sam, who had received his Class Dawn Smith directly from Randidly. He nudged the attack slightly sideways.

It was a small effort that added just the slightest bit more mental exhaustion. But it was necessary

The chain accelerated after its brief stop. The ripples from the brief clash were so powerful they slammed into the complex patterns of winds and dropped Randidly’s actual Synechdochence well below 100%. He scrambled to stabilize the storm around him, but the chain had arrived. Instead, Randidly sucked in a breath and simply pulled all of the surrounding energy into himself-

Congratulations! Your Skill World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 693!

Congratulations! Your Skill Breath of the Cosmos (T) has grown to Level 511!

The grey firestorm died in a sigh, leaving a curiously silent platform; Randidly had gulped his creation down in its entirety. Then the frantic action of this last struggle reasserted itself in a surge of noise.

Moonlight Blade’s ripped forward on its new vector, a pack of hungry wolves loping in its wake. For a brief moment, Randidly’s scarred Willpower proved insufficient to manage the force he had sucked in from the surroundings; he was managing too many things and his wounds from handling MacDuul’s power still left him shaky. But just in time, he snapped back into focus. His skin ripped open and oozed as he transferred the intense force he had absorbed, but he teemed with raw power.

Behind him, Kyl MacDuul inflated his fist into a massive boulder and threw a haymaker at the small of Randidly’s back. Randidly’s mouth quirked. Do you think force will matter against me? Right now, you are small potatoes.

He didn’t have the control to release that ferocious amount of natural energy in any direction, but the targets were close enough that it didn’t matter. He became the epicenter of a wave of pure kinetic energy, blasting out in a wall of light, heat, and power. MacDuul’s heavy fist jolted to a stop and then was tossed back. Unfortunately, Devick’s chain cut right through the power, barely slowing down at all.

The phantom of the Grey Creature superimposed itself over Randidly’s body. It wore his face, a tail flicking side to side at the base of his neck and his waist. It watched the chain with serious eyes. The spines from the duplicated Sulfur flew out and activated their Domain power to slow the chain-

Congratulations! Your Skill Resonant Fangs of Extinction (M) has grown to Level 536!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Resonant Fangs of Extinction (M) has grown to Level 607!

-five spines shattered, earning him enough Skill Levels to grow a sixth. That whipped forward and was brutally destroyed by Devick’s attack too. The chain had slowed, but the horrifying rust-colored madness seemed to burn all the brighter for Randidly’s resistance. It lashed out, impacting the projection of the Grey Creature directly.

Randidly mobilized his images in a triplicate activation. Chimeric Impunity. Cosmic Necessity. Philosophy within the Boundless Deluge.

Randidly used Philosophy within the Boundless Deluge to layer the physical power of the Stillborn Phoenix and the impunity of the Grey Creature to further weaken the attack. It worked, to an extent.

For a brief moment.

A slew of Levels in Chimeric Impunity blinded Randidly before the projection shattered. The weakened chain cut forward and ripped into Randidly’s chest directly and dove into his body. Instantly, his flesh burned and turned clammy. On the other side of the platform, the adjusted attack from Moonlight Blade ravaged Tyune’s image without impacting Claudette at all, leaving the attacker somewhat stunned at the ill-aimed assault.

And as though she had predicted the entire exchange, Claudette used Randidly’s powerful body to practically appear in front of the hesitating wolfman. Before he or his cloak of spectral wolves could react, Clarent buried itself up to the hilt in Moonlight Blade’s chest. The horrifying storm of Claudette’s image turned him into an ice statue.

She spun away and crossed the last few meters to the dais, but someone else was there, smiling apologetically down at Claudette.

“It was always meant to be this way,” Neshamah said softly. “But I’m sorry it had to end like this. You really were so close.”

She reached out for the coin. In Randidly’s chest, Devick’s chain wept madness and curled toward his heart. His powerful flesh slowed the advance, but it could not stop it.