Even Randidly felt a thrill of shock as his bare feet skidded across the ground behind Elhume, his toes curling to carve up little trenches of dirt and disperse his momentum. He had enough speed after the impact to have careened forward, destroying his way through the entire base. Elhume’s arm tumbled end over end in his wake, spattering blood across the clay figure and then rolling to a stop.

Randidly turned around, releasing a steaming breath. His eyes glittered and his hands tingled. It had almost been too easy, becoming the unstoppable monster. His body, his Nether, and his Aether physicalizations all came into alignment. The density and weight of the massive Acri spearhead served as the perfect blade to cleave apart any obstacle in front of him. Randidly couldn’t be sure from just a single utilization, but with how tightly bound all his power had been in the movement, perhaps this form would even be able to withstand the tide of Nether dragged around by Deganawidah.

He would slice his way through, giving himself enough of an opening to land a blow. But that was for later.

Elhume’s image contracted rapidly around him, all the concentrated force he had gathered sheered in half and rapidly turning into pure blasts of force. All this Randidly seized and pulled into his storm of kinetic force churning around the room. A maelstrom hovered ever closer above the sparking embryo of humanity, their rotations quickly coming into alignment.

Randidly shook himself, focusing back on the moment. He straightened, the scorpion tail lowering itself to the ground to keep him balanced, flicking fitfully back and forth. His Nether Core pumped another solid flow of significance through his veins, steadying him, readying him for another pass.

If necessary.

Elhume took another step backward, obviously very thrown by how totally he had lost in the brief clash. He was turning just as Randidly’s event-horizon-housing hand grabbed him by the front of his robe. Randidly briefly allowed the Stillborn Phoenix to flare, devouring the remnants of Elhume’s image and emotions before that righteous fury could come roaring back, before the misguided belief that Randidly would threaten Pine would come roaring back.

Well, Randidly admitted privately. I do have a rather… dangerous gamble to make on the subject of Pine. But that will come later.

He did not spare Elhume at all, just sucking away anything he could slurp up with the image. The last embers of resistance disappeared past the edge of the event horizon.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hypothetical Gaze that Consumes the Universe (T) has grown to Level 1010!

With a sharp twist, Randidly whipped Elhume across the battlefield in the direction of the Patron of the Borrowed. The Vulpine had largely just been staring at the confrontation but managed to get his arms up in time to catch Elhume’s body.

Randidly felt a strange sense of unease and sent one more glance over at the crumpled form of Elhume. When the Hungry Eye had turned on Elhume, it had pulled from his depths and found surprisingly little. Was that… because he managed to resist the pull? Or was he truly that hollowed out at the moment?

He pursed his lips as he turned to face the Prophet. So many small details demanded his attention, but the large issues were more pressing. “And you? Do you need a demonstration?”

“You are a sociopath, Nether King Hungry Eye.” The Prophet said primly, folding its fat fingers together in front of it. Yet the eye bulged and its two mouths appeared to be resisting the urge to smile. There was a noticeable glee, radiating out of its person. Perhaps he enjoyed Elhume being put in his place? “Which, I suppose, shouldn’t come as a surprise. You informed us the entire time, didn’t you? You are a Nether King.”

“Errr- pardon the intrusion,” The Patron of the Deep spoke up, back by the hole Randidly had blasted to enter the chamber. Yet his eyes remained fixed on the blood which had soaked into the clay body, leaving not even a trace of it behind. “Antagonism and dramatic entrances aside, I do hope you would consider lending your aid to fix the receptacle of new life-- actually, why have you intervened, Hungry Eye? Elhume-”

The Origin Beast stopped, eyes bulging, as though the name carried with it the memory of the attack and it lodged itself in his throat while passing through. Across on the other side of the room, the Patron of the Borrowed cast around a nervous eye, holding Elhume. For his part, Elhume remained still, his image continuing to contract from the impact. That sensation of the void crackled around him, dense layers of static resembling the pins of a hedgehog. Yet to Randidly’s relief, the Vulpine twisted his mouth and carried Elhume out of the room.

Whatever Elhume built toward at the moment, it wouldn’t matter for a bit. And what came next… was relatively delicate.

Randidly took another glance at the Prophet, who seemed to be measuring him with that same inexplicable fervor. Based on the Prophet’s continued confidence, all the pieces were in place: he was ready to create his Philosopher’s Stone.

He spared a glance for his Nether Core, measuring the significance within. Gonna be a rough one from the start. Hope you are prepared. We won’t have much of a break, even between attempts. Not enough time.

But all we can do is advance, right? Let’s go.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yearnings of the Nether Heir (P) has grown to Level 1127!

Randidly raised his head. The whirling maelstrom of force had almost come into complete alignment with the degenerating energy around humanity. The room howled and spat, all spark and windstorm. He shouted over to Padraic. “You’ll need to trust me on this. Humanity will be created… but we need to perform spiritual surgery to fix the wounds. Leave that part to me, but you’ll need to maintain the clay body until I’m prepared to revive it.”

Padriac nodded, but the Prophet snorted. “Do you plan on ignoring me?”

Randidly settled down into a cross-legged seated position, doing exactly that. He sucked a breath through his nose, surprised by the fluttering of his own heart; now that the first impossible attempt arrived, he felt more nervous than he had expected. His palms had even begun to sweat. The imperative of Deganwidah lurked within his Fateset, remaining implacable despite the anti-Fate working that Bleak Sky wielded against Randidly.

His Nether Core began to accelerate and Randidly began to move his hands. From the Alpha Cosmos, Randidly pulled out the bottom half of an unnaturally large pearl, so expansive he needed to use both hands to cradle the precious object. The flat top-surface glittered, vivid Engravings across the pearlescent gem. As the hue of the esoteric runes shifted, portions became impossible to read. As Randidly studied its surface, even he couldn’t quite understand all of the Engraving carefully sculpted.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He received a message from Nathan a split second later. On short notice, this is the most effective solution I can come up with. It’s essentially a mirror, tied with a pseudo-intelligence. Have you ever heard stories about wishes on monkey’s paw? You wish for something you want, but it comes true in the worst possible way. This is the inversion of that. You imagined yourself how you want to be… and the mirror shapes you, finding the best Path to that. Creating a Class to match that Path. However, without a library of options-

I’ll handle that, Randidly sent back. He smiled, pure and full of gratitude. Thank you, Nathan. It’s perfect.

“What a fool,” The Prophet cut into Randidly’s thoughts, his tiny little mouths sneering. It was clear from its tone that it wasn’t used to being so obviously ignored. And his patience had run out. “So long as you try this nonsense upon land blessed by El-Kedec, you are doomed. As one of the anointed children, I activate the Cleansing Net-”

“The First Authority: Seize,” Randidly casually raised his hand and grasped, all the force of his First Authority behind it. Flames of Nether Weight sprung up across the whole of his person, until he seemed an incarnation of shadowy fire. He focused on the powerful, restrictive array that the Prophet now brought to bear, the one that he had anticipated.

The Authority snapped into place, its influence sinking into the array. Even then, for a moment his Nether Core whined; there was a deep connection between the Prophet, this location, and that horrid light that resisted his attempts. A stickiness that prevented him from pilfering the item he needed.

The Stillborn Phoenix growled. The Dread Homunculus narrowed its eyes. The Carrion of Yggdrasil cackled, so happy to be given so much freedom today, lending its claws to rend the Cleansing Net away from the target.

The connections screamed as the Authority tore through them. The Prophet gasped and paled when it lost control of the array. “You… how?!”

His lips quirking, Randidly began to work. Obviously, while ignoring the Prophet; he didn’t have time to waste. Every second, the Cleansing Net seared its way through more and more of his significance, rapidly regaining its independence.

His right hand sketched out a series of short arcs in a halo, leaving space for him to carefully lower the half-pearl down and sit at the center. The lines burned sapphire after he pulled his finger away, filled with Randidly’s dense Mana to try and corral some of the worst energy signatures that were to come. Then, as his fingers painstakingly created a dense network of Engravings to protect the core area. Around that, Randidly wrote out the most intricate and simultaneously vague Nether Ritual he had ever created, his hands moving so quickly his fingertips began to smoke.

All of this was a spear, aimed directly at the concept of ‘possible’.

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 989!

Congratulations! Your Skill Yearnings of the Nether Heir (P) has grown to Level 1130!

In his chest, Randidly spurred his Nether Core to higher speeds, revving up faster and faster and producing more and more significance. With his other hand, he produced an Engraving he had worked on for the past two days. The framework glittered with the raw energy had gathered to sustain it, a constellation plucked out of the sky and floating before him. It looked like a funnel and functioned exactly like one, with some added suction to help the process along. This he set to the side just as he glanced down with a tense expression.

The ground rumbled, the powerful defensive Engraving running through the whole of the base. He was running out of time; the Cleansing Net was burning its way out.

With an impatient growl, Randidly gestured and ripped out all of the processes, the philosophies, the possibilities, the potential that Elhume had poured into the clay body. Almost immediately, the skin began to blister and the deterioration worsened. Padraic yelped and began drawing sigils in the air, attempting to stabilize the now-hollow form.

The howling tempest of wind and energy worsened. The Figures of the Prophet, Padraic, and the Patron of the Borrowed all blurred and flickered, distorted as the environment became increasingly alien.

Clicking his tongue, Randidly pulled all that pilfered power and pressed it into the top of the half-pearl. The Engravings began to glow, animated beyond simply producing light, but beginning to warp underneath all the new influences being added.

Randidly looked once more at the meager layer of significance around his Nether Core and winced. Well, it’s not like there is any choice. Advance. The Second Authority, Intangible Needle.

His body seized briefly, his Nether Core straining to keep up with his demands. Yet Randidly gritted his teeth, plucked the innocuous-looking bone needle from the air, and then began to sew all separate pieces together to create a ramshackle ladder to the boundary of the impossible.

The small end of his funnel apparatus to the pearl, the defenses and energy stabilization formations on the ground to the pearl to ground it further, the Nether Ritual with its secret prayer all woven through the entire thing. Then, Randidly took the misbehaving Cleansing Net of the Cult of the Savior and wove it into the middle portion of the funnel.

The Cleansing Net seemed confused by this development, pausing in its destructive rampage to consider its circumstances. Which gave Randidly just enough time to run through his mental checklist.

Nathan had handled the vagueness problem. All Randidly needed to do was provide the library and he will have created a threshold of infinite paths. He smiled, the nerves still there, but now his heartbeat strengthened the march of his reckless excitement.

Just as the Cleansing Net decided that this environment, too, should be seared out of existence, Randidly sucked in a breath and reached through his Nether Core. He found that seed, that connection to the strange sea filled with the horrifying statues, eternalized shapes seeking to spread their influence. With a few quick movements of the Intangible Needle, he sewed the wide portion of the funnel to that opening. Then he acted the funnel and began to pull.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1040!

For a second, nothing happened. Then a thousand threads of meaning erupted from the opening, happy to be liberated from the stillness of their stasis in the strange sea. The Cleansing Net caught them all, horrified and then furious at the sudden arrivals, setting about to burn away all of these interlopers’ resistance.

In the next moment, the number of shapes forcing their way through his Nether Core doubled. Randidly’s face twisted in pain. A few seconds later, that doubling happened against, more and more shapes flowing through into the world through Randidly until they all became a solid stampede, uncountably numerous. He felt the ground begin to shudder as the defense system tied to this base shifted into an even higher gear.

Randidly had to force his eyes closed, lest he would be blinded by the light bristling in the middle of his funnel. Against the pressure of Randidly’s Authority, it had been powerful. Yet now it drew on something deeper, perhaps even a fraction of the true light of El-Kedec. It seared and seared, able to destroy almost all of the shapes as they passed through.

As Neveah had pointed out several days ago, the entirety of Randidly’s plan for today was based on a series of assumptions. Assumptions so varied and lacking in observable proof it was difficult to judge which was going to be the most incorrect.

But at this first leap, at least, Randidly had been right.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1041!

Remnants of the shape drifted forward through the net, burned and scorched until the insidious intelligence driving them from that strange sea had been depleted. Randidly happily pulled the hollowed-out shapes and fed them into the pearl. His emerald eyes blazed, reflecting the rising light of the Philosopher’s Stone he began to create.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1058!

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1059!

But this is just the beginning. Randidly scanned the Pearl. Gonna need a lot more shapes than that.