Fatia Cerulean looked at the sky, unable to comprehend the scope of what he witnessed rushing toward him.
Over the past week, he had polished his Grand Fates, despite the annoyances of others taking those same resources. He had reached the height of his power, possessing a potency he had craved for so long. He had even found time to hunt down a capable Nether King and add it to his trophies, giving him access, albeit much-reduced, to that strange power which Hungry Eye had denied him previously.
His army had been armed with Fates and given ample opportunity to hone their capabilities. His current base had been surrounded with the densest Engraving he could muster, almost rivaling Homewell’s lifeseal in power. Even a gust of wind caused the shield to flare to life and force all invading particles back. Cerulean kept his elites close, prepared to ambush this haughty Nether fool when he came for vengeance.
He stood, at the height of his power, wreathed in sapphire flames. Opposite, the promised doom approached.
Ink seeped out from the edge of the horizon, poisoning the sky. Clouds expanded quickly, becoming the first harbingers of a dark apocalypse. Cerulean had heard soldiers whispering earlier in the week, referring to Deganawidah as Thrice-Drowned or the Black Tide. Gazing up at the approach, he finally understood the second name.
And the Tide began to come in.
Is this what my fear tastes like? The Raptor Construct stood transfixed as he watched the spreading darkness, the perfected personality now ruling the body running up against its own mortal foibles. A strange haze filled his brain as emotions he believed to have buried began to crawl out of their graves, their fingers pushing up through the dirt.
Fatia clawed his teeth together. If nothing else, today is a point of data. To prove if my methods were the right ones.
“The soldiers have held thus far against the Nether rabble, but the appearance of Deganawidah appears to have invigorated their offensive,” One of Cerulean’s aides frowned over toward the location where the two armies wrestled. Flashes of light and brief snatches of impressions radiated out to create strange kaleidoscopes in the air. “If they can’t hold, our defensive Engraving will falter-”
Deganawidah’s energy streaked forward, faster than Cerulean would have believed. Darkness tightened to become a battering ram and slammed against the glittering energy dome around the base. The barrier shattered instantly.
A dark comet releasing waves of iron dust rushed down through the sudden opening and shattered the ground only ten meters away from Cerulean’s position. With absolute poise, Deganawidah himself straightened from the impact point. His eyes blazed as he scanned the surrounding soldiers and focused on Cerulean.
“You would have done well to come to me for this lesson,” Deganawidah rumbled.
*****
Randidly had been biting his lip so hard it bled for so long that Yggdrasil actually complained because it had to divert a noticeable portion of energy to heal the wound/ prevent the lip from healing around his teeth.
He forced himself to relax. But that was just one task on a mountain of others.
Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 1052!
Randidly maintained the array supporting the pearl. He kept his body flush with Nether, heavily lashing out at any animated shapes that tried to escape the confines of the funnel. He fed focus and emotional force into the Stillborn Phoenix so it could handle half of the cleansing duty, despite the fact that Randidly’s reserves were running dangerously low. He supported his other images through Neveah’s consciousness, allowing her to maintain the storm of kinetic force in the room. He plucked the cleansed shapes spat out of the tight end of the funnel, now sometimes using the Dread Homunculus and the Cloak of Utter Night to smother small bits of remnant consciousness that survived the cleansing, and fit them into the pearl.
Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 1054!
He watched the pearl, unable to blink, staring directly into its blazing radiance, mentally calculating its limits.
He did his best not to consider his own.
Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 1059!
Force rushed around him in a grinding maelstrom, growing more powerful every second, with each heaving bit of struggle radiating out from the funnel. Static discharge crackled around the edge of his defensive array as too much energy ran through its channels. He did not have much time left, either for the pearl or for the funnel or even for his own Grey Monarch’s Authority. Randidly grimaced, wishing his limitations were the only difficulties. No matter how he considered, the limit remained in place. From his perspective, finishing this project would be impossible.
But I picked the amount of shapes that would be appropriate. So probably, I picked exactly at the limit. Stopping a little short of that… shouldn’t have consequences, Randidly thought to himself, but he only had to look at the changing landscape inside the pearl to know that wasn’t correct.
Or rather, to avoid the confrontation would be to miss the whole point.
What had begun as the haphazard arrangement of image shapes, for practical purposes possible Classes, had transformed with additional numbers to become a cross between a museum and a three-dimensional, ever-shifting maze. The strange accumulation of shapes spun like a rubix cube, showing pathways and glimpses at the Classes that could be found within its coy depths. Yet the enigmatic substance of the pearl remained in constant motion, morphing and changing, becoming near infinite in the variety of Classes it contained.
Randidly felt his heartbeat quicken as he stared at it; he could see the nascent form of the Philosopher’s Stone he had wanted to create in those blurred structures. And that taste made the worst of his stubbornness rise to the surface.
His attention snapped back to the funnel, just in time to unleash a blast of dense Nether to annihilate a series of shapes that had been about to burn their way out of the weakening sides. His Nether Core coughed and wheezed, overdrawn and sputtering. Randidly scanned the available shapes, then glanced down at the pearl: he sat at about 93%.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Almost there, but you’ll need-
Randidly sent supportive thoughts to the flagging Stillborn Phoenix just as two other columns of shapes slammed themselves against the sides of the funnel. Both ripped their way out and fled into the world, some of them perhaps harmless, but others very obviously closer to the Light of El-Kedec, an insidious and rigid creed that could truly harm people.
Almost instinctively, Randidly grasped the energy released by these shapes as they blazed two unsanctioned paths out of the funnel and fed it into his storm. The careful working that Randidly had labored over began to deflate. The other shapes sensed this change, hesitating in their rabid struggles against both each other and the cleansing forces. Which gave both the Cleansing Net and the Stillborn Phoenix the chance to strike at a few shapes and slaughter them, but there were thousands more, ponderously turning toward these new exits-
“Heh. It’s always like this, isn’t it?” Randidly whispered. His head pounded and his body ached as he considered the new developments. For a split second he did nothing, because he really couldn’t; he had reached his limit. But then the Dread Homunculus roared to desperate life and lashed out at one escaping column. Its claws ripped through the shapes, leaving impotent and intellectual radioactive shapes tumbling through the air, but it would have to do for now.
Congratulations! Your Skill the Wrathful Calamity Rends (T) has grown to Level 949!
Randidly shot one last wave of Nether flames at the other column and managed to sear most of the shapes out of existence. But just as the last one should have succumbed, his Nether Core truly failed. The whole working in front of him began to come unwound, the invisible threads of the Hollow Needle beginning to fade without a steady supply of energy from his Nether Core.
Yggdrasil roused itself, golden roots springing out of his body and slapping into place across the funnel to plug up the gaps. At the same time, Randidly narrowed his eyes and ripped the end of the funnel off of his chest; he already had enough shapes pulled out in the funnel. The World Tree spun its roots around and squeezed the opening shut.
Randidly’s eyes flicked left, a strange horror in his chest. At least for now, the situation in front of him could be handled. But that one last shape-
Congratulations! Your Skill Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 1116!
He blinked in surprise. The two ugly ghosts that had haunted the Stillborn Phoenix for so long, belittling it and not respecting its shape, had shot out of Randidly’s chest and seized upon this last shape. As Randidly watched, they began to open their misshapen mouths and take large bits out of the shape. The shape shrieked and struggle, but the same impunity they showed toward the concept of an event horizon they could apparently turn toward this insidious thought entity. Within a few seconds, they had devoured it completely.
Congratulations! Your Skill Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 1120!
Congratulations! Your Skill Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 1121!
With several contented burps, the shadows returned to Randidly. He might have lingered there for a while longer, simply too shocked to do anything but coast, when the a tremor caused the pearl to clack loudly against the ground.
Randidly grimaced. My work is never done.
Congratulations! Your Skill Severing Tide of Amenonuhoko (P) has grown to Level 1063!
Now though, the final pieces were coming into alignment. He told the Stillborn Phoenix not to struggle but just maintain its position. Then he raised his free hand and gestured widely, gathering up the storm of force. It meant Padraic would be on his own with the clay body for a few seconds, but they approached the end now. There was no other choice.
Yggdrasil eased up its grip on the wide part of the funnel. The shapes paused, realizing they could escape behind them and did so, the last hundreds of pieces that Randidly needed-
And as they tried to reverse their course, the hammer of his kinetic storm smashed them to bits, stripping them of their dangerous parts, leaving them gleaming and pure. All the energy he had gathered over the past hour seared its way forward, an irresistible river that the dense shapes might have resisted collectively, but they had no chance of enduring as a rabble.
In one massive collapse, with the corridor of energy held steady by Yggdrasil, Randidly eliminated at least one of the more dangerous variables with the same chaotic discharge they had created in their arrival.
Congratulations! Your Skill Motif of Unimagined Tolls (GD) has grown to Level 1040!
…
Congratulations! Your Skill Severing Tide of Amenonuhoko (P) has grown to Level 1072!
Congratulations! Your Skill Motif of Unimagined Tolls (P) has grown to Level 1060!
Randidly felt almost entirely empty as the furious squalls began to fade, numb from the constant struggle that now left him, struck with a near overwhelming desire to simply collapse. His vision swam and his limbs felt immobile. Yet he gritted his teeth and activated the ever-reliable Yggdrasil. The World Tree Sips from Every Realm.
Congratulations! Your Skill the World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 1030!
This Skill Randidly aimed downward, at the diminished remnants of the Cleansing Net and the rest of the defensive fortifications around the Cult of the Savior’s base. A rush of energy flooded his body, so he took an even deeper pull. His world had narrowed to just his hands and the working and the pearl, but now the blurry backdrop came into slight focus.
Randidly couldn’t help but notice that a strange image signature began to rise from the depths of the Cult’s base, now that the defenses had been almost completely put offline. He wished this stranger good luck and the good sense not to fuck with him right now.
His jaw worked, clarity returned by the vicious headache he had earned lingering and making prolonged concentration agony. With a grunt, he waved a hand. The unused kinetic energy pulled itself together into a storm of energy once more, going to support the sweating Padraic. His Nether Core revved, struggling to replace the significance he had spent so freely over the past few minutes.
Cracking his neck, Randidly began to insert the last wave of shapes into the pearl.
Congratulations! You have accomplished a significant achievement! You have created the Near-Perfect Boundless Nacre (P)(U)! Congratulations! For being the first individual from your Cohort to create a Pinnacle object, you have been rewarded-
Recalculating…
Pantheon Intervention. Congratulations! For being the first individual from your Cohort to create a Pinnacle Object, all Stats +100! In addition, you have received two Breath of the Ghosthound (GD)!
Breath of the Ghosthound (GD): A consumable item of immense worth, only possible by gathering the toil, will, and essence of the bizarre Ghosthound, the deific being who climbed from mortality to become three Moiraes. By using this item, you can upgrade the Rarity of any one Stats, Skill, or Item to the Ghosthound Deviation Rarity. The exact nature of the shift will depend on the resonance between the object and the Ghosthound. The activation of this item will produce a certain resonance that will draw the attention of those attuned to the Ghosthound.
Warning! Results will be unpredictable. Although the Rarity will be boosted, there is a minute chance the value of the target will be diminished.
This time, Randidly at least scanned through the notification. A smile hovered across his lips as he saw the efforts of the Pantheon. He might not interact directly with them very often, but they were more than his subordinates: they were him. They formed the structure of his Alpha Cosmos. “Thanks guys, I couldn’t do this without you.”
However, Randidly didn’t miss the point of the first portion of the notification. As far as the System was concerned, he could do no more with the Pearl. Which, of course, made Randidly Ghosthound grin like a wolf.
Shape by shape, he pushed it further. His emerald eyes glittered in the light reflected from the dancing Engravings across its surface. Both limbs blurred, scything through the hundreds of shapes by the dozen. Each split second saw more complexity of that shifting maze increase. He reached his impression of 99% and kept going with each careful placement.