Randidly hummed to himself and considered. Energies continued to gather around their base of operations as the Upper Sonara Society continued their efforts. With energy came choices. Right now, what was most important was efficiency.

Once the fighting began, Randidly would fight until he won or died. Obviously, considering the mood of his subordinates, he kept these thoughts to himself. But it was upon those axes that his decisions were made.

Randidly had been delighted to discover that the conversation with Solomon Rex and perhaps even his work to create superior weapons for his subordinates had boosted him in the density of his significance. Two complete grey bubbles had formed in the depths of his Nether Core. Which put his total to 15, to 13 drops of liquid Aether.

Randidly didn’t worry about the amount for now, instead followed a hunch and began to assemble the volatile pieces.

The drops of liquid Aether were the base framework for his working. Even if they were a bit more unpredictable than the bubbles, they could resist outside pressure without giving ground. But this time, Randidly had a bit of inspiration; between the drops of liquid Aether, he would place the grey bubbles as a buffer.

So when the pressure came, the Aether could expand and the Nether could compress to compensate.

The two energies still resisted his attempts to keep them close together, but only at first. Once Randidly figured out his base formation for the Aether, a circle of eight, a circle of four, and then a single drop of liquid Aether anchoring the middle, the grey bubbles practically snapped themselves into place to help support his work.

He began with the outer circle of eight, inserting grey bubbles into place between the surly drops of liquid Aether. A frown creased Randidly’s brow as he proceeded with the work— already he could feel a growing outward pressure created from the ring of condensed energies. They rotated in a rainbow arc as he restrained their expansion, discharge crackling along their furious motion.

Randidly grimaced as a particularly nasty bolt of inverted energy twisted off and slammed into one of the Yggdrasil Skill constructs. A pulse of warm golden energy swept through, healing the minor damage to his Soulspace. Yea, this is not a process for the faint of heart…

By the time Randidly had inserted four of the eight buffer bubbles, he had to activate Yggdrasil anyway to restrain the quarter-finished arrangement, wrapping golden roots around the whole construction to keep it from exploding outward in every direction. The pressure mounted with each bit of energy. Along those spectral roots, gnarling whorls of wood bulged with the strain of keeping everything in place, like plant muscles flexing.

The seventh grey bubble shook the circle with its arrival. Randidly began to feel slightly lightheaded, moving from the emotional forging to this difficult process, yet Yggdrasil only seemed amused.

In the end, it’s about attitude. And Yggdrasil… you are the part that has grown with me the longest. All of my accomplishments… they are yours as well. Just like… this next success will also be laid at your feet.

To one who has accomplished so much, this is nothing.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1040!

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1041!

The last bubble slid into place. Randidly braced himself, but the outward pressure didn’t increase. Only the speed changed, nudging past responsible to a reckless, hurtling sprint that at least saw the two energies blend into each other with their speed. More and more discharge crackled around the area, but it became a counter-current to the motion of the liquid Aether and grey Nether bubbles, rather than a dangerous externality.

Randidly coughed, feeling a new headache coming on. “With how these fuckers are spinning…”

He shook his head. Then he leaned forward and concentrated. Cognition of the Aberrant Alchemist and Deity’s Ruthless Cerebral Scope, the evolved forms of Intelligence and Wisdom respectively, showed their overwhelming capability. His awareness shivered and expanded.

Randidly couldn’t quite slow down time, for all that he struggled against the pulse waves so much while in the memory. However, his Grim Intuition and the powerful mental Stats could slow his perception of time’s passage. Each moment stretched before him, giving him more time to examine its contents.

His heartbeat became an hourly phenomenon, arriving with enough force to shake his body. Blood and Nether rushing through his veins slowed to a molasses trickle. The cycle of inhalation and exhalation became the slow seasons across his existence.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The rushing energies of his construction slowed. Randidly could see the way that the drops of liquid Aether squirmed, caged and forced into close proximity to the Nether bubbles. It was almost self-destructive— when the liquid Aether felt the presence of any foreign energy pressing against it, the edges hardened and it expanded to fill a larger area. Had the liquid Aether been facing itself, this would have quickly led to a destructive collision course. The two drops would have become tectonic plates bristling as their fault lines ground against each other until one buckled.

Yet the Nether sank away, giving space. The swelling drops of Aether hesitated in the face of the retreat… before also shrinking back away, without any external resistance to reinforce their negative spiral. When the liquid Aether receded, the Nether bubble inflated again to fill the space. It brushed against the Aether’s edges, starting the process all over again.

Congratulations! Your Skill Emerald Eyes and Dove Whispers Certify the Objective (GD) has grown to Level 1515!

A hundred times, even to Randidly’s expanded awareness of time, these patterns repeated. Each time, the reactions became a little less violent. The liquid Aether swelled just a little bit less. The Nether bubbles had to contract a sliver less. The energies were coming into alignment.

With a grin on his face, Randidly brought over four more of each energy. Time for the middle area.

He checked his grip, kept up his adjusted experience of time, then started in on the next layer. The first drop of liquid Aether was easy. Obviously, once the second slid into the middle with its partner they began to press outward and almost destabilized the whole working.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1050!

“Fuck me,” Randidly whispered. He paused, wondering how quickly that word had come out of his mouth in his accelerated awareness, but brushed off the distraction; Neveah would deflect anyone who would notice the word and bother him about it. His lieutenants were familiarizing themselves with the emotional souls he had inserted into their weapons. Right now, Randidly needed his whole attention here.

He had created the Ghosthound’s Deviation Rarity of Skills, but he wasn’t sure if that would be enough. He didn’t just need to create a new demonstration of power; he needed to be able to overcome Elhume, to overcome Elhume, to overcome the plots of Solomon Rex, and to escape the long shadow of the fallen Pine.

He needed power. But he also needed another Path. An alternate method to offer, a foil to the Nexus.

Sitting here in his Soulspace, Randidly’s Nether Core gracefully pirouetted and told him that this might be the answer.

Randidly waffled for a few seconds, between adding some buffer Nether bubbles now, or trying to force all four into the inside of the working first, and then slipping the bubbles in between to stabilize the situation. In the end, the former seemed more destabilizing, so Randidly said a silent prayer and just stuffed the last two drops of liquid Aether into the core area.

Yggdrasil’s trunk vibrated with a sound of recrimination that sounded suspiciously like it came from Neveah, but thin tendrils slithered out and formed a buffer sphere between the stable outside circle and these four new free radicals. Randidly could only frown as he watched the four drops of Aether sense each other and expand to fill the space. And then, as they sensed the others expanding around them, they expanded again.

They didn’t grind against each other, but only just. The entire core area had been filled with Aether flexing and puffing itself up. To take a more positive spin on the situation, it did at least provide an illuminating example of how Solomon Rex could have taken all the Aether of his original body and caused it to become crystalized Aether. By providing the illusion of pressure, Aether would respond furiously and foolishly, on a fundamental level. Once even a little bit of your Aether felt that pressure, it could start a cascading explosion of fuckery that could even produce an entire mountain range of solid Aether, the larger the crystal became, the less willing it was to ever shift back from its new form.

“It just becomes a matter of how much fucking liquid Aether Elhume had…” Randidly felt somewhat helpless as he tried to estimate that amount. He had chosen long ago to direct most of his Aether to physicalizations, spreading it across his body rather than concentrating it to condense liquid Aether.

Yet if he took his powerful body and squeezed out all the Aether, how many drops would he condense?

Maybe a few fucking puddles, Randidly Ghosthound shook his head. But he let go of his worry and regret. He focused on the working. Because he believed in his efforts here would provide an answer.

Yggdrasil’s tendrils wiggled themselves until they were small enough to squeeze into the cracks of the flexing Aether. For a few seconds, the image struggled with raw energy. The World Tree moved based on just regular Aether, while the drops of liquid Aether were energy reinforced and refined. Besides that, the more the drop of Aether felt the pressure, the more it bristled and resisted his efforts.

But Nether flowed through his images as well. And in the end, Randidly forcefully suppressed the drops and opened up a few spaces. Bit by bit, he wedged the Nether bubbles in between the four liquid tears of energy.

Powerful oscillations made the core area hum after Randidly had finished his efforts. The four, crammed into so tight a space, seemed on the verge of cracking and shattering. Luckily, Yggdrasil had already put the protective sphere in place. And, as Randidly had expected, bit by bit the Nether bubbles normalized the pressure. The violent expansions gradually receded.

Randidly chewed on his lip as he waited, observing the last drop of liquid Aether and the three Nether bubbles remaining. These pieces would become the key to finishing this.

And maybe, saving the entire universe.