The Samsara spun around him. It set Randidly’s teeth on edge, knowing a threat stalked for both Devick and the broader Nexus while he was stuck here. Yet at the moment, he was coming up woefully short on methods to break out of this equilibrium.

Randidly needed energy to put an edge to his various scraps of abilities and cut his way out of the construct of Nether. His Vessel remained overwhelming, but he was playing catch-up in almost every other category. Which, to be fair to the potential of the environment, would have let him construct himself from the ground up with the benefit of hindsight.

He could then break out and combine the two versions of himself to create a more powerful hybrid. The potential tempted him.

If he had been willing to remain here and engage in a long bout of training. Which he was not. His pulse raced with desperation, worry, and barely controlled power. So instead he prepared to rip this piece of shit apart, fast and brutal and vindictive.

Randidly took a fighting stance and aimed Acri at Aegiant, who now blazed with all the image potency of the original timeline Devick at her peak. His focus narrowed to the flow of Nether through his veins, reinforcing his body. Yggdrasil shivered and matured, behind the protective barrier of significance. He improved quickly, concentrating power for his explosion and escape.

With one small aspect already engaging: His Grand Fate got to work scrabbling and dismantling the surface defenses of the Samsara with what little significance he possessed.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 225!

…

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 271!

Need to give my Grand Fate time to get some Levels under its belt. Randidly launched himself forward. Aegiant did the same, but the spear user’s image flowed down into his spear until the weapon was just a molten pole. Aegiant roared out a challenge and drew curving slashes in the air. Where the tip of the weapon hit the ground, his attacks scythed through the ground and left shimmering curves of lava in their wake.

Randidly grinned. Is this the best you can do? God, I’ve missed these sorts of fights. Images help, but the bodies are the main focus.

As Yggdrasil’s roots thickened, more and more kinetic energy flowed through into Randidly’s form. Those intrepid roots also wormed their way into the environment and provided a little bit of Nether to Randidly. The accumulation of significance meant his Nether density rose to more acceptable levels. His muscles relaxed as the familiar flow was restored. Each moment, a step forward for his combat capability. Yet those same seconds brought everything he held dear closer to ruin.

He tried not to let it distract him. Randidly rolled his shoulders and then slammed his spear against Aegiant’s.

…unfortunately, Randidly had to juke sideways as the molten spear just melted its way through Randidly’s weapon on contact. He pressed his lips together but didn’t let it bother him. After all, what is a spear? Anything can be a spear.

Randidly popped back up to his feet and pulled on his Yggdrasil’s roots. They wound around his right arm, forming an extended, twirling lance. Most specifically, Randidly observed the way they could pull the energy out of the air. Aegiant’s sun energy blazed, slowly filling the room with heat. The ground began to melt, before Aegiant even manifested a a nova of fire in the space, as he had in the original memory.

Yggdrasil’s roots could absorb quite a bit, but… Randidly’s smile widened. Next time through, let’s try that.

Aegiant thrust as Randidly thrust, but the Yggdrasil root arm crushed the molten pole and pierced toward Aegiant’s chest. The Samsara roiled and bubbled in unwillingness. Significance flooded out of the Samsara, which Randidly happily gobbled up. His Grand Fate slammed against the pieces of the Samsara, looking for weaknesses.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 271!

Aegiant is more powerful than Randidly Ghosthound.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 299!

By the time that the memory settled and a newly empowered Velio streaked down through the web toward Randidly’s position, he had developed a new plan. Despite the fact that Velio’s saber blazed with power a sharp image and also space-distorting amounts of kinetic force, Randidly just spun Acri and aimed the spear upward.

“Let’s see how much force we can generate.” He whispered. The wisps of Nether he had gathered had become veins running wildly through his arms and legs. His vessel pulsed with force, despite the dangerous cacophony of Truths rising higher and higher within his confines.

This too was one more experience that would temper him. And he would escape to time to spare and put down Laplace before he sank his fangs into Pine’s remnant.

Velio cut and the world shrieked to be sheered by that raw power. Randidly spun sideways, a thrust erupting out at the rotational dodge. Velio leaned deeper into the slash. The two weapons passed by each other, both missing their targets only by hairs. The air hissed, compressed by the powerful attacks in such close proximity. All that pressurized space became flows of kinetic force. A small halo began to ripple around Randidly’s toros.

Velio shot downward, slowing descent and wheeling around. His eyes glittered; if anything, he just seemed more ecstatic that Randidly proved to be a foe worth fighting. “Randidly Ghosthound, I dearly hope you can do more than dodge.”

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“I’ll fulfill that wish,” With a razor smile, Randidly beckoned.

Velio roared and kicked off the air. Space shattered to pieces beneath him, and he accelerated into little more than a blur with a sharp edge. Randidly’s expression became serious; these memory Truths really weren’t playing around with their power enhancements.

Even while Yggdrasil’s nascent roots pulled more and more kinetic disturbances into his body, Randidly tightened his grip on Acri’s shaft. He settled into an angled stance, ready to thrust toward. The blur approached. Little trails of torn space lingered in Veilo’s wake.

Randidly narrowed his eyes. Then, when the opening arrived, he thrust.

The attack shot forward a split second before Velio swung. So just before it had gathered all of its momentum and reached the apex of its strength, Randidly’s thrust was already there, nudging the saber to the side and redirecting the force. Randidly could feel the billowing blast of Velio’s fury scrabbling past his face, given shape and teeth with the extra push from the Samsara. The ravenous image ripped apart the small amount of kinetic force Randidly had managed to gather thus far, leaving furrows in his flesh that filled with blood.

But the rush of kinetic force Randidly could pull from the second miss was almost ten times that of the first. Power flooded through his body and began to churn around his shoulders. Plus, before Velio had moved out of range, Randidly punched out and slammed his knuckles against the other man’s solid shoulder.

Velio, almost as though he had expected the attack, spun sideways with the little push from the blow. His heel whipped around. Randidly ducked under it. Finally, Velio’s momentum carried him back upward where he had to kick out into the air to disperse his speed. Those intense, murderous eyes fixed on Randidly. “Accept your fate.”

“I will not,” Randidly couldn’t help but chuckle at the solemnity with which Velio had delivered that line. However, his Truths responded to the resistance and stubbornness in his voice to raise their volume even further. Randidly winced and pressed a hand to his chest, trying to calm them down, the horrible mixture between heartburn and having a spine-y alien claw its way out of its comfortable next in your intestines and up your esophagus.

Hold on a bit, Randidly urged his Truths, who unequivocally ignored him and intensified their revelry. His Soulspace quaked. And in response, Randidly heard a deep tinkling lurking in the shadow of his Soulspace. Be blinked once, realizing that although he had missed it previously, the Aspect of Eternity Pangu’s Asymptote was present.

How is that here, when none of my other tools and abilities were allowed…?

Another burst of strain from his tearing Soulspace refocused Randidly. He would soon be forced to handle this situation, although none of his options for doing so appealed to him. But at the very least, the presence of the Truth was purifying the Nether Randidly had gathered. And all the while, his Grand Fate ticked away, his developing senses pressing against the limits of the Samsara around him.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 315!

While Randidly had to stabilize his internal situation, Velio launched himself downward in another accelerating zip. But instead of shooting past, this time Velio kicked out in the air at the last second, rapidly decelerating and sending off more waves of kinetic force Randidly could corral together to create his maelstrom around his body.

“Dodge this,” Velio hissed as he unleashed his first horizontal cut.

Randidly leaned backward into a limbo position, the blade near enough to kiss. He twisted out of that stance and unleashed a blistering thrust upward. Velio swayed back out of the way. Both men were slightly off balance and then they snapped into ready stances. The violence erupted.

Velio’s chop caused Randidly’s sidestep. Then Randidly feinted a horizontal sweep and just smashed the butt of his weapon at Velio’s face. Velio grinned and just allowed the blow to crunch his nose.

He used the opportunity to drop his weapon and whip it upward in a vicious cut. Randidly spun his spear and nudged the attack sideways. He then pivoted on the balls of his feet and brought his knee. Velio narrowed his eyes, but again chose to exchange blows: his arms twisted up into an overhand grip and then stabbed downward, willing to take the body blow to drive a weapon through Randidly’s heart.

Randidly’s smile widened. Nether and Yggdrasil surged through his form. Not that he had been holding back, but he wrung every ounce of force from his Vessel. The empowerment of the Samsara…

…couldn’t rival Randidly Ghosthound’s accumulations.

The blow slammed into Velio’s stomach, knocking the wind out of the muscular man. The Samsara spat in annoyance. A nova of kinetic force bloomed outward and Randidly devoured it all before any could escape.

He became a storm of violence incarnate, his eyes blazing.

As he forced his stiff body to straighten, Velio lowered his closer shoulder and prepared to charge Randidly, vindictiveness animating his movements. Channeling every bit of Nether he had managed to refine into his left arm, Randidly whipped his left in a brutal hook that cracked against Velio’s chin. Randidly felt the bones splinter and the Samsara spat once more as he violated its Truth.

The rest of Velio’s weight slammed into Randidly as the man reeled slightly and Randidly let himself be pushed back by the half-tackle. The Samsara eased in its palpitations, allowing Randidly to identify a few more weak points in the system.

“You only know how to run,” Velio spat out the words around with a globule of blood.

Randidly pressed his lips together, taking another bit of will to suppress the existential pain of having Truths ready to split him in twain. But he also had an idea. Velio stepped sharply forward to bring the two of them back into melee distance and Randidly began to drift further away. Simultaneously, Velio became incensed and the Samsara around him hummed with pleasure at his adherence to its truth. Another wave of tendrils slithered down, which were summarily annihilated by his Grand Fate.

This time, from the shuffling of the Samsara, it seemed like it sensed something was amiss. The fact he retreated slightly didn’t quite quiet its antagonism. As he drifted back from the spitting mad Velio, Randidly’s face twisted into a frown. Does it still have weapons to use against me?

Those previously impenetrable walls of significance that had been built into the Samsara cracked open. Randidly’s Grand Fate perked up immediately. Yet before he could get too excited by the vulnerability, horrible corkscrews of Nether shot outward from those vacancies. These weren’t honed of significance but were calcified weapons of memory.

Randidly’s eyebrows knit together. When simply getting him bogged down in his own memories didn’t appear to work, it seemed like Laplace intended to just supplant Randidly’s own memories so he would be a bit more well-behaved.

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 360!

This time, the shift in focus had consequences.

Randidly released a subconscious grunt as Velio’s long blade sank into his gut the other man cackled and pressed the two downward. “This was always your fate, for having the hubris of breaking through the physical limitation limitation- ugh!”

Randidly had enough leverage to smash Velio in the face as the two careened downward.