The bulging golden veins standing out along his forearms
His Nether Core barely able to contain the emotions that flowed through him and into the shade
This time Randidly persisted His image physicalizations were completely manifested but when the emotional transfer finished he had only taken a few steps backward He released a shaky breath and swayed
DevickÆs shade continued her narration At first I assumed it was my imagination I had grown up on stories of how paranoid women could get while they had a child usually for no other reason than their own nervousness about whether they would be good mothers And my own emotional state in the past month had not been very balanced I was a breeding ground for fear
However as the pregnancy developed I knew with chilling certainty that something was very wrong with my daughter Unfortunately I was still unwilling to face the truth IÆll spare you the details In the end my daughter was born but she was empty There was not a scrap of life within her body She seemed to be sleeping And I so so desperately wanted to shake her awake
But my hands were powerless as I held her small shoulders
The strange cloud Randidly stood upon had darkened to the point it was an impenetrable black Intermittently it rumbled beneath his feet The mist of the mountain summit drifted down a tantalizing sign of how close Randidly had now come
He raised his hand and pressed it against his chest His heart was pounding This should be the last one
Congratulations Your Skill Motif of the Hungry Deep has grown to Level 327
Once more with both hands he seized upon the ladder For an eternity he could not move burning and bucking and struggling the funnel between an entire sea and that fragile shade behind him His Nether Core trembled struggling to keep up with the strain The veins in RandidlyÆs eyes bulged and then popped as the pressure grew and grew The knuckles of his fingers tightened painfully
Eventually RandidlyÆs three images stepped forward and flared their power They formed a barrier that kept the emotional torrent at acceptable levels letting it steadily pass through him rather than trying to withstand all of it at once His tension rose but his body and soul endured
Afterward Devick spoke Holding my dead and empty daughter I stormed the base of the father He had begun developing an isolated zone to seek the Pinnacle and would only see those who were extremely talented He sat on the summit waiting for applicants to pass his tests
In terms of talent IÆve never met my own rival Every grief ridden I was unstoppable
I made it to the summit I stood before the Master of this place the creator of the Nexus Ways and later the Grand Pattern and begged for his help I couldnÆt understand why my ability had failed Why my daughter had not simply died but had never lived
And do you know what he told me The imprint and birth had failed because HE wasnÆt alive The perfect mate I had fixated on was just a failed image a byproduct of some more powerful beingÆs attempt to reach the Pinnacle And he couldnÆt help me because he had been trying to figure out this problem for his own sake for his entire existence
Somehow I had managed to pick one of the few men in the Nexus who wouldnÆt help be produce the daughter I so desperately wanted
Chapter 1836
The emotion steadily drained away leaving him lying in a new environment
RandidlyÆs jaw cracked as he painstakingly tried to loosen his locked muscles The pain faded but the strain and buzzing sense of being squeezed dry had not even after quite some time Behind him the shades flickered led by the now extremely lifelike looking Devick He twisted his stiff neck and investigated the surroundings
They now had reached a small plateau at the top of the sacred Mountain In front of him a low slope covered in quite a few extremely small mounds led up to two jutting pillars of stone Those pillars leaned together to form a passage from which thin tendrils of mist emerged Even looking at it Randidly felt something strange about that passage the mist exited and curled like stiffening fingers
Weirdly Randidly could relate to stiffness right now
His eyes scanned again looking for anything else Unfortunately the mist obscured the path upward All he could see was the foreground The last small rise to the true summit The strangely lumpy terrain And above them the inner workings of the Grand Pattern churned and spun for all to see and study
But at the moment Randidly was more concerned with getting his body back to working shape He rolled and groaned Another batch of physical suppression huh This feels like 90% So only 10% of my Stats matter for the last portion For a lot of people this basically breaks them back down to before they have a Class
Congratulations Your Skill Chimeric Impunity has grown to Level 509
Congratulations Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix has grown to Level 421
The strangeness of having his physical prowess reduced combined with the remnant aches and pains of an overstrained body and Nether Core meant that his recovery was quite slow His confused Uncommon Metabolism worked in fits and starts Randidly felt his sluggish blood and stabilizing Nether pumping through his limbs However the Nether he still had was relatively thin surviving that last blast of emotions had drained him of nearly everything
Sighing Randidly pushed himself to his feet The shades looked down at him pity written in large letters across their face To fill the silence he said ThereÆs one thing I donÆt understand Why did the imprint fail so catastrophically
To his surprise an answer came from directly to his right Because the Master is flawed He is imperfection incarnate
It took him a few seconds to swing himself around but when he did RandidlyÆs eyes widened Next to him with shadow colored hair to her shoulders was the shade of Devick that he had encountered in the Third Step You His eyes flicked back over to the other Devick who had crimson hair down most of her back How are you
ThatÆs just how immense our potential is The short haired Devick said with a smirk But then the smile slowly faded as she turned to look at the summit IÆm a remnant that regressed to the Devick we had been before we came to this place She is the Devick of the present And up there right in front of the pillars well IÆm sure you can guess
A Devick of the future Randidly mused Then he shook his head and immediately regretted the violence of the motion But why does that imperfection hurt you IsnÆt everyone imperfect
You foolish whore What are you doing here Return to your Step The long haired Devick stomped forward the air burning with the vicious scowl she aimed at the short haired version of herself If you donÆt IÆll show you how much I managed to improve since casting you aside
How much can you really have improved by working with this master The short haired Devick eyes flashed Compared to our talent that man is
I swear to god IÆll kill you The other Devick growled They both crouched low ready to fight Randidly saw patterns stir ripped by the sudden call of the two Devicks But as the moment lingered both of their faces creased with a deep and unavoidable grief In the end they turned away from each other without blows The long haired Devick spat on the ground
The short haired one turned back to Randidly True all beings are imperfect in execution But in aim they are perfect The Master is missing something So a baby created from his imprint will also always be missing something During that first attempt it was the spark of life that was missed but perhaps
There were no subsequent attempts with failed man children The long haired Devick hissed through her teeth There was no need
Nothing visibly happened but Randidly sensed the shifting Nether between the two Devicks as their gaze locked There was a strange communion of force and significance between them but even Randidly could see that something was horribly wrong with the process The resulting sphere of Nether that manifested in the air and then sank into the Future DevickÆs stomach was bulging and collapsing in strange ways By using the mirrored significance of the same individual