As the dust cleared Huang ShouÆs expression twisted in unwillingness and bitterness Theodora Greyman was still standing seemingly unharmed But then that grimace faded into confusion Huang Li was panting and dropped his sword The weapon hit the ground and shattered into a thousand minuscule chunks of twisted metal
The strain of supporting that image had been too much
Suddenly a man with short black hair was standing between Huang Li and Theodora Greyman His emerald eyes weighed them both equally then he turned to Huang Li You need to be careful utilizing vast images like that She would have died if I hadnÆt intervened and you might have destroyed a portion of the stands in the process
Randidly Ghosthound rapped his knuckle solemnly against the large thorny root that had cracked the Donnyton marble arena to interpose itself between Theodora Greyman and the attack Huang Shou was intrigued by the glimmering golden roots across the root but his eyes were drawn to the deep gash that oozed sap Huang LiÆs strike had almost bisected the root completely
Huang Li blinked and then bowed deeply Then the Ghosthound turned to Theodora Greyman and gave her another few seconds of scrutiny anything you want to say You almost died from two things just now
The inky blackness faded from TheodoraÆs eyes But the whites of her eyes were lost in the deep bags that weighed her gaze down Why why do I always lose to you
Madam Greyman Randidly Ghosthound turned away from her We were never competing to begin with The winners of this round are Zone 7Æs Huang Shou and Huang Li Any objections
The Ghosthound glanced sideways at Richter but the young man just sighed Then the crowd began to cheer
Heh I appreciate the nod but this time Huang Shou looked at the silhouette of his adoptive grandson It is not I that should have been announced first
Chapter 1450
Theodora Greyman was dying slowly Randidly could sense it Her body was rejecting the Nether that had flushed through her veins As with the original Skill he had earned whatever she was doing just created a faucet that she could turn and bring in Nether from the Great Rift And her physical body wasnÆt being healed by the System as the Nether continued to further corrode her
Yet Randidly hesitated then turned away from her Fight the foe in front of you Theodora You chose this Now its time to see if you have the resolve to see it through
When he returned to his vantage point on his island RandidlyÆs mind was racing More than anything else he was struck with the immediate desire to train
Randidly realized something important when Huang Li pulled from the ambient images in the air he had missed something vital for the past several months Something that probably should have occurred to him as he was starting to understand Nether Just being the entity that stepped in and protected the former President Greyman from the consequences of the tournament he could feel his Nether roiling and bubbling as it experienced a heavy influx of memory and weight In all likelihood Huang Li and the other participants were experiencing something much more pronounced
But of course Huang Li didnÆt have his own personal Nether He subsisted almost unconsciously on the thin film of Nether that the System allowed people to possess That small amount kept the semblance of balance between the energies but it was a slight space that made it impossible for weight to accumulate around someone
Yet the weight was still being produced The function of Nether wasnÆt being affected just suppressed Randidly had sensed the process happening in the air He had experienced noticeable gains to his already developed Nether Nebula as he drank from a tributary of that weight The main river was undoubtedly thick and powerful So where did that weight go
Or to put it more directly what did the System do with that weight
The other matches ended without any incident like Huang LiÆs attack against Theodora Greyman and Randidly turned his attention away from the arena below His silver wrapped island drifted back over toward Kharon The top 8 of the duos tournament had been safely determined There would be a rest day tomorrow so Randidly would have quite a bit of time to investigate this phenomenon he finally identified
Unfortunately studying the actual Aether Constructs of the System revealed little to Randidly The actual infrastructure was that sophisticated Even when he tossed the problem to Neveah she was unable to give him any real insight after an hour of examination She did add that perhaps a more extended investigation would lead to more but Randidly told her not to bother He had another idea
Actually his idea was two fold First he would see what was happening with that weight To that end he split off a poignant memory and created a globe of Nether to house it The memory was RandidlyÆs first recollection of meeting Shal finding him sitting in the safe room in the healing pool Then he simply placed it outside of his body letting it get flattened and squeezed by the tightly pressing constructions of Aether
Gradually as Randidly watched that compressed memory he detected it flowing away from him and toward the sky In the process of being forced through that thin membrane the walls of the memory began to crack and break The details were rubbed away but the significance remained The strain was enough to damage RandidlyÆs thick Nether It would take a few days to fully crack it but Randidly couldnÆt help but be impressed by the quietly efficient method of extracting weight
That was the genius of this portion of the System It syphoned this weight off and destroyed its individuality and even now to RandidlyÆs concerted focus it only seemed like a side effect He couldnÆt detect the source of the phenomenon at all
Randidly grinned up at the dark grey sky but his eyes werenÆt really taking in the clouds He was seeing that swirling Aether constructs beyond that Randidly was peering up toward the location that a Nether King had come to attack the Seventh Cohort His emerald eyes searched for any lingering traces of the Nexus There arenÆt that many actual coincidences here are there Just how deeply did your schemes run Elhume
Congratulations Your Skill Nether Sensation has grown to Level 253
The night stretched onward Randidly coolly watched his memory being smushed and stolen by the Nexus Then right before dawn of the break day Randidly reached out and plucked the memory back out of that thin membrane area
To Randidly that memory was quite precious It was enough to see that the weight of all these moments was really being stolen on a mass scale Now it was time for him to work on his second idea to take all of that Nether weight for himself
Clicking his tongue Randidly began to weave Nether once more He suspected that his arrangement would need to be near perfect in order to work
Huang Shou chuckled They sat in the main room of their allocated suite savoring the day of rest they had before the matches tomorrow Looking at it now will change nothing Rest for another few hours There is no rush to fight
I understand grandfather Huang Li said as he steadily worked his jaw For whatever reason Li just couldnÆt find it in him to relax He had always known this roadblock was coming He had prepared himself mentally for it quite far in the past But now having made it here having felt the vast subconscious image in the air above the tournament and briefly made use of its power Huang Li was strained and fraying
Of course even if it wasnÆt Paolo and Kayle it is not like any of the duos left at this point are push overs Huang Li grimaced and looked at the full schedule of matches for tomorrow
Match 1 (9 00 AM) Huang Shou and Huang Li v Paolo and Kayle
Match 2 (12 00 PM) Donny and Glendel v Tykes and Dinesh
Match 3 (3 00 PM) Alana Donal and Wivanya v Lucifer and Guiliana
Match 4 (6 00 PM) Hank Howard and Ancho v Lyra and Stan
Of the remainder Huang Li had to admit that the Zone 7 team was the one with the smallest chance of victory The power of the move that Huang Li was able to unleash captured the imaginations of the crowds and kept them relatively even with the more established duos in terms of bets but even Huang Li had to admit that his control over that image was shaky