Because thatÆs what you are Neveah took another long sip of tea An Alchemist But your materials are not elements and energy you work with images and life itself You will transfigure possibilities to create a future of freedom From there with your Fateset more closely arranged you can challenge the broader impossibilities
Randidly could only scratch his cheek To have her not on his side hurt although he didnÆt want to show that Now you almost seem sarcastic when you say those things but thatÆs exactly correct I want to be an Alchemist with Aether and Nether
Finally Neveah set down her cup and glared at him Fear radiated off of her in dense waves the specter of Tiamat looming in the room The whole of your being is not just a solution Randidly Ghosthound You are a fucking person
Suddenly NeveahÆs resistance to his plan clicked together The small emotional notes brushing up against him spun together to create a clear picture His eyes widened You you arenÆt afraid that IÆll fail at all You are afraid IÆll succeed And that the process will make me something less than I am now
Neveah let out a tired laugh as she got to her feet She stepped with all of the overwhelming physical prowess they shared and in the next instant she slammed into his chest her arms wrapping around his body
If he died during his efforts to protect them
His eyes began to close but NeveahÆs fingers shifted to his biceps and tightened She whispered DonÆt you dare look away until the end
So Randidly kept his eyes open He kept looking at the pieces of others wove into the fabric of his body
He saw the various races from the Danger Zones and the worlds brought by Nemesai the people still suspicious still trying to adapt to the Alpha Cosmos still fearful and paranoid of retribution And even more isolated were the remnant experiments of Father Karman humans transplanted into the body of monsters He saw the battle in his subconscious between excluding these beastsÆ or simply accepting them as people
Deep deep within him Randidly saw an old memory of him going into a memory and meeting a race of feathered beings within a Dungeon and killing them for convenience And the deep wound it had left on his psyche even now prodding the most recalcitrant denizens of the Alpha Cosmos demanding they pause in their lives and show empathy to strange beings
They all struggled underneath the yoke of the same System after all
He saw the half dozen races he had created over the course of his budding growth on Expira most of them accidentally How they revered him even now even in his absence How they listened to the gossip of the day retold the same stories about him speculated what new wonders he attempted now He saw the hyper intelligent crabs living along the bottom of the Great Sea he saw his Lancers of the Baleful Crusade he saw his Soulseeds and how they would all be hollowed out by his passage
And weirdly at the end of these truths he saw Devick Young bright laughing her crimson hair cascading down her back He saw with absolute clarity how his absence would break her corrupt her warp her with rage anguish and pain until she became the same twisted version of herself in the future
The same monster that bound innocent talented souls together until she found a broken pet capable enough to earn the term sonÆ
Why include her at all Randidly whispered She isnÆt
At the end of this attempt are you not going to try to take all of them back to the Nexus Neveah countered She pursed her lips You always drag along to safety those cursed with a bad lot in life Randidly Ghosthound I know you And she well She is the most complex to bring Maybe thatÆs why your thoughts often drift to her
Their gazes held for several seconds a different sort of pressure passing between them After an even shorter amount of time Randidly looked away But Neveah did not push the issue simply shaking her head and moving on to the next subject
So humanity first Neveah remarked
Randidly nodded slowly Humanity first Because isnÆt that what IÆm trying to do Remake myself What better place to start than the origin of the species
Chapter 2272
The Patron of Feathers trembled as she tried to organize her thoughts She had come here because she had nowhere else to turn yet she still felt like a failure
Everything had developed too quickly the situation had spun so far out of control so rapidly that she had been left with little choice but to latch onto her father and his legacy but she was a piggy bank and her thoughts and worries were the coins in the hand of a curious youth jangling and clanging and bouncing off her interior as circumstances shook her about
She squeezed her hands together and forced a small smile For a moment she had forgotten she wasnÆt alone Her thoughts had been hoodwinking her like that quite often these last few days IÆm sorry This shouldnÆt I shouldnÆt come here to talk about my woes Just with the Nexus going as it is
You were right to come here The other woman sighed Between them sat an ornate gameboard with hand carved horn pieces Due to the Patron of Feathers’ long trains of thought the game had stalled out The woman reached out and toyed with the crowned figure at the center of the rest Her smile was brittle Despite our differences the Nexus remains everything to me A constant reminder of my failures We just disagreed on how to proceed ItÆs easier if I simply remain here and let him choose what happens now
The Patron of Feathers nodded I understand I just wanted to ask you for some help My father well IÆm happy we have reached an equilibrium But now he wants me he has discovered a way to create a weapon of time However to form it two individuals are needed experiencing time at different speeds maintaining a tenuous connection Because of our harmonious blood no one is better suited But I the costs are high
The womanÆs smile twisted upward And no one has more experience with complex familial relationships than me right
The Patron of Feathers flushed I didnÆt mean
She blinked and looked around She suddenly stood alone on a dried creekbed before a heap of stone Several withered roots peaked out through the dark crevices Her feathers tingled She pivoted on her heel her mind still reeling from the abrupt sense of deprivation HadnÆt she just been talking And now why
The Patron of Feathers paused But who had she been talking with
Her pupils dilated as she reached several times and found nothing All those horrid whispered fears and repressed tensions from her childhood surged back to the fore crawling up her ankles and her lower back with sharp fingers She squeezed her eyes closed and clenched her fist she looked down in surprise to find an object in her left hand
She held a small coin glittering even in the shadows of the creekbed A sharp pain cracked across her brow sudden and unexpected but in the next moment the discomfort had vanished She felt light headed Her hand squeezed the coin feeling the pulse of a strange Engraving on its surface She could almost hear a voice whispering to her telling her that so long as she had the coin with her the price she would need to pay in the Dungeon would be blunted Yet she felt bewildered by where that knowledge had come from
And again who had she just been talking to
The Patron of Feathers stood in that creekbed for another fifteen minutes alternating periods of frantic thoughts with bouts of shaking She wondered whether like many of the chosen experimenters for her father’s trials the altered experience of time had left her with certain mental hiccups that had begun to manifest Yet the coin remained in her hand Whatever had or hadnÆt happened had resulted in the coin
So didnÆt that prove whatever she couldnÆt recall had happened
Eventually she moved worried her anxieties and uncertainties had become a swamp in that creek bed and the longer she remained the deeper she sunk into their cloying rot When she arrived at the Westrisser compound her father waited for her with his hands folded in front of him and his wings folded behind