Would have been karma to kick the bucket to a real minor character at this point Devick panted When obviously all this story is about me
A blazing azure comet exploded into the sky above her position this time crashing through the general chaos with light rather than sound The intense light briefly paused the frantic motion of the melee casting a glittering alien fresco of the entire fight Devick stared up at it her mind chugging through the possibilities
She cleared her throat arriving at the surprising yet undeniable one ThatÆs CeruleanÆs emergency beacon
By the time she had recognized the beacon for what it was dense waves of Nether swept up and smothered it While she was doing some mental calculations in her head arriving at a little over a minute having passed since Deganawidah had rushed across the battlefield and crashed at the position of his target twitchy Vendla appeared at her side Two long gashes crossed his chest but the blood had already dried Hurry chi We will be moving to assist Cerulean
Devick hadnÆt even opened her mouth to reply and he was gone In his place a Nether warrior with a severed arm staggered forward Its bloodshot eyes fixed on Devick and it lunged at her with its broken spear raised
For a brief moment she very seriously considered not dodging the attack She could twist slightly sideways and take a wound to the shoulder taking her out of the serious action but posing no true threat to her life Yet even as she considered ceasing this constant fighting the serious expression of Hungry Eye flashed in front of her Devick gritted her teeth No thatÆs exactly the problem isnÆt it YouÆve never taken a breath in your life And thatÆs why
Devick used her elbow to knock the weapon sideways She stooped down and plucked up a discarded dagger inserting it with a rush of caustic image into the throat of the Nether Warrior Stumbling forward Devick made her way toward CeruleanÆs base camp Overhead the sky became a brilliant green as the lifeseal around Homewell began to activate apparently forces within also moving to CeruleanÆs defense
ThatÆs why I canÆt stop chasing you DevickÆs heart beat fluttered For a few seconds she felt like stomping through the mud on a vicious battlefield wasnÆt such a bad thing So long as it brought her closer to Hungry Eye
Elhume let out a hissing breath and flicked his hands splashing water against the wall YystrixÆs expression softened as it always did when Elhume brought up their relationship with Pine their child who also functioned as the soul of the universe
Sometimes the Patron of Feathers loved how strangely open they were with her although it didnÆt make much sense Sometimes she wondered if the only reason she had been told was so they wouldnÆt need to sneak away to snipe at one another
Which was why when she noticed a glittering in the corner of her eyes she pivoted and looked glad for the distraction Her eyes widened as she witnessed several pale sinuous flows rising above the treeline Almost immediately her expression brightened
She spoke up quickly pointing out the window Look Dragons
Her current self watching the replayed memory wondered what would have happened if she hadnÆt been angled toward the window if she had instead gone over to help Yystrix with the bedding if only she could reach out and squeeze the throat of her past self shut preventing the words from slipping out
Perhaps also glad for a distraction Elhume and Yystrix came to the window Elhume seemed nonplused but YystrixÆs eyes sparkled with interest Spontaneous Sculpted Aether How strange I would think most of it would have expended itself by now
Huh Elhume scratched his cheek
Yystrix flashed him a sharp look as though dubious he really was the one who had reached the Pinnacle and managed to create this universe Essentially wild magic Sometimes an image springs to being fully formed without any justification A completely impossible display something manifesting from nothing Fits and starts from the universeÆs birth I believe It happens less and less as the organization solidifies Truly its a minor miracle that it occurred now
Very quickly both Elhume and Yystrix were gathering their things The plates were given a perfunctory wipe before being stuffed back into the bags The carefully laid out three sets of bedding were swept up in arms and stuffed into the small interspatial storage device they could afford The Patron of Feathers blinked We are going
Obviously Elhume flashed a smile LetÆs see what treasure is at the other end of the rainbow
The Patron of Feathers thought that he had been kidding They moved quickly hopping right out the window and speeding through the surrounding forest Only as she struggled to keep up with her older companions did she realized there was steel under his playful words they truly meant to investigate this Spontaneous Sculpted Aether and wanted to do it quickly The Patron of Feathers bit her lip thinking about the bitterness on Elhume’s face when he talked about being weak and all the moments that Yystrix couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze
They rushed out into a clearing being gently tousled by a dying wind The rapid manifestation of energy still lingered as glittering motes in the air drifting down over the scene like soft snow All three slowed and paused at the edges looking at the figure sitting with its legs crossed in the middle The Patron of Feathers gasped unable to believe how lovely and soft this creature’s fur seemed
“What is that ” She whispered
Yystrix tilted her head to the side ” an eight tailed fox “
Chapter 2288
After a brief period of total exhausted oblivion the pieces of Randidly drifted back together to form a coherent self
He floated up through the whole of his being touching onto every brick that had raised him up from that immature kid stuck in the Dungeon to the powerhouse he had become today He his awareness became fingers dragged across the shape of him felt the altered and enhanced anchors of his stats moved up through the tactile surfaces of his body and felt the way his images had forever altered his form
His veins had more in common with plants than animals His skin under the Dread Homunculus could pass for a high tech carbon composite and survive ludicrous amounts of force or heat And the Stillborn Phoenix there were now depths within RandidlyÆs body that didnÆt seem possible at all vast spaces and deep emptiness hinting at the fact a whole Alpha Cosmos had been tucked within him
He realigned gradually more and more of his consciousness recovering from the struggle that had drained him to the last drop
In his semi trance state Randidly drifted toward his Fateset Even now he didnÆt lose the thread of his purpose Because now he finally had the shapes and experience to heal the damage done to the core of the Fateset The effort had exhausted him but Randidly had pulled out all of his Fatepieces over those desperate forty ish seconds of defense
He had tried to hide the Pearl spatially by pushing it through an opening of the AlchemistÆs Passport He had attempted a similar subterfuge with the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night tricking the force of time into assaulting a memory rather than the real thing He had stripped superfluous thoughts away with the Visage of Obsession and had taken in as many details of time as his overloaded brain could stand with the Codex Hexahedron In a moment of desperation he had even activated the Hierarchy of Burden to its heights wreathing his body in the dangerous forces that were generated by the creation of a universe
None of his Fatepieces could keep out the subtle flows of time One by one they had all failed
Do you see Randidly spoke softly to his Fatepieces those damaged by Deganawidah and then seared clean by the strange working Bleak Sky had shown Impossibility was never the point It was all for them to protect the people of the Alpha Cosmos to give them a space to grow without fear of being harvested like wheat To break the rules was never the point yet some times we just have no other option
Gradually they shifted into a new alignment Randidly observed them for a while or tried to His attention came and went sharp sometimes and softened fluttering like a silk veil His recovery was gradual picking up only a little as he felt Nether once more beginning to circulate through his body in significant quantities In those few moments of actual coherence Randidly shifted slightly and looked for the notes of times flow