Do you finally sense your stupidity Deganawidah replied Most would take this opportunity to gloat but not Deganawidah If anything the frequency and complexity of the attack slamming against Randidly grew Even the Dread Homunculus faltered before
For that Randidly had to respect the bastard He didnÆt play with his food
No the pressure Randidly had to wheeze out the words as his body began to fail The depth
You are delirious Deganawidah snorted
But Randidly continued forcing out the words even through the rain of grey significance His Fateset wanted Deganawidah to understand the fell alchemy he now worked My superpower the labels is the trick And I needed one to understand superposition implicity Two locations overlapping But what does that look like How can that be a being My breakthrough came Deganawidah apparently grew annoyed by the explanation because he pursed his lips and shot out another spike of Nether that ripped out RandidlyÆs vocal cords
His body shuddered On the first battlefield the Stillborn Phoenix gained more and more momentum as the moment neared Yet the second battlefield was one lapse away from a full rout
After a very long moment of teetering Randidly found the energy to heal the wounds He continued right where he left off His fingers tightened squeezing DeganawidahÆs shoulders when I tried to think of a metaphor and stumble across the idea of the Stillborn Phoenix being a flower The dividing line between ground and sky was the most important On one side would be roots on the other would be the bloom but obviously this wouldnÆt work But that was the key being able to visualize the dividing line And now Stillborn Phoenix do you feel it The depth
Congratulations Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart has grown to Level 1050
Warning Deviation detected in your Skillset The Stillborn Phoenix A Star that Prayed it Would be Reborn
For a brief moment the Stillborn Phoenix image stilled the entire confrontation with a beat of its heart In a horrid claustrophobic depth of another plane of existence a hungry entity smiled When the moment passed DeganawidahÆs attacks slammed against Randidly almost breaking through But the Cloak of Utter Night held them at bay for the last few seconds
Superposition Both here and there Randidly whispered You stare down at the surface of water Perhaps you see your reflection but you also see something in the depths moving But what you see is not that object You whack the waterÆs surface and disturb the vision but The event horizon on RandidlyÆs hand grew and grew clouding the space between them but even if you disturb the phenomenon one truth is constant From the depths something wicked watches you back And its swimming closer every second
Congratulations Your image the Stillborn Phoenix is evolving
Chapter 2295
The fluttering trick of light melting along the edges of an event horizon the vision of the monster project to the surface of the water the muddy edged hungry eye pulsed in anticipation Two disparate points started inexplicably accelerating toward each other coming into cataclysmic alignment Randidly felt the shift in his chest as the Stillborn Phoenix stepped over the edge and that dividing fault on which it had been sundered exploded with possibilities
Congratulations Your image the Stillborn Phoenix is evolving Incorporating influences Detecting synergies Incorporating advantages and the influences of your evolved Stat anchors
Pantheon intervention Gathering meaning
With the mutation the absorptive power of RandidlyÆs image multiplied rapidly It no longer just sipped of his foeÆs interior but consumed
DeganawidahÆs eyes widened perhaps for the first time surprised as a huge swath of his interior patterns suddenly vanished In its last moments of existence the Stillborn Phoenix took and took from the world so violently that its consumption became a sort of irresistible song luring the energy of existence into those twisted depths
The edges of blurry wings could be seen as the main body condensed A vicious short beak also formed with clear lines But other than that the resemblance to a phoenix ceased RandidlyÆs fingers tightened not allowing Deganawidah to pull away as the transformation finished All the pressure with which the Nether Monster assaulted Randidly came back to bite him because with the rigid limits imposed by Bottomless Longing Randindly could pour and compact all his energy and emotion forcing all the potency he could muster into the imageÆs new body
The grey waves added a sense of reality to the depthÆ of the image The weight was so overwhelming that already Randidly feel the associated meaning to be simply born of those depths made the new image a Survivor
A strange resonance bounced out from RandidlyÆs Soulspace spreading through the dense waves of grey significance that attacked him The environment and emotion mixed together as the new image crawled the rest of the way from the Abyss fully formed
Randidly gasped feeling the creature screaming silently opening a wide mouth First a small crack formed Then the Egg of Depression finally hatched in a sundering nova of power
Congratulations Your Skillset the Stillborn Phoenix A Star that Prayed it Would Be Reborn has evolved into Singularity of the Inhospitable Depths The Songstress of Absence
Congratulations Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix has evolved to become SirenÆs Dirge of Bottomless Taking Skill Levels will be maintained
SirenÆs Dirge of Bottomless Taking An impossible being made real whispers woven together through the alchemy of the GhosthoundÆs three Moiraes However grasping existence did not solve the woes of this being As a monster that crawled up from the depths of this world it has survived by singing its ballad of negation near constantly Only that constant effort allowed it to persist It may have escaped the gauntlet yet now it cannot stop its eerie song The Songtress of Absence can only exist by taking from the world This Skill empowers Skills that destroy and take from existence The greater the price the higher the effect User will experience slightly dampened emotions and will need to constantly feed in order for the image to retain its power Effects increase with Skill Level
Congratulations Your Skill Hypothetical Gaze that Consumes the Universe has combined with Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart The potential of the Songstress of Absence has vastly increased Recalculating
Your two Skills have combined to become Hungry Eyes Hollow Heart Cadence of Tragedy Skill Level has been set at 1010
IÆm sorry Randidly bowed his head slightly Because he looked at the new Songstress of Absence and saw balance in his power One image for growth one image forged of practicality and one image that bore all the consequences of the power he had accumulated One image which took on all the horrid aspects of the foes he had worked to slay as he moved to the Pinnacle by climbing over their corpses You are the one who needs to bear my sins You have too much of me in you Songstress
The finales you grasp come in shapes you would have never wished for You are Alchemy to your benefit and detriment
The Survivor screeched still gripped by the throes of this revelation She didnÆt have any animosity toward Randidly just toward existence She shrieked and raved a thousand variations which could only be interpreted through the different emotional notes as the volume remained monolithically silent Her wings fluttered practically useless on her body
But there was a purpose to her temper tantrum An audience bound to experience her agony
Her fury beggared DeganawidahÆs interior Nether Each hollow note ripped more and more of his significance out of his chest and dragged it into the mouth of the Songstress where annihilation waited DeganawidahÆs features tightened and barked at Randidly Do you truly wish to follow this to its conclusion You will not survive it
Randidly had to concede Deganwidah had a point while the Stillborn Phoenix shifted to become the Songstress of Absence the waves of grey significance had not slowed their assault on his back to plug up the hole that allowed Randidly to strike at his opponentÆs core Nether It might have granted the Songstress great and immediate power but he had to suffer through it