The Fourth Fist Timeless
Randidly blinked at first believing that he had misheard Yet that familiar ache had settled into his abused bones He flexed his arm and tossed himself out of the ravine to land on the ground Dust and crackling electricity muddied the surrounding space but he could look up at the sky where he saw three fists ripping down toward him
Are you Randidly began to laugh he almost couldnÆt help himself The final boss could just throw punches outside of time’s bounds His hands tightened on AcriÆs shaft Fucking kidding me
Chapter 2302
Randidly looked up at the three blazing fist attacks burning holes through the sky each with enough power to still brutalize his images on the way to slamming into his gut His heart fluttered as he scrambled for countermeasures Even now his internal organs struggled to rebalance themselves after withstanding the first attack
He sucked on his teeth eyes blazing Are you making fun of me Throwing three punches toward me one for each of my images Or is this number just a coincidence
At the very least by the time you recognize the outcome of these attacks the second step of the process will be done RandidlyÆs eyes flicked sideways peering out through the storm of energy around him to where the Nexus proper continued to cover the memory with a film of energy to create a Cohort Only a small portion remained uncovered
So it came down to this attack If he endured through this the only wall left in front of him would be the actual accomplishment of transforming an imitation into reality
A warm up is just what I need right now TodayÆs been so dull Randidly straightened and rolled his shoulders He could feel the ground still shaking beneath him from the prior impact but he needed to move Acri and Sulfur hummed their support for him Acri suggested that they utilize the monstrous image physicalization and create the spear tail and that gave Randidly an idea
All at once his counterattack sprung fully formed into RandidlyÆs imagination
He glanced around his vision cutting through the choked air still unsettled from the storm ravaging the ground and then the explosion of the first Timeless impact Corpses could be seen strewn around in the area remnants of the earlier fighting and testaments to why you shouldnÆt get caught too closely in RandidlyÆs struggles Broken limbs and twisted bodies staining the ground with their blood He breathed out a breath aware of the impending attack and closed his eyes
The Dread Homunculus beckoned at the torn battlefield with long fingers
The restless dead and damned rose ten thousand specters masked in the storm and forever bound to furiously wander due to the violence of their end Aether soldiers and Nether Warriors came one and all their figures flickering in the storm of black winds and crimson lightning around Randidly
He looked at them with compassion His image spread its arms wide accepting the small hunks of negativity that anchored their remnants in place DonÆt you hate it To be forced to leave off here To cease moving forward But help me and you can linger Help me and you will build futures for your people
I need your power To change this cage Please
He delivered the entreaty knowing some would reject him The flickering remnants of significance he spoke to now possessed little by way of intelligence Mostly what remained was instinct And about a third of those twisted forms began to fade Their motivations pulled them elsewhere away from the current Randidly offered
But those that lingered their eyes began to sear out of their place of rest light burning coals RandidlyÆs Fateset grinned Gotcha
Congratulations Your Skill ErebusÆs Baleful Waltz has grown to Level 1042
And then those phantasms that wandered through his storm raised their heads and bellowed out a call The air began to hum with their resentment An emotional gong sounded its reverberations seeping into the ground and bouncing across the sky moving impossibly quickly They flickered back and forth traveling out of the storm speeding toward the previous battlefields around Homewell to the vast mounds used as unmarked graves inside the Badlands
The raced to the edges of the memory couriering RandidlyÆs offer to all the bitter dead
With a roar Randidly shattered one of ElhumeÆs Fourth Fist Even using the Moirae of Ripples Skillset his attack held together
AcriÆs gleaming spearpoint cleaved through the knuckles and unleashed ways of destructive energy lashing out to the left and right which Randidly quickly gathered to fuel the Songstress A grin broke out across his face Even though he had borrowed heavily from the memory for the fuel the shape and the thrust were all his own And with his own hands he had defeated a true image attack from a Pinnacle being
He did his best to hold onto that victory as the other two punches arrived He drew back the massive spear for another attack but the souls of the dead were unruly Most of the borrowed force collapsed Randidly barely managed to manifest a plane of gravity beneath his feet and set himself before they arrived
He shifted to the left at the last second accepting the weakening of his stance so the impacts were staggered The first still broke through the remainder of his images and mashed him bodily against his own gravitational surface He didnÆt even have time to make a sound before the second fist caught him in the side
It was all Randidly could do to keep the Songstress of Absence singing For a brief moment the superposition he maintained ground to a stop all the valuable momentum he had built up over the last half minute vanishing Yet only in that state could RandidlyÆs image endure as he hacked out a cup of blood and shot sideways like a kite hit by a baseball bat
His body tore a hole through HomewellÆs Lifeseal as it shot sideways
Only when he crashed and tumbled his way to a stop in the Badlands did Randidly nudge the Songstress of Absence back into motion Randidly might not have been able to see straight and every bit of his body felt like it had been chewed up but he sagged with relief when PineÆs weight still pressed through him activating the mechanism
He gestured broadly with his right arm laying in a pile of shattered shale The second step is completed Elhume The bubble is closed And the third portion is about to begin Once the energy pulse examines the area and discovers how compatible it is with the Nexus you will officially have your new Cohort
The sky tore The blurry and unmistakable figure of Elhume stepped into the memory The bright light from his figure made it impossible to make out details but he clearly kept the tear open as he looked around he had stepped into the time dilation of the memory but it appeared the creator of the wistful memory still didnÆt wish to break it entirely
What can you do Randidly asked
The brilliant figure probably didnÆt hear him but he waved a hand and created deft hooks of Aether Those shot outward and for a split second Randidly worried Elhume would target the Songstress stretching between the two Aether mechanisms But rather strangely most of those hooks spread out to catch the bubble blown to create the Cohort
The few remaining hooks snagged onto the pulsing wave of time that passed across them all
Randidly didnÆt understand until the next pulse of time came through The nudging of time pulled and tugged on the bubble around the memory That pressure caused the bubble to drift slightly with the pressure light enough that the bubble didnÆt tear
But why Then Randidly saw it
The edges of the memory Nexus as the net of Aether to capture an area drifted closer didnÆt stop it
Because in the end it wasnÆt real
Chapter 2303
The impossibility of the task before Randidly made him grit his teeth He pressed himself up out of his small crater blood leaking from sundry cuts spread across his body Small pebbled tumbled and shifted underneath his feet Grimacing he stood and swayed His head spun Information continued to flood into his mind but all of the extraneous details became vague His focus narrowed as his well of mental energy ran dry