Haah it seems my methods of teaching are too profound for you to handle You have turned them into the crucible of destruction
Are you still insisting on continuing this self immolation Your personality is warping
Devick didnÆt blink She didnÆt move She felt surprisingly calm For the first time in recent memory the wild emotional rollercoaster of her everyday existence had evened out She poured more and more of herself into the radiant flames Her awareness dribbled and oozed down her bubbling psyche She had found a Path She felt herself advancing Malice grew stronger and more ominous mutating in the shadowless baptism of these flames
She wondered how much she had narrowed the gap between herself and Randidly Her fingers twitched but she urged herself to be patient
Shit really IÆm practicing patience now Devick thought but a split second later the thought popped and vanished The wry humor followed another second later until finally even her bitterness went too All that remained was purpose
Girl n now now be reasonable Do not burn away your memories I have some experience with this Bad experiences Without memories the valuable connections cannot be grasped
If its me Devick didnÆt recognize her own voice papery and fragile as the air passed through her lips She could barely whisper the flames must have begun to eat into her physical form A few little bursts of pleasure manifested in her heart before the flames took those too Her lips stretched slowly carving a smile across her face If itÆs with this hand
Devick raised her left hand It had become a twisted black claw all obsidian and charcoal all imperfections burned away to leave only the sinister fulcrums of inevitability As long as I reach I can grasp anything
Impossible In the Nexus
Devick cackled more and more joy feeding into a bright golden flame that rose in her image hotter and more annihilating than any that came before it Gradually those stubborn parts of herself that had thus far resisted the inferno began to soften as the joyous flame ballooned outward I am a Deviation What is impossible for others is not necessarily so for me
The shapeshifting spirit attempted to respond but it had reached that point in its maturity Its body had been overfilled and it popped Devick laughed and laughed at the perfect timing the golden flames rising higher and higher until it rivaled the rust colored madness in her the black hatred and the white devotion
Well that will need to do
Laplace howled and pounced forward with more quickness than Randidly would have given it credit for but by then the roots arrived chewing down from above and below teeth of craving and life respectively They closed and bit on their target
Fueled by the powerful emotions of the dead Randidly pinned Laplace in place His three images worked in perfect concert Each emotional affect was a honed blade cutting through the dense significance of the foe and anchoring its body in place Randidly then focused his attention on the clock hand image he had prepared Once more that image settled along the blade of Acri He took a single step arriving right in front of the Eternity
Laplace the Fickle Crossroads of Time heaved its massive and bloated body held between two powerful manifestations of RandidlyÆs image perhaps the two most powerful he had ever managed And the teeth tore underneath the raw pressure it wielded In a split second Laplace shredded the top teeth and even brutalized the manifestations of Yggdrasil That horrifying resonance developed from all the time it had lived was almost unstoppable
Almost
RandidlyÆs Nether Core spun faster and faster He spat the words out while he leveled his spear The First Authority Seize
The impact of the Authority slamming into the Eternity ruptured something in his projected body as his Nether Core heaved and sputteredù his lips parted and blood spewed out over LaplaceÆs face But Randidly Ghosthound had thrown too many thrusts in too many impossible situations to let that distract him He completed the motion while Laplace remained pinned down by spending both the momentum of the dead and all the significance of his Nether Core
Randidly shoved his spear into LaplaceÆs left eye He released the image fragment and an ornate black wicker second hand appeared on the eye After a moment of trembling stillness it began to tick in constant motion
As Randidly kicked off and created some more space Laplace released a horrifying screech that transcended sound Waves of distorted images exploded out with the noise The constant swirl of infectious time that Laplace had maintained began to contract and writhe with instability It flopped around him still destructive but now lopsided Each rotation of that force saw its area contract
Randidly warily took a step back unsure of how effective a blow it had ended up being But he felt the back of his right heel sink into a sticky rind A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the air had begun to ripple more constantly despite the series of blows he had landed against the Eternity he had lost ground and ended up pressed against PineÆs final threshold
He couldnÆt fall back any further not at least while the Eternity still remained so potent
LaplaceÆs agonized keening continued for several seconds The air rang with pain and rage The temporal fabric tore in a wider and wider area around them adding a strange dreamlike quality to their confrontation The scream might have only been a few seconds but it seemed to contain hours of pressure Or perhaps that horrifying breadth of its existence began to leak out past its skin
However RandidlyÆs expression became solemn Gradually its pained screech tapered off The left eye had a ticking second hand its infectious image remained hobbled by the addition Yet with the temporal fabric unwinding further and further away it seemed to find a balance with itself
And then Laplace looked at Randidly favoring the black clock face of its right eye He could see a decision in its expression Sure it had been annoyed before had moved its powers against him but it hadnÆt ever really looked at him It was an Eternity and he was just an individual within the Nexus that hadnÆt yet even reached the Pinnacle It had knocked him aside and moved on to more pressing business
No longer
Randidly licked some of the remnant blood off his tongue and spat it to the side Even now his Nether Core had only begun to regain its momentum The resonance of his Truths began to accumulate into a knot of tension in his chest So looks like you are finally taking me seriously How Fun
Chapter 2424
The two figures stood in the void with jagged waves of warped time wrapping around their bodies Their meeting would decide the fate of the Nexus
As Randidly faced off against Laplace he considered an alternate option to rushing into this confrontation stepping back through the barrier behind him and fighting in the final threshold of Pine It would essentially be a stalling tactic gamble that Laplace due to the interference of the dead would take longer to make it through to the final area than Randidly would Ezekiel and Commandant Wick had vanished since the fighting broke out but Randidly suspected they were still lurking around and coordinating the actions of the regal dead
Temporal distortions buzzed against his skin as he clenched his fists At the very least the choice would give him a bit more time to consider what to do about the strange dissonance Randidly felt in his Nether Core every time he considered his Penance
Yet almost immediately Randidly discarded that idea He clenched his fists even tighter until some of his knuckles popped For one thing he wasnÆt sure what he would find on the other side of the barrier The Truths in his heart were gathering momentum toward shaping themselves into a Grand Fate His intention was to condense the Grand Fate at the same moment those Truths reached the Pinnacle and he wasnÆt sure how much longer he could delay
But perhaps most gallingly after their physical clashes Randidly wasnÆt sure if he would be the first one to break through this last barrier