Then he sank following his instincts until he settled within the core of Expira sitting atop the massive Nether Ritual that even now continued to sure up its foundations and stretched over a larger sphere
RandidlyÆs eyelids flickered as he familiarized himself with the sensation of being plugged so directly into the working Even now he could feel thin tethers working their way outward to other planets within the Alpha Cosmos where smaller branches of the same Ritual would eventually be planted Randidly eased the tension and removed the film of Nether he used to limit his awareness His skin buzzed for several seconds before he lost awareness of his body he became part of the world
And not just any part of the world He sat at its helm His body rumbled with the shift
Even now the prospect made him shiver slightly He wondered if this was the right choice to live so directly in step with the Alpha Cosmos But at the same time that he knew it was a mistake not to make these connections wholistic In a very literal way his body was the Alpha Cosmos To ignore that relationship was to ignore the voice of his own body
In a way very similar to his previous metamorphosis past humanity the Nether Ritual provided a framework to connect his mind and his body and lifted him to be an entirely different sort of entity The Nether Ritual primarily gave something to the people of Expira but that didnÆt mean there werenÆt perks for him
In that dark core of the world Randidly sat ruminating on the power and privilege that his position afforded him He held onto that distinction a duality existed in this change He looked at Expira and said yes accepting the good and the bad into him He opened himself up and drank from through the connections
The World Tree sipped his veins shining with a golden light
In his image space the small sapling steadily grew up its bark darkening and bursting with emerald leaves And slowly he found the precarious balance between aloofness and empathy that he needed to be so much more than a single person
His Nether Core spun significance coming in eager waves pooling and swirling into a monstrous whirlpool of meaning Flames of Nether Weight flickered across his skin tempering the connection
He released a breath and the world sighed with him
There were perhaps other choices RandidlyÆs eyes opened Flames of emerald and grey fought in his irises significance warring with the growing magic of his body But this choice is mine
In the inner sanctum of the ant colony next to an elaborately made rendition of a bowling alley the ant princess paused in her actions She set the bowling ball down and bowed her head remaining there for as long as her god looked upon the world
The air hummed with the godÆs breath and the ant shivered in ecstasy
Chapter 1918
Congratulations Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold has grown to Level 680
He sat in sea of purple black flames and the complex intersection of Nether threads just examining his selfÆ that existed The body worlds and soul that became Randidly Ghosthound in his current iteration Space and time didnÆt matter everything flattened and funneled by his shifting perspective into a straight path to the future Yet as he watched those threads twined and spun together then bloomed outward in complex patterns flanked by those glittering flames
Before him he watched the possibilities flirt and multiply
The future spread and widened and grew with only a hint of variance until he couldnÆt keep track of all the interactions The change accelerated until only a small examination took him to a place where the future was wider than it was long Variance dominated his awareness only a few weeks out The patterns began to change color as they spread out from RandidlyÆs Skill The purple became red and green the black became grey and ivory Then came the yellows oranges cobalts crimsons and emerald Shades and hues proliferated into a bouquet of possibilities
Congratulations Your Skill The Grey Creature Glimpses Providence has grown to Level 472
Using the two Skills together Stillborn Phoenix and the Grey Creature arm in arm behind him allowed Randidly to dig deeper than colors and patterns into the concrete truth of what waited ahead in Expira Yet the truths he received were not easily interpretable Voices shouted in his ears protests and screams of pain and the babble of layered conversation turned intelligible as voices mixed He saw a man standing upon a burning building his arms raised to the sky He saw Delilah skulking up the side of the volcano watching him with trepidation while he was sleeping And finally he saw a hand reaching out for a gleaming trophy
The strain of enduring the onslaught of possibilities became to much A tremor shook his psyche the accumulated strain of holding the two most demanding Skills in his arsenal grabbing him by the shoulder and warning him of the result if he pressed further
But due to his time within the Nether Ritual his spine naturally straightened in defiance at the prospect that he couldnÆt continue to proceed A bold and majestic refusal unfurled from within RandidlyÆs chest the humming emotional affect that he had been so long searching for amidst the crazy intersection of connections and colors A hand with fingers of gnarled roots reached out and brushed against his shuddering mentality Those fingers contained a vast influence soothing his thoughts
And his pained consciousness stilled It acquiesced allowing itself to be pushed beyond its limits by the root hand In a way it had no choice
Congratulations Your Skill the First Tree Suffers Only Fealty has grown to 840
Yet just as quickly as he firmed his resolve to press forward another portion of himself gracefully withdrew Without him needing to consciously shape the thoughts he walked backward away from that stubborn continuation
RandidlyÆs mental focus slipped out of the Nether Ritual spent and small and returned to his body He found his arms trembling and sweaty He looked down at his hands and attempted to smile bemused and still slightly spooked by the cool and aloof fatalism that he had discovered within himself
In the end he had only managed to remain atop that Nether Ritual for eight hours Even beyond his high expectations plugging together his mind and the physical form of the Alpha Cosmos required vast amounts of processing power and mental fortitude Randidly said a private thank you to his evolved Unnatural Capacity Fidelity of the Ascendant Moirae and Exquisite Piety Without these improved versions of Wisdom Control and Focus respectively it would have been impossible for him to endure even those hours
The sheer amount of possibilities and complex interactions would have lulled him into buzzing oblivion
Randidly had a rather sour expression on his face when he deactivated the Fatepiece From its other applications the increase in YggdrasilÆs power is actually quite significant Yet before Entropy the change is very small I guess that just goes to show you that while I took a very necessary step forward I havenÆt completely narrowed the gap between my image and the powerful figures in the Nexus More refinement is necessary
For a brief moment his mind went to Wick broken and split into several spliced personalities He wondered what had happened to him But of course the time that had passed was only for him For Wick perhaps only a few hours had gone by
Soon he came to his body and began to move Randidly swam to the surface of the choppy tropical waters and then used the backstroke to carry him back toward the beach He spoke up to the grey clouds But if he truly gave up he has had enough time to take his own life Or the other selves could take the main life finally separating themselves from whatever that was
Sloshing up to the beach Randidly casually waved a hand at the many training individuals on the sand who stopped and bowed when he surfaced from the water He shook himself to dislodge the worst of the dampness but of course the constant downpour just soaked him again He reached up and squeezed out his lengthening hair as he began striding back toward the volcano but his eyes caught on a certain individual