“This feeling…” A bitter smile stretched across Randidly’s face. His emotions… to describe them as chaotic would be understating the issue. Several parts of his body were tingling as his nervous system was flooded with adrenaline. Despite the aches in his recently healed right hand, he stretched it outward and grabbed at the air. Every breath was still difficult. His heart beat rapidly, but it was accompanied by a pounding headache that made it especially taxing to focus.

Considering the fact that Randidly had to maintain the Stillborn Phoenix and keep a tight grip on the reins of his Nether, the exertion was all but impossible. He walked along a precipice where a single failure would lead to the long fall toward death.

“Yea…” Randidly said again, looking to his left. Although there wasn’t much meaning to it, he had drifted toward the side of the hollow spine since figuring out his situation. A yellowed and bumpy bone was next to him, gnarled like an ancient tree. As he looked at it, the wall seemed to be warping before his very eyes. Yet if closed his eyes and touched the bone, he knew that this distortion was an illusion; the bone wasn’t being warped, Randidly was. “This sensation. The tingling approach of death…”

WHOOOOOSSSSHHHHH!

Randidly endured a raging torrent of emotions that smashed into the Stillborn Phoenix from the side and then checked the Nether content of the air. 46%. After two hours of floating and stabilizing his mental and physical state, the mass of significance below tightened its grip on him. He was getting pulled downward, faster and faster.

Yet, some part of Randidly couldn’t hate the tension. It was almost a nostalgic feeling.

The Stillborn Phoenix howled around him. Randidly had a sensation in his chest akin to volcanic heartburn from the wide assortment of emotions and energies his Egg of Darkness devoured, but it was necessary. It was only because of the buffer his image created that Randidly had been able to nurse both Yggdrasil and the Grim Chimera back to a stable state.

The Grim Chimera had endured the brunt of Velio’s first attack. Even though it had been with a sword still tucked into a sheath, the hit had been a direct one. Yggdrasil’s situation was slightly cleaner; it had been taken by surprise, but at least it was a weakened image that reached Randidly.

At that thought, there was a flash of fury in Randidly’s emerald eyes. Velio’s attacks turned out to be more insidious than even he had expected. It was just another piece of evidence that despite his brash persona, Velio Dunn was very deliberate in his hunting of the young talents of the Nexus.

He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but Velio’s sword left some trace remnants in the wounds left on his images. Of course, he had immediately sensed that the wounds were… for lack of a better term, frozen, by the strike. Their natures were heavily suppressed. Yet it was after the healing process began that he discovered the latent danger: there was a sense of rot and degeneration to Velio’s chill as well. Those more dangerous elements were almost completely masked by the chill, and might have completely ruined his images if he had not taken the time to inspect them closely-

WHOOOOOSH!

Randidly grimaced as another blast of emotion hit him from the side. This spear of emotions was strong enough to pierce through the Stillborn Phoenix and directly impact Randidly. For several seconds, angry red lines of infection appeared on Randidly’s side where he had been impacted. They burrowed underneath his skin, spreading rapidly outward. Sensing the danger, the Stillborn Phoenix increased its suction, devouring more and more in an effort to protect its bearer.

The swirling whirlpool of suction spread, pulling more and more of the dark surroundings toward him.

The smoldering pain in Randidly’s Soulspace increased as the Stillborn Phoenix ran rampant, but it did give him some time to deal with this new threat. Growling, Randidly slapped his hand against his side. As he smashed the insidious emotions with what little Nether he could maintain for himself, the spread of those red lines on his side slowed.

I don’t like using my Nether like this, but otherwise… Heh.

With the problem under control, Randidly pushed back more aggressively against the invading emotions. The red lines retracted. When the emotions had completely been forced back into an angry red boil on his side, he simply ripped away the chunk of flesh and tossed it to the side.

It tumbled quickly through the murky air below him, warping and mutating before his eyes. The irritated flesh bulged and twisted. By the time the flesh had vanished into the darkness below, it had warped into a tiny, misshapen imitation of Randidly himself. And it turned to glare hatefully up at him as it was sucked downward.

Randidly shivered, yet his lips still twitched into a smile. His eyes were bright with the particular brand of madness that he had learned from Shal. Heh, hopefully, whatever horror waits below is just as dangerous as advertised; I don’t want a doppelganger running around, plotting to kill me and steal my Fate…

Chuckling to himself, Randidly reached out and touched the wall. The surface was so smooth that it almost felt wet to his fingers, so much so that the first few times Randidly touched the wall he had assumed his shattered hand was still bleeding. Such a gnarled yellow surface was conveyed to him as smooth. Even the sensations being fed through Randidly’s nerve endings was somehow being curtailed by the significance below.

The situation he found himself in was quite serious. Plus, due to the fact he hadn’t heard from Edraine, despite the several messages that Randidly had sent…

Absolute Timing informed him that time was passing, but he already knew there was a time-warping effect within the Web. At this depth, beyond the ‘event horizon’ of significance… the effect was probably even more pronounced. So the small worry that his recruits would be sent off to the frontlines without any more instruction could at least ease. Randidly Ghosthound likely had as much time as he wanted to deal with this problem.

Gradually, Randidly’s expression shifted as he looked around. Although his images were still recovering, he could ease up somewhat. Time to address the impending danger head-on.

Randidly rapped his knuckle against the weird, wet-seeming wall with his knuckle. His wicked smile was still firmly hung across his face. Honestly, what I’m most curious about is the origin of these bones… how are they so powerful that this significance hasn’t ripped them down…?

Truly, the Nexus is a mysterious place… Randidly’s smile widened. He knew it was somewhat crazy, yet he couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable surge of joy. THIS was what he was missing. This impending sense of doom that he had so commonly encountered due to the System in the past. His encounter with Kaan Swacc had the resemblance toward it, but Randidly was much more prepared in that situation. It wasn’t exactly the same.

He had his Fatepiece to practice the fight against Kaan multiple times. Although the foe was strong, Randidly held some significant advantages.

Not now. The suddenness of the ambush by Velio Dunn reminded him of the actions of Yystrix, time and time again, as she plotted against Randidly, his Soulskill, and also Expira. This was the sort of situation that spurred him toward growth. Thinking back… the last time he felt this sort of sensation was when he was slowly sizzling in a pool of lava, looking up at the radiant power of Aegiant on Tellus.

Since then… Randidly pulled his hand back and looked at his palm. In his chest, the injured Grim Chimera stirred. Its eyes half-opened with the languid satisfaction of a cat laying in a pool of sunlight. The image smirked, even while still fuzzy at the edges.

It still lived despite the sudden, overwhelming attack. That, in and of itself, was the greatest victory it could achieve. Randidly’s expression slowly morphed to mirror the Grim Chimera’s. Even as another blast of emotions hit up against the devouring defense of the Stillborn Phoenix, Randidly’s glee didn’t ebb.

“Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to escape this,” Randidly muttered to himself. He checked the Nether content of the air: 47%. Some of Randidly’s joy gradually dimmed. It was just a gut feeling, but he sensed that even now, he was only in the periphery of the significance below.

50% was a watershed. After that, things would accelerate even further.

Yet Randidly could only look with a heavy gaze at his Nether Nebula. The most effective method he had for slowing his descent appeared to be his own Nether; that was how he felt safe and confident going as deeply as he had previously. He might be wading into a deep current, but he had his own weight that gave him some control.

His depleted Nether Nebula continued to rapidly spin, churning Nether out of his Nether Wells. But the raw energy was quickly pulled away. Not all of it, of course, but most. If Randidly had come to the Web early today with a lake’s worth of Nether and had ended his clash against Velio with only a pinch… he now had a fistful. He was not accumulating Nether quickly enough to use that as his method to escape.

His other options…

Randidly paused in his thought process as the Stillborn Phoenix rather meekly made a request to stop sucking in so much and start releasing the refined energy. Randidly glanced around at the murky darkness. Currents of emotions still blasted through the surrounding space, twisting and visibly warping the air as it passed. Being exposed to those influences was troublesome, but Randidly understood that keeping his currently healthiest image running was important. So he nodded slowly.

With a huge sense of relief, the Stillborn Phoenix withdrew its whirlpool suction. Then it began to belch out thick cords of emotions that spiraled in the surroundings wildly.

As his image lowered its defenses, Randidly pursed his lips and did his best to clamp down on both his feelings of despair and the near manic excitement that resulted from his circumstances. He couldn’t let emotions cloud his judgments. The environment… was definitely having an effect on him. His emotions were running especially high.

Despite that, he would need to figure out a method to escape and do it extremely quickly.

Physical movement had already proved ineffective. It certainly felt like he was moving, but there didn’t appear to be any discernible change in the air. Nether basically immunized Randidly from the attacks of foreign emotions, but it didn’t solve the problem of significance.

Randidly narrowed his eyes. Damnit, am I once more stuck on Nether Rituals and a Nether Class then…? Fuck, I should have set aside my pride and just approached Benjamin Rex while I had the chance… Neshamah Rex… So far, all I really understand is that the important part of the construction comes from the layering. I’ve started to be aware of the different alternatives in Nether flows, but combining them… or understanding what the different patterns do...

It was essentially the same as Engraving a piece of paper as a part of the whole and then stacking these pieces on top of each other until you have an entire book. To shift an analogy fully, it was like writing a novel. Each page was important but was only a vehicle to convey the whole of the narrative.

In essence, Randidly was starting to understand the tools, but not really what he was trying to build with his Nether. And to change that here, while completely isolated from the rest of the world…

Randidly narrowed his eyes as he looked as the strands of emotion that the Stillborn Phoenix exhaled. They were even more chaotic and powerful than he remembered; they greedily swam out and tried to devour the blasts of emotion that were shooting past him. Most of the time they were obliterated, but sometimes they managed to infect the emotions. It seemed the Stillborn Phoenix was getting better at this…

Randidly chewed on his lip. The amount of ambient Nether in the air had increased to 48%. Perhaps an option would be observing the Nether in the Alpha Cosmos, but that task requires more time than I have… I have two other ‘cards’, but both seem pretty useless here. The coin I received from the Nemesai… that replaces something present with something from the depths of the Nexus. It wouldn’t help me escape unless I could summon something like a Nether King… and even then, would the Nether King help me escape…?

The other card… is my Fatepiece. The Visage of Obsession. Letting a hiss escape his lips, Randidly waved a hand to bat away some curious emotions that swirled back from the Stillborn Phoenix’s maw to investigate him. They scattered like a school of nervous fish as Randidly recalled the explanation of the Fatepiece.

The Visage of Obsession is the ever-shifting reflection of the Alchemist’s determination that borders on madness. To a mundane viewer, it is just a painting. Yet to the Alchemist, it is a potent catalyst to cleave the user’s mind from the limitations of a worldly perspective. In the depths of Obsession, reality begins to fragment.

Truthfully, perhaps a new perspective on the problem of Nether usage would be useful… but it doesn’t solve the problem of time… Randidly growled in frustration as he glared upward from where he came.

Then, he froze. A few seconds later, he blinked. Then Randidly began to laugh. He reached up toward the sky and seized the emotions that freely traveled upward. He reached even further beyond that, he seized all of the refined emotions he had released thus far, to which he still maintained a slight connection.

A shudder ran through Randidly’s body. It was difficult… but his descent stopped. He could feel the invisible current of significance that had been naturally guiding him down thus far. By resisting it, he became aware of it and could resist it even more directly. Grinning, Randidly tried to pull himself up. But somehow, the connection didn’t work like that. Just the same way that emotions ignored the grip of significance, they also refused his demands of necessity. Randidly could only sigh and shake his head.

The connection was there, preventing his descent. That was all. Randidly checked the Nether content. He had stabilized himself at 49%.

“At least now I have some time to breathe,” Randidly muttered to himself.