As always, Randidly gradually lost himself to constant repetition of training. In a way, it was a relief. It helped him avoid undue stress, due to his current, precarious situation. The only problem was the addition of the left arm periodically pulled him out of training as it attracted the attention of the escaping emotions from below, no matter where he positioned himself in the shaft. While those emotions would react with fear and aggression when they came close to him, curiosity still drove them to investigate.

If I die here, I’m going to leave a BOMB’s worth of negative emotions… I’ll haunt all of you...

Despite his vindictive impulses, Randidly wondered what exactly the arm felt like to these semi-conscious emotions. But ultimately, the flows of emotions weren’t the problem: the problem was his fights against emotions attracted the attention of the Nether Beasts.

Which, as he had predicted, could quickly escalate.

BOOOOOM! BOOOOOM!

There were no true noises from his strikes, but the reverberations in his hands were viscerally powerful. His knuckles were white. Randidly gritted his teeth as the Grim Chimera manifested across his body to strengthen his physique. He used his powerful left arm to simply smash back a giant centipede Nether Beast while his right hand flicked out and inflicted several deep gashes across two other Nether Beasts that rushed toward him. These sheep-like Nether Beasts! Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone?!?! Fuck, they are going to make me lose my grip on the emotional tether…

More than destroying the Nether Beasts he attacked, his blows knocked his opponents into the path of their reinforcements. They came up in a malicious wave, surrounding Randidly and seeking to strike at him from every angle. But Nether Sensation kept him a step ahead, allowing him to predict and interfere with their shitty tactics.

Yet as the Nether Beasts in front of him stabilized himself, he felt an all-consuming fury that they would push him like this. And that emotional blaze was exactly what Randidly was waiting for. In front of him was almost thirty Nether Beasts, with two that he just struck transforming Virtue into Stature and surging forward, but sudden the edges of his Grim Chimera manifestation began to shimmer with cracking power.

The left arm of the Grim Chimera grew heavier. The right arm flexed and grew sharper. A grey aura rippled outward and soaked the surrounding space. The Nether Beasts within that area found themselves mired in the shade, their movements significantly slowed.

Congratulations! Your Skill Reaper’s Mantle of Catastrophe (L) has grown to Level 272!

Randidly couldn’t trigger this reaction at will yet, but when someone pushed him emotionally…

Within the depths of the Grim Chimera, Shape and Emotion moved in tandem. Balance was briefly achieved. The air around the Grim Chimera grew sticky as its grey aura released a horrifying amount of suppression. His physical manifestations grew bright and lethal. As the two tails of the Grim Chimera flicked back and forth, the nearby Nether Beasts screeched in pain and were inflicted with near-fatal wounds and left with cracked cores.

A few Nether Beasts had the presence of mind to lash out with their claws and tails to strike back as the Grim Chimera gathered itself, but Chimeric Impunity meant that their attacks were harmless.

Then the Grim Chimera grinned as they crowded around his empowered form. The Chimera Weeps, But Man Mourns.

Congratulations! Your Skill The Chimera Weeps, But Man Mourns has grown to Level 251!

The fingers of the Grim Chimera shot out in several directions, aided both by shape and emotional energy. Typically, this Skill unleashed about 10 to 14 thrusts in the area around him. The damage of each of those wasn’t especially impressive, but rather the utility of the Skill came from the fact that each thrust was near-simultaneous. Randidly could inflict quite a bit of damage in his surroundings in a short amount of time.

Yet the boost from the emotional energy made all the difference. When Randidly’s hand shot out to rip away the life from the Nether Beasts in front of him… huge cones of force followed in the wake of his attacks. They silently swept outward, ripping through the Nether Beasts’ bubbles and annihilating their core. For a brief moment, he was a flurry of activity. Both arms lashed out wildly; Randidly seemed to sit at the center of an explosion and launched shrapnel in every direction.

With eyes glowing with fury, Randidly panted and looked out across the empty space in front of him. Severed limbs fizzled and began to disintegrate, no longer supported by the Nether Cores that had sustained them.

He released another breath as his emotions steadily drained out of him, leaving the Grim Chimera in its more typical form. A similar process to condensing drops of liquid Aether and using a hyper powered Skill, but the efficiency is much better. I don’t need to gather emotion for near as long this way. I’ll be able to wield this power much more frequently if I can just master my emotions…

That thought earned a rueful smile from Randidly. He shook his head. Mastering emotions…? It wasn’t a realistic goal, even if he gave up his wish to overthrow the Nexus and became a monk. Then he glanced around his position, sensing the movements of Nether Beasts to investigate that last image burst he released. Without much urgency, he drifted across the whole of the shaft to the other wall. Currently, he felt like he had reached his limits with his Engraving attempts; it was time to activate the Visage of Obsession once more.

So far these sacrifices haven’t been much… but there are quite a few more to go. I only have so many senses… what could be coming next…?

Before he produced the Fatepiece, Randidly wove himself a Nether Ritual to seal the surroundings, as he had done for the forging. It was especially necessary now to have a refuge, with his arm constantly drawing emotional ire his way. Once he had his protective barrier up, he pulled out the old scroll, hyper-aware of how grainy the canvas paper in his hands felt.

He unrolled the Visage and looked at it with his blind eyes, wondering whether his sight would pose a challenge. But, as he expected, it did not.

The longer Randidly looked, the more emotions began to flow out of the blank canvas, coloring his vision. His point of view was gathered and pulled forward. Instead of just being able to see from the perspective of the painting, Randidly felt like he was sinking directly into that strange world of ambient colors. With the experience of sensing the surrounding through Nether, he realized that the colorful painting displayed a view that was extremely similar to Nether Sensation.

The ground was again black, although there were thin strands of yellow poking up through the ground in spots. This time, the sky was green with red flashes. Randidly began to float forward.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 23!

Skipping Levels now… or did I really just miss them? Randidly sighed as he continued along the strange ground in front of him. He decided to ignore the constant passage of time. He simply observed the surroundings. The yellow was becoming increasingly common in the messy black strokes of the ground. It was like he was walking on a hill containing a vast amount of precious gold. And the sky…

The red was bleeding outward from its humble beginnings. It was a fatal wound, constantly oozing. Very quickly, the green darkened as it was stained beyond recognition.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 27!

The ground became light and the sky became dark. Randidly continued forward, leaning against a low wind that was forming in this place. Colors blurred further in front of him, tugged by the currents. The horizon blended together into an ugly mass. As Randidly’s senses continued to create a perspective for him, he felt oddly like he was walking directly toward the abyss.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 29!

This time, Randidly was surprised to find that the figure that bloomed in front of him was not Yystrix. At first, he thought it was still her projections, but those features were too playful to belong to the ancient being that could trace her origins to before the Nexus. No, this person in front of him… was Lyra.

Randidly tilted his head to the side. Lyra grinned at him and winked. He snorted in response and gestured with his hand: get on with it.

She sighed dramatically and the familiar movement brought a hint of nostalgia to Randidly’s heart. Things were so much easier back on Expira, toward the beginning, while the duo stayed in Donnyton. Even without a Class, he had direct and clear ways to grow more powerful. There was a simple satisfaction to those times that Randidly had lost as he had grown.

He gestured again at Lyra’s knowing look: get on with it.

This time she shrugged. Unlike Yystrix who pointed to the part of her body that Randidly would need to rip out of himself, Lyra produced a wicker basket. Randidly was rather disturbed to sense that within the basket were the bloody remnants of a tongue and two eyeballs. She hefted the basket and smiled at him.

Her thoughts appeared in Randidly’s head, without any sort of communication. Which made a certain amount of sense, because she was simply a construct of his subconscious. But what Lyra requested Randidly surrender made him slowly frown.

Give me your sense of direction.

Randidly grimaced. Without that… do you truly want me to be stuck here forever…?

Lyra shrugged. Her expression clearly indicated that it didn’t much matter to her whether he chose to continue with his Visage of Obsession or not. But he couldn’t back down now. She shook the wicker basket slightly and tilted her head to the side. Again, Randidly could easily read the thoughts from her expression: even if you refuse to proceed further, you won’t get these again until you complete the Visage of Obsession. The Visage can only be delayed.

Just as Randidly felt the benefits of the Fatepiece accruing, the disadvantages grew more obvious as he proceeded. But despite his misgivings, Randidly nodded his assent to this sacrifice. There was a flash of light and suddenly a battered brass compass appeared within Lyra’s basket. Her smile widened.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 30!

Randidly didn’t proceed further; he pulled himself out of the Fatepiece and inspected himself. Absolute Timing told him this most recent usage of the Visage had taken two weeks. And as he studied his body, he didn’t feel much difference. He still held on to the emotional tether that kept him from proceeding deeper. In terms of losing his sense of direction…

Initially, Randidly was very optimistic. But all he needed to do was keep a portion of his senses on the bone wall so he wouldn’t lose himself. But to test the effect, he purposefully didn’t extend his Nether senses back toward the wall. For a few moments, he was adrift. Unbidden, Randidly could feel himself steadily sliding through the surrounding space. The sense of momentum was shocking; it seemed that part of what he gave up was control over his movements.

He spun back around and was shocked to find that he remained floating right next to the wall. Some of the irritation at losing control faded, but it was quickly replaced by annoyance that his senses had fed him false information of movement.

The sensation of being forgetful and unmoored… quite obnoxious… Randidly grimaced. Then he glanced downward. But then he blinked and realized he was glancing upward, not that where he looked made much difference to his senses. He tried again to glance downward and coughed into his hand. But at least… all I need to do is release the emotional tether to drift deeper…

God, it would be nice if I could get lost and accidentally leave this place… haaaaah...