Standing on the ground, the amount of pressure against Randidly sharply decreased to more manageable levels. Cerulean continued his vicious offensive, blasting apart the Nether Kings with the support of the goblin woman. Each claw stroke ripped through some of the defenses, opening a direct path to his target. The final Nether King either risked giving free rein to Cerulean by standing idly by, so it left the Nether Ritual and moved to stop him.

The raptor construct burned with a house-sized blue aura, cackling and vicious in his momentous violence. Rumbles from the confrontation shook the ground, but they didn’t distract Randidly much. With the broken vein of Nether eased, the flood of violent energy turned into a trickle. Most dispersed rather harmlessly into the atmosphere. The Nether Ritual hummed, perhaps only ten seconds away from being guided to completion, yet lingering on the last steps.

Which allowed Randidly to focus on the notifications in front of him.

Congratulations! Your Skillset the Moirae of Ripples (P) is evolving!

Recalculating…

The Rarity: Ghosthound’s Deviation (GD) has been generated to categorize the evolution! Your Skillset the Moirae of Ripples has evolved to the Moirae of Minute Repercussions (GD)!

Congratulations! Due to the creation of your own Rarity, you have gained +1000 to all Attributes! It will be much more difficult to create additional Rarities in the future.

+1 to Muse’s Reverie!

Estimating the value of the shift… unable to determine.

Incorporating new framework into the associated Skills…

Your Skill Cutting Tide of Amenonuhoko (T) has evolved into Severing Tide of Amenonuhoko (P)! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Your Skill Unpredictable Eddy (L) has evolved into From the Chaotic Sea, Abrupt Reverberations (T)! User gains an increased ability to manipulate foreign energy in unexpected ways. The area in which the user is able to activate the Skill is vastly increased. Defensive capabilities have sharply increased. Skill Levels will be maintained.

Your Skill Philosophy Within the Boundless Deluge (M) has evolved into Gospel Within the Seething Torrent (P)! User has developed an extremely strong intuition for the way disparate energies will interact. Accuracy of predictions, even involving newly discovered energies, will increase. Paradoxically, these improvements come from the admittance that not all aspects are able to be quantified; there exists within the sphere of energy many overwhelming mysteries. User will be slightly more able to handle existences beyond understanding.

(Gospel Within the Seething Torrent (P) cont.) As user identifies further ‘precepts’ of this gospel, the effects of the Skills will vastly increase. Warning! The development of precepts will warp the perspective of the user. It is possible to severely damage one’s potential with hastily chosen precepts! Skill Levels will be maintained.

Your Skill Motif of the Hungry Deep (P) has evolved into Motif of Unimagined Tolls (GD)! User has begun to touch upon truths upon which all of existence has been built. Proceed forward with caution: interaction with such powers will have prices, even if they are not immediately obvious. User has a small chance of peering more deeply into these prices than others. Skill Levels will be maintained.

A groan escaped Randidly’s lips. As the new Skills shifted in an agony-fueled melting and crystallization of energy, he barely remained on his feet. His awareness blurred at the edges, causing a near-constant motion of his vision even while remaining still. He felt Neveah’s awareness finally shifting away from the problem of the Nether Ritual to reinforce his own cognition. Her touch seeded tendrils of coolness into his mind. Easy there. Half of the Pantheon collapsed into unconsciousness creating the shift for you, so I would expect the burden on you is even worse. Concentrate and breathe.

Randidly did so, his eyes squeezed shut. The space around him turned chaotic as the last remnants of energy he controlled ran free, but he forced everything away from the vulnerable Sulfur. Plus, Yggdrasil raised itself into the space and pulled at all that energy, gathering enough power and vitality from the environment to stabilize Randidly’s condition. The storm might have been released, but it was then gulped back down in the next moment.

Congratulations! Your Skill the World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 920!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill the World Tree Sips from Every Realm (T) has grown to Level 940!

By the tenth breath, Randidly felt some of his awareness coming back to him. The bleariness passed as the pain continued to recede. The dense caustic Nether and the rapid flood of different blasts while protecting Sulfur meant he had been pushed to his limits at the moment he passed through the crossroads. Only now did the downsides and risks associated with the evolution occur to him. Yet as he stood in the moment and reexamined the notifications, he felt a wild sort of joy rising in his chest. Yes, it has to be like this. If I keep walking the same illuminated Path… I’ll find the current Elhume waiting at the end of it, equipped with every tool I’d possessed and more experienced with their use. I needed to advance. Taking a risk was necessary.

Neveah intruded lightly. Not to interrupt a rare moment of self-congratulations for you, but let’s not forget you were mocking Sulfur for choosing now, on this dangerous memory battlefield, to make an evolution. Then you did the same thing, albeit with a shorter bout of downtime.

Randidly couldn’t help but snort. He felt vaguely embarrassed but was pleased with the results. He opened his eyes and saw the wide sky filled with energy. A whole new awareness allowed him to categorize the energy he witnessed much more endlessly.

What was ironic was that he had moved from the Moirae of Ripples to the Moirae of Minute Repercussions, yet the dominant impression from the shift was a spread in the prevalence of ripples. Ripples large and small, ripples tightly clustered and those with large spaces between its echo outward added texture to his already minute awareness. Combined with his Infinite Incendiary Filaments of the Dove Moirae, Randidly had two viewpoints of a fate could use to dissect existence.

Obviously, activating both at the same time generated an almost instant headache. After a few moments, he squeezed his eyes shut and knew this couldn’t last. He had about four hundred free Stats points left over from pouring PP into the Achieving a Mille Paths, so he dumped all of those into Cognition of the Aberrant Alchemist, his evolved form of Intelligence, and pushed the Stat barely over two thousand.

His mind, while still exhausted, began to hum with a bit more focus and efficiency. The strain became bearable in small doses. But Randidly still deactivated his energy vision and viewed the world simply in terms of repercussions.

His pupils dilated just in time to witness Cerulean’s claw piercing through the chest of the last Nether King. Even from so far away, the ripples coming from his image were frequent and potent. This was a being who had reached as high as it was possible for an image before touching upon the Pinnacle. Behind him, two other Nether Kings staggered back to their feet. Their Nether Cores remained intact, but the goblin woman weakened their every attempt to stop Fatia Cerulean.

Randidly felt admiration and envy warring in his chest as the raptor construct reached out for the Nether Ritual. Of the five Nether Kings moving to destroy Malloon and bring Westrisser to justice, two had been killed, two had been wounded and now were suppressed by the old goblin woman, and Bleak Sky himself had engaged in some overdraw of his abilities… and found no purchase against Cerulean. The former prisoner and hero of the Nether people lay on the ground, his Nether Core broken.

Cerulean’s bloody record spoke for itself. He was a tyrant, walking the narrow Path and leaving a staircase of bodies in his wake.

His blue energy exploded outward and began to hack at the Nether Ritual. Obviously, the working did not collapse easily. But the raptor construct began to concentrate his attacks to gradually weaken a certain part.

Yet something began to nag at Randidly. A frown crossed his face as he considered the current situation. In the original timeline, Malloon had been leveled. Yet based on the current situation, the Nether Kings had been overwhelmed and were about to lose. Had Randidly’s interference, essentially just wounding the emerald dragon Nether King and dispersing a large chunk of the violent Nether, been enough to adjust the outcome?

Randidly sucked in another long breath. His eyes widened as he looked for the subtle interaction of ripples. Refractions and rebounds meant they reproduced almost infinitely in a choppy formation, so it was impossible to determine where the ripples started and where they ended. What am I missing? Could Bleak Sky still-

Randidly focused his attention on the fallen Nether King Bleak Sky, paying careful attention to any possibility he might be faking his weakness. Yet he found nothing. Barely a murmur came from his collapsed body. There was a larger source of energy from the position where-

Hissing, Randidly’s attention whipped back toward Cerulean. The Aether monster’s claws moved tirelessly, hacking at the Nether Ritual in a focused manner. Each blow ripped out a huge chunk. The massive pillar of darkness shuddered underneath his rough methods. When viewed from the outside, it seemed like Cerulean dutifully attempted to unmake the working.

Yet Randidly had peered through to the inner workings and understood the functions of each portion of the Nether Ritual. Very ominously, each of Cerulean’s blows struck at portions of the Nether Ritual relating to control and stabilization. In essence, he removed the limiters of the Nether Ritual that would make it sustainable.

With so many strikes falling so precisely, despite how rough and vicious each seemed to be, it was hard to believe they fell coincidentally. If the Nether Ritual activated now, the resulting destruction might even be greatly increased. Cerulean moved purposefully, aiming to bring a violent hammer down on his target.

It’s not about Malloon at all, Randidly realized with a shiver. It is for the Nether forces, but Cerulean simply loves this. If Malloon is destroyed, so much the better; the rest of the Aether lands will likely follow a call he would make for war. Yet this chiseling is purposeful. His real target-

“Cerulean! Do you need assistance?” Westrisser’s voice boomed out from Malloon’s walls.

Cerulean paused in his attacks. His bloody jaws parted. With how dense the teal aura around him had become, it was difficult to make out his bare skull. “The task is more difficult than anticipated. Please accept my apologies for what follows. I require a small boost in power.”

Behind Cerulean’s body, the middle of his three trophies activated. A strange and insidious Engraving flared to life, reaching out and grabbing any energy in the surrounding. Yet with the Nether Ritual largely neutered and left unfinished and Bleak Sky’s Domain absent, a horrifying suction emerged from Cerulean’s body. In the end, the technique took from the weakest first, targeting those that lacked resistance. The people of Malloon were hit foremost, while the drain also extended over to Randidly’s skyislands.

“No…!” Randidly felt horror rising through his body and tried his best to manifest a protective barrier of Yggdrasil in the area around his body. But he acted a second too late. The ripples had warned him, concentrating behind him, but he was too fresh to his new awareness to understand. Behind his back, the inward-focused Sulfur was completely blindsided by the activation.

All that vital energy it had gathered for so long by absorbing kinetic force leaked out.

Warning! The energy of your Soulseed Sulfur has been depleted! Warning, the transformation is about to fail! Failure will result in the death of your Soulseed! Please provide a vast amount of energy to make up the difference!

Please note, that because it is necessary to heal the wound of this failure before the evolution continues, an extremely vast amount of energy will be required. Even then, the resulting transformation may still bear ill effects. Such a result will be made more unlikely by prodigious amounts of extra energy.

Cerulean! Randidly gritted his teeth. His Nether Core accelerated.

Before he could respond, however, confirmation for Randidly’s theory appeared. From the spot where he had earlier vanished, Fatia Cerulean reappeared. His blue aura had been almost completely depleted; with only his wireframe body, he seemed sunken and starving. His claws and talons had been broken, and his raptor skull had a large crack running through it.

Yet the newly appeared figure raised his head in triumph. “Keh…! Bleak Sky, you were just the sort of foe worth killing. Taking your trophy- eh?”

The weakened Cerulean looked up. Across the battlefield, the other Cerulean, likely the original personality that had been considered ‘tamed’ by the replacement, flexed its arms. With a deft stroke, it threw a blast of power that struck the core of the Nether Ritual and then rapidly fled to the side, out of the direct release of power.

After a tremble, the unfinished Nether Ritual stirred and activated. Pine would soon descend.