Chapter 2397 (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/23899958

Still owe one more from last week; got distracted a bit by dragoncon. Special thanks to everyone who came and said hi!

Alright, let's start setting up the end.

Congratulations! Your Skill The World Tree Guzzles Even Truth (GD) has grown to Level 1300!

Randidly Ghosthound felt the shifts happening in his Soulspace, like the most satisfying kind of back cracks finally releasing long forgotten tension. A sense of peace began to spread through his whole being, already tingling and lively from the newly refined energies rushing through his veins.

His Nether Core spun, a dribble more of liquid Aether pumping through him every second. His images seethed and burned.

Yggdrasil swelled and stretched with the abundant fuel. The concentration point of Devick’s Deviation in him howled out doom, over and over again. The canopy thickened and strengthened despite her threats. The unruly strip of Yggdrasil bulged out with flowers so tall and eye-catching it resembled a peacock tail. The roots thickened. Its thirst was finally sated as it could drink down the refined forms of Aether and Nether.

Recalculating…

Your Skillset Yggdrasil, the Universe that was First a Tree (P) is evolving!

In front of Randidly, Fiero gritted his teeth and snarled. Every time the Vulpine attempted to rev up his image, Yggdrasil consumed it. The roots pulled from existence and the fabric of the Nexus wore thin before its hunger. Randidly clenched his will and focused on the area around his target. He squeezed and squeezed, thoroughly breaking down the defensive energy around Fiero. Those infinite fists thrown outside of time and now crashing down around the two fighters were broken and shredded just from the physical distortions that warped the air around them.

Devick as the devil within the World Tree howled and tore when her threats were ignored. However, her scrabbling fingers only ended up ripping through the power wielded by Fiero and it almost made Randidly smile. His emotions, his vessel, his newly evolved Nether… all of it surged together.

Randidly kept suppressing the rising urgency of his own notes of Truth, but they were becoming clarion songs. Grinding against this foe was invaluable for his own preparations to reach the Pinnacle.

They hung there, struggling on either end of a crash course, Randidly’s spear depleted of momentum, now sawing as best as it could manage to cut through Fiero’s desperation and fury.

And Yggdrasil continued to feed.

Incorporating influences… balancing images… Skillset elements are shifting into alignment…

The ground beneath them cracked, but really it wasn’t even the ground’s fault because the entire world around them was cracking under the strain of simply existing near the collision. Randidly’s skin began to flake and flare with bright tongues of grey flames, as liquid Aether and clear Nether moved in incendiary concert within him. Negative electric discharge skittered from their position like the legs of a dying spider.

Randidly saw it in Fiero’s eyes the moment the Vulpine realized he was about to lose their grappling match. And this time, as Yggdrasil’s roots slithered closer, the wound wouldn’t be one the fake-Elhume would be able to shrug off.

Fiero pulled back with one hand and an incensed Actus Suprem avatar ravaged through the flaw in his defense. Yet the Vulpine still persisted, gesturing emphatically with his long and skeletally thin fingers. Randidly felt the air shiver, even through the densely layered distortions they already created.

A cloak of darkness manifested briefly upon his shoulders, humming with warning at the force moving now against him. The flat mirror reflecting Nether connections inside of his body experienced a brief ripple of distaste, before drawing a web of connections to restrict any interference.

In the next moment, Randidly felt the release of several time pulses out from Fiero’s body. He barred his teeth, even as the tyrant of the Nexus accelerated back away from him with a sudden burst of quickness. Or rather than the Vulpine moving more quickly, Randidly was simply locked in a temporal morass.

However-

The Alchemist licked his lips as he looked at the approaching dense flow of time.

Congratulations! Your Skill The World Tree Guzzles Even Truth (GD) has grown to Level 1309!

Congratulations! Your Skill Deviation’s Inevitable Machinations (GD) has grown to Level 1811!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Deviation’s Inevitable Machinations (GD) has grown to Level 1842!

While Fiero created some space and began rapidly erecting an Engraving, Randidly loosed the hungry roots of the Alpha Yggdrasil upon the feast offered to them. They coiled up and around the time pulses. Even with his increased understanding of his body as a universe vessel, Randidly couldn’t quite just obliterate these waves of time.

But the roots of the World Tree could take small bites. They digested those little bits of time’s truth. And finally, the seed Randidly had carried with him for almost his entire System experience stretched tall and shook the Nexus.

Congratulations! Your Skillset Yggdrasil, the Universe that was First a Tree (P) has evolved into Alpha Yggdrasil, Demitasse of All Futures (GD)!

Please note: due to the potency of this image and the associated Deviation Rarities, some irregularities might accumulate within the image over time. Please see-

Pantheon intervention. Honestly, we have no idea what those notes of truth will do when mixing. Be careful.

Randidly acknowledged the warning, but also he sensed how close he was to reaching the peak of his own power. He couldn’t worry about the consequences, not during this battle. Afterwards…

If there was an after for him, he could solve any problems then.

His newly evolved Skillset flexed its muscles. The leaves rustled, the roots dug into the ground, the trunk glittered. His previous image manifestation had possessed power, but this time Yggdrasil arrived built on the scale of worlds. It ripped through the broken remnants of ground and pushed aside the sky. It released a pulse of displeasure, eyeing the flow of time wrapped around him.

Congratulations! Your Skill The First Tree Suffers Only Fealty (P) has grown to Level 1150!

The liquid time distortion binding Randidly’s body shattered into a million pieces underneath the scrutiny of Yggdrasil. With a grin on his face, Randidly stalked forward, toward the location where Fiero’s rapid construction slowed down to become a three-quarters finished array that would have brought down a blast of dimensional radiation right on Randidly’s head. What was most alarming was it was probably a size of the working on which the Upper Sonora Society labored… and Fiero had done it alone.

Wouldn’t have knocked me out, but… Randidly winced inwardly, remembering his experiences with the Hierarchy of Burden.

Fiero straightened and looked at Randidly with actual hate and fear in his eyes. “You-”

Randidly had his mouth open ready for an interruption, but another party beat him to the punch.

“I must apologize, for my tardiness. But as always, justice arrives at the moment when it is most apt.” Solomon Rex descended slowly through the chaotic clouds of energy still lingering from Randidly’s brilliant tree manifestation. Trails of ionized dust clung to his arms and shoulders, framing him like an action hero who just barely managed to escape the climactic detonation. He offered Randidly a small nod, then turned to glare at Fiero. “Fiero. Or is it more fitting for your crime that I call you Elhume? Long have you benefited from the fruits of my labor, but that ends today.”

Fiero’s already gaunt face seemed to lose what little flesh remained on his bones. Randidly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Steam wafted up from his body; the significant burns he had earned by wielding the full force of his vessel rapidly healed. He watched these two tortured individuals closely, tracing their energy halos with his eyes.

“You didn’t deserve the life you were given,” Fiero growled out the words. But the rawness came as a surprise— Even Randidly almost took a step back, such was the broken yearning revealed by them.

“Yet you deserved even less. And even then, you were too impatient to allow your own life to develop. You became a being that sucked away anything others would spare.” Solomon Rex’s voice quivered with just as violent an emotion as Fiero’s. But his had the high and rusty note of hatred. “When your stomach grew fat, you stopped waiting for permission. You took and took, until you were so used to taking that you sucked down all of our problems as well. And now you’ve spent a thousand years refusing to acknowledge the real solutions-”

“You would damn us for your broken son.” Fiero hissed.

Solomon snorted. With a great effort, he tore his attention away from Fiero and looked at Randidly. “I know we have not yet reached an actual agreement regarding the fallout… but subduing Fiero now is most important. We can work out the details later. With these temporal distortions-”

“Why do people today keep offering to help me… with tasks I’m managing on my own?” Randidly asked. The corner of his mouth turned down. The Alchemist whispered furiously to him; we was still missing something.

“You are strong. But Fiero is a beast. When cornered, he still has a few more tricks to throw at you.” Solomon Rex said. He straightened authoritatively. “His plans are never the most efficient or the most transparent, just the simplest. Don’t underestimate that.”

Fiero growled. Bitterness poured out of him in a dense wave. His note of truth, which Randidly had thoroughly stomped out of the surrounding area with Yggdrasil, began to rise again.

And, in that moment of decision, Randidly received a message from Alana Donal.

“Ah,” He let out a long breath. His emerald eyes brightened with the promise of violence. “So that’s how it is.”

*****

Alana and the Vulpis Squad trudged through the melee, their images restricted by Engravings, blasts of temporal distortions scattering their tight fighting groups, and waves of porcelain dolls unleashing pure blasts of energy on their flanks. At this point, the blood spattered across their armor could have been from anyone.

Even with Charlotte Wick throwing around veritable tectonic plates, they still stalled to a stop against the last line of the working's defense. Whatever secret they guarded, they weren’t making it easy to dig it out.

Which makes me sure it’s worth knowing, Alana squeezed her weapon and forced the blade to sweep sideways and deflect a powerful blast of annihilation aimed at her chest. She scraped her interior Soulspace and managed to come up with a handful of orange-gold light. She forced the feeble energy up through her spear and thought about the concept of sharpness.

She remembered witnessing an effortless spear thrust from Helen when they briefly trained together. A single blow within an unceasing flow that seemed wickedly sharp enough to make all the other strikes relevant.

She felt her own exhaustion and how precariously she tiptoed along an abyss. She felt the sharpness of the descent if she were to make a single misstep.

Alana Donal cut. Seventeen porcelain dolls sizzled and deactivated as the energy crescent thrown by her slash bisected them. Yet in the next moment a new wave of porcelain dolls swarmed down, as numerous as flies.

“Shit,” Alana muttered. Her mind whirled as she tried to think of possible countermeasures. Waves of images buffeted her back as Xershi and Pullas continued a vicious battle. She could hear Raymund Ballast bellowing in the background, trying to keep the rest of the squad together. She could hear Edgar’s labored breathing, although she didn’t hear even a small breath from Heiffal.

Perhaps- Alana began to panic, but then an explosion from the far edge of the camp pulled her gaze.

A new group of soldiers arrived, bearing unfamiliar blue armor. The hundred-strong detachment smashed into the side of the porcelain formations, distracting a sizable group and also managing to sabotage one of the major image suppression arrays. Alana breathed a sigh of relief.

At their head, a woman with short blue-grey hair stood with her arms folded. Edraine’s eyes flashed as she looked across at Raymund and offered him a solemn nod. “This might be going off the rails, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a part of dismantling this tower of shit. Recover for a few minutes, then breakthrough.”

Raymund saluted, then started barking out new orders. The Vulpis Squad hunkered down while Edraine’s group carved a path through the backbone of the porcelain doll resistance. Within a few minutes, they destabilized the two other image suppression arrays while only suffering a few casualties.

But the strength of the porcelain dolls was their replaceability and adaptability. Already, more image suppression arrays were under construction. The sky still bristled with their stiff limbs. But in those minutes, the Vulpis Squad got a chance to breathe. Their budding Nether Cores wove more significance through their limbs.

Raymund looked at Alana. “Ready?”

She just grinned and raised her spear. A whole cloak of orange-gold fire sparkled across her shoulders.