Chapter 2425 (Patreon)

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

“Do you sense that?”

Nathaz Eloise paused in its efforts, its many limbs trembling from the exertion. It leaned back and looked at its ancestor, who had spoken. Around them, the massive working of their dreams unfolded, almost as though it already existed and they were simply excavating it. Adrenaline surged through Nathaz’s body, but the sudden voice brought him back to sloshing consciousness.

He looked around. He couldn’t believe how much his spinal column ached. His thoughts seemed sluggish. How long… have we been working on this…?

Nathaz blinked several times, shaking his head; obviously, it was for the best that he threw himself totally into the labor. Only then could they accomplish their goal before Elhume intervened. And while it seemed Randidly Ghosthound currently had the situation in hand, the dangerous rumbles of Aether and Nether spoke to a balance that could be shattered anytime. They needed to work quickly.

Just… would he really feel this much sense of exhaustion if they had only a small span of time to struggle?

After a moment, Nathaz recalled the question and cleared his throat. “Sense what, Honorable Ancestor?”

“This… shape.” Tuthak’s features scrunched together as it looked out across the sprawling working that would rearrange the hierarchy within the Nexus. Its powerful lines rippled and shifted, speaking to its status as a breathing and organic Engraving, certainly a masterwork achievement. The luminous radiance released by the growing working spoke to their accomplishment. Yet Tuthak seemed to hesitate. “This is definitely… the shape we talked about. Yet sometimes, when I consider the whole-”

A strange breeze leaned against all their efforts. The lights flickered and warped. Every time Nathaz felt like he was about to get some clarity on what he witnessed, a flicker in the corner of his eye distracted him.

He blinked slowly. Truly, he was frazzled by this toil.

“...well, we have made our decision,” Tuthak’s gaze shifted to the middle distance. He nodded. “Now all that remains is to see this attempt through to its end. Let us continue.”

*****

Five more ominous tomes shot forward toward Randidly, where Yggdrasil still struggled to consume the first attack. Soon the World Tree would use the first as a springboard to become an even more dominant form, but that would require a small opportunity.

Laplace no longer overlooked Randidly enough to give him that.

So Randidly gathered up all the mental energy he could muster, folding and compressing his determination; his emotional sea continued its tumbling turmoil to generate more force. The Dread Homunculus and the Songstress of Absence gratefully absorbed all the emotional intensity, blazing as they settled into their own emotional affect. Space quaked around the event horizon as the Songstress manifested, resulting in spiderweb distortions spreading out to become a barrier in front of him.

Because strangely, when Randidly focused on the different Truths in their core, the Songstress moved first. It wasn’t just that she felt liberated by the lack of collateral damage she could inflict inside Pine’s corpse.

She felt closer to ‘Truth’.

Randidly almost couldn’t even see Laplace through the five new temporal vortexes churning between them, although he felt the pressure of time increasing as the Eternity dragged his body closer. Yet oblivion whispered out as the Songstress began to sing, hinting at a deeper purpose. Her notes hummed in a narrative arc; She had been inspired by the language of the dead. A language that could kill you, if you listened a little too closely. An ominous Truth that the words could only be heard and spoken by the deceased.

The beginning of her aria collided with the temporal aura produced by five tomes and their orbiting moons.

A keening wail filled the air, as the broken shards of space and time began to grind against one another. And those two absences grating provided a flickering bit of registry. Just slightly, just faintly, as the Songstress built up the momentum of her song, different notes became audible. During those moments, she earned the nickname of the Siren— those small notes were enough to lure in a careless listener.

The books crashed forward, relying on sheer force to break down any impediments. The Songstress of Absence stepped into the spotlight and began to belt out the horrifying truth of her existence.

Whereas Yggdrasil had relied on its existence to endure the passage of time, the Survivor of the Inhospitable Depths used the jagged edges of its vocal range to shatter the first oppressive layers of time. Space in front of Randidly distorted even further. The Songstress increased her volume, shredding and buzzing through the attack. Very particularly, she cut into the grouping and began to nudge one away from the others. Her Truth refined itself, becoming an existence that had endured on the other side of an event horizon for long enough to have transformed into a horrifying monster.

Randidly gritted his teeth; pressure from the clashes had reached his body. His vessel trembled, but he did not falter as he supported his image manifestations. With a particularly keening note, his image landed a sharp blow and one tome began to veer off. Still singing, Randidily’s image began to lay into it with impunity.

But while the Songstress’s Truth sharpened along the same Path taken by Yggdrasil, four more tomes floated forward on a direct collision course with Pine’s final barrier. Yggdrasil also improved at a visible rate, soon gaining the upper hand against the tome opposite it. Yet it was still occupied.

The Dread Homunculus chuckled and advanced along the narrow Path between the confrontations of the two other images. No matter the cost, in the face of these four overwhelming tomes, it would buy enough time for the Pinnacle to be within their grasp. Pages began to flutter.

The noise was deafening. Time crumbled and grinded, like blending gravel through metal teeth.

The Dread Homunculus had long limbs covered in grey-black chitinous armor. Its physique had been sculpted by the improvements in Randidly’s Stats and vessel to become an almost perfect specimen. The right arm remained bulkier and the right sharper, but those differences had been steadily evened out. However, the left arm was covered in several small protrusions, the physical evidence of the Domain that Randidly had inherited from Helen.

The image smirked.

The form slammed into the momentum produced by four of the tomes and was kicked back with blood spilling out of its mouth. Randidly swayed, but the Dread Homunculus had already caught itself and straightened. It spread its arms wide, roaring and calling upon all the converted dead that now dwelled within his cloak of woven nights. The insubstantial mouths of the dead opened as well, adding their calls to the Homunculus’s rising fury. With that power in its silhouette, it advanced again.

Another impact cracked its ribs. The pages of the four books fluttered at a leisurely pace, very confident in their momentum. Once more the Dread Homunculus straightened, smirk still twisting its lips. The third impact hammered against the Cloak with enough force it tore partially through the Skill. A low groan escaped Randidly’s mouth, just experiencing the reverberation of his image’s suffering.

But each collision delayed the four tomes by a small amount. In this race for the Pinnacle, those interventions were enough for the Songstress’s solo to approach its climax. The whispery and deadly language, the one spoken by those beyond the event horizon, deepened. To hear was to be caught in the inexorable pull of the inhospitable depths. The Songstress was also a Siren, that hated and needed her tortuous birthplace in equal measure.

The details of her body sharpened, but it was the emotional shift that Randidly felt approaching the cusp. The repeated potent image impacts caused his hair to jump back and forth around his face. He closed his eyes. It is possible to regret how my life happened and to say I could not have reached these heights without the burdens I was forced to bear.

To be born, for the Songstress to have been hatched from the Egg of Darkness… that is only a beginning. And the harshest truth about life is that beginnings matter very little because as long as you live, you just keep telling a story.

The Dread Homunculus had its arm snap under the impact of the convoy of four books, even as one of the nubs on its left arm began to activate. It twisted around, ignoring the physical damage to the image shape, and slammed itself again to slow the advance. And in that time, the Songstress began to burn in Randidly’s chest with a familiar sensation. Even he could hear the slightest hint of the Songstress’s words, which filled him with a particular sort of dread.

That song ripped and shredded time— beyond the event horizon, the temporal fluctuations from this side didn’t matter at all.

Combined with Yggdrasil’s resplendent ascension, Randidly’s Soulspace had become increasingly hot. He offered silent thanks to Yystrix; without the work done to strengthen his Vessel, just housing two Truths about to reach the Pinnacle would have likely caused part of him to melt.

Warning! Strange energy signature detected.

Your image is devolving in a dangerous manner! Please see your nearest Village Spirit-

Pantheon intervention… Recalculating…

Your Image the Songstress of Absence, is approaching a qualitative transformation! We suspect this will result in a Pinnacle event.

Reach the Pinnacle Now or Delay? Now/Delay

Again, Randidly hit delay. Another step closer, to his Grand Fate. Yet the circumstances in front of him didn’t exactly fill him with confidence.

As they reached the Pinnacle, Yggdrasil and the Songstress of Absence both began to overmatch the books with which they grappled. Yggdrasil especially had gone through 80% of the books fluttering and was only solidifying its foundation. Yet the Songstress hadn’t even gotten to the halfway point.

And meanwhile, the Dread Homunculus-

Randidly’s most practical image spat out pure spite and unwillingness as the combined force of four books steamrolled the image a few feet backward. At this point, only a small amount of distance separated it and the location where the other books were being calmly devoured.

A bitter smile twisted Randidly’s mouth. Of course, I would find myself in a situation right at the end where the original form, the mandate of simply survive, would be more useful than advancing. But… that’s part of growing. We let go of who we were before and dress ourselves in the vestments of who we want to be.

Homunculus… you need to hold here, at least for a second, at least long enough for me to find your emotional-

Randidly blinked, his thoughts briefly stalling. He felt the strangest moment of imbalance like he had taken a misstep. His chest ached. He looked down, the motion seeming to take much longer than he intended. A tremor wracked his body as both of his delayed images weakened.

He saw blood first. Dripping out of a hole in his torso, the crimson liquid glittering with motes of emerald and gold. Another blink sharpened his focus to the fleshy grey/pink protuberance stabbing through his ribcage, now squeezing a painful vice around his heart.

The long fleshy tube led back, underneath the ongoing conflict between images and tomes, back to the wide-open maw of Laplace, who leered at him.

From the Eternity’s expression, the message was clear: If you wound me, I wound you.

The slight distraction meant all of Randidly’s focus had vacated the Dread Homunculus’s body. Upon the next impact with the group of books, the Cloak of a Thousand Lightless Horizons tore completely. The dead spilled and sloshed out of the wound, flooding the area with their flickering forms.

At the same time, that tongue tugged on Randidly’s heart, threatening to wrench it out of his chest cavity.