The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Randidly folded his arms as he watched Alana unleash a Skill that may or may not be based on her reverence toward him. As Kayle was rapidly moving back to avoid that light, his long knives crisscrossed in front of him, throwing up several smaller barriers in order to lessen the effect of Alana’s attack. But the intensity of the image that Alana unleashed along with the Skill steadily eviscerated everything in the surrounding area. Even Randidly felt impressed through his sense of awkwardness; it certainly lived up to the moniker of ‘Divinity’.

But he could already tell that particular Skill had a steep usage cost. After the first pulse of that all-consuming light, the illumination swiftly receded, leaving a determined-looking Alana glaring down at Kayle. The flames behind her had shrunk to be about a handspan.

Despite being hit rather directly with the Skill, Kayle managed to leap back up to his feet almost immediately. But his left arm was trembling as he took a fighting stance in front of Alana. Most of his exposed flesh was covered with rapidly reddening burns. Meanwhile, Paolo was grinning from ear to ear as he considered his partner. “That’s exactly right. That is the sort of fight that this should be…”

Paolo raised his hands and the sluggish cheers from the crowd began to warp around his limbs. Streams of partial images swirled through the air, spinning and flowing into his body as he intensified his image of triumph. Those partial images looked like wisps of silk, sleek and light enough to be blown away by a strong breeze.

Sensing the meaning to what he was doing, Wivanya swept her claws at Paolo. But this time, he didn’t even bother to dodge. He stepped into the blow with lowered hands and let his heels grind into the marble as Wivanya smashed him sideways.

Wivanya is reliable, but her image conflicts too directly with Alana’s. Randidly thought to himself. Their combination isn’t ideal.

Paolo’s face twitched but he stayed on his feet. Although the claws shredded the flesh of his shoulder, he was somehow able to endure Wivanya’s attack. Seeing him survive, the noise from the crowd exploded upward. More and more wispy images flowed to Paolo. Even Randidly had to wonder about the physics of the move and narrowed his eyes to examine Paolo’s image. But Wivanya responded with a roar and unleashed a blast of concentrated frost from her mouth.

A pillar of light exploded from Paolo, the cheers and approval of the crowd becoming tinder to the flame burning in his heart. It wasn’t the exact same sort of inviolable light that Alana released, but it at least shared the trait of being bright, which seemed to further excited the audience. They raised their voices and shook their limbs, caught in the frenzy of the conflict.

Alana glanced sideways at Paolo’s ascendant image, then returned her gaze to the panting form of Kayle in front of her. “If he continues to accept all those foreign influences to his image, he is in for a rude awakening.”

“He can handle it,” Kayle exposed a small smile and then both foes blurred into motion. Although she clearly didn’t have as much punch to her image any longer, Alana Donal was still the human on Earth who had done the most combat training over the last several years. Her step, thrust, and then follow up sweep with her spear were blisteringly fast.

At his best, he could hold his own, but he was no longer in peak condition. Kayle deflected the thrust but could only be smashed backward as Alana targeted his wounded arm. Her spear cut deeply into the wrist of his bad arm. But as Kayle was thrown backward, he twisted mid-air and once more manifested his stark image above his head. The line seemed so slender, but it cleanly divided infinity. “The Sword of Triumph!”

Alana tensed, but she wasn’t the target of the Skill. Instead, it appeared that Kayle cast several lightning-fast barriers around Paolo. Randidly chewed on his lip but then understanding gradually bloomed in Randidly’s eyes as Paolo rapidly exploded with the potency of the images that he had been absorbing. Streams continued to flow into him from the crowd, but now nothing could flow out any longer. His body, bounded by Kayle’s Absolute Divides, was the vessel to the rapidly increasing pressure of those images. While he stood there and seemed to rush rapidly towards some sort of detonation, Wivanya’s claws scratched helplessly at the barriers Kayle created.

Randidly felt a small smile taking hold on his face. The result isn’t as integrated as Dinesh and Tykes’ combination Skill, but I can already tell that this effect will be much more exaggerated...

For a split second, Alana frowned. But ultimately, she ignored the trembling Kayle and pounced over toward Paolo. “Wivanya, switch.”

“Keh. You are lucky, human.” Wivanya glared at the exultant Paolo and then bounded across toward Kayle. Seeing the dragon’s approach, Kayle gritted his teeth and recovered his footing. Just like Alana, it seemed that the Skill he used cost him quite a bit of his Willpower. He also had to replace another one of his long knives that had been shattered by Alana, but he settled into a defensive stance and waited for Wivanya to approach.

Once more light gathered around Alana while she moved forward, but this light seemed to make the details of the surrounding space clearer, rather than obscuring her person. Her image had shifted once she had exhausted her image of divinity. The color contrast of her person shot upward, making the flames around her vividly orange and her wings almost blindingly white.

The flavor of her image shifted slightly again as she raised her spear. She was no longer a pure valkyrie, but a prophet. When her mouth opened, something sanctified and almost solid flowed out: she spoke the word of a God. “Spear Thrusts so Plentiful They Sound like Rain.”

And Randidly could hear it in the moments that followed, the sizzling impact of hundreds of spear attacks that Alana threw outward, each with a deceptive amount of force behind the attacks. These were strikes that would have laid out any of the contestants below the top 8. But it appeared that Kayle had taken great care in the construction of these barriers because they cracked but didn’t quite shatter. Alana’s eyes sharpened.

She withdrew slightly, the intensity of her image rising further once more. Waves of heat began to rise from her pearly wings, as though the feathers were eternal tongues of flame. Her eyes were determined as she considered the figure of Paolo. “The Fourth Revelation: Divinity.”

The intense brightness that followed was a different sort of brightness from the first activation. Randidly chewed on his lip; she was developing her image further with every use. True, Alana was once again the epicenter of the phenomenon, but rather than being blinded by the light, Alana’s form seemed to swell and fill the attention span of the viewer. In this baser form, the shard of divinity that she channeled in her image became all-consuming. And with that power at the tip of her spear, she thrust her weapon forward.

At the same time, Paolo exploded with a hurricane of force. All of the pressurized energy of his image that had been funneled from the crowd through his body finally broke out through Kayle’s barriers from the inside. So he was swimming at the head of an avalanche of concentrated images, swinging his fists wildly, challenging everything and anything in his path.

The two forces collided and Randidly pressed his lips together in a thin line; the battle was approaching the point that he was confident in his own safety, but it would be more difficult to ensure the health of the participants. His three images swam through his blood, slowly altering his body in preparation for what might follow.

And the confrontation stretched onward as Randidly watched. The clash was a little like two spouts of water spraying at each other; drops were flung in every direction, but no immediate victor was determined. With the addition of the audience’s image, Paolo was able to force Alana into a standstill. What he lacked in detail he made up for with a single-minded pursuit of power.

Into that strained stalemate stepped Kayle. With the deft fingers of his uninjured right hand, he reached up and grabbed the shattered edges of the barriers he had conjured around Paolo. Eventually, he settled on a jagged remnant that shimmered in his hand even as it began to disintegrate and scatter. But while it remained, he slashed downward at Alana. “Victory, Severed.”

A white crescent of light shot forward toward Alana. The shard in Kayle’s hand fell to pieces, even as the hand holding it was torn to pieces.

Randidly’s pupils instantly tightened to the size of a pin tip. A lot of meaning and imagery was seething beneath the surface of Kayle’s gesture, giving the slash vastly increased power based on the symbolism present. But just as quickly as Randidly recognized the threat it presented, Wivanya was moving. She tossed her body in front of the attack and crossed her wings as an extra line of defense. Heavy layers of ice formed across her body-

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!

Wivanya took the brunt of the slash and crashed into the arena with enough force to shake the surrounding ground. Much of her left wing was shredded and enough blood to fill a small stream gushed out of the wound on her side. Some of her organs were clearly visible through the ripped flesh. Even so, the white crescent had enough force to continue downward and strike Alana.

Her image of divinity was cleanly dispersed by the shattered nature of Kayle and Paolo’s combination attack, but so was Paolo’s; the only problem was that Alana hadn’t been expecting it at all. A quick scan indicated that the damage to Wivanya was severe. Randidly had no way of seeing her Health, but based on the blood, being knocked unconscious, and the way her image was obliterated, he made his decision.

“...Wivanya has been knocked out for the remainder of the match,” Randidly announced. Even as Paolo spear tackled Alana, Randidly used Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil to wrap the heavy dragon’s body with roots and lift her to medical help. Of course, no sooner did Randidly lift Wivanya off the ground than she regained consciousness and began to struggle.

“I… wait…! I can still… Absolute-” Wivanya began, but Randidly briefly unleashed the significance that he had gathered in his Nether Nebula. The nebula paused in its clockwise rotation and briefly twisted in the counterclockwise direction. Thick cords of Nether unspoiled and wound themselves around Wivanya.

“You’ve been knocked out,” Randidly said quietly, struggling to keep his Nether from interfering with the images of the surrounding people as he suppressed Wivanya. Some part of him was unsure if his intervention was the right decision, but he had already intervened. He could sense how weak and feeble Wivanya’s Willpower currently was. It was best for her to retire and recover.

There was an extended moment where chilly sapphire eyes met firm emerald ones, then the dragon collapsed and curled up like a piece of carbon paper left next to an open flame. Randidly carried her away with the roots toward the waiting medical team, then turned back to the fight.

After both images had been shattered by Kayle’s strike, and most likely further weakened by the brief appearance of Nether in the space, Paolo had rushed forward and tackled Alana directly. Her spear was knocked from her hands as the two grappled and she was forced several steps backward.

But Alana reacted quickly, her hands finding purchase on Paolo’s leather armor. But with the advantage of momentum, he unleashed several sharp punches to her sides and face, shoved her once, then threw a Haymaker that smashed Alana into the ground.

Coughing heavily, Alana rolled quickly to the side to avoid the several slashes that Kayle unleashed at her downed form. Had not both of his arms been wounded, she likely would have been eliminated right there. Then she flipped up to her feet and produced another spear that she leveled at the two foes that were circling around her. Blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes flicked between Paolo and Kayle who were carefully positioning themselves. Golden flames surged to life along her limbs. “That was a great move. But I can feel both of your images starting to fade. Are you stalling for time now rather than attacking?”

“Your image is even worse,” Kayle commented so quietly that his words were almost lost in the roar of the crowd. Even if the participants were feeling quite drained, the audience was still at its zenith.

For his part, Paolo guffawed and slapped his chest. “You think that I’m done? When the audience demands more?!? Never. I still have more gas in the tank.”

And true to his word, his image once more began to churn. He took several steps toward Alana, the glorious glow of triumph around his body brightening back toward its previous levels. She kept her spear steady, but Alana’s eyes narrowed. “You… if you keep absorbing so many external images, your own image purity-”

“Maybe for other people it would be a problem… but I get to tell my own story.” Paolo countered. He took another step forward. The image around him intensified. He glanced sideways as he flashed a grin at Kayle. “I know what you are thinking. But I want your word that I get a single exchange right now with her without your interference. You already got to fight with her for a while.”

“It’s foolish,” Kayle replied sharply. Paolo shrugged. The two stared at each other for almost ten seconds while Alana’s breathing slowly grew more regular. Blood stopped leaking from the wound on her shoulder.

Finally, Kayle sighed and shook his head. “Fine. One exchange. And I won’t do any follow-up.”

“Perfect.” Paolo cracked his knuckles and then lifted his left hand, the fingers of his right tight around his left wrist. All the images that surged toward him from the audience congregated around that hand, filling it with a massive, if a bit conflicting, amount of meaning. “The Left Hand of the Champion.”

Paolo clenched his glowing fist. Alana huffed out a breath and her flames surged even higher around her body. She rolled her shoulders and the flames around her regained some of the previous intensity. Waves of heat once more surrounded her. “The Second Revelation: Struggle.”

She moved quickly, her spear flicking side to side unpredictably, while Paolo moved ponderously under the weight of his image. He only threw a single punch, so heavy with his Willpower that it blew all of Alana’s brutal attacks away. Paolo had small gashes opened up across his arms and a deep wound right below his collarbone, but he smashed Alana into the marble arena with enough force to crack the reinforced stone ground.

For the second time, Alana was knocked down in a decisive blow.

The crowd erupted in a roar as Paolo steadied himself and then raised his fists above his head in pure exultation. His sense of accomplishment was an almost physical thing, and those same slivers of image that flowed into him were now flowing back out, popping and inflating to three times their original size so they seemed to be lopsided and overinflated balloons that meandered sluggishly through the surrounding air.

Randidly could feel the hyper-dense Nether running underneath everything, catalyzing the images of the people here for as long as it remained. The effect primarily seemed to be bloating, but Randidly understood it was more than that; it was like the aspect ratio of television being raised above the content on the screen. The images looked bloated because they could now exist in high-definition, but they hadn’t quite figured out how to manage it yet.

“Paolo,” Kayle spoke sharply, staring intently at the downed form on the ground between them. “It isn’t over yet.”

Randidly felt the significance of the Nether running underneath the arena deepen even further.

Her right elbow had been shattered in the impact on the ground, but Alana simply propped herself up with her left. She rubbed the blood from her lips but only succeeded in smearing it across her cheek and making her countenance look positively ghastly. Yet such was the intensity of her expression that the smeared blood only seemed appropriate.

This was a woman out for blood.

Paolo and Kayle shared a glance while the crowd’s noise gradually receded. Both of them were wounded, although not as badly as Alana was. Yet somehow, Alana’s figure, now completely devoid of the emphasis of images, was even more intimidating than the radiance of her orange-gold flames had been previously.

“You’ve made it, Paolo and Kayle,” Alana said woodenly. She looked dispassionately down at her right arm, at the spot where the flex of her forearm had been torn asunder and the fractured bone was revealed. Her left hand flickered with warm flames and she pressed it over the wound. The flesh began to sizzle. “This is the current pinnacle of Earth. You’ve proven that as long as you persevere, any human can achieve this proficiency with images and control their own Path.”

Neither answered so the only noise was the sound of Alana’s wound being cauterized.

After a few seconds, Alana pulled her hand away from the charred flesh. Her face hadn’t even twitched. “I think I was confused before the match began. I thought my role was to show you that you weren’t quite there yet. But you are there, huh? No, what I’m really supposed to do is show you what’s next.”

She reached up and rubbed her chin idly, as though lost in thought. “I had always planned for five Revelations. But it wasn’t until I was here that I realized how my role can only carry me so far. I cannot allow the role to become who I am: the life and the vessel must be in balance with each other. So this Fourth Revelation… I cannot separate it from who I am. And when you punched me, Paolo, I realized how much I want to win. Right now, Alana Donal wants to win more than almost anything else. I don’t want today to end in regrets.”

Her right arm was still hanging uselessly at her side, but the flames on Alana’s left hand grew more intense. Wincing, Paolo settled into a defensive stance. Kayle crossed his knives in front of his torso. It was clear that he was having difficulty keeping the knives steady.

“The Fifth Revelation:” Alana said quietly. “Want.”

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