The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

After the first thrill of triumph realizing that the process would work came the slog of seeing it through to completion. This, as it turned out, Randidly had vastly underestimated. After only a minute, his attention frayed and blood began to drip out of his nose.

Warning! Your body-

Recalculating…

Congratulations! The working you have created-

Recalculating…

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1075!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Severing Tide of Amenonuhoko (P) has grown to Level 1050!

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1076!

Pantheon intervention. Due to your incredible, on-going accomplishment, you have been rewarded a special Path! You have unlocked the Vain Endeavours 0/5000 Path!

Randidly shoved away the notifications, his mind already threatening to split underneath the onslaught of strain. He slipped naturally into the mode of his Dread Homunculus image, designed to handle these situations of infinite details, but even then he had to continue into a pseudo Visage of Obsession state and shunt off all his distractions to stay afloat.

His consciousness flicked up and down, back and forth, in the area of the funnel behind the blazing net. He plucked up the cleansed shapes and fed them into the pearl. The ones with lingering impulses he didn’t like the look of, he tossed back into the net.

Dimly, he could feel waves of fire radiating out from his body, a remnant of the cataclysmic struggle between the shapes Randidly invited into the Nexus and the Cleansing Net. Steam came out from his ears. To his immense relief, the defensive barrier around the pearl held through those first thirty seconds. The horrid force and greed of the new arrivals burned away, leaving only a growing number of possibilities which Randidly fed into the pearl.

He couldn’t spare any attention for what happened with the clay cradle of humanity, but hoped Padraic could handle it. He also began to suspect that, even though his Nether Ritual supported the whole working, it couldn’t prevent degradation for long.

Yet for now, he worked as furiously and intently as he could manage.

Randidly pulled his lips back, more each second, grimacing through the constant juggling of different energies cascading through his body. His Nether Core whirled, producing just enough Nether to maintain the connection between the Core and the funnel, barely staying ahead of the dangerous friction as these shapes forced their way through him. When he could spare some energy, he pumped it into the fabric of the funnel, hoping the dense Nether would act similar to a coolant.

The last thing he needed would be for the funnel to burst, for his body to become the battlefield between these ominous shapes and the cleansing net. He knew, he knew that this was exactly the sort of situation Neveah had been worried about, him putting his life on the line, pushing himself too far.

But he needed to take this gamble. It was the only way to find a series of powerful shapes.

And it has the added benefit of letting me see utter shock on that smug Prophet’s face as I took his precious defensive net. Randidly thought, but then had to hastily through his willpower back to managing the constant explosions within his person. The ground underneath him cracked and he narrowed his attention further. He lifted an eye and studied the pearl critically, before returning to the impact point between invading shapes and Cleansing Net. His stomach dropped, somewhere between disappointment and fear. About a fourth of the way to what I want. So I just need-

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1090!

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 1041!

When the first snag came, it managed to catch him by surprise: The Cleansing Net began to sag and Randidly cursed as viciously as he could, because that was the one element that wouldn’t be easy to replace.

It would require a gamble.

He sat on the ground, a funnel of annihilation burning through his chest. Although it worsened the agony, Randidly nudged the funnel and made it slightly more porous. His physical body picked up a fraction of the strain, easing the burden on the net, but now that it had been pushed back the Cleansing Net began to falter.

Randidly spared another glance at the pearl: not even 30%. Tears ran down his face, but he didn’t dare blink. That’s what I get for relying on untested workmanship. You’re up, Stillborn Phoenix. Be careful.

He stirred up the whole of his emotional sea, bringing as much power into the image as he could manage. The Hungry Eye opened, howling and greedy. It shot forward, pressing beyond the Cleansing Net and smashing through some of the oncoming shapes, devouring their alien intelligences and ill-will. Unlike the net, it would rely on absence to do its refinement, cutting away all the undesirable fillings and leaving the shape. The Egg of Depression opened its maw and swallowed-

…and the image very nearly shattered again, along the fault line of its previous wound.

Randidly released a grown as he tried to recover. Brief though his slip had been, a bit of an unfiltered wild shape shot sideways, tearing a hole in the ground and essentially shattering the defensive formations around the chamber.

Luckily it had already been partially cleaved by the Stillborn Phoenix’s flailing attempts to establish itself, or otherwise, the shape might have been able to infect the memory.

Randidly felt a flash of panic as energy began to leak out of the room through the demolished floor, but Neveah reached through his body and nudged his kinetic energy storm to keep the situation from worsening. The Stillborn Phoenix rose again, in spite of the pain, devouring more and more, accepting a little less than half of the strain of the assault through Randidly’s Nether Core. The event horizon blossomed outward, stabilizing itself, energy and light twisting and vanishing down its monstrous drain.

Also,Neveah whispered in Randidly’s ear. That Path given by the Pantheon was designed to help. You should complete it now; they’ve been driving themselves half-mad trying to figure out a way to make it only cost as much as the PP you have.

Randidly grunted, barely conscious of her words. He pulled the shapes and fed them into the pearl. His jaw ached, but he couldn’t fathom trying to relax. He fed as much emotional force as he could manage into the Stillborn Phoenix, empowering its efforts. He pulled a bit more of the ambient energy into his flesh, causing his blood to near its boiling point in his veins-

Neveah nudged him. The Path, Randidly.

Without truly understanding what she meant, he poured his PP into the Vain Endeavours Path. He didn’t earn any Stats for spending PP, but he received an inscrutable Path completion notification.

Congratulations! You have completed the Vain Endeavours Path! You have traveled far from the popular thoroughfares with which most individuals seek the Pinnacle. In the end, although you see the gleaming peak rising above you, you no longer seek to stand upon that lofty vista. The journey was always the point of the process, not the destination, and you know that no matter what you find at the Pinnacle, you would descend from those heights just to keep moving forward.

Congratulations! Health, Mana, and Stamina +1000! Your Skill Ghosthound’s Proficiency (U) has evolved into the Ghosthound’s Ceaseless Toil (GD)(U)! All your abilities will be slightly boosted! In addition, the effect increases the more wild the attempt, the more dire the circumstance. Although many have urged you away from running these ruinous gauntlets, it cannot be said that you haven’t developed a knack for navigating the amorphous threshold between life and death.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1100!

Randidly felt a slight easing on the strain against him, even as he felt part of him detach from his frantic motion of pulling cleansed shapes into the pearl. That detached part looked around in amusement at his circumstances, where frenzied brain activity pushed him toward an internal temperature that would soon liquefy normal flesh. Yet he couldn’t dwell on it long; he needed to pull the shapes and insert them into the pearl-

A new pressure emerged in Randidly’s body, coming from his Fateset. As he broke through 50% of his rough goal, feeding shapes into the brilliant pearl, the restriction set by Deganawidah began to glow with disapproval.

Another surging wave of shapes forced their way up through the Nether Core, causing even the Stillborn Phoenix’s hunger to flag. The event horizon it had maintained began to shrink, forced backward before the lapping waves of annihilation. Randidly pondered the problem for several long seconds, the situation worsening.

In the end, Randidly chuckled. When have I become so domineering, eh? Giving some ground is inevitable. Just slow the tide. Hold your ground. Make them regret accepting our invitation.

The Stillborn Phoenix screamed its agreement but shrunk the size of its manifestation slightly. The shapes began to build up, but Randidly was at least gladdened to discover they fought against each other as much as they lashed out at the pieces he had assembled.

At the same time, Neveah fed energy back to Randidly; while the destructive forces thrown off by his body channeling these shapes were dangerous, there was nothing he repurposed faster than diffused force. All that heat and radiation and destruction came roaring back, tightening into a cyclone of fire right past the edges of the funnel, reinforcing the working from breaking down.

At about 60% of the shapes Randidly aimed to provide for the Philosopher’s Stone’s library, the funnel began buzzing with the strain of staying in place. The flaming barrier came none-too-soon, and now all these shapes wanted to force their way out. Randidly leaned against the working to stabilize it against his body, but that just ended up tearing through portions of the flesh on his torso. His mind buzzing and his body aching, he raised Sulfur and tightened his fingers around the funnel, absorbing as much kinetic force as he could manage.

At 70%, Randidly’s body trembled almost constantly, the grinding effort sinking into his very bones. He looked his old friend exhaustion in the face and smiled. Welcome. Care to lend a hand?

At what could have been 85%, Randidly felt the strangest certainty fill him— he neared a threshold with the pearl, in terms of the complexity of shapes he had assembled. They rippled and fluttered, approaching a critical mass. This had been 85%, but it was more accurately only a bit over 70%. He needed more.

The Stillborn Phoenix screeched. The Dread Homunculus image physicalizations continued to settle across his body, helping absorb the strain. As quickly as it could, Yggdrasil fed tendrils of golden energy into his starved and strained body.

At an entirely new 80% threshold, his consciousness blurred and blunted by the constant plucking and insertion of shapes, Randidly faced an entirely new threat: the Prophet attacked him. The strike slammed into his back, but the Cloak of Utter Night sprang into being and absorbed most of the first.

What survived punched a hole in his chest and sent a gushing spray of blood out across the array space, but the heat and the energy were so violent even his own blood sizzled and evaporated before it could land and stain the surface.

Dimly, Randidly felt the Patron of the Deep come to his side to protect him, but couldn’t spare the attention.

He reached 90%... and felt a grim sense of recognition. The compounding effect of complexity continued within the library, but it began to come at a cost. Deganawidah’s imperative howled in his chest, thoroughly incensed. Randidly forced his eyes open, ignoring the bright lights and flames surging from the warped funnel still gripped in Sulfur’s fingers.

In front of him, a tremor ran through the pearl. The Philosopher’s Stone neared its physical limits, with so many shapes stuffed into it.

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