Despite the fact that the wound weakened the image, it was still strong. Competing just on image, Randidly was not sure his new Grim Chimera image would be able to overpower it directly. Which was slightly disappointing, but he had to give credit where credit was due. The sharp movements and powerful kicks the image displayed were certainly impressive; if his body had been present, Randidly would really have enjoyed the fight between them.

But perhaps because his body wasn’t present, the image suddenly displayed another extremely dangerous trait in a foe: decisiveness. His bandaged eyes scrutinized Randidly briefly, but then he spun on his heel and leapt away. All intent to fight had vanished. His leg flashed upward and Randidly’s tightly woven dome was sheered open as though it was a piece of rotten fruit. Even Helen’s Tides of Blood that circled outside of the root dome was instantly penetrated.

Randidly just smiled indulgently. The lacquer continued its path down his legs, forming a pair of armored shorts that stopped just above his knees. “Trying to run?”

Obviously, the image didn’t bother to answer the taunt, kicking again to destroy the air in front of it and accelerating forward. But just as the image was about to shoot forward, Randidly sucked in a deep breath. His eyes glowed with wicked glee.

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Appetite of a Wraith (L) has grown to Level 354!

Congratulations! Your Skill Cursed Appetite of a Wraith (L) has grown to Level 355!

Randidly’s Skill hadn’t changed in the most recent evolution, but his understanding of its usage slowly did. As the Grim Chimera shifted toward Supremacy, it could steal more than just Mana, Stamina, and trace amounts of Aether. Its covetous fingertips could gently tear away larger concepts from its victims. So Randidly seized some of the image’s acceleration. That, combined with his own dominant physical gifts, meant that he caught up to the image right as it was about to shoot out through the hole in the root dome.

The image’s gaze cut sideways. Randidly grinned and slashed right his right hand. The image couldn’t dodge, so it spun up a leg to block. Which only made Randidly’s smile widen. His hand passed through the block and seize tightly onto the limb. His fingers squeezed so tightly he cut slightly into the tough flesh of the image’s leg.

Then Randidly spun around and his half-meter thick lower tail, heavily armored and covered in lacquer spikes, smashed into the image. The image twisted and released a second quick kick that met the tail directly.

BOOOM!

Randidly’s eyebrows rose when the kick was enough to stall his lower tail. The force of the impact had loosened his hand’s grip. But even then, Randidly could tell it wouldn’t be enough. Damnit, why couldn’t the main body have come too…? This honestly feels like bullying.

Lowering his torso, the image prepared to kick off of Randidly’s arm and escape when its body spasmed strangely. Blood began to bloom out of a sudden hole in the image’s back. That oozing blood splattered to reveal Randidly’s previously invisible upper tail, that had whipped out and pierced into the image.

That attack also carried with it another payload of Nether, which fuzzed the edges of the image for a brief moment. The light it released dimmed further.

The upper tail was only two meters long, but its tip was just as sharp as the nails on Randidly’s right hand. It easily ripped itself back out of the image and flicked lightly from its position on the base of Randidly’s neck. The motion was fearfully casual, as the image's blood steadily evaporated from along its length.

Being briefly paused was enough for the image to miss its chance to run without being chased down and slaughtered from behind. Again displaying its decisive personality, it spun around and unleashed a kick.

The attack was fast, but Randidly only needed to lean backward. Meanwhile, Randidly’s lower tail snaked outward and spun around the image’s waist. With one leg lashing out to strike Randidly and the other stabilizing the move, the image was defenseless. The tail’s spikes pierced into the image’s torso as its grip tightened. Then Randidly simply tossed the wrapped up image back down into the center of the isolated space.

The sounds of bones breaking as the image smashed into the round was a testament to the quality of the image. Even though it was probably slightly stunned from the impact, the image quickly righted itself… and was met with another surging flood of Nether. He staggered sideways, portions of his body flaring and becoming fuzzy as the image struggled. Randidly floated lightly downward as its light dimmed further. He tilted his head to the side.“Rethinking this resistance?”

“You are making a mistake, doing this,” The image finally growled. But it seemed that was the extent of its desire to communicate because the dimming light around it flared to life. All the fading detail snapped back. This mental projection was cashing in on its remaining Aether to return to its prime state. The image spread its legs and leaned forward.

Randidly simply waited for this final bit of resistance to run its course. The image’s mouth twitched and then it kicked several times in quick succession. A rampaging horde of force waves galloped toward Randidly. Randidly observed with interest as the image released some of its tight grip over its form and seemed to simply become an amorphous presence amongst the force waves, hiding itself.

Grinning, Randidly flexed his massive left hand and his slender and sharp right. Then he stuck his left forearm up as a bastion in front of his body while lowering his right fist to his waist. The lacquer continued to shift across his body and creep upward. On his chest, the lacquer appeared to eat entirely through his torso and reveal an empty passage that would allow an outsider to see directly through his body. On his face, the lacquer covered his left eye and hollowed out the eyeball to leave a void.

Some allowances for the other images, Randidly thought with pleasure. But today, Grim Chimera, the show is all yours…

The fingers of Randidly’s left hand began to glow cherry red, and then a humming orange, before ascending and becoming white-hot. Steam began to roiled around his cocked limb. As the image’s attack arrived.

BOOOOOOM!

The force waves crashed against Randidly’s heavy left arm, barely making a dent. The attack was strong, but even Randidly was impressed by how dense and immovable the left arm of the Grim Chimera now was. His right eye flashing as the image flitted sideways and shot toward the root dome, Randidly right hand blurred into motion.

The image split into three forms that moved in different directions, but Randidly’s upper tail lashed out. With its lithe form, it was capable of moving at overwhelming speeds and it quickly sliced through two fakes. Randidly’s hand shot unerringly toward the fine version of the image.

Congratulations! Your Skill Pernicious Fang of the Shade (L) has grown to Level 296!

The image seemed to have anticipated that Randidly would be able to find it and strike; as soon as Randidly eliminated the fakes and began to move, the armless body condensed back to its powerful form. One of the golden greaved legs whipped up and smashed into Randidly’s glowing hand. In addition, Randidly felt the image marshaling all of its remaining Aether in a very particular way.

Inwardly, Randidly shook his head with pity. Unfortunately for you, This attack… contains no Nether.

Using Nether against Aether was akin to pouring water on fire. To compensate for this anticipated attack, the image was now doing the equivalent of upping the fire’s temperature so the Nether would ‘evaporate’ before it could do much damage. Unfortunately for the image, to end this fire in no uncertain terms, Randidly had brought a giant boulder and simply planned to smash it out of existence.

His incendiary fingers cracked and shattered the golden greaves. The attack continued forward and ripped a deep gash in the images thigh. Waves of heat radiated outward and further seared the image flesh. As the image jerked its head back, Randidly’s hand ripped sharply upward and left a trail of mangled image details across the armless torso. And it was at that point that Randidly smashed it with another blast of Nether.

The figure in front of him grew misty as the image was unable to maintain its consciousness for much longer. “You… mistake… I will…!”

Randidly wasn’t sure how much connection truly existed between the body and the image in this case. There had been some distant acknowledgment of each other’s situation when Randidly had been on the frontlines, but whoever owned this image likely didn’t possess the same sort of advantages that he did. Plus, the array that he and Neveah had created should interfere with that connection somewhat.

Yet Randidly also believed that the original owner of this powerful image would understand essentially what had occurred and would be very, very mad about it. If this foe had been a casual one in the past, he or she would be radicalized by the loss of this image.

Even so, Randidly struck again with his hand that continued to burn the surrounding moisture from the air and scattered the image into remnant details. Then he breathed deeply with Cursed Appetite of the Wraith and Tide of the Void to gather those details within himself. He isolated them inside of his Soulspace, to study and experiment with in the future.

Randidly withdrew his root dome into the ground, allowing the engorged organic matter to smolder there and eventually enrich the soil. Then he walked over to the waiting Helen. “How much could you sense of our fight outside of the dome?”

Helen shrugged. “Basically everything; no one ever accused your images of being subtle. Even if my image muffled it a bit more, I believe every recruit is capable enough to observe a portion of that fight. Word will get out about what you did here.”

Randidly nodded slowly and chewed on his lip. Meanwhile, Helen tilted her head over toward Djark Quewn, who continued to shiver on the ground. “What about him?”

“Kick him out. As quickly as possible,” Randidly said simply. It was, perhaps, a cold response, but Randidly knew that keeping him here would only put the young man in more danger. Reporting that he had accepted the individual of a hostile foreign party into his body and brought it onto the Rally Station…

The cruelty of Commandant Wick’s response to such a report could be imagined.