Chapter 2411 |
The Nether King gathered significance around his fingers. Now, finally, it was time to move forward.
The Last Nether King, a moniker once threatened by the presence of Randidly Ghosthound but no longer after the strange transformation, pinned Devick to the ground and carefully wove threads of Nether together to target a particular connection. His eyes didn’t waver, just like he didn’t in keeping her torso pressed against the ground. Every detail entered into his vision. History and momentum rode upon his shoulders, but he did not slouch.
From the corpse of the Nexus, he would extract the bones of a paradise for the Nether people. A place where they could finally live in peace, beyond the reach of Eternities or at the mercy of Pinnacles. Hopefully, without any of the involved parties noticing his actions until it was too late.
His people deserved at least this much, after everything they had been forced to endure.
“Usually,” Devick jerked and bucked beneath him, but his grip was sure. Blood leaked out of the corner of her lips and nose from where he had been forced to smash her face into the ground, multiple times, to ensure she wouldn’t interrupt the process. “I would be more concerned with my virtue in this situation, but you’ve been almost insultingly clear in your disinterest. Ah, my womanly pride is hurt~”
The echoes of their brief and violent conflict still rippled out through the empty chamber of the Pinnacle. Blood spatters spread out in random patterns behind him, the few signs of their brief and vicious struggle.
“All I need is your blood, fresh from the vein.” The Nether King grunted as Devick wiggled the fingers of her left hand and corroded some of the Nether King’s significance. The Nether King pressed his lips together; even now, Devick’s image continued to improve in this place at a rate that left him speechless. Especially that left hand now had reached the point where she could damage his refined Nether, which was why he now spent so much careful effort binding it.
The Nether King’s next project would take some focused attention. That would need to be especially restricted.
Father, you would still call me persnickety, even now, huh? The Nether King’s significance stirred slightly. As always, the phantom of his father lurked close to his Nether Core, a blurry shadow cast by the swirling center of his existence. And yet my persnicketiness is what has kept me alive for so long. Heh, you’d say it was just luck and not to worry so much, wouldn’t you?
“See, when you say things like that, I don’t think you understand how sexual you sound.” Devick commenced a new round of thrashing, but this time the Nether King’s bindings held. “Why should the freshness-”
After punching her hard enough to break the cartilage of her nose, he sat back and regarded her. “If you are aware I will not be distracted by your antics, why do you continue with them? I will not waver.”
“You unrepentant narcissist!” Devick leaned back against the cool ground and spat to the side, adding a new tickle of blood and spit to their halo of fluids. “How dare you assume any of this was for you. If anything, this is all an elaborate show for Randidly Ghosthound. Not sure if this is exactly up his alley… but no reason not to add a little special sauce to a routine blood robbery.”
The Nether King’s lip twitched as he looked sideways at the spray of blood and phlegm she produced. “The greatest luck of your false existence is having a connection to Randidly Ghosthound. Other than that, you are the picture of disgusting excess. I have no idea what he sees in you.”
Devick smiled at him sweetly, her teeth bloody. “At least he looks at me. I’m just just a walking bag of blood to him.”
Right before he made his move, the Nether King unleashed a dense wave of Nether to suppress her image. But right as his Nether Ritual shifted into position around her, that glob of spat blood had exploded with her concentrated image, raking crimson claws across the bindings even as he formed them. The Nether King’s eyes narrowed. Her left hand flared. Her long fingers curled, touching and beginning to eat through the core portion of the Nether Ritual.
The Nether King stood and slammed his heel against her face. The back of her head cracked against the ground and bounced. He flicked his fingers and produced spikes of Nether, stabbing through the flesh of her left arm and pinning that dangerous hand to the ground before it could get loose. His Nether swirled about him, the patterns tumbling through an evolution to wrap more tightly around Devick.
For a brief moment, he glanced at the Nether around his left hand. Even now, the presence of those fingers deviates from the organic pattern evolution. What a frightful witch. In a few years, exposed to Randidly Ghosthound’s Nether and Aether… what will she become?
Ah, but I just need to listen to her significance. She truly will be the Merry Consort of Perdition and woe unto those who do not join her in her capers. Perhaps…
For a split second, the Nether King considered killing her here, to prevent her existence from growing to full bloom. While he also intended to burn the bridge of his relationship with Randidly Ghosthound with his next move, that man would likely consider slaying Devick a personal attack. The planned thievery would be much more forgivable. The Ghosthound might eventually seek vengeance, but would not wreck the paradise the Nether King would create in retaliation.
The Nether King regarded the weak but resourceful woman in front of him. Bitterness and snarling desperation blazed in her eyes. Devick would move against him for this, animated by spite. She would slaughter all the associated parties and bury his dream in bitter soil to repay this humiliation.
Yet the Nether King just clicked his tongue and sat back. Should something happen to Devick now, the Ghosthound would likely sense it, despite his significant distractions. Drawing his attention now was a mistake. So the Nether King could only let this dangerous variable live for a while longer.
“I hate it, you know.” Devick coughed up some more blood, but the Nether King had extended his restriction matrix and this fell within its scope. Any images within were suppressed. She curled up on her side, no longer looking at him, her face obscured by her crimson hair. “That he is the most interesting facet of my life… and that everyone I keep meeting knows it. That they look at me but see only his shadow.”
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The Nether King ignored her internal turmoil. He carefully reached out and used a finger to scoop up a bit of Devick’s blood. Then he withdrew slightly and crouched on his heels. He produced a tool, the one he had traded from Don Beigon: the citizenship coin fabricator.
Despite the important situation, the Nether King had a flash memory of his father kicking open the door to his room in their small hut and peering in. ‘Kid, you know it seems mighty suspicious when you constantly squirrel yourself away. Makes it easy to know when something important is happening. Dead giveaway. So what’s up?’
The Nether King glanced around. But no one looked for him now. He was a forgotten being in an Aether land. While the broader revolution fueled by Randidly Ghosthound overturned the Nexus, the Nether King needed to scavenge for the spare parts he needed.
The Nether Warrior lives given legitimacy by the Ghosthound from the memory would be a good group of first settlers, but it will be difficult to convince them to defect. Especially now that they have spent time in the specific significance of the Alpha Cosmos. I cannot know for sure, but judging by the energy the Ghosthound releases… The Nether King fed the blood into the machine. However, before he activated it, he wove a Nether Ritual around the whole assembly. Tsk, he is providing a concrete purpose, a sense of movement and stability. Convincing the people will likely be impossible.
The fabricator activated, but due to the Nether Ritual, it focused on the particular connection present in Devick’s blood. After a few seconds, a steaming coin popped out, an emerald coin with rippling patterns of gold dancing across the surface. If anything, the beauty of the product only made the Nether King more wary.
He wanted to enter the Alpha Cosmos without being noticed, which was why he had vague plans to acquire an individual with a close connection to the Ghosthound to help form the counterfeit ‘citizenship’ coin. Originally, he had planned to seek out either Shal or Octavius Shrike. Stumbling across Devick was just a lucky coincidence, but seeing the natural patterns in the coin, the Nether King knew it would be worth it.
Perhaps Shal could have provided a similarly valuable connection, but the others would have been pale imitations.
He might notice the entrance, just because its her significance I used to create the opening. Well, too late now. The Nether King looked up from his work and glanced back over toward Devick. His lips twitched. Almost the entire left side of his restrictive cage had been hollowed out by the presence of that hand while he had been focused on the fabricator. If he had taken twenty or thirty seconds longer, she would have escaped while he was distracted.
“You have all the decorum of a rabid dog,” The Nether King remarked. “Would you hesitate to gnaw off your own leg?”
“Thank you,” Devick propped herself up on her elbows and began to rip her way all the way out of the containment. She didn’t even seem threatened by the fact he remained outside of the barrier, ready at any point to subdue her again.
The Nether King shook his head. Definitely a dangerous element, especially given she now sank into the fertile ground of this place to develop, but it would hopefully be a problem for other individuals before her attention turned to him. The Nether King raised the coin. He sucked a slow breath in through his mouth. He created another Nether Ritual that led him through the connections between this coin and the Alpha Cosmos.
At first, the bonding continued slowly. The Nether King could feel Devick’s continued struggles and regretted not taking the time to beat some more sense into her before he made his attempt. Admittedly, sense would be a waste of effort; his real goal would have been to beat some unconsciousness into her.
Too late now. The Nether King thought. The constant presence of his father in the back of his mind waved a hand. ‘Don’t worry so much. Never too late to change your life, kid.’
Then the significance caught and burned with a chemical intensity. Strange patterns curled and wilted off of the fake coin. The Nether King hissed, surprised despite all his preparations for the density and strength of the Nether of Randidly Ghosthound. After a few confused seconds where the Nether King wondered whether he would need to force his way forward after all, the veil around the Alpha Cosmos wavered and parted.
Devick clawed her way out of the restrictions just as the Nether King stepped through the bond into the Alpha Cosmos and shut the door behind him. Already, he wove his Nether into his body and allowed not even a whisper to leak out through his skin. Originally he had believed he would be able to rely on his natural patterns to adjust and blend into the environment, but that would take too much time.
The Nether King glanced around. He stood in space, floating between the various planets orbiting through the Alpha Cosmos. Around them spun a massive loop. Even now, he could only look in wonder at the natural currents of significance connecting the various locations.
He nodded to himself. “The first step… well, the only step. Let’s just do it and worry about the consequences later.”
The Nether King tapped around lightly with his significance, found the scent of what he sought, and then became just another breath of significance in the vast river. He passed through and rapidly moved through the Alpha Cosmos, remaining as inconspicuous as possible. So many interesting patterns glittered around him, but he dared not investigate.
Here, he didn’t need to worry about only Randidly Ghosthound, but also the Pantheon. Their capabilities were somewhat a mystery to the Nether King, so he behaved as conservatively as possible.
I have the Name. I have the raw significance to Herald a Shallah from nothing, but nothing is not the most fruitful soil. What I need is the other half, the Aether half, of the engineered being I will make. A Shallah is not just an unsaid name, but also a shape without a shape. A shapeless feeling. Heh, the incorrectly termed ‘Nether Prince’ is the perfect counterpoint to an unspoken name. The remnant of an influential life. But it needs to be from a powerful Aether individual. And ideally, one who possessed at least contact with Nether in their lifetime. Plus, the selection must be in possession of an upstanding personality; they are not the same, but they have connections to that original existence.
No one from the Nexus fits all those criteria, but in the Alpha Cosmos-
The Nether King slithered out of the river of significance, just another nondescript breath of Nether in a roiling sea. Definitely, the Nether King felt inspired by feeling the natural energy development of this place. He looked around, cautiously, but saw so many fascinating examples of the way the two energies could exist in harmony. He became even more sure that a Nether universe would be exactly what his people needed.
He manifested his body on Expira, standing above a jagged ravine. Down in the depths existed the most significant death in the history of the Alpha Cosmos, the Nether Prince of the First Knight of the Ghosthound, Helen. Of all the possibilities, she was the best option.
She would help him birth a new Eden for the Nether people.
Yet the Nether King stilled when he manifested. For waiting there for him was Randidly Ghosthound, his head slightly tilted to the side, his eyes blazing emerald. His black hair fell messily around his face. The shadows of a massive tree, a restless monster, and an event horizon darkened the space around him.
The Nether King coughed lightly, awkwardly, embarrassed. “You have the time for this?”
The Ghosthound’s smile just widened. He looked every inch the sort of entity that could overthrow the entire Nexus. The Nether King probably still had the advantage in Nether manipulation, but feeling the energy flow in the Alpha Cosmos-
Even the cleverest and most sophisticated aqueduct would be obliterated by a tsunami.
