Chapter 130 (2/2)

Sneering, Shal opened his mouth to deride Egger, not even wanting to hear the information. Although the ore was valuable, it was nowhere near as valuable as the spear of the Devourer. But Egger continued speaking, and Shal froze.

“...I’ll tell you the location of Lucrecia.”

Shal blinked. Then his eyes darkened. “It is a deal.” He hissed through his teeth, turning back to the melee with fiery eyes.

****

Randidly ran forward, passing stage after stage, his brooding eyes taking in the vicious struggles going on at each location, where more and more people with ideas like his would break off, swarming to the lesser populated stages that they would find for themselves, hoping to see how well they would stack up against the competition. But Randidly continued to jog.

Not to restore his condition, because he had almost instantly regained the Stamina he had lost in his little fight. But because the heat in his chest was slowly cooling to a bubbling anger, preparing to blow up again. But at the moment, he was unsatisfied by the large crowds he ran into.

Still, time was beginning to drag on. Such was the size of the location that he had been jogging for almost 20 minutes and still hadn’t reached the opposite side of the arena. It was simply too large, more a small island than a boat. Although there was already a large cluster of people gathered around the current stage that Randidly was approaching, he was sorely tempted to stop, and set up shop here.

But again, that flicker of rage made him grind his teeth, and in order to avoid killing all of these spear users, Randidly continued to run. As he did so, he noticed that a slim young woman with spiky red hair was shadowing him, not coming too close, but also clearly following the same path as him at the same speed.

Again, his temper flared, but again Randidly pushed it down. It wasn’t yet clear what this woman’s intentions were. But if she planned some sort of vengeance for the two people Randidly had killed…

Shaking his head, Randidly put that out of his mind. This world was different. Perhaps killing was just killing here, and wouldn’t lead to an endless cycle of revenge…

Besides, the young woman wasn’t really looking at him with any sort of malice. But it was a strange, deliberate intensity to her gaze that set him on edge. It was strange, to him, why she would look at him like this, when they had never met in the past. Perhaps some relationship with Shal…?

The distance she maintained was enough that Randidly didn’t really have any plans to turn and attack her. It would be a waste of time, and there were so many other spear users lurking around… It was best to just ignore her for now.

A few minutes later, Randidly arrived at the next stage, which was strangely quiet. There were fewer people here, but also, there was only a single man on the stage, surrounded by around a dozen bodies. The blood was already dried, and the crowd around them was milling about, looking at each other nervously.

But perhaps the most eye catching thing about the stage is that the man standing on the stage was the two spears he held, one in each hand, both wet with blood. His grip was casual, his gaze bored, scanning the crowd with open disdain.

The raw arrogance in his slouched stance ignited the rage in Randidly’s heart even further. His hands tightened around his spear. Ignoring the dead bodies surrounding the strange man, Randidly picked up speed as he ran forward. Almost instinctively, he activated Haste, gaining speed. When he reached the edge of the crowd, he allowed his rage to just carry him forward, activating Mana Strengthening and leaping, clearing the nervous group of spear users and sailing through the air.

In a rather ungainly fashion, he crashed onto the stage, sliding slightly on a patch of blood that was still wet. But with the assistance of the Grace skill, Randidly stabilized himself very quickly, then turned to regard the man. He had long hair, cascading down his back and over his shoulders. As Randidly arrived, his eyes had narrowed, and now he was looking at him with a sneer. His skin was a yellow very close to lime green, a bright, vibrant color that almost made the man look like a clown to Randidly’s eyes.

“Are you a fool? I am a disciple of the Thundercrash Style. Leave, or your corpse will fertilize rice.” The man demanded, his eyes flashing.

Randidly just grinned, leveling his spear at his opponent.

With a snort, the man waved his hand, and a strange energy surged through the air, smashing towards Randidly. When it reached him, Randidly blinked and swayed. It was like 1000s of ghost spears were surging towards him, each with the speed and ferocity of a lightning bolt. But Randidly simply frowned and focused, and the strange spiritual attack warped and shattered, cracking like glass.

For a time, there was silence, as the man’s expression changed from derision to contemplative. Randidly tightened his grip on his spear, his heart beginning to beat with an increased intensity. Finally, a spear user near his own level. The chance to see how well he stacks up against individuals from a world of the 5th Cohort of the Nexus.

“You… who are you?” The man asked slowly.

“They call me the Ghosthound.”

“I am Tartet. It would be a great joy to kill you this day, Ghost-”

“I’m Dian.”

Both Randidly and Tartet turned, rather confused. Randidly’s eyes narrowed. It was that woman with pointy red hair. Most annoyingly, she seemed content to produce a pallet from her interspatial ring, lounging on the stage, in the corner. As the two men continued to stare, she straightened and frowned at them.

“I’ll just take the winner. It wouldn’t be fair to fight 3 at a time; 2 people would just gang up and kill the third.”