Chapter 230 (1/2)

It was only a second, but seconds can cost a lot in an ambush. Luckily, Randidly wasn’t an average spear user any longer. In addition, now that he could actually wear the rare belt that had been given to him, the extra concentration made itself very useful.

After that first moment of confusion, his instincts kicked in and he spun around, producing the huge obsidian spear that smashed toward Helen’s stab. As he expected, her spear seemed to blur and twist, flowing around his block and towards his exposed skin.

With glittering eyes, Randidly accepted this outcome, dropping his spear and stepping forward. Root Control produced thick, powerful roots that rushed up out of the ground and seized onto her spear, stopping it dead.

Following through with his step, Randidly reached out and grabbed her by the throat, his eyes burning, his fury hot.

To his surprise, Helen met his gaze, calmly, not a drop of fear in it. Even though they both knew that her main advantage in a fight over him was the elusiveness of her attack techniques. Once he had his hands on her, like he did now, his hand tightening around her throat… she simply didn’t have the requisite amount of stats to resist him. She was under his complete control.

And she felt no fear.

Strangely, Randidly remembered very vividly his furious anger at Tessa, and her relative terror when he unleashed Agony on her. The pain that he had caused her had been enough to knock her out completely. A part of Randidly shriveled as he remembered how wild and stupid he had been. How casually he could use his power…

As their eyes remained locked, Randidly’s fury slowly drained away. This, he knew, was her goal. It annoyed him somewhat that she had seen through his emotions through their one small verbal interaction, because she hadn’t known about it before he had left the inn. What was also annoying was how quickly she found a way to grab his attention.

Randidly wanted to berate her, telling her how dumb it had been to do that, but as the coldness in his chest drained away, he simply felt tired. Dropping his hand from her throat, he nodded his acknowledgement of her accomplishment, and asked. “Okay, what did you actually wa-”

Helen punched him in the face, her passiveness, gone, replaced by fury.

“Don’t you dare ever talk to me like that. I’ll kill you in your sleep, you little cunt.”

Then she spun on her heel and left, head held high.

After she had gone, Randidly began laughing, and couldn’t stop for a long time. This method of unraveling his tension was much more agreeable to him, because it was clear that this hadn’t been a ploy. She was genuinely furious. But why…? She swore much worse than that on a regular basis…

Well ultimately it didn’t matter. He would set aside her obvious anger for now. It wouldn’t be a good idea to chase after her, in this instance, especially while he wasn’t sure what was wrong. Better to give her time and space.

So now he had to more firmly face his options right now. His previous instinct was to stomp over to Azriel and…. Well Randidly wasn’t quite sure now. She had told him to come over, and at the moment, Randidly wanted to be around someone he could truly let loose with. At the same time, now that he had cooled somewhat, Randidly was hesitant to directly head over to her inn, mere hours after she had given the invitation.

There were definitely methods of training that he could use while training here, methods of polishing the skills he had. Randidly was especially interested in some ideas he had been toying with in regards to his Flexibility of the White Hunters Skill, as well as spending some of his time raising Grace. But Azriel would likely be difficult enough that she could spur on his growth far faster than he could on his own. But it would be hard to tell what skills he would have time to use against her, and therefore what would benefit…

Randidly had also been neglecting his spells somewhat, and some time getting in some focused work with them, even if he didn’t sharpen his images, would be a good thing…

The sound of footsteps made him look up sharply. Dian stood before him, her crimson hair framing her frowning face. Her eyes were filled with a mixture of respect and hatred, and her nose was wrinkled in distaste as she considered him.

After being ambushed earlier, Randidly’s body instantly prepared itself for battle, but Dian remained standing some distance away, her arms folded. After almost a minute of their standoff, she said. “Take me to your master. We must exchange words.”

Randidly shrugged. “He has left for now. Try again later.”