Chapter 407 (1/2)

Sydney had once had a very strange dream, that Randidly had appeared before her and effortlessly overpowered both her and the representative of the Skeleton Knight who was visiting with her. That was prior to her deciding which of the Champions she should throw her support behind.

In the wake of that, Sydney had experienced a wake-up call. Sure, when she founded her Village, she was undoubtedly the most powerful of the forces of East End. But in the few months following that… she had somewhat let herself go.

Which was why, unbeknownst to most of her people, she had arranged to have a Dungeon installed in the room off of her study. That was where she spent most of her time, stretching each day into almost a week. After a prolonged period of this, she began to experience Aether Sickness, as explained by the Village Spirit, so she laid off somewhat, but she never forgot how easily he had overpowered her.

That would not happen again.

Now, 20 Levels later and with Skill Levels almost double her previous highs, Sydney was confident. Even when, with an eerie similarity to her dream, vines and roots erupted out of the ground twisting towards her.

She dismissively slashed with her hand, and Cone of Frost blasted forward, stopping the advance of the plants dead. Although the System could empower things, that didn’t mean that the Skills didn’t still follow reality’s laws. Plants were weak to cold. Combine that with the fact that she was almost Level 90 in the Skill, and his plants were easily dealt with.

“If that’s all you have, you don’t-” Sydney began, but she threw herself to the side at the last moment, a bolt of molten metal ripping through the frozen plants and blowing a hole in her wall. And after she examined the trajectory of the attack, Sydney could only grit her teeth. Randidly had missed on purpose, taking it easy on her.

“Fine then, Coldsnap.” Pointing, Sydney activated her most powerful Skill. She was partially relying on Randidly actually being powerful here because if he wasn’t, his body would be ravaged by the abrupt change in temperature.

Randidly didn’t even move. Eyes glowing, he allowed the Skill to hit him, his bone cloak abruptly covered in a thin layer of frost as he simply stood and took it. Then, with exaggerated slowness, he lifted his hands and grabbed his hood, and then drew the hood of the bone cloak over his face.

Instantly, the light from his emerald eyes was snuffed out. There was only a strange shadow, and then his whole figure became blurry, before fading into the poorly lit room.

Sydney froze for a second, then pointed towards where Randidly had been standing, and also towards the fireplace. “Fireball.”

A moderately sized ball of fire ripped forward, only smashing harmlessly into her stone wall, another igniting the wood in the fireplace. However, the fireplace was deeply set into the wall, and Sydney’s own body and her wooden chair continued to cast long, dark shadows across the room.

Randidly remained hidden. There was a knock at the door.

“Is everything alright?” Drake asked, concern and tightly controlled anger clear in his voice. Sydney wanted to rip the man’s eyes out. Now, of all times for him to get jealous…

“Yes,” Sydney said simply. The room became quiet once more. She could hear Drake huff and back away, then drink something.

There was a creak on the floorboards behind her.

“Zone of Frost!” Sydney shouted, spinning and bringing her hands up, the ice bracelet shifting into a dagger made of ice. Of all of her training, most of it focused on Dagger Mastery, to the point that it was her highest leveled Skill. It was only by a few levels, but it was more than enough to overpower most individuals who expected that she would be easy to overcome because she was a mage.

But Sydney just gaped in shock, because standing in front of her, its weight on the creaky floorboard, was a strange creature made entirely of roots and vines, shaped in a vaguely human shape.

A cold, metal blade pressed against her neck. “Is this acceptable as proof?”