Chapter 609 (1/2)

There were a few hours when Randidly was frantically using Plant Dominance to fish out and rescue the few spear-users who were caught in the collapse of the wooden battlement. Then there were another few hours where the survivors of his squad and the reinforcements he received spread the word of his tower shields, and Randidly continued to pound his leftover metal into the shape of the shields.

About the time when Randidly was considering whether to ask for more raw materials, an officious looking man with a bushy mustache stomped over to the tent Randidly had set up near the edges of the debris pile.

“You are requested in the Sentinel’s tent,” He said shortly. Then he spun on his heel and left.

Randidly thought long and hard about ways to teach this man a lesson in respect. The first instinct was violence, the second was insults, the third was much slower. But with a sigh, Randidly brushed off his hands and stored his hammer in his interspatial ring.

Respect was not something you could just demand. You earned it by giving it.

So with a premonition of trouble, Randidly walked towards the headquarters of Niergem. As he passed through, he saw imitations of the shield he had created. Some of the spear-users were using twisted nails to carve their Tassles likeness into the shield. It brought a small smile to Randidly’s face, and he also felt that part of him that was connected to his Crown pull further back.

He hadn’t realized it until this point, but the Crown had not truly turned off since his battle with the Witch King. It had sputtered out, and been a constant drain in its broken state. Now that he loosened that drain, he felt part of him relax almost instinctually.

It was not that the Crown cost Mana or Stamina, but it was a constant weight on his thoughts. More than that, it was as though Randidly was forcefully standing on his tiptoes for an extended period of time. It raised his will and impressed it upon the world around him. That exertion was slowly becoming more and more natural, but it was still more than Randidly could handle. He would need to experiment with it in the future to get the hang of its uses.

During the walk, he also considered the fight against the Witch King. In his initial excitement, he had overlooked an important fact: the Witch King was one of the elites of the Wights. Effectively one of the most powerful individuals in this war. It wasn’t that he hadn’t realized this in his rush of endorphins as the battle started, but it was that he missed the important point that this opponent was far beyond his league.

About as far beyond his league as he was above most of his “opponents” back on Earth.

There was also the problem that he had somewhat forgotten how to fight opponents above his level. Although he had planned the fight to be an epic confrontation, he had simply met Strength with Strength, and expected to come out ahead. Instead, Randidly knew that he should have relied on his mobility and the Phantom’s Embrace, arguably his most powerful combat Skill, in order to gain an advantage.

His time on Earth had made him somewhat lazy. It was time to change that.

When Randidly arrived at the tent of the Sentinel, he was relieved to see that it was sparsely populated. But the flinty look the man was giving him was enough to know that the other was aware of at least a portion of what transpired there.

“My attacks rarely miss. I strike only when I have accounted for all variables… I must admit that I underestimated you. It is a testament to how far the Northern Domains have come that you were able to emerge from that area,” The Sentinel said with his hands neatly folded in front of him. “And yet… I wonder why you chose to use those considerable abilities the way you did? That woman is undoubtedly talented, but… how much is her life worth?”

The Sentinel’s eyes were dark and grey as the two regarded each other. Two Lieutenants stood very still to the sides. Their eyes were very pointedly not on the two figures. There was more tension in the air than Randidly would have liked to admit. He wasn’t sure how this would turn out.

“Enough,” Randidly said simply. And as he did so, he felt Deific Mien of Yggdrasil spreading out from him. “Her life… we are not close, but she has done much to help me. Her life is worth more than enough.”

Those grey eyes bore into Randidly, seeking something. Whatever he found took a long while to find, because the next five minutes were only silence and their gazes. Randidly dare not look away, for fear of confirming something. So he could only maintain the eye contact and grit his teeth.

All of his old fears about human interactions were coming roaring back, but he pushed down those voices and just maintained the gaze. This was like talking and socializing, but a thousand times worse because there was only the two of them and their held breath.