Chapter 701 (2/2)

The Avatar won that war and named himself with his bloody tool. They would call him the Spearman.

“Stop,” Randidly said, raising his hand. “Is this…?”

“It isn’t named as such, but it seems very likely this is a biography of the Spearman, written by a contemporary,” Trentyon said with glittering eyes. “I’m unsure of what angels and devils meant, but… perhaps it reflects their style of leadership?”

Randidly said nothing, but inwardly his gears were turning. Avatars could be a general term to describe Champions and Nemesai, or even terminology used in the earlier cohorts. It also might be a clue about how to activate the Calamities, because it seemed like they had allowed the world to stall out there somewhere.

It seemed that a great war amongst the Champions and Nemesai occurred, which might have been one cause. There was also the mention of uniting the world…

“Is there more?” Randidly looked up and asked. Excitedly, Trentyon continued to explain the text of On Trust. But very quickly, Randidly was shaking his head. After naming the focus of the treatise as the Spearman, the text quickly devolved into meaningless dribble. Exactly the sort of stuff that would be useless to Randidly’s investigation, and that Trentyon ate up.

But what Randidly had learned was more than enough to give him several leads. And it seemed to indicate something extremely strange: the Spearman was either a Nemesis or a Champion. Perhaps, that was the reason that t problems happened during the final parts of the Second Calamity? Was it impossible for one of them to be the source of the image that would defeat the Second Calamity?

But that didn’t make sense either. The image was victorious against the Wights: but it seemed that at the last minute, the Spearman had severed the image from himself. The images were left to lay fallow, quickly stiffening. Why?

Why?

After talking to Trentyon a little longer about other scrolls that he insisted were relevant, Randidly left the deep portion of the Hall of Stances and walked towards the actual core of the building, the spiraling ramp of images.

But as he approached the entrance, a figure was leaning against the wall, almost as if waiting for him. Helen’s eyes flashed as she looked him up and down. The examination was extremely thorough and lasted almost a full minute. Finally, she shook her head sadly and said. “You aren’t afraid to see me. You also aren’t embarrassed, or angry. Which means you aren’t concerned with the fight. Will you make a bet with me?”

Randidly’s lips twisted. He was somewhat surprised by her words because it implied that she realized something about his plans. So Randidly stayed silent and tilted his head to the side in askance.

After a long breath, Helen said, “I bet I am stronger than you. In the future… in a year… no, probably only six months, you will be past the point where I could fight you. But right now, I can crush you. I will not let you dodge that by surrendering now.”

Randidly grimaced. He had truly been thinking about surrendering in his match against Helen. Truthfully, the reward for the tournament was only to view the images in the inner sanctum. That was likely useful, but it was nothing compared to figuring out how to protect Earth from the Calamity. It was even less important than identifying and address the current Second Calamity that was doing so much damage to Tellus.

At the moment he didn’t have many concrete ways to address those issues, but when Shal arrived, that would change. In addition, Randidly had heard that a procession from the North was arriving in Hastam. Some old faces would be making an appearance, and they would how the power and knowledge to help him. At some point, it seemed like the tournament would only get in the way.

“...so what’s the bet?” Randidly said softly.

“We fight it out in the match until one of us loses. And then the winner concedes.” Helen said. The only light in the hallway was torchlight, and it highlighted her tanned skin in the darkness. Her large brown eyes were fixed on his own emerald gaze. “If you aren’t even strong enough to defeat me, Randidly… do you really think it is your place to set aside this tournament and attempt to tackle bigger things?”

In spite of himself, Randidly chuckled.