Chapter 774 (2/2)

With blazing eyes, Helen charged the final avatar. It raised its spear. An ominous weight seemed to settle on its shoulders. Eyes widening, Helen pulled up short and spun to the side.

That wasn’t Sharpness, that was-

The mental agony exploded outward as the powerful image of Indignation flashed into existence above the avatar. Hissing, Helen righted herself and did her best to focus on the source of a pounding headache. With swimming vision, she lowered her spear and activated Feeding Frenzy. With the bonus from the Domain and this Skill combined, she was simply a blur before she ripped apart the offending avatar.

She spun around with malicious intent to do the same to the other avatars just in time to see one cut apart her Domain. Feeding Frenzy faltered and then failed without the support of the Domain.

“LOWER THIS CAGE!” Helen had screamed herself hoarse at this point, but she couldn't say anything else as the two remaining avatars rushed toward her once more. Behind her, she sensed the third was rapidly regenerating. She could only shriek and focus her red-eyed gaze on the foes in front of her.

Randidly would pay for this, Helen vowed to herself. A fingernail-sized black flame in her heart wiggled gleefully at the thought. Despite the fact that Randidly repeated told her to visualize her rage during their fight, Helen had refused adamantly to do so for several hours. Because acknowledging that Randidly had said that would mean acknowledging that he was purposefully antagonizing her.

Which was doubly infuriating. Not the least because Helen couldn’t for the life of her fathom why Randidly was so focused on making sure she was infuriated rather than prepared for the fucking match she was worrying herself sick over.

So when the black flame appeared, Helen had been doubly pissed. Which of course, only caused it to grow faster. But Helen swore to herself that she would feed every one of these leafy fucks to it, given the chance.

And Randidly too, even if only for a few seconds to teach him a lesson.

*****

Randidly left without speaking lowering his vine cage after announcing the cessation of the day’s training. Partially because he was mentally exhausted from controlling three root avatars at once while splitting his will into three to use images with them, but also because Helen had stopped talking about hour seven of the training session and just started breathing heavily to communicate her feelings. And from the way her breath was flung out of her, she did not feel very generous with her praise toward her new teacher.

Which was fine. Randidly followed his instincts because they hadn’t led him astray thus far. And he knew that resolve was the most important trait an individual could have. It was only due to the resolve that Shal had beat into him that he had managed as well as he did on Earth originally, and it was only because he was called to Tellus and forged that he could clash with the Creature and come out ahead.

It was a short time frame, but Randidly could definitely put Helen through hell for this amount of time and see if that gave her the spark she needed.

Randidly’s expression turned fierce. It would work. It had better fucking work if he got a headache from doing it for less than a day.

Sighing, Randidly walked toward his room. At least in that respect, it would not be a waste of his time. Randidly’s activities during the day had earned him quite a few Levels in different Skills he used. In addition, Visualization continued to improve as it pervaded every aspect of what he was doing.

Still, it was draining on his will in a way that he had never felt before. This, then, was likely the line between Pontiff and Master. Pontiffs could accomplish this feat, but Masters had reached the point where a fraction of their will could become an entity unto itself. Randidly wasn’t sure whether there was some conceptual thing or a Skill that enabled it, but either way, he was far from that threshold.

As Randidly opened the door to his room, he immediately stiffened. The room smelled like blood and-

Someone was snoring.

Randidly walked silently forward until he stood over his bed. It was covered in gore and the twisted semblance of a body which was sleeping with a blissful expression on his face. Recognizing the fool he had sent on ahead of him, Randidly felt abruptly bitter for bringing the man along.

In addition… his sheets were ruined. Randidly shook his head sorrowfully. It wasn’t like he was going to sleep, but it would have still been nice to use an actual bed to rest in after a month in prison.