Chapter 832 (1/2)

It wasn’t about the pain, Randidly realized as he hopped back to avoid a rippling wave of heat that Aegiant released as a quick follow up attack. What really pierced through his ability to shrug off and into Randidly’s core was how lightly he was treating this whole experience on Tellus.

Aether constructs surrounded his body, trying to make sense of how to reconstruct his arm.

Yes, this wasn’t Earth. But that shouldn’t have been any sort of reason to let down his guard. These fighters were much stronger than anything Randidly was likely to face on Earth. As such, he should have been so much more cautious than he had been. Likely, his time in the under Level 25 Tournament dulled his sense of danger.

Randidly landed, his arm throbbing with a tragic ache. Aether flowed through him in icy-hot wisps, spiraling around the wound as it began to feed the regrowth of the arm. It seemed that the System had a strange layer of Aether that covered every inch of the body. Once there was a defect, as there was now, those pieces of Aether that were still attached to the prior flesh were drawn back to Randidly, probably to form a template.

Of course, his arm had just been annihilated. So the Aether that had formed him was drifting about in broken wisps to settle on the surrounding ground. If he had a single second to focus and draw those Aether constructs back to himself-

Which, Randidly reflected, was extremely unlikely. He spared a single glance to look down at the cauterized wound with a grimace.

Obviously, he couldn’t afford to spare too much time to examine the process; as long as Aegiant pursued him, he would need to rely on the System’s natural healing process. For all that it might take far too long.

“And now you die, boy,” Aegiant roared as he rushed forward with a raised spear.

As he often did in those long empty stretches between two high-stress moments, Randidly closed his eyes. Inside himself, he could clearly feel the raging flow of Aether and meaning that connected him to Alana. In truth, he had relied on and supported that very connection most of them all. Alana didn’t retreat. She didn’t allow nonsense. She identified her foes and took them down.

But to be fair, sometimes you faced foes that were beyond you in strength. At that time, you couldn’t stubbornly continue to try the same methods. After a moment of hesitation, Randidly reached out and touched that river of meaning.

There was a moment where Randidly was literally jolted by the sudden intimacy to Alana; at this very moment, she was struggling with a similar decision. On Earth.

Across worlds and situations, they both looked down at a losing hand and considered their next move. In the brief moment of insight, Randidly couldn’t sense much of the detail of what was happening. But he could sense how worried Alana was.

There is no shame in being the weaker party, Randidly thought as their two minds touched. He felt her attention fasten on his own. There is only foolishness if you continue to insist you are not.

There was a brief flash of confusion from Alana, and then a wall of resolve that instantly firmed in her chest; she had made her decision.

Just as quickly as it had happened, the connection was broken and Randidly’s eyes flashed open. Aegiant howled with glee, riding on the heat of a burning star. Randidly breathed in slowly.

He held that breath with burning emerald eyes.

Breath of the Spear Phantom.

As the attack crashed down, Randidly activated Wild Phantom’s Embrace and allowed the domineering blow to throw him across the plaza. Unfortunately, the momentum was so much that Randidly couldn’t control it; he crashed into a lava fountain. The molten rock exploded out in a wave. Most of it landed on Sulfur, but some hit Randidly’s exposed skin. Especially his bare feet.

It burned like a fucking bitch. Wincing, Randidly straightened. It certainly hurt, but not as much as the throbbing of his missing limb-

Randidly gritted his teeth as his lungs were battered by Aegiant struggling to breathe. To Randidly’s surprise, Aegiant stopped dead when he failed, glaring at the ground in confusion across the plaza. Underneath Aegiant’s feet, the ground warped and began to melt under the barrage of heat. Then, as if suddenly remembering who Randidly had learned to use the spear from, Aegiant’s eyes cut upward to Randidly’s.

Aegiant opened his mouth to speak, but Randidly simply endured the internal struggle.

Which left Aegiant simply staring at Randidly, his image flagging as his confusion prevented him from focusing on it.

Shocking, isn’t it? Randidly thought grimly. I cannot compete with you in terms of Skill Levels or how refined my image is… but I’m damn close to closing the stats gap, aren’t I?

This was how you broke a stronger enemy. You isolated them, endured them, outlasted them. You struck how they least expected it.

Emerald flame began to dance up and down Randidly’s body. Soon, he became an incarnation of flame that produced enough heat that the spurting lava around him continued to be liquid. Aegiant gnashed his teeth in rage and broke the ground underneath him with a pulse of power.