Chapter 852 (2/2)

Feeling a bit better about being back on Earth, Randidly exited his tent.

*****

Helen ground her teeth in frustration.

“Don’t feel bad,” The towering hulk of a man named Brute rumbled. “There are Illusionists in Donnyton; I have experience against fighters like yourself. Besides, your Skills are damn good.”

I’M NOT AN ILLUSIONIST, Helen wanted to scream for the hundredth time. But she kept her mouth shut and just continued to sit on the ground and brood.

Brute scratched his cheek. He looked at her in a very analytical way, as though trying to parse apart what she was thinking by her dirt covered fingers. “...I suppose you want to try again.”

“If you insist,” Helen hissed, popping up to her feet in a flash. Then she walked over to the aide that was standing with the equipment on the side of the training arena. After all, she had to replace the broken spear that had given out on her in the earlier spar.

Mental note, blocking Dozer is a waste of time, Helen thought venomously. Next time, attempt to maim while your body is being crushed.

The man seemed bemused by her scowl but gave her the spear. Then she turned and faced Brute while striking a stance. He just casually stood there, his huge club resting on his shoulder.

The problem was two-fold. First of all, she felt strangely weak and light. More so than she had let on to Randidly during his annoying check-ins. The discomfort had largely left since then, but she still felt… like something was missing. Her images were a little fuzzy. Some oomph that she had possessed previously had disappeared during the transition.

Which, of course, only made Helen stubbornly force herself to use those images. Which had not worked out well, as of yet. There were definite improvements, but subtlety was largely lost on Brute. It was enough to say that she hadn’t improved enough that her images could overcome him.

Other than that, it was hard to tell when he just smashed his way through everything.

The second problem is that her power was somehow filtered through the Skill that Randidly used to bring her and others into the world inside of himself. She could feel it wrapping around her images like a thin net, limiting how precise they could be. It was getting better, true, likely due to Randidly’s continued activation to allow her to be here.

But not fucking fast enough to wipe the mild expression off of this fucking lug’s face.

Plus, her Skills and images were pretty well maintained… but her stats were absolute shit. Which was why he thought she was an illusionist because her Skills were insubstantial due to a lack of stats to back them up. And every time he fucking brought it up, Helen’s vision went red.

Stamping her foot, Helen launched herself toward Dozer.

Calmly he stepped to the side and brought his huge club smashing downward. Helen spun out of the way and created her Tides of Blood Domain. What she had learned in their prior contest was that this fucker was so strong that a casual strike would shatter it to pieces.

Dozer followed up by twisting with remarkably light steps and sending a Roundhouse Kick toward her chest. Sidestepping, she cut at him with several blisteringly fast thrusts.

Although she inflicted some small wounds across his chest, he obviously had a Skill that toughened his skin. And rather than backing off, he simply body slammed Helen. Hissing her fury at the audacity of the man, she hastily danced out of the way. But that just opened up enough space for him to stamp his foot.

Stamping his fucking foot had enough strength to shatter her Domain. The tides quaked and seethed.

When really pissed Helen off was that she definitely could withstand this type of force before. But because of Randidly and his dumbass teleportation-

“Hey, Dozer!”

Instantly, Dozer hopped backward away from Helen and looked up toward the speaker. It was the archer, looking down at Helen with frightful intensity.

“Yea?”

“Alana’s back. Time to talk with Randidly. Oh, you come too,”

A vein in Helen’s forehead throbbed. Was everyone on this godforsaken planet trying to piss her off…?