Chapter 901 (1/2)

A Fate.

What was it? Why did the System intervene then and only then? Directly into the lives of its users? It gave Classes, but that was a choice. And as far as the System was concerned, it didn’t care whether you took a Class or not. Because as the System slowly upped its game, those without Classes would die.

That was just how the System worked.

It didn’t interfere in your Skills, your Paths, or your Soulskills. But at Level Fifty, based upon your actions and your Class, the System gave you a Fate. Capital F. You were forced to capitulate and then a decree was handed down to you. Generally.

When Randidly was involved, there were always exceptions.

Yet even at Level One Hundred, from what Randidly understood of what happened to Shal, you could choose your own Great Fate that would be used to overcome the Second Calamity. The System did not force the issue. It allowed you, once more, to fulfill its criteria or die. But it would not directly kill you. The circumstances around would just slowly grind you to mush and remorse.

So this strange uniqueness of Fates didn’t make sense to Randidly. His main experience with Fates came from assisting Alana in breaking through to Level Fifty. She had rejected the System, and for that, it had attempted to crush her. Randidly had seized that energy and flooded her Class with it, giving her a Fate in the form of the helmet that she now always wore in battle.

According to her, it gave her a slight boost in Level up gains. In addition, it could Level up, which in turn would further increase the Level up gains. At the time, Randidly had been curious, but not curious enough to really grill her on the details of it. In addition, at the time, he didn’t have the ability he did now to examine the structures of Aether.

When he had seen Alana in Donnyton, it was too late to ask about it.

And now, with this cruel and twisted Fate consuming Drake’s senses, it was too late to ask.

I wonder which came first, the Fate or the stat boost… Randidly thought idly. But then he shook his head. Time enough to find answers later. After he beat this wild dog back into submission. You’ll have to thank me later, Sydney.

Once more, the bastard sword sliced sideways to bisect Randidly. The air hummed in rumbled. But Randidly hopped lightly back and continued to evaluate Drake without any aggressive moves. To Randidly’s surprise, this time Drake followed up the dodge with a nasty riposte that clipped his shoulder.

Hissing softly, Randidly lowered his stance. Then he used Wild Phantom’s Embrace and followed the momentum of the next strike to dance around to Drake’s back and slash with Acri’s long and sharp tip.

It was a near thing, too. Randidly wasn’t sure at first, but now he was positive; Drake’s strikes were getting faster. But Randidly managed to ride the extremely sharp edge of Drake’s slash and return that force back at him. The blow struck deeply into Drake’s back but stopped dead as it ran into the bones of Drake’s ribs.

You had high Endurance didn’t you, Drake? Randidly thought with a smirk, even as another of Drake’s blows sent him spinning away to strike at another weak point.

Again, Drake stoically endured the blow and struck back at Randidly, this time aiming for his waist. His sword seemed to hum, the swift passage through the air making a piece of strange music.

As he dodged, Randidly eyes narrowed in expectation. And just as Randidly had been predicting, Hank blurred into motion, raising his hand even as a bone dagger appeared there and thrust it toward the spot where Randidly was about to dodge.

If you want to learn from fighting, you are nowhere near as horrifying as Azriel. Wiggling around the blow, Randidly raised his metallic left arm and pressed his fingers together. Raucous Phantom’s Finale.

Randidly fist smashed into Drake’s face with a satisfying crunch. He could clearly feel Drake’s nose give way beneath the unrelenting metal of his fist. But Drake only took a single step back and Randidly became abruptly aware of a wall of bone growing from the ground to surround him.

Oh?

Huge thorn whips as thick as a thigh smashed the bone prison to pieces even as Randidly backed away to open up some distance. Drake’s strange bloody visage continued to remain fixed upon him. Perhaps what Roy said was partially true. Without his senses, Drake only had the focus to lock onto one speck of life and then would do his best to eliminate it. But Randidly would need a little bit more proof before putting any stock in what Roy had to say.

Randidly glanced sideways at the boar. The maroon arm was flailing about, but the boar had used its bone spurs to wrap up the arm and keep it from striking it, urging it into battle. Instead, the boar just stared intently at Randidly. It was waiting for something, some answer.

This strange creature… was Drake’s elemental then? It was the first of two unpredictable elements that Randidly was afraid would make this fight more difficult. At the very least, it seemed like this Elemental was on his side.

On the other hand… Randidly grimaced at Drake. The second unpredictable element is becoming troublesome… There was a thick aura of blood that filled the air around Drake. It wasn’t present at the beginning, likely because of Roy’s suppression of his ability to sense another. But now that Drake was focusing his will for violence upon Randidly, it was starting to show real fangs.

It was an image for sure, and a dangerous one even at this amorphous stage. There were similarities in it that brought Silo to mind. But while Silo possessed the chaotic violence of battle and glory, Drake’s was a quieter sort of pain. It was resentment and aging rust-colored blood and self-pity. There was something deeply wrong and dangerously flawed inside of Drake. And perhaps that was exactly why Randidly was wary of the image that animated him.

“Drake, can you hear me?” Randidly said slowly. Not that he couldn’t see the maroon crystal covering the man’s ears, but it wasn’t a mistake to take to test the veracity of Roy’s words. And Skills could compensate for almost anything. But Drake’s focused intensity didn’t waver at all.

Randidly tried to recall his time spent with Drake and produce something that he could say that would give the other man pause if he could hear the words. But before he could land on an answer, that horrible rust colored violence exploded in a wave.

The ground in front of Randidly rippled and then dozens of bone spikes shot upwards to impale his feet. It was such a novel sight that Randidly froze for a split second before laughed aloud. With Grasp of the World Seed to feel every bit of bone that slid up through the plant matter in the ground, it was easy to avoid the bones trying to stab him. “Drake, this is a bad idea. Even if your Intelligence and Control is tripled… well, let me just show you.”