Chapter 914 (1/2)

As the root avatar twisted out of the way of Helen’s blow, the substance of the roots ripped from the torque applied by the sudden shift in direction. Flecks of plant matter sprayed sideways in an arc as the root avatar struggled to recover.

So rather than hurtling forward into the blow or dodging, it simply fell forward.

Both the root avatar and Helen were surprised by this and paused in their battle. A moment of shared confusion hung between them. But then the root avatar struck upwards in a vicious thrust and Helen slashed sideways with the knife she held in her off-hand. The blow was so quick that the second Randidly’s instincts screamed it was coming it had already cut toward the root avatar’s arms.

Randidly smiled ruefully; with the avatars, there was a split second of lag in movement. It wasn’t a lot but against someone of Helen’s caliber...

The knife knocked the spear to the side and with a deft motion, Helen spun her chain around the tip of the spear. Which allowed her to pull the weapon further down and spear the root avatar through the chest with her vicious harpoon.

After releasing a sigh at the loss, Randidly nodded his head thoughtfully. “That’s enough for now. Thanks, Helen.”

“Anytime,” Helen panted as she wiped some of the sweat from her forehead. Randidly hid a smile as he turned and allowed the waiting root avatars to dissipate. Although Helen was undoubtedly powerful, her Stamina usage couldn’t keep up with Randidly’s hyper-efficient Mana expenditure with the high-Level Grasp of the World Seed. The last eight hours had driven Helen to the edge.

Of course, she would recover to full strength much more quickly than Randidly would. But he could tell from Helen’s shocked expression that she couldn’t figure out how he managed to exhaust her like this while still seeming so at ease.

Truly, his Mana pool was on another level entirely.

Not that this was easy for Randidly either, but he simply had experience hiding mental strain. After all, fighting against Helen meant he had to use images the entire time to keep up with her. But since Randidly just had to focus his Willpower on a single root avatar fighting at the same time, it wasn’t more than Randidly could bear.

After all, basically all of his training projects these days involved forcing his mind to the edge. Slowly, in a way that wasn’t quantifiable by the System, Randidly could feel the limits of his will grow increasingly more vast.

“Are you…” Helen searched for the word she was looking for. “...evolving your Style?”

“Something like that,” Randidly said softly. He reached up with his right hand and enjoyed the feeling of the warm sun dancing across his skin. Today was a beautiful autumn day. Hopefully, tomorrow would be just as clear and bright.

That way the supreme power of a dominant image would be that much more clear to the audience. It would be so sharp and stark that it would darken the sky.

Helen frowned. “It’s a dangerous Style. Flawed too.”

“It’s not a Style I plan on teaching to anyone else,” Randidly said to reassure her. To be fair, Helen was right. The current blend of the two Styles was still not a balanced thing. The physical strain it put on the root avatars was enough that they often broke down after only five minutes of fighting. Which meant that Randidly’s body would need to endure that sort of exertion in order to use it effectively.

Some part of him was looking forward to it. Randidly’s instincts told him that if he forced his way down this Path, he would find a powerful Skillset waiting for him. But it still had to be a considered way forward. The Style needed to go through a few more rounds of refinement before he would be satisfied.

Luckily, he had several groups of capable training partners lined up for tomorrow.

“But still…” Helen said quietly as she wiped away a smudge of blood that had spread outward from a small cut. “It’s frightening.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Randidly answered with a grin.

Helen chuckled. “I fucking feel bad for Donnyton. Are you going to take it easy until the challenge?”

Shaking his head, Randidly said. “No, but working out the moves was only half of it. I need to work on images for a while.”

Nodding, Helen said goodbye and headed back toward Donnyton. Randidly watched her go. It was nice to see that she had become much more agreeable after he stated she could participate in the challenge. Honestly, he should have started training like this much earlier. The gains from the last eight hours were double that of the previous solo training combined.

Mostly, it seemed that because Randidly was controlling both participants in the past, he had allowed some flaws he hadn’t noticed to grow larger and larger without addressing them. Helen had no preconceived biases and attacked those flaws maliciously.

Which put Randidly immediately on the back foot at the beginning of the training, sending his mind scrambling to cope with the barrage of attacks. It was from those emergency instincts that the bare bones of his new Style emerged. And although it was an imbalanced skeleton that he had made, it was at least a complete skeleton. One with the power to compensate for its relative danger.

...so All is Ash was the Skill to combine with Breath of the Spear Phantom, huh…

Randidly grinned at the ground. By merging the two together, it lowered the Mana expenditure immensely, while now costing a small amount of Mana, Stamina, and Health to compensate. And it was exactly the sort of move that could demonstrate its oppressive power against a large group of enemies.

Well, anyways… better take a break before I work on the image.