Chapter 1249 (1/2)

The next day saw Randidly once more refining his images and pouring over reports that Tatiana provided while he leaned back in his new leather chair. As the Grim Chimera capered about Randidly’s small office, his eyes went word by word, looking for patterns in the events of the last several months. Patterns that could have been orchestrated by Ileot Swacc or the Creature to endanger Earth.

At the very least, he had finally found something sinister in the seemingly endless pile of reports: the Hero Initiative. Currently, there was a request from the World Council sitting on his desk that the Order Ducis endorse the Hero Initiative as a positive influence on the world. The idea was to create a general tax that would funnel money to individuals at higher Levels who registered.

The benefits were obvious: it would create a list of powerful people who would have an obligation to help in various emergency situations due to the money they had been collecting. All the stipend required was periodic assistance to the Orders and that an individual register their Level, Class, and Skill Levels with the Hero Initiative.

But the drawbacks were similarly obvious. Rather than being a System evil, it seemed much more like an old-Earth big-business evil dedicated to locating and monitoring the more powerful people on the planet. This was data gathering at its most blatant.

Which basically means it’s not what I’m looking for, Randidly crumpled up the report and threw it across the room toward the trashcan that he had set up against the wall. The paper ball flew in a perfect and fell soundlessly into the trashcan, eliciting another sigh from Randidly. These sorts of feats became a lot less satisfying after the System made those shots so easy to make…

Luckily, Randidly was distracted from his post-System blues by the approach of a familiar image on the horizon; Helen was returning to Kharon.

Randidly quickly left the city and crossed the arid highlands Kharon now traversed rather quickly. He found Helen trooping dutifully forward, with a rope in her hand and dragging the bound form of an extremely tall and muscular man behind her. Her hair was done up in a braid and her mouth was set in the sort of line that could only mean that she was not in a good mood.

As he approached, Randidly quickly realized why her mood was so poor. The man being dragged behind Helen was constantly talking, even as his face and mouth were so swollen that it was probably extremely painful to move his jaw. “Gorgeous, you let me out of here and I will make you a queen! The whole Chosen thing was just a way to pass the time; now that I have a whole world to dominate-”

Randidly cut the man off by binding his limbs even more tightly to his sides and gagging him with Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil. Surprised spittle oozed around the gnarled root as it forced its way into the man’s mouth and made itself at home there. Randidly looked at Helen with a sympathetic expression while the captive struggled. “Must have been hard on you. It seems like this one’s annoying.”

Helen fell briefly to one knee as a show of respect and then stood to walk forward and hug Randidly. Her fingers were very strong as she squeezed his shoulders. “It’s good to see you. Yes… it is rare that a man has enough strength of will not to break. I tried beating him to get him to shut up, but it was a waste of time; he transfers the pain to his followers. This sadistic fuck was the one leading the remnants of the Chosen.”

Nodding, Randidly turned around and took the chance to examine the man more closely. After the man noticed his gaze, the man winked up at Randidly without even trying to hide his attempts to bite his way through the root. Randidly raised his eyebrows. “And you left him alive? Are you going soft?”

Helen sighed. “The idea was to bring him back to make sure he’s not a stand-in; the worst of the Chosen has been surprisingly skilled at hiding himself despite the vanity he is known for. If this was not the right one, I would interrogate the stand-in to try and find some clues. However... it has since become clear that such methods would be less than effective. He won’t shut up no matter how much I hit him. Was just gonna bring him back to Tatiana and let her take care of it.”

Randidly, who had been monitoring the man very closely with Grim Intuition, noticed the change in his heart rate at the mention of Tatiana’s name. Something very cold awoke in Randidly’s heart as he looked down at this man who was clearly targeting one of his subordinates. An almost gentle smile snaked its way across Randidly’s face. All the while, the man had almost worked his way through the root blocking his speech. With only a single point of Mana, the root began to swell and force the man’s jaw open.

“Interesting, he has a Skill that can manipulate inanimate objects too,” Randidly crouched down next to the man. “But I think this is the one you’ve been looking for, or a really good stand-in that can even fool me. This is James Kelly.”

Helen’s well-manicured eyebrow crept upward. “You know him?”

“He was a famous basketball player back on Earth. Maybe the best player of his generation.” Randidly waved a finger in front of the man’s brown eyes to grab his attention. “I’m gonna take out the gag. Only talk to answer a question, please.”

Yet when Randidly removed Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil, the man smiled and revealed a row of sparkling white teeth. “So you’re a fan?”

“And you are bad at obeying directions,” Randidly’s smile grew even wider.

Despite the fact that he was bound and laying on the ground covered in dust, the man shrugged with a remarkable amount of natural charm. “I can’t live without testing boundaries. It’s how I can tell the real badasses from the bullshitters.”

Sighing, Randidly cut sharply with his palm and severed the man’s pinky finger. “Then let’s get one thing straight. I’m not gonna lie to you. You are Level… 49, yes? You aren’t strong enough to threaten me.”

But James Kelly continued to smile. His eyes grew bright as he looked up at Randidly. In fact, he began to laugh. “Look, kid, you might have captured me, but I don’t think this is going to go how you want it to. I don’t believe your tough guy act. You don’t live to 18 in the Southside of Chicago if you scare easy.”

Randidly thought about just moving on to the threats, but instead, he crouched over the man who made the bubble-city hell and had the gall to plot against his subordinates. Then he smiled. “Don’t sell yourself short; you feel plenty of fear. Why else would you be stuck at Level 49? Let me guess… you weren’t always the strongest of the Chosen, were you? Someone else rose faster and hit Level 50 and things… well they were turned into a monster by it. I bet you’ve been scared shitless ever since.”

“Release these bindings and I’ll show you fear,” James Kelly spat, but Randidly could tell from the man’s heart rate that the sudden outburst of emotion was faked.

This time, Randidly activated Talon of the Restless Immortal. A huge orange and green phoenix claw burst out of the ground and began to squeeze the instigator of the horrible situation in Chicago. Flames licked across the surface of his skin and his flesh began to burn and blister. But Randidly’s eyes tightened when the man only laughed. “Do you think this hurts? This is fun! Living like this… feeling like the world is collapsing… the absolute freedom… ahahaha...ahahahahahaha!”

Randidly tapped his jaw as his flames continued to eat away at the body of the man in front of him. He could feel the man’s twisted image and Skills, diffusing the damage and pain he was taking away from his body as Helen had referenced. Randidly raised his emerald eyes and used his Grim Intuition to follow the lines of those Skills far away.