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.

Eventually, he found the destroyed camp that Helen had probably kicked down a few days ago. Most of the people were pale-faced and sweating as they endured a portion of the agony of the man Randidly was attacking right now. It seemed he had a much-diluted form of what Randidly shared with Neveah, which allowed him to shift pain and damage to others.

Still, it’s not like this will stop me. Randidly produced the Philosopher’s Key and slid it into the air. As he turned the key, he ‘locked’ the karma around the former pro-basketball player and cut off all of his connections.

Immediately, the man’s laughter stopped and he began to shriek. All the brave words vanished. Panic contorted his face into a vicious grimace as he Health practically evaporated beneath Randidly’s powerful Skill. James Kelly continued shrieking until the moment he died, his voice full of pain and confusion over what happened. Randidly looked down at the corpse in front of him as the gentle smile faded from his face. I suppose this is… justice…

He suddenly felt quite tired. Randidly turned to the completely unaffected Helen. “Alright, let’s head back to Kharon.”

But Helen cracked her knuckles and grinned as wisps of smoke curled upward from the man’s corpse. “Why hurry? My instincts are screaming at me how dangerous you are… what about a spar for old time's sake? Who knows, I might have narrowed the gap between us.”

Randidly couldn’t help but smile despite the off-putting stench of roasted human flesh. He supposed he should have expected something like this from Helen. The woman craved exciting conflicts even more than he did. And while Randidly had been forced to endure the grueling hell of the frontlines, Helen had been wandering around Earth, fighting against foes who wished they would someday catch up to her. She had no real peers on Earth right now.

With a flourish, Helen produced two training spears and tossed one over to Randidly. Immediately afterward, ripples of blood spread outward from Helen to taint the air surrounding him completely.

Yet Randidly simply spun his spear and smiled toward Helen as she started to frown. “Having some difficulties with your Tides of Blood?”

“What the hell happened to you?” Helen spat out. But the bloody discoloration in the surrounding air became increasingly thick as she refused to back down. It seemed that she hadn’t been joking about her image; it had gotten much stronger since Randidly had seen her last. “Your body resists… but if you think I’m not still gonna try to rip you to pieces, you are a fool.”

Helen planted her foot into the ground and rushed forward to Randidly so quickly that she left afterimages in her wake. But as her Tides of Blood Skill continued to tug at Randidly, it continued to find very little purchase.

In a way that Randidly hadn’t really understood until he came to Earth, having Nether worked into the fabric of his body made him naturally resistant to other people’s images. On the frontlines, everyone’s image was basically strong enough that it didn’t make much difference. But on Earth, that natural resistance became a gulf that was impossible for most people to cross.

That gulf was wider than the extent of their images already.

Helen’s spear flexed and bowed as she abruptly swiped it up toward Randidly’s neck. Without relying on his images, Randidly took a sharp step back and brought his own training spear up in a thrust toward Helen’s midsection.

She spun sideways and the image of the Hellfin Tuna loomed over Randidly, biting down toward him. Randidly didn’t even flinch, simply setting his feet and relying on the powerful physicality he had gained after becoming a Nether Gatekeeper tier of energy density to resist the strike. The imaginary jaws closed around Randidly but his thrust shattered the image… and revealed the determined stare of Helen.

She came at him with a thrust and then twisted her spear and brought it around in a sweep when he pushed the thrust to the side. She brought the butt of her spear around in a smashing attack but Randidly sidestepped to create some space. More and more blood-red waves spread outward to fill the surrounding area, making them seem to be suspended in a cloud of blood.

Helen pirouetted on her toe and the tip of her training spear jabbed forward. Weaving his torso to the side, Randidly avoided the strike only to find that she came with fully six other sharp thrusts. Step by step he retreated, waiting for his chance.

Randidly retaliated with a sharp jab or two as he moved, but Helen leaned her head to the side to avoid them and continued to charge forward. Spinning his spear, Randidly finally lowered his stance and planted his feet; he would not be moved from this spot. Helen saw his determination and grinned manically.

She unleashed a flurry of vicious thrusts and Randidly focused and parried every one of them. The rapid tak-tak-tak as their two wooden training spears crossed became the cadence of their fight.

Tak-tak-tak-tak!

“Can you go faster?” Helen’s grin widened. Randidly’s eyes narrowed.

Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak!

Eventually, Helen slowed down her onslaught and took several steps backward. The crimson color of the surrounding air became increasingly dark. Helen’s image billowed outward and the Tides of Blood was filled with ominous shadows as they neared a depth where true monsters lived.

“This… yes this is why I followed you…” Helen’s eyes were entirely crimson now, seemingly wet with tears of blood that she somehow prevented from rolling down her cheeks. “Don’t disappoint me now.”

She threw herself forward, her limbs empowered with the image rather than using it to weaken Randidly directly as she had fruitlessly attempted in the past. She was like a tornado of cuts and spear thrusts and she rushed forward, emanating a terrible aura of danger that even Randidly could free through the dampening influence of Nether.

And this is why I left Kharon and the Order Ducis in your care. More and more Nether billowed outward from Randidly as the weight of the moment grew and grew. The surrounding currents of crimson energy curdled and bubbled, but persistently resisted the corrosion. Randidly’s smile widened. I suppose what I owe you for that effort is to show you the next tier of strength you should be aiming for.