But this was already enough With a large group Randidly was able to engage in an extremely efficient bout of training to familiarize himself once more with the totality of the power within his two very different Skillsets
The Spear Phantom was a Style that focused on mobility and counter attacks It excelled at using the opponentÆs strength against them and striking quickly RandidlyÆs individual variation on that prospect involved emphasizing the wild and aggressive tendencies within the Style further losing some of its elusiveness in exchange for power
This Style was born of AemontÆs burning desire to overcome an insurmountable gulf in stats Motivated by a longing for the love of his life Aemont had willed himself into developing an answer It culminated in the Skill that would suppress the breath of everything in the surrounding area and bring victory by slowly starving opponents out
In essence it was a fighting style that concerned itself with controlling distance and timing
Which it could be argued all fighting methods attempted to do But the energy the user expended was directed toward controlling rather than attacking It was a reactionary style that corralled an opponent
The Ashen Spear was very different It was totally focused on power Not Strength not exactly but rather the power of the Skills An overwhelming and vicious strain of power that stemmed from the dominance of ash It embodied destruction and corrosion loss and inevitability
Which perhaps wasnÆt exactly a logical way to group Skills Randidly reflected But the power was clearly there in every Skill especially since the Patron of Ash supercharged his image with its own burdensome chunk of regret and violence Although Randidly had managed to get past the dangerous side effects of that image it didnÆt mean he totally understood the image he had inherited
Likely because of this it was something of an exploration every time Randidly used his Ashen Skills He was still discovering the way they interacted with each other and with the world around him To Randidly his Ashen Kata might have been the first Skillset he had but other forces had conspired to slowly warp it from what he had originally mattered
Although that doesnÆt mean I cannot use it or that I havenÆt benefited from all of the hitchhikers along the way Randidly thought with bared teeth
His root avatars flourished their spears and clashed against each other in tireless blows Human bodies might buckle and dull but these would not Several duos stuck and parted and dodged and danced around the tip of the otherÆs spears in a grand waltz that slowly began to take on a series of rules that Randidly could barely understand
The whole while Randidly sat with his eyes half closed His Mana was flowing cleanly through him to animate all of the avatars At the same time his mind was spinning at its highest speed it could manage to cope with the flood of information from each avatar After examining the brief snapshot of information Randidly sent a response and moved onto the next bundle
Honestly it was easier to train like this with more avatars active at once If he had more time to think when presented with the information Randidly might be overwhelmed from hesitating too long on a single bit of information and allowing more to pile up But now each burst of information came with a sharp bite of necessity Without able to consider the situation Randidly could only react
Slowly time passed Damaged avatars were flooded with Mana and repaired The sun peeked over the edge of the horizon and floated up into the lightening sky Clouds flowed like water driven East by an invisible wind high above All the while a headache slowly bloomed behind RandidlyÆs eyes
Finally he sighed and let go of the root avatars They collapsed into piles of biomass that would eventually reduce themselves to ash but for now they lingered around like fallen corpses
For the first time in several weeks Randidly recalled the image of the fallen Tellus warriors on the banks of the Hallat Their bodies lay on the ground without any real sense of propriety they twisted as they fell and the owners of the body had no more strength to correct the posture They were draped and exposed to the elements
For a while he could only stare Then Randidly pressed his eyes closed and released a breath through his teeth That canÆt happen here I refuse to bury the people of Earth against a foe that we could have prepared for
Despite the growing headache Randidly reached out again with his Mana and possessed the roots on the ground once more They shuddered and then slowly stood They stretched out their plant hands and spears emerged from the ground in pristine condition It was as though those spears had always lived in the Earth and had only been waiting for these brave warriors to take them
Once more they began their tireless dance in complete and utter silence
The trick was combining the actual fighting styles Honestly it was easy for Randidly to imagine the two images being merged into one There were plenty of common points that could be used as stepping stones to make the Phantom a phantom who spread Ash and fear in equal measure toward foes
But that callous power of Ash was extremely different from the cautious and methodical approach that the Spear Phantom utilized How would these two divergent forces merge into a cohesive whole
It was not something that could be understood easily And since he had little time Randidly was attempting to brute force the issue With enough repetitions perhaps a path forward would emerge from the chaos
Randidly kept his eyes closed Time and time again the two styles dueled each other There were times that he attempted to slip a blow from a different style amongst them but almost always that ended in failure Those that didnÆt end in failure were more likely a fluke than any real sort of answer
But this was one way of slowly reaching the goal As the duels mounted up more and more information would accumulate in RandidlyÆs mind Interactions memories coping mechanisms counters stratagems fatal mistakes all those things were tirelessly generated by the root avatars running off of his instincts
There came a point likely close to 10 AM where Randidly realized that his mind was slowly catching up with the duels Even though he had pushed through earlier and was now really feeling exhausted from the constant mental calculations as his familiarity with the moves grew he could more easily respond by instinct
So Randidly upped the number of duels by two Instantly the strain began to press against the edge of what he could handle But Randidly gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue onward
Fighting between the different avatars grew more intense Yet also they became increasingly imbalanced RandidlyÆs usage became haphazard His mind was fuzzy from the constant strain of his attention being split so many ways so sometimes avatars didnÆt react in time at all
There were other avatars that became more central in RandidlyÆs mind Those few became the real fights while the others were just noise
RandidlyÆs consciousness began to drift even as the number of real duels dwindled down to two His root avatars clashed and responded and ignored their wounds to continue fighting
Finally only one duel was left Two avatars faced each other each armed with the accumulated experience from the dayÆs training Ashen Kata and Spear Phantom clashed time and time again the stances and movements in stark contrasts with one another
All the while RandidlyÆs emerald eyes blazed With narrowed eyes he stared at the ground right in front of him
Almost there just a little more
Chapter 910
Ultimately Randidly didnÆt find that answer before lunch Or maybe it was immediately afternoon It was hard to tell And at that time he needed to take a long deserved break
His original plan was to use some time between his spear practice experimenting with some of the Aether constructs that he had learned from the Mantle of a Nemesis but his throbbing head quickly ruled out that possibility No this sort of tiresome practice had made an honest man out of Randidly Ghosthound