Chapter 479: All He Could
After this experience, Sylas was finally starting to feel that something was off. The difference between the skills with and without his Rune Soul was too drastic.
According to his understanding of the Rune Realm he thought he was in-Rune Breath-he shouldn't be able to do all of this.
He had thought that maybe he was underestimating Rune Breath a bit too much, but the evidence was piling on further and further.
So he chose to ask the Madness Key about the various Rune Realms.
Rune Sight. Rune Visualization. Rune Enlightenment. Rune Breath. Rune Flesh. Rune Soul...
Rune Essence. Rune Vitality. Rune Spark.
These were the nine levels of Rune Mastery. Though, there was something odd about the Madness Key's response that made Sylas feel as though there might be more to this than what met the eye.
Still, after reading their descriptions, Sylas was almost certain he had somehow leapt over Rune Flesh and entered Rune Soul directly.
He could easily manipulate his Rune control with his Will and work with them interchangeably. That sort of soul or mental control was the characteristic of Rune Soul.
By comparison, Rune Essence was another huge leap forward, similar to the gap between Rune Enlightenment, which was just about naturally comprehending the Runes you saw, and Rune Breath, which crossed into a level of Rune manipulation.
Rune Essence was a level where you could practically speak Runes into existence.
If with Rune Sight one became aware of Runes, and with Rune Breath one could communicate with and begin a rudimentary usage of Runes, then with Rune Essence one could think of a Rune and have a subconscious understanding of how you might go about creating it even if you had never seen or studied such a Rune before.
It was an intimacy of the highest levels.
'I see...'
There was something about understanding his true level that seemed to make his Rune Soul settle down... as though its foundation had deepened or it had taken a small half-step forward.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Sylas basked in the feeling for a moment before he pressed on.
'It's possible to use <Cryobane Elevation> and any one of the other two skills at the same time, but it isn't possible to use the latter two at once... for now, this will have to be enough.'
The Skills would be worthwhile to have in different application situations. He couldn't see a clear line to connect them all just yet. But the huge plummet in Aether requirements made it more than worth it.
And all of this had only taken him half a day. That still left him with about two and a quarter days to work with.
'Let's see about this egg...'
...
Sylas sat in silence, his Aether slowly circulating as <Maddened Enlightenment> worked to replenish him.
An egg that was almost half the size of his body at about three quarters of a meter tall.
There were no special patterns on it at all.
In fact, it looked like a super-sized chicken egg.
The surface was smooth, it was a nice off-white color, and its shell was especially thick.
Sylas could tell that so long as he kept it in a sun-rich, warm incubator, it would hatch in about another three months or so.
The egg itself, oddly enough, would grow more, reaching about double this already obscene size.
'This should be related to its bone abilities... this egg is like an extension of its body rather than a true egg. But that's a problem...'
If things continued like this, the beast would have to crack apart its own skeletal system in order to hatch, and the odds that it would survive such a thing were minimal.
A baby couldn't withstand such torture.
That said... Sylas had his Hibernation Realm. Even if the process was hundreds of times more lethal, it wouldn't matter.
But whether he could use it or not would depend on whether he could contract this egg. 'Let's see the situation.'
Sylas pressed down with his Will and activated Extricate.
The body of the beast, or rather the embryo, was incredibly loose and easy to probe. The layers it took so much effort for Sylas to see through in Nosphaleen's body became like thin paper planes.
However, although they were easier to see, there was another challenge that was presented. They were amorphous, difficult to understand and track. Luckily, Sylas had the Insight Talent.
Another Beast Master wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of this soup of Genes. But Sylas only had to ask himself one thing: would this make the little creature more Serpentes or not?
Sylas didn't hesitate to start Extricating everything he felt wasn't Serpentes.
There were things that began to manifest that even made him dizzy. The complexities of the bodies of living beings left him in a state of wonder.
However, he didn't lose focus.
When he sensed something that synergized with the Genes remaining, he left it. When he found something that clashed with it, he suppressed it.
Sylas wasn't ashamed to say that he was flying completely blind. It was like he was untangling a den of wires by randomly pulling at any somewhat loose wire he came across.
He was completely relying on his Legendary Profession, and there wasn't the slightest bit of Skill involved.
For the first time, he began to feel some fatigue while using Extricate. All around him, Runes more complex than any he had ever seen before floated around him, slowly disappearing one by one with the ticking time.
Sylas had long since reached a state where he could contract this egg as it was more than Serpentes enough by now. But he wasn't satisfied with this alone.
Once he put the egg into the Hibernation Realm, it would only be about 16 hours or so before
it hatched. Meaning, he would lose the opportunity while it was so malleable.
He had to push this to the limits until its current body was as close to the legend of the Spinecoil Serpent as possible.
An hour later, Sylas exhaled a breath, his body covered in sweat.
He had done all he could.
Chapter 480 Press the Issue
Sylas placed the egg into the libernation Realm. Now all he had to do was wait. It should be about 16 to 17 hours before it hatched. Although it would still be an infant when that time came, Sylas wasn't worried about this.
Even if the stats of the beast were poor, all that really mattered was its ability. He didn't plan on making it a world beater immediately. In fact, he preferred it to be weaker for now.
From his estimations, if he were to fuse with the Arctic Emperor Cobra, for example, he would last maybe a few seconds at best. And that was only thanks to the fact he had the Dual Class Constitution and was in a great State of Wealth.
The gap between his stats and the Arctic Emperor Cobra's was too far apart.
By comparison, he would much rather have a weaker beast he could fuse with that also happened to come with a useful set of abilities. But he wouldn't know whether the gamble truly paid off until about an hour from now.
'Now it's time to press the issue!
Sylas introduced the Flags to the System City army, and the tide immediately began to turn. Before, they were about equal in how they gathered up Hero Points, but now it had become a complete lopsided affair.
Standing at a high point, Sylas watched all of this in silence with a large red flag pierced into the ground behind him. His mind was swirling with all sorts of thoughts. Namely...
How had the Celestial Republic army kept up all this time?
'It should come down to two things: organization, and most importantly, a numbers advantage.
No matter how powerful the System City, they only have 10,000 men in their army.
By comparison, the Celestial Republic, even with the over 90% reduction to the population, has a far larger well to pull from.
The Generals of the System City were Level 36, and there were ten of them.
The Colonels and Captains weren't too bad either.
All of them were above the best Earth had to offer right now.
Sylas had to take this into consideration to flip the tide.
But there were also things that worked in his favor.
For one, the radius of the Quicktime Event was limited, so even if they had a numbers advantage, there was only so much they could benefit from it.
And two, they couldn't just randomly add to their numbers either. General Song was the leader, so the system had already recognized who was under his command and who was not.
Only by officially signing someone into his army could that occur, and that would require going through all the bureaucratic work for military transfers and the like.
With technology having been suppressed by Aether, it was next to impossible to get a large enough influx of new blood in a short time.
Even if technology had still worked, anyone who knew how slowly things moved in the government and military would also know that it was a pipe dream to get such transfers done in just ten days.
Let alone the fact Sylas didn't plan to give them so much time.
'It's going well. Let's press the issue a bit more!
A surge of telekinesis picked the flag up from behind him as he hopped down. He could feel that he couldn't split his mind any more ways because of the pressure of the flag, but he didn't need to.
This time, he would use his fists and work out the kinks in his new movement skills.
A frosty energy enveloped him as he fell from the skies, and suddenly he felt like he barely weighed a hundred pounds...
If not for the fact the flag was using up so much of his Wisdom, he just might be able to split his telekinesis another way and soar through the air.
His gaze flashed.
This really was the right decision.
'Oh... I sense her...'
W*n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
General Song sat in his military tent, his brows furrowed. The situation had suddenly changed a few hours ago, and the gap was only growing wider and wider now.
Something had changed, but he couldn't see what it was.
Sylas hadn't wanted General Song and the others to realize what was going on.
So the System City army that was on the Celestial Republic side of the portal weren't wielding flags at all; they were just in normal defensive positions and continued to kill at the same speed.
It was the parts of the army outside of Orciulius City that were using the flags in full force. After all, not just beasts from the Celestial Republic wanted to get close to the portal, but beasts from the Evergreen Territory wanted to as well.
Darla could see that the situation wasn't good. After much hesitation, she chose to speak. "General, this sudden Quicktime Event isn't absolutely necessary to win. There's no need to put yourself at risk unnecessarily."
General Song didn't reply. Darla knew him well and what he was thinking. He could scheme, but that wasn't what he liked to do most.
The fact that the System City hadn't been at this sort of advantage from the beginning told him that it was likely a temporary measure.
If he could find its weakness and press it, it would likely crumble.
The problem was that there was a reason he hadn't told his men to try and enter the portal.
That would be suicide.
There was a chance that the system would level the playing field. After all, if they could just use their formations, this battle would already be over. But it would be a gamble... a gamble Darla didn't want him to take for good reason.
Too little was known about System Cities, and they must have elected a new City Lord if they were accumulating points again.
Just as General Song was mulling over what to do with this sudden change, a certain innocent-looking young man entered the tent.
Grin.
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