222 Complete
Sylas exhaled a breath, and all at once, the surge of pain hit him in a wave. He swayed, and his body almost collapsed, but he bit his tongue hard.
He pulled the ballista back into his Madness Key and rushed forward, storing Azrael's corpse away.
He didn't have the time to waste here because he knew that the pig demons were almost certainly on their way to this location as well.
Slinking away into the darkness, his gaze flashed with a green light. It wasn't yet time to return to safety and lick his wounds. The moment he felt that he had a decent enough recovery, he had to go back and attack the village as quickly as possible. He gave himself three hours at most.
If others could read his thoughts, they would without a doubt think that Sylas had completely lost his mind, but there was a very good reason he was making this decision. And greed wasn't anywhere near the top of the list.
During their battle, that man had spoken a language he had simply never heard before. On a unified Earth, that was impossible. Everyone spoke a single language.
There were only two potential explanations for this.
The first was that this man was part of a secret society that purposely chose to speak a different language for the purpose of differentiating themselves and drawing a line with the rest of Earth.
The second was that this man wasn't from Earth at all.
The first possibility was so unlikely that Sylas didn't even give it a 20% chance. But he knew that there was a System City near here, and he knew that there were hidden dangers lurking within them.
Was it possible for those aliens to make their way into the Aether Plane already? Weren't they restricted by the system? These were all things that Sylas didn't know the answers to.
But what he did know was that that village was the most powerful he had ever seen, and not far away was the location of Lucius' city.
Anything those aliens were planning to do with the pig demons would directly impact him in the future. And they were also an unwanted variable considering the fact there was likewise another portal near here, and one that wouldn't be closing anytime soon.
There would almost certainly be a battle between Lucius and the force on the other side of his portal. In that case, he had no choice but to eliminate a variable.
If the System City was truly involved in this, something was telling him that it knew all of this.
In that case…
...
Sylas escaped the range of the city, finding a sturdy and tall tree to perch himself in. Only then did he truly begin to gasp for breath.
This had been too close.
He thought that he had been cautious enough, but clearly not. Just when he had been planning to escape, something like this happened.
However, there would only be more dangerous situations like this in the future. Even if he minimized them, it was impossible for him to eliminate them. In that case, he would just have to follow the Madness Key's advice…
How could he help Earth survive this Summoning?
Be Strong.
He turned his attention away from the notifications flashing on the edge of his thoughts. Instead, the first thing he did was check Azrael's belongings.
What he was hoping for was something that could help him to heal his injuries quickly. And after a few seconds, he wasn't disappointed. In fact, he found three of them.
[Healing Elixir (F+) (Consumable)] [A sweet nectar pulled from Heavenly Dew. Drink this and heal yourself. For every 20 points of Constitution, boost healing capacity by +100%. Effects last a single day]
Sylas had seen a Simple Healing Elixir before, but this one had thrown away the "Simple" title. It had the same F+ Grade as the one he had seen before, but the healing capacity was several times more potent.
He had 140 Constitution right now, meaning just one of these Elixirs would give him a +700% boost to healing speed. Meaning, an injury that would normally take two months to heal would take just a single week after taking this Elixir.
Normally, healing broken ribs would take at least six weeks. The lacerations to his skin and flesh would take less than that.
However, it also had to be noted that this was just for normal humans with a Constitution of less than 10.
Sylas already had an elevated healing factor because his Constitution was 14 times that of even the best humans before the Summoning. It would take him less than a week to heal from his current injuries normally.
That ultimately meant that with this Healing Elixir, it should only take him less than a day at most to be back to 100%. Though… he was only giving himself three hours.
As far as Sylas was concerned, this was enough. He didn't need to be at 100%. What he most wanted was for his soft tissue to recover. So long as his muscles could push at their normal level, he was confident in clearing out the rest of the village. As for pain… he could ignore that.
Sylas chugged one of the three Healing Elixirs and then put the rest away. Once he was finished, instead of looking through the rest of Azrael's belongings, he instead checked the notifications that he had been forcing himself to ignore.
To his surprise…
[Quest "The Flow of Battle (Silver)" Completed] [Clearance Level: Silver] [Rewards] [>Fusion Crystal]
Sylas was surprised for a very good reason. Using an external item like the ballista wasn't something that he had thought would count. It felt a bit cheap. Maybe there was a threshold of some sort to meet, but it seemed that tricking experts to their death counted as well…
However, now he was curious. What was a Fusion Crystal?