Chapter 263 Control
When the Arctic Emperor Cobra's son had used this Skill, it couldn't move. It had been forced to stay in place as it shrieked and hissed at Sylas, so Sylas had assumed that it was a final ditch effort, one that the cobra had only activated because it had no other choice in the matter. It also explained why it hadn't just used this method earlier.
But by the same token, it seemed that this was why the Arctic Emperor Cobra dared to use this Domain Skill so early. It was because it wasn't restrained by the same weaknesses as its offspring.
While Sylas and the Basilisk King had been running for their lives, it just calmly closed the distance on them, and when they thought they were close to escaping, they ended up being further away.
Sylas' heart hit rock bottom.
Death.
It seemed as bright as bloody roses and yet carried the punch of sulfur. It loomed in his heart and consumed his soul.
He had experienced this feeling more in the last few weeks of being in this world than he cared to admit. Again and again, it threw him into situations like this one.
Was he going to die?
Sylas huffed out an icy breath. Icicles formed around his nose and his sweat became beads of crystalline ice. It coated his hair and threatened to seal his eyes. Everything felt out of reach and even life felt so very far away.
But Sylas just took in another cold breath and exhaled again.
He could see that light coming toward him as though a train speeding down its tracks. There was no avoiding it.
And yet, a cooling sensation filled his mind before a blazing intent pumped through his heart.
He suddenly reached out and touched the Basilisk King.
Fusion.
Even with all of his buffs, it would take a little less than two seconds to finish fusing with the Basilisk King. Not only could he die several times over in that time, by the end of it all, he wouldn't even have a second left of life in him.
A notification came in soon after.
He was too injured to complete the fusion.
Sylas nodded slowly as though he was accepting something.
It made sense. By normal metric, he was three seconds away from dying. His body was already in such bad shape that he could barely muster the strength to move. If not for the fact he had the buff of the shield still intact, he would have collapsed already, but even that was about to fade because he had abandoned it.
There was no way out.
Or so it seemed.
'I really hate this feeling…' Sylas thought. He had had this thought too many times in this world. However, it didn't slow his movement.
His Will moved and he pulled on the Gluttony Seed.
He unleashed a roar, and suddenly a pulse of violent telekinesis rushed out of him toward all directions.
The air rippled and clashed.
With a boom, the influence of the Domain shattered around him, the blue Runes that made it up being chased away.
As quickly as they shattered, the Arctic Emperor Cobra's expression turned malevolent, pouring more Aether into the technique to replace them. The Ice-Poison Runes began to rise across the ground toward Sylas and the Basilisk King again, but at that moment, Sylas was stamping the air with forged Runes again and again.
As he did, he pulled out two Healing Elixirs and chugged them. At the same time, he not only expelled all the Ice-Poison from his body with the same pulse of Will, but he pressed <Maddened Enlightenment> into an all-out sprint.
His body felt like it reached its limit in an instant, but he was already facing a life and death situation. If he didn't go all out now regardless of the consequences, there would be no going back.
He touched the Basilisk King and pulled it into the Hibernation Realm.
'10 seconds. That's it.'
At that moment, a net of Runes had appeared around Sylas. Every time the blue Runes crashed into them, they shattered apart. However, they still managed to delay the coming Domain.
Sylas took a step forward and his fluttering Runes moved with him. They were crude, but he had studied the Ice-Poison Runes so much in the last day that he knew exactly how to counter them.
All he did was replicate the Runes used on the Ice-Poison sacks of the Arctic King Cobras, and just like that, they were contained.
Unfortunately, his Aether was far weaker than the Arctic Emperor Cobra's. And every time he stamped down a Rune, not only did he use up at least 5% of his Aether stores, but he also used up a lot of mental stamina.
<Maddened Enlightenment> was able to counter this somewhat, but it was ultimately only a Common Mastery FF+ Skill that he could use to Bronze Mastery only because of his Comprehension.
But it was the moment he had this thought that a switch flipped again. As though acknowledging his calmness in the face of death, <Maddened Enlightenment> and <Madness Control> took another step forward.
—
[Your understanding of <Maddened Enlightenment> has deepened] [<Maddened Enlightenment> has reached Bronze Mastery]
—
[Your understanding of <Maddened Enlightenment> has been temporarily raised by Madness Comprehension] [<Maddened Enlightenment> has temporarily reached Silver Mastery] —
[Your understanding of <Madness Control> has deepened] [<Madness Control> has reached Gold Mastery]
—
[Your understanding of <Madness Control> has been temporarily raised by Madness Comprehension] [<Madness Control> has temporarily reached Legendary Mastery]
—
Sylas felt himself lighten and his body was pulled into his perfect control the instant he hit Gold Mastery in <Madness Control>. But then, when he felt the influence of Madness, it was like his body had begun to supersede its limits.
What he hadn't realized before was that there was a synergy between <Madness Control> and forging Runes. The moment they worked in tandem, the very same Runes that had taken up 5% of his Aether to forge only took up less than a single percent now.
Everything seemed to happen in a single breath of time, and the moment Sylas' hair began to whip around in the air, dancing with the blazing green of his Will, he had already been surrounded by the elite cobras.