Chapter 437: Aetherflow
Lucius' pupils constricted as he froze in place. His head slowly turned to the side, a slight sheen of cold sweat on his back. He had prepared for everything, but he had never thought even a single time that Sylas would be able to attack from so far away without even so much as a bow.
And worse than that...
A ballista, expensive and painstakingly crafted by Archibald, was blasted apart as though a ticking time bomb had just gone off in its internal structure.
Bits and pieces, shards and gears, blew apart in all directions as Sylas slowly lowered his fist. However, what was even more shocking than that was that the top of the wall had a trench torn out through it as though a giant had suddenly come from above and taken a bite.
They all knew exactly how tough that wall was, but now it had been blown to bits from a single strike.
Sylas' black scales slowly faded, his eyes twinkling and his arm throbbing. Even after all the upgrades, his arm had actually still become useless after just a single use of <Psychedelic Punch>, but he knew what the problem was. Though, it wasn't really a "problem" at all.
His Will had grown considerably, and now the Beast Totem he could visualize was even more insane than before.
Not only that, but his Beast Totem actually seemed to grow more powerful after he contracted more Serpentes. There seemed to be some relationship between the two.
But even this was just one aspect.
The next issue was that... Aetherflow was simply too powerful. More powerful than Sylas ever expected. It seemed that the gap between Bronze and Silver was no joke at all.
Before, Basic Aetherflow was capable of scaling with his punching skill-not Skill. Meaning, the better his boxing technique, the stronger Basic Aetherflow was.
When he first got it, his fists were only boosted by a measly 5%. But by the time he got his unfused Boxing Comprehension up to FFF+, his fists had been able to carry a whole 60% boost to his Strength when he was firing out punches with Basic Aetherflow.
Given his previously weak Physical stats, that was huge. And it was only more exaggerated now that his Physical stats had finally begun to truly catch up with the rest of the world... and even better when his fusion with the Basilisk King was added on top of that.
But now...
There was a full 100% boost.
This didn't sound like much, and comparatively speaking, it didn't truly highlight the difference between Bronze and Silver...
And that was true.
But that was also because the surface-level boost to his punching power was just the tip of the iceberg.
Not only did he not get a 100% boost, the cost of his Aether had plummeted off a cliff. Before, it would cost at least 0.1 Aether Units to fire off a punch. But now he could send out at least 10 for that cost, which was absolutely absurd considering the current state of his Intelligence.
Essentially, he could fire off over 4000 punches before his Aether truly began to wane. And yet that still wasn't all.
Just now, when his fist appeared, he had freely controlled it to increase in size.
[Aetherflow]
[Aether comes naturally to you, even when it's outside of your body. Your ability to extend your Aether away from your core, attaching it to objects to control and wield, far exceeds others. You have now reached a new step of mastery]
Basic Aetherflow had always been about control, but there had likewise been many diminishing returns with said control as well. But the upgrade from Basic Aetherflow to Aetherflow seemed to have done away with much of that.
Sylas could now directly control the area of effect of his fists. He could expand it and make his power disperse over several meters, or he could tighten it, shrinking his fist size by half and concentrating the Strength into an even tighter point.
But that wasn't all.
If he wanted, he wouldn't have to disperse the power at all. In fact, just for a little more additional Aether, he could keep the Effectiveness of his fist the same and ratchet up the area of effect.
Essentially, he could throw fists like he was a giant, making him akin to the large creatures of Earth and their ridiculous Physicals at simply the cost of a little more Aether.
And it showed.
His Strength was basically 700 with the Basilisk King added on top. There was a 100% boost from Aetherflow and what must have been an almost +200% boost from <Psychedelic Punch>, which before had only given him a little over a +100% boost.
Together, that punch alone had had over 4000 Attack... even higher than the absolute upper
limit of what those fancy new ballista could do on their own.
And although Sylas could only throw such a punch twice...
Not only was he far more accurate and flexible...
He believed that he had proven his point adequately enough.
He wasn't trapped here with them.
They were trapped here with him.
And any one of them within a 50-meter range could die instantly if they weren't careful.
Of course, by doing this he had also exposed the fact that he could, which would make them ready and wary for the next time.
But there were also many things that he hadn't shown he could do...
They had no idea that on top of fusing with the Basilisk King, he had another Contract. Even though he couldn't fuse with them at the same time, that didn't mean that he couldn't summon them to fight.
He could fuse with the Basilisk King on one hand, and have a beast a step from Quasi Bronze wreak havoc on the surroundings... and all of that before he even used his greatest trump: the
Multi Quest.
All of this was the reason Sylas had chosen to take such a step.
What happened next would depend on Lucius.