Chapter 499: Chaos
Sylas found himself subconsciously reaching out a hand. The Basilisk King looked at him in confusion, not understanding what was going on.
Honestly speaking, the Basilisk King's heart was practically doing cartwheels. Its blood pressure had risen to the point its large body was trembling like a small hill.
It had been ready to die just now, and it half expected a beam of light to calm out of Sylas' palm and crush him in an instant.
But that beam didn't come.
Sylas felt a bit awkward having his hand up like this. It was the first time he had acted without quite thinking things through, which was rare for him.
However, it wasn't long before the Basilisk King bumped its head against his palm, its gaze flickering with a hint of embarrassment as well.
When it understood what Sylas was trying to do, it felt a bit awkward as well. It was a mighty Basilisk, a Serpentes of Legend... not a puppy.
But it felt worse leaving its master in an awkward situation. Although it feared Sylas, that fear was built on a foundation of respect.
Sylas almost found himself chuckling, something even rarer for him.
"Never again?" he asked.
The Basilisk King nodded repeatedly.
"Deal. Let's go."
The Basilisk King vanished into the Hibernation Realm, and Sylas stepped out to find the world in chaos.
When he learned of what happened, his gaze flickered. He didn't have the time to mind Morgan for now and left him in the City Lord mansion before bolting off.
...
Sylas crossed through the forest with a blazing pace, his skin already covered in black scales. Now that his Fusion lasted 128 minutes, and his stats were so far beyond the Basilisk King's, there was no need to be as conservative as he had been in the past.
He had also noticed that his Dual Class Constitution made withstanding Fusion with stronger Contracts easier as well. But this wasn't what was at the forefront of his mind for now.
He had been correct. But maybe a little bit too correct.
His deduction that the System Cities were like the nodes that triggered all the worst changes on Earth was true. What he had underestimated, though, was how much the loss of one could affect the overall situation.
After the System City collapsed, wild fluctuations had been triggered all across the Evergreen Territory. As for why that was, it was for no other reason than the Portals.
It had to be remembered that one of the targets of the Multi Quest was to help this portion of the Aether Plane align with the correct location on Earth.
Lucius' Portal went to Paradise, a small city by Lone Star.
Then there was Ragnar's Portal that went to the Africor Continent.
While in reality, the true one-to-one location of the Evergreen Forest was the Celestial Republic.
By destroying one of the System Cities, Sylas had caused Lucius' and Ragnar's Portal to destabilize.
This was both good and bad news.
The good news was that they were both screwed over by his actions.
The bad news was that he was also screwed over.
Although the misalignment of Portals was definitely an act against Earth, it was also a matter of huge convenience for him as well.
The Africor Continent was the likely location of his incomplete Rune Enlightenment Chain Quest, the Paradise Portal was his easy access to Professor Fembroise and a certain skateboarding youth, while the portal up in the icy plains was convenient to return to Cassarae.
Not only did he want to make sure that Cassarae was still holding up after all these months, more importantly than that, she had the Basilisk Skin Armor that was the key to the Basilisk King's next evolution.
Of course, the first part wasn't necessary. That was because in the Nexus, he had seen that Cassle Main had actually made it back into the top ten Cities. In fact, not just top ten, but into the top seven. But the latter was hugely important.
'The changes to the System City here shouldn't affect the situation so far away. But...'
He couldn't be certain just yet.
He had only touched upon the surface of the issue as well.
There was no way that the information network of the System City, especially after it had been disbanded, could possibly be robust enough to have information about those regions.
And because the City Stele was now sacrificed for Free Experience, he obviously couldn't use the Stele Ability to check on them.
So the question was, how had he known what was happening at two far-away locations? The answer was that he had deduced it.
And the reason he did was because the beasts in the region were going absolutely wild, surging toward those two locations.
Sylas had already used the bird's-eye view ability of the System City to scout out the region. He knew the locations of several Dungeons and had even thought of visiting them should his
time allow it.
That was why when he saw where beasts were coming from, and the flow toward where they were heading, he immediately put two and two together.
The fluctuations had triggered a Dungeon Break far earlier than it should have. Dungeon Breaks were triggered when a Dungeon spent too long uncleared. The accumulated Aether would go out of control, the rules would break down, and many of the laws restricting and controlling the beasts within would be unleashed.
It seemed that the Aether Plane shifting its coordinates and entering a tug of war with the out-of-place Portals had caused the entire region to be in disarray.
Soon, the two remaining System Cities wouldn't be able to keep up, and the Aether Plane would snap out of alignment like a rubber band. Then at the very least, this region would return to its original coordinates.
But once that happened, he would lose out on at least two portals... not to mention an excellent opportunity to take out the Ravenclaws.
WHOOSH!
Sylas ripped his way past a branch, and leaves were sent flying in all directions as he finally locked eyes with a swarming army ahead.