Chapter 510: Too Late
There were likely a rare few people on Earth that had the flexibility of thought that Sylas did. The moment he realized the kind of situation he was in, he changed his perspective.
He didn't worry about finding Lucius for revenge, nor did he have the mind to care about what people were watching from the shadows. Instead, his thoughts were consumed by one drive.
Survive.
The instant he got the notification about what was happening to him, he activated Beacon. And it was actually because Beacon was activated that <Psychedelic Punch> could only be used with his slow Ice-Poison Rune.
Beacon needed to use his Beast Totem. So while it was active, his Beast Totem couldn't be used for anything else.
But the miraculous thing about Beacon was that the only existences that could sense it were Serpentes. As such, whether it was the spider queen or the Sylphs watching from the sidelines, they didn't realize what he was doing until it was too late.
There were many tradeoffs to be made in life, and the Summoning seemed to only make that more obvious. While it was much harder to gather up Ice-Poison and cast Ice-Poison Skills in the middle of this desert...
The number of Serpentes within a kilometer radius wasn't a small number at all.
The hissing had only just begun, but it rose to a fever pitch in the next instant.
The Woodland Spider Queen unleashed a shriek as it was infuriated by the invasion into its territory. However, between their fear of the Woodland Spider Queen and their reverence for Sylas...
There was no competition at all.
The Serpentes flooded in. Starting from just a few dozen, they quickly doubled and then doubled again.
Sylas continued to dodge out of the way of the attacks of the elite spiders. As he did, he observed the situation and couldn't help but frown.
'Many of them are injured... I see... there must be barricades on the outside. But that means...' Sylas' gaze flashed with realization. Lucius was just using Ragnar and the Sylphs.
When he understood this, several things that were odd to him made sense.
If the Sylphs knew that he had suffered such a terrible Demerit, they would be able to guess that he would be trapped in this Field Dungeon. And if they could guess that, they wouldn't need to put up the number of barricades that would be necessary to harm such a large number of serpents.
That could only mean that the plans of Lucius and the Sylphs weren't properly aligned.
When Sylas came to understand this, he realized that this disjointedness might be a chance for him.
The situation on the battlefield changed in that instant.
The serpents swarmed toward Sylas' location, and their numbers were only increasing as the barricades they plowed through left open gaps for more of their kind to make their way in.
By the time their numbers crossed into the hundreds, even Sylas was floored by the sheer number. He had several underestimated the number of wildlife hidden away in this root system.
But this was also precisely the opportunity he needed.
In fact, the punch he had levied at the spider queen wasn't nearly as useless as it seemed. While he didn't rupture the eye, that wasn't his main goal.
Poison didn't have to enter through an open wound; it could also seep into a vulnerable body part. As someone who once worked with venom for a living, Sylas knew that even breathing in too deeply in the face of the wrong kind could end his life.
The genitals, the nose, the mouth, the posterior-they were all vulnerable regions... and of them, the only ones he didn't mention were the eyes.
Even if the spider queen had the Constitution to resist his punch, that didn't mean it had the defenses necessary to stop his Ice-Poison from seeping into its blood system.
Sylas leapt back, allowing his hoard of serpents to begin an all-out war with the spiders. SSSKKKKKREEEEEEEE!!!
The fury of the spider queen shook the web system.
Sylas' senses had never left it, and he noticed the blue vein pattern running through its eye, slowly crawling its way up.
He looked down at his arms, and he seemed to be in the same situation as the spider queen. However... that was only because he hadn't had the time to deal with it.
Taking advantage of the appearance of the Serpentes, he stood still, his gaze blazing. All of a sudden, Runes were forcefully expelled from the open wounds in his arms. Though to a layman, it would look as though it was a large amount of violet-green tainted blood. Sylas' body immediately felt lighter as his blood ran down his arms. From any perspective, he looked like a man on his last legs. However, only he knew just how close to victory he was.
He flickered and vanished; his body activated <Cyrobane Elevation>, and he could feel it churning deeper than ever before. His grasp of Blood Essence allowed him a far sharper image of what it truly meant to raise his Stat Limit.
With his hoard allowing him to ignore the elite spiders, he only had one thought in mind: kill the spider queen as quickly as possible.
A road of ice appeared as he leapt up. His feet glided along its smooth surface, and a single one of his strides became like four. Semi-Fusion activated at the same time, and <Glide> was
triggered again.
While he might not be able to use <Surfing Frost> and <Chilled Rise> at the same time, with Semi-Fusion, he could use <Surfing Frost> and <Glide> simultaneously, with the latter having its load taken by the hibernating Nosphaleen.
His Speed had been suppressed to just 260, but at the moment, he was nearing almost five
times that.
'Now's the perfect time.'
His telekinesis moved, and the hairs by the spider queen's damaged eye shifted.
The spider queen reacted fiercely, snapping her head in a certain direction only to realize nothing was there.
By the time she turned back, it was too late.