Chapter 563: 71
Sylas had only about 30% recovered from his earlier injuries. But now he didn't just revert; his situation was probably even worse.
A vine tried to skewer him from the back; however, it ran into his Scorpion Warlord tail, the dividing line between his life and death.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his mind swimming with darkness as though he might lose consciousness at any moment.
Another spike of pain sharply caught his mind as he bit his tongue, trying to recover. He had to be ready for another attack. Anything, something.
But when his visualization finally cleared enough to lock onto the heart, he realized that it was oddly not taking action either.
Sylas realized what the problem was immediately. It was struggling to reconnect itself with the world around it.
His punch hadn't been useless. It didn't kill the heart, but it had injured it. However, those injuries were minimal compared to everything else.
The rebounding force had caused many of the Aether tubes and connections it had formed to the world around it to snap and break loose. Now, it was struggling to reconnect them.
The reason it hadn't acted was because it couldn't. Its weakness was that it needed to form these connections to do anything. Otherwise, it was just a heart.
'A heart? No... It's a plant. A parasitic one that happens to have taken the form of a heart.'
Sylas coughed up another mouthful of blood. He pierced his scorpion tail into the wall of vines to stop himself from falling. From time to time, some vines would attack him, but they were greatly weakened, clearly unable to get the full array of Aether from its supplier.
Soon, however, the heart would successfully reform its connections. At that point, Sylas would truly be finished.
Sylas took deep heaving breaths, staring daggers at the heart. It wasn't a coincidence that it had 2999 Constitution and Intelligence. Those were almost certainly limits of some sort, which meant... it more than likely had the first Silver Genes that he would ever see.
There was no running from this. Not after everything he had given to reach this point. He needed a solution.
He thought for only a moment before he suddenly closed his eyes. When his vision cleared again, he was once more in a world of Ice-Poison. White-blue snowflakes fell from the skies around him.
Sylas only gave them a glance before dashing forward.
The pressure around him was only increasing, but he gritted his teeth.
The gap between 50 Foundations and 60 was enormous. But now, he had only walked into the 65 Foundation Range and was already finding himself breaking down.
However, he continued to trudge forward.
Since the last time he had come here, he had a great breakthrough in his Will, and most importantly, his Rune Soul had evolved to become Rune Essence.
Unfortunately, his time in the Rune Breath Secret Realm had told him that just the breakthrough alone wasn't nearly enough. Unless he knew how to make use of his
breakthrough, it wouldn't make the world of difference it should.
That said... the gap between Rune Enlightenment and Rune Breath was enormous, and yet not nearly as large as the gap between Rune Soul and Rune Essence.
Before, Sylas was at the edge of his limit even standing before the 60-plus Foundation Runes. But now, despite being in a heavily injured, greatly fatigued state, although he was slow, he was steadily walking toward the 70-plus Foundation Runes...
Until he burst right through.
His jaw set, and his senses flashed around, looking for what he needed.
He had already picked his path, that of Slow and Freeze. But now it wasn't just a matter of preference, but necessity. He didn't have the time to learn a completely new Rune from scratch. He needed one that was already very familiar with what he already knew.
'Found them.'
Sylas ignored the Freeze Rune for now. He needed something that more heavily relied on poison aspects, leaned into it, made use of it.
He felt his Rune Essence Mastery churn, and he grasped the core being of the Rune after just a single glance.
...
Sylas' eyes flashed open and his aura churned around him. It had barely been a few minutes, but the last of the connections that the Violet Rose Heart wanted to form were almost
complete.
By now, his Aether skin had several cracks in it. There was even a vine sticking out of his shoulder, continuously pumping poison into him in a vain attempt to take his life.
His <Cryobane Elevation> had already tapped out, and his body was ready to tap out itself. But his mind, his Will... that was something else entirely.
Sylas' scorpion tail flexed, pulling his body back and up until the soles of his feet pressed flush against the inner wall of vines.
His quads flexed as he gathered the last of the strength he had, digging deep.
BANG!
He shot out, his tail unhooking at the same time.
The heart was caught off guard. All the while, Sylas hadn't moved, and it had even half- thought he was dead. The low intelligence of this plant creature was showing, and it once again played to Sylas' benefit.
He closed the distance in a blink before his tail suddenly slashed down right toward the softened flesh his fist had collided with earlier.
From the outside, the heart looked just fine. But Sylas knew that that location was the more soft and tender. The hidden inner walls had certainly been damaged considerably...
Making it the most perfect target.
Determination flashed in Sylas' eyes as he slashed down. The pincer of the tail sparkled with a radiant blue light that suffocated the violet and pierced downward.
PUCHI!
SKKKKRRRREEEEEEEEEEE!
Sylas pumped everything he had into the creature, suffocating its poison resistance with his Will and drowning it in the violent intent of a 71 Foundation Rune.
KACHA! KACHA! KACH!
The heart shuddered and attempted to beat to repel Sylas, only for a large segment of its surface to crack apart continuously. It was harming itself in its own attempt.
Sylas raised his injured arm. He had already thrown two <Psychedelic Punch>'s today. If he tried again, he would certainly lose control of this arm as well.
But he had nothing more to lose.
"Die."
Sylas almost never spoke in battle. In fact, he truly never did at all.
But this time, his emotion spilled over, and the eerie call of a reaper came from his lips.
<Psychedelic Punch>.