Chapter 564: Toxic
Sylas' fist careened through the air, its speed so fast and its power so great that the frosty winds around it spiraled out of the way, moving with a sharpness that seemed to add to the power of the blow rather than detract from it.
BANG!
Fist and heart collided, both wreathed in the chilliest of winds and the densest of cold.
For a moment, it looked as though nothing happened. Sylas' fist met a resistance it couldn't blast through, and unlike before, where the elasticity of the heart made it somewhat more manageable, this time, the heart felt almost like a solid brick wall.
However, that was when the power traveled through the heart, and the portions of the creature that had yet to ice over rebounded.
That spelled the Violet Rose Heart's death.
There was a ripple through its flesh, and the rebounding force bounced back toward the frozen portions.
They sheared right at their connection point, the overwhelming Constitution of the creature becoming the root of its destruction.
KACHA! CRACK.
With a sudden burst, shards of ice exploded in all directions, and Sylas was sent flying back once again.
But this time, he was ready for it. His Aether was running on empty by now, but he was still able to use his Rune Essence Mastery to form a platform of ice that he glided back along.
Eventually, he slowed to a stop, gasping for breath.
Up ahead, the heart hung in silence from its own Aether veins and arteries. A fleshly pulp fell from its edges, and the silence almost felt dreary in a way.
It looked as though some sort of frost monster had taken a huge bite out of it. There was a large piece of its "body" missing, and the wound was lined with jagged edges of icy blueness. It was dead.
[Dungeon <Violet Rose Brush> Cleared]
[Dynamic Field Dungeon of <Violet Rose Brush> Cleared]
[System Curse Evaded]
-
Sylas took deep, heaving breaths.
The leap from Quasi Bronze to a true Bronze creature was far larger than he was expecting. He had had so many advantages, and yet he had still almost lost.
Setting aside the fact that he was the Warlord of this territory, he had immunity to the creature's great strength; the creature itself wasn't used to using its power, whether that be because it wasn't a humanoid to begin with, or the fact it had only just progressed to Bronze through the forceful manipulation of the system and not by its own merit...
Sylas was practically the perfect counter to a creature like this one, and yet it took a 71 Foundation Rune that most on Earth would never get a chance to even see, let alone use, Nosphaleen's help, and the near destruction of his body and life before he squeezed out a victory.
There was truly no doubt in his mind that if he had faced off against a King Beast of any other affinity, he would have lost his life here.
And this was just a Bronze King Beast... how powerful would a Silver one be? Forget Silver, what about just a Quasi Silver one?
And just how many creatures even beyond that were there in the universe?
Sylas took a breath and slowly exhaled.
[Dungeon <Violet Rose Brush> Cleared]
[Rewards]
[>Plaguefire (Gene Skill)]
[>Toxic Coat (Treasure)]
[>Soft Gene State Elixir (Consumable)]
The Consumable spoke for itself, and the Toxic Coat was just yet another Treasure that Sylas couldn't use. It was an armor that gave one passive poison damage and it actually had a Domain attached to it just like Nosphaleen's did.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a Legendary Path Treasure, so it couldn't upgrade.
That said, it was still a Lv35 Treasure, which made its stats quite exceptional nonetheless.
[Toxic Coat (FFF)]
[Level: 35]
[+405 Intelligence]
[Ability: Toxic Touch; Toxic Domain]
...
[Durability: 350/350]
This was also the first time that Sylas had seen a Treasure with such high Durability. It was likely as a result of its high level.
On Earth now, this sort of armor would have people chomping at the bit. Now that Sylas had access to a Nexus, he would have to start taking the option to sell more seriously.
He had run out of money before he could exchange for the grappling Gene Skill, and that was still bothering him a bit. Maybe this would help him get over that threshold.
Plus, if there was anything that he was going to sell, an armor like this one was perfect. After all, even if he ran into the person who he sold this armor to, it would be useless against him. At this point, there was probably not a single poison on Earth that would work against Sylas.
Plaguefire was the most interesting, and it would definitely help shore up one of his greatest weaknesses... if he could use it, that is.
Well, it wasn't that he couldn't use it. He certainly could. The main issue was that it would use up a large amount of Aether and take an obscene time to raise the Mastery of. Plaguefire was a Poison-Fire Gene Skill. So the issue couldn't have been more obvious.
Sylas didn't have a fire affinity and he didn't plan on ever getting one.
Although it seemed like he could just lump any and all Mancer Paths together, that wasn't the case. In fact, he had already sensed some clashing between his Wood and Ice affinities. Wood and poison matched well, but Wood and Ice were too antithetical to one another. The latter restrained the growth of the former, and the former broke the restraints of the latter.
Wood wanted to be flexible, but Ice wanted to be rigid.
The choice had already been made, so there was no going back. But Sylas was already trying to find ways to fix the issues he was dealing with now.
One of those possibilities was increasing his wood affinity further. A second he thought of was
pivoting from wood to earth...
But the potential first solution came to him first.
His gaze landed on the dead heart before him.