Chapter 578: Web
Sylas took deep breaths. Balgros' head dripped with blood from his hand, so large that it seemed to have as much mass as half his body.
His Aether had hit rock bottom, and his mind was completely drained. Slowly, the pocket of poison he had formed around himself collapsed, and it wasn't long before he was practically suffocating again.
'There's no way this is sustainable. Delaying this was definitely the right option.'
But it wasn't lost on Sylas that this was just the beginning. It had taken him three hours to clear this village, and that put him well behind schedule.
Unless he could clear villages at a rate of 30 minutes or so, including travel time and sleep, he wouldn't be able to make it.
Sylas was about to turn to leave, but his steps hesitated.
'There's something else I can do.'
The Demon Gate looked much larger than it actually was. It was a pillar of energy that connected the ground to the clouds above, at least on the surface. But in reality, this was mostly just the Demonic Aether coming from it.
Sylas took a step into it and felt the pressure coming at him from all sides.
The Greed Seed began to stir, seemingly sensing something that it liked. But Sylas pressed it down. If the blaring warning signs from his Luck weren't enough, he was already aware that he had to control the growth of the Greed Seed. He had no intention of allowing it to outpace himself and eventually lead to his downfall.
Soon, Sylas found what he was looking for in the murky darkness surging around him.
The City Lord's cabin.
He took a step inside and found the City Stele and the Demon Shrine.
The energy around here was particularly volatile, so Sylas could only restrain his Rune control to a minor segment around himself, similar to a second Aether skin.
Then, he stepped toward the City Stele.
The City Stele of demons was clearly different. For whatever reason, Moose had been able to move out of his city freely without worrying about it collapsing on him.
But this wasn't what Sylas wanted to take advantage of. There was no point in him conquering a Demon City Stele because every time a Demon spawned, he would have to kill it. After all, he didn't have the ability to control them like Moose had.
While the City didn't have an active City Lord, though, according to his understanding, the spawns should come to a pause.
But...
[Woodland Web (Silver) (Fortress)]
[Protect your City with the Spirit of the Woodland Spider Queen]
Sylas brought out an orb.
The Fortress was originally something that he wanted to use on Cassarae's or at least an ally city. But there were too many problems with it.
Unless every citizen of the city had high poison resistance, it would just slowly kill the entire population. It was ironically not something that Sylas could even use unless he formed an army of poison affinity elites and never raised up any normal citizens.
That was obviously impossible.
However, if he set the Woodland Web here, he would gain a huge advantage.
For one, poison would saturate the air, so any existences that happened to step out of the portal would find themselves in a continuous state of perpetual Damage.
There were likely Elixirs that could be used to deal with this, and the Demons might have poison resistance masters of their own. But Sylas bet that this would delay them for an even longer time.
If he was lucky, then the first group would only appear after a day or two. Due to the time dilation, that would be upwards of six to eight months.
By then, he would certainly have his first Legendary Class already.
He didn't believe that E-Grade existences would be able to make it across the portal from everything he had asked the Madness Key. So he would definitely be confident enough to deal with the situation when the time came.
If they were delayed a day or two on top of that, trying to figure out a way to deal with the dense poison, Sylas might have bought himself over a year of time, even more if luck was on his side.
As such, the sacrifice of the Woodland Web was a necessary evil.
Plus, he had noticed several things more...
Poison Aether wasn't obstructed by Demonic Aether in the slightest. In fact, it almost seemed at home. Or at the very least, it wasn't as rejected as usual Aether was.
In a situation where the Poison Aether concentration was continuously increasing thanks to the Web, the Demonic Aether would have a much harder time spreading and overtaking normal Aether in the region.
This was essentially killing two birds with a single stone, and Sylas couldn't pass up the opportunity.
He allowed the orb to float forward and fuse into the City Stele.
A rumble shook the ground, and tree roots began to spring up and out of the ground, wrapping around the already wooden walls of defense and sinking into them.
Usually, a Fortress would need to fuse with an encampment building. But this was a Demon City. The entire City was an encampment.
There were no women and children, and militia units directly spawned from the City Stele. As such, this was all that needed to be done.
However, while this much was expected, Sylas' expression flickered when he sensed that the Woodland Web Fortress was actually mutating.
Influenced by the Demonic Aether-not present in the air, but rather present in the City Stele itself—it morphed and changed, becoming darker and more potent.
Sylas suddenly felt that even he wasn't 100% immune to the poison that began to pump itself
into the air.
'I need to leave.'
Sylas looked toward the Shrine and punched out.
Originally, he didn't know if it would be worth it to destroy the Demon Shrine. Although it would slow those from the other side, it would also increase the flow of Demonic Aether.
However, with the Fortress here, it was less of a worry.
'Dammit...'
Sylas shook his head. This Shrine was sturdier than it looked.
It reflected his blow as though it was thrown by a child.