Chapter 592: Unnecessary
Sylas shot past the city limit, entering the chaos of the city itself. He lost immediate sight of Alex, but he was sure that the man could take care of himself. He wasn't interested in babysitting him.
He kept his visualization contained to an immediate ten-meter range, and it felt like every little detail was in his grasp.
At his speed, this was just enough to keep things in perspective without over-running his senses. Plus, he still had his eyes to rely on.
A building to his left trembled as the paved, concrete roads quickly became soft piles of sand.
It tilted over and Sylas' eyes couldn't help but narrow. This sort of devastation was beyond his expectations.
Rather than trying to outrun the building, he planted a foot and shot to the side. His fist ripped through the glass and the screams of civilians filled his ears.
He slipped through the tall office building, ripping his way up the stairs.
By the time he got to the second floor, he was practically running up a 45-degree hill that was only getting steeper with every passing second.
He rocketed out of the stairway door, shattering an office door and the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side.
With a press of his foot to the window's ledge, he jumped across the street, soaring through the skies and through the windows of a second building.
Sylas planted a foot and shot to the side, sliding out of the way of a man who tried to punch him for seemingly no reason. He could vaguely guess that this man was the owner of this building and hated to see his hard work go to waste. In fact, he had the strength of a rich man as well, being what seemed to be Level 7...
Unfortunately, he had no idea who he was dealing with.
Sylas moved so fast that the man broke his own ankles trying to keep up.
On a normal day, it would mean a sprained ankle for a few weeks.
On a day like this one...
He slipped along with his collapsing building, falling out of the window Sylas just shattered.
By the time he hit the ground and his building fell toward him, Sylas had already scaled to the fourth floor and leapt out from the window again, reaching the next building with a BANG!
In order for a city to be built in the desert like this, they had surely put quite some effort into excavating and preparing the land.
For the buildings to just be falling over like this wasn't the fault of poor planning. It could only be due to the impact of the Glass Monkey.
But was a Level 22 existence really already able to cause large-scale destruction on this scale? Was this the true power of a Quasi King Beast?
Why had he never felt it to this extent before?
There was a somberness that took root between Sylas' brows. It felt to him like he was missing something.
And then it hit him.
This was the weakness of humanity.
This was the difference between a world of Aether and one without.
To the Glass Monkey, manipulating this city into his ideal world was easy because the Aether here was only 80% similar to the Aether Plane. That one 20% difference was already enough for it to act with impunity, imposing its kingship onto the surroundings and forcing it into submission.
What then of a 100% difference? The gap between worlds that successfully summoned and those that did not?
A determination flashed through Sylas' eyes and his Will seemed to further solidify.
However, he soon found his steps coming to a stop.
He looked out into the distance to find a woman standing in his path.
The pyramids seemed perfectly integrated with the city, but the truth was that they were still historical artifacts. Even with the chaos, there were only a few paths to use to get to them, and all of them led down one path.
Ultimately, these pyramids were still far too important to be entered casually.
And now, a certain General Thora and what must have been several others stood in his path.
As for Alex? He was nowhere to be seen.
Sylas didn't look around, his expression quite calm.
With a thought, his visualization rippled outward and covered its full 100-meter range.
The world seemed to sink into the palm of his hands.
His Wisdom was now over 1000. In the past, just a Wisdom of 11 had allowed him the ability to split his mind three ways. What did his current Wisdom allow him?
The unfortunate truth was that things didn't scale so simply. That was because as his Wisdom increased, so too did his other stats and abilities, and they began to consume more and more of his Wisdom by extension.
As such, increasing one's Wisdom always felt like a constant game of catch-up. Having more was never a bad thing... but ironically enough, one felt that way about all of their stats.
That said...
SHUU! SHUU! SHUU!
Nine flickering bolts appeared behind Sylas, trembling only slightly in the skies before they solidified and seemed to become permanent fixtures of the air.
General Thora's eyes narrowed, feeling hints of danger. Giving a casual glance to the bolts, she felt like they weren't normal by any means.
"Sylas Grimblade, it isn't necessary for you to become an enemy of our government. We've seen your skill and you could become one of us. You may not be an Afric, but we are all human at the end of the day. If you are a man without a home, we can give you one."
General Thora began to speak slowly, but at that moment, an energy that seemed to target Sylas' eyes shattered and there was a cough that echoed from the distance.
The instant this happened, Sylas took a step forward, one of his bolts shooting out as he accelerated.