Chapter 641: Breath [Bonus]
BANG!
The pincer shattered into a rain of ash, but the burning only made the pain the scorpion experienced all the worse.
The scorpion twitched and then collapsed, falling flat in a pit of its own creation. A spark of a flame lit in its body before it winked out.
Sylas took a breath and exhaled.
He had always realized that the Scorned Wraps actually burned things in a shockingly controlled manner whenever it destroyed something. There was no telling why that was or why it chose fire in specific. But what he did know was that whatever this flame was... it was powerful.
Sylas dismissed his Fusion and stood from the back of the scorpion. He wanted to assess the damage. How many had died?
He had only heard one large collision, so hopefully that meant that only his carriage was targeted. But there was no telling.
Unfortunately, it seemed that many were still scattering because visibility was far too low. Few were probably aware that Sylas had already killed the scorpion.
Sylas chose to wait. There was no point in going around in this fog of sand; he would just be as blind as everyone else. He would wait for it to settle down first.
He exhaled a breath and calmed his beating heart. Although the Fusion went smoothly, his heart rate was definitely more elevated than it should be. This had been a relatively easy battle and he hadn't done much.
The only reason his heart rate would be so high would be because of the strain of the Fusion. It seemed he should consider just pouring all the Free Experience he had left into Were-For- The-Invincible after all.
Sylas closed his eyes, circulating <Maddened Enlightenment> to pass the time and make up for the small bits of Aether he had used.
But he suddenly opened his eyes, a sense of something mysterious overwhelming him. Before he could even fully decipher his own thoughts, he had already activated.
He pressed a hand against the body of the scorpion and then pulled upward.
A large mass of flickering, dense energy took shape in his hands.
Now that Sylas thought about it, this was the first time he had actually used Extricate to its full limits since he upgraded it. Usually, he would just target Genes, but this time, he had taken the Blood Essence of the scorpion.
It felt completely different, in both its raw presence and also its sheer size.
Genes were the same size no matter what, but Blood Essence... not only did it take far more focus and much more of his Will to pull out, but it seemed proportional to the size of the target.
There was more to Extricate, but Sylas had to stop before it became too overwhelming.
He hopped down from the scorpion's back and found his wrecked carriage. Soon, he had pulled out the scrolls and brush from it.
Sylas dipped his brush into the blob of floating, sparkling blood and he immediately felt somewhat different. When his Will and the Blood Essence combined, it was like he could feel the Blood Essence tugging him in a particular way.
The feelings all layered on top of one another until Sylas struck down with the calligraphy brush.
'Yes... this is that feeling...'
What exactly was Blood Essence? Sylas still didn't know... but what he did know was that the Greed Seed loved it and it was also somehow able to turn that into power that could both replenish and attack his Will.
Even if Blood Essence wasn't Will and vice versa, there should be a link between them for certain, one that couldn't be easily ignored.
So, if he used the Blood Essence of a scorpion and combined it with his own Will... would it bring him closer to understanding the underlying intricacies of the Runes he was working with?
It had just been a fleeting thought, but the answer...
Was yes.
Through Extricate, Sylas could feel the Blood Essence tugging his brush along. Every stroke underwent minor corrections and it was like his Legendary Path Talent was guiding his Rune Mastery along.
Sylas wasn't drawing Runes or even Foundations... he was drawing the Strokes, the very same ten, again and again, relentlessly and without pause.
Every time he dipped his brush into the blob, he would take more of the Essence, incorporating more of it into his Will, using his Path Talent to feed his Will.
With just the same clarity he had felt the intricacies of Genes with, he felt this Blood Essence. Every tweak, every change, every subtlety.
Sylas didn't know how many times he practiced the Strokes, but it was like they had become ingrained into his very soul. It felt like there wasn't a single aspect of them he didn't understand, and yet he also felt like there was still a world of mystery waiting for him.
'I can do it...'
Something about Sylas' aura seemed to sharpen and his brush moved across the air. But this time, he not only didn't draw on a sheet of paper, he didn't just draw a normal Stroke either.
In what looked like a single fluid motion, he drew out one Rune in its entirety. But before it could even solidify in the air, he had already dipped his brush into the blob of Blood Essence once again and drawn a second, and then a third, and then a fourth.
With every Rune he drew, Sylas' arm began to move more vigorously, more violently, and from afar, he almost looked like a scorpion striking down his stinger again and again.
A small wind kicked up around him and the air he gave off changed completely. SHUU! SHUU! SHUU! SHUU! SHUU!
However, just as Sylas got to the seventh Rune, the brush in his hand crumbled apart, unable to withstand the aura.
Sylas stood in silence for a long while before a flash of something else lit deep within him.
Extricate and his Rune Mastery seemed to meld into one and the remaining Blood Essence shattered apart into a rain of crimson...
Or so it seemed.
Because right then, the splattering of what looked like random blood solidified into 100 perfect Runes that surged for Sylas' body.
BOOM!
A blood pillar surged into the skies as an illusory armor took shape over Sylas' body.
He had succeeded.
The Breath Mastery Scorpion Warlord Armor.
And in response, Aether soared toward him in violent torrents.