Chapter 725: Now.
BANG!
Vesta was sent plummeting downward so fast that the air split around her, plumes of smoke and a billowing smog separating as she landed into the lake of lava.
Sylas frowned, looking at his arm. '... Her Constitution is actually so high...'
He had felt not only some pain from that strike, but if he had struck any harder, he might have cracked his own Scorpion Warlord Armor.
But as he had said, Vesta might be strong, but her combat experience was worse than pitiful. All her weight was forward on that strike, and she had left herself no way out. Not to mention the fact she had leapt into the air without hesitation when she had just proven to herself that she had no confidence in the skies.
It was the epitome of foolishness.
Sylas was already someone with great battle experience by now. He had lost count of the number of life and death fights he had been in. Comparatively, Vesta was a blank slate. And while she was strong... it wasn't to the point where Sylas couldn't react to her, especially not with Mixed Martial Arts active.
He had severely underestimated this Comprehension of his.
Mixed Martial Arts didn't just embody a fighting method, it absorbed the fighting spirit of Earth itself. When it was active, he wasn't just Sylas Brown, he was a representative of Earth. His thoughts flowed far more smoothly, but more importantly... he could see through his enemies with much greater ease. If not for the fact Professor Fembroise had no such skill to speak of, even swallowing her martial abilities and incorporating them into his own could be done at a glance.
Of course, that didn't refer to a literal swallowing.
BANG!
Vesta shot out from the waters, her gaze one part realization that Sylas hadn't been lying just to avoid a fight with her earlier, and another part realizing that she really did have the
strength to fight back if she needed to.
Sylas' mind was still whirring with thoughts, trying to figure out how to deal with this situation. He certainly couldn't leave her be. He refused to allow this sort of threat free reign to go about as she pleased, especially now that she had power of her own.
But at the same time, he didn't even know how he would go about restraining someone so powerful.
'Her Will... is it strong enough now?'
The thought had only just come to his mind when Vesta attacked again.
'Fast...'
She seemed even faster now than before, her claws ripping toward his throat.
Sylas side-stepped again, but Vesta was more ready now than before. Her balance was still off, but her tail swiped toward Sylas' counter.
Without a choice, Sylas was forced to pull back and step out of the way again. Vesta's tail carried even more strength in it than her legs did, it had almost double the Attack of her arms, and even if the latter was adorned with blades for claws, the blunt damage might be even more substantial in this case.
Whistling wind stung against Sylas' face as though a rain of hail had fallen from the skies. The tail just barely missed his cheek, soaring over his head.
Vesta had gone all out for this attack and the result was her losing her balance again, but before she could fall, Sylas caught her by her tail.
It would be so easy. Just a single swing and the Scorned Wraps would activate. She was so foolish that she didn't even understand that her life was in Sylas' hand right now.
A part of Sylas wanted to test it to see what the system's bottom line was. But when he thought of that eye in the sky... he dismissed the idea outright.
CHI. CHI. CHI.
Vesta swayed up to try and regain control of herself, swiping out a claw at Sylas' leg.
The danger sounds blared warnings in Sylas' head, but he grit his teeth. He didn't want to wait for Vesta to regain enough clarity to realize that she could just run away from him. This was the only shot he would have at this.
A sharp pain cut into Sylas' quad as his Defenses were shredded to pieces. A casual swipe of Vesta's claw from an off-platform angle had decimated what was left of his Scorpion Warlord Armor in that location, and still had enough left over to pierce the crystal bone that coated him.
However, at the same moment, the Dragon Bone Spear appeared and tore into Vesta's tail with a tremble of Sylas' telekinesis.
Before Vesta could even scream out in pain, Sylas' own tail shot forward, piercing into the wound and pumping Vesta full of his poison.
The Professor shuddered, not quite understanding what was happening to her.
'Her Constitution is so strong!' Sylas was taken aback, but he didn't pause, pouring more and more of the Bone-Tailed Lizard's poison into her body.
Vesta barely had an understanding of how to form Aether skin. If not for her overwhelming Constitution, she would have already lost complete control over her body. At that point, Sylas would even be able to make her bones explode from the inside out and she could only watch on in horror.
But right then, something even odder happened.
The scales faded from Vesta's body and her aura plummeted once again.
Sylas was taken aback and was forced to hurriedly pull back the rest of the poison.
Although the Bone-Tailed Lizard's poison only gave him control of bones and didn't necessarily kill, at the end of the day, it was still poison. If Vesta's Constitution was too overwhelmed, she could die.
'Was this a temporary change? Just what is happening here?'
[What odd changes triggered this?]
[–]
'Another Taboo?'
Sylas was about to ask the question again and take the hit when there was a change at the
Portal.
A flood of special ops appeared, holding up guns toward Sylas.
'... Metarock...'
This wasn't good at all.
CRACK.
The last of Sylas' Scorpion Warlord Armor crumbled as blood trickled down his leg.
...
Vaekra flashed into the forest of red, her jaw clenched and fury in the depths of her eyes. She coughed up a mouthful of blood and then wiped it away with a forearm.
They were too arrogant. The battle with the Snail Queen had been so difficult, but their timer had been running low. They thought they could deal with the Snail Queen and Sylas back to back, only to suffer for it.
To be fair, with the Warlord status at their fingertips, they thought they had enough capital to deal with Sylas. Who would have thought that Sylas would be capable of fusing with a True King Beast, making their Quasi King status worthless?
In fact, the act of trying to suppress Sylas in the first place triggered a backlash that stopped Kyreth from being able to deal with the Bone-Tailed Lizard's poison in the first place.
Now, Kyreth was gone and she was the only one left.
However...
Sylas still hadn't received a notification that the Overlord Quest was finished for a reason.
When he saw that he was going to die, Kyreth risked being exposed to transfer the Destiny of the Quest to her. This was why the system detected him and wiped him from existence.
Vaekra's jaw clenched so tightly her teeth creaked.
BANG!
She ripped a hole through the ground and uncovered a hidden passage way.
Masquerade stood right below her feet.
"Bring out everything. Now." She growled.