Chapter 790 Lorien [Ko-Fi Donation Bonus]
The tenth Rune appeared, but this time, Sylas' Rune crashed into it, countering it when it was just halfway to him.
Then the eleventh came, but this time, it hardly formed and the Rune Monster didn't even have the chance to spit it out before it shattered.
Sylas' eyes darted back and forth as he watched the laws accumulating around the Rune Monster.
'A heated steam… hardened earth… another Will attack…'
Sylas' Rune formed before the Rune Monster even finished this time, jetting forward and entering its vague, amorphous maw.
The laws coalesced at the same time Sylas' Rune appeared.
The Rune blocked the formation of the Foundations and suddenly, the Rune Monster shuddered.
BANG!
The Rune Monster's body shattered apart, scattering into the wind.
Silence.
The Natural Rune Monster's foggy bits trembled and tried to pull themselves back together, but one after another, dozens of tiny 10 Foundation Ice-Poison Runes shot out from Sylas, forming in the air and colliding against the attempts to reform itself.
CHI. CHI. CHI.
Ice crackled and popped, spreading like poisonous cancer through the air and rippling against the vague form of the Natural Rune Monster.
And then it began to snow.
It was a delicate rain, maybe not quite hail, but probably more substantial than normal snow. In the silence, the clear sound of ice pelting against the hard, marbled ground almost reminded one of chimes swaying in the wind.
And then there was Sylas' breathing.
Heavy, daunting, and somehow, despite the fact Lorien and Ulrik were still going, no one seemed to have eyes for them at all.
Instead, they were all looking at the grizzled young man with his eyes aimed at the flood and blood trickling down his body.
…
Lorien's expression changed violently. While everyone else was focused on Sylas, she made a quick decision, the misty pink around her flaring.
The goal of the challenge wasn't to defeat the Rune Monster. What Sylas had just done was ridiculous.
Killing a Rune Monster, especially a Natural one, was incredibly difficult. Or rather, it should have been.
What they were meant to do was hold on until the first of them was knocked off, but therein lied the problem.
The only real way off this platform was death.
When it was Sylas who would suffer that death, no one cared to mention this hidden danger.
But now that Sylas was suddenly standing as the lone victor, the death had to come from either Ulrik or herself, and that was unacceptable.
Before Ulrik could process the sudden change, Lorien made her move.
Her pink mist formed a drill through the air and pierced forward.
It seemed to bypass the Rune Monster, shooting right toward Sylas in the far off distance.
At the same time, she coughed up a mouthful of blood, being flung back until she was nearly off the platform entirely.
In the eyes of the very few that were still paying any attention to her at all, it seemed like she had sacrificed herself for a chance to deal a death blow to Sylas.
No one ever said attacking your opponent directly wasn't an option. It was just that doing so while a Rune Monster was rapid-firing Runes at your face was foolish.
Sylas frowned. His perception picked it up immediately and the world slowed around him once again.
Waves of fatigue started to rear their ugly heads, but at this point, and with just a single round left, he couldn't afford to bide his time… not when he was also just a few lagging steps from death.
But what his perception returned to him made him pause and then his Demonic Will flared.
At that moment, he realized who this Lorien was. It was the same woman his Will had picked up on earlier. She had disguised herself so perfectly from the time she wore her cloak to now that he hadn't managed to link them together until this very moment.
He had felt something odd from that moment the moment he felt her presence. It was like she was both there and not at the same time, but he got the distinct feeling back then that her gaze had landed on him more than once.
If before he hadn't been too sure and felt that it was more illusory than real, right now he was certain.
She was using him as a shield.
The mist flashed, cutting through the air with a shocking amount of speed.
But just as it was about to reach Sylas, it coincidentally rushed through the fluttering remnants of the Rune Monster he had just killed.
Sylas couldn't stop it. He wasn't even sure how to. All the slowed perception in the world wouldn't matter if he didn't have the skill to back it up.
The collapsing Rune Monster suddenly gained a new spark. But rather than just reforming, a subtle connection between it and Ulrik's Rune Monster seemed to be formed.
Everything happened so fast that Sylas was certain that it would be impossible to track, especially if you weren't paying attention to Lorien in the first place.
There was a sudden explosion and a surge of laws poured out in all directions just as Ulrik's Rune Monster was forming its tenth Rune attack.
BANG!
The Rune shot out, surging up from a mere 15 or so Foundations to 20 in a single bound. Stepping over that demarcating threshold all of a sudden caught Ulrik off guard.
The sliver of a crack in his eyes was about to open more, but the Rune was too fast. Just as it opened up, the Rune had already crashed into Ulrik's chest.
The Thryskai went flying, soaring off the stage as the lance of pink mist appeared before Sylas in the same flash.
However, much of its power had already been sapped away. A surge of Sylas' Will and telekinesis crashed against it, shattering it to pieces.
The silence of the crowd was already deafening, the cascade of booming explosions and Ulrik crashing to the ground being the only noise in the arena at all.
But at this moment… not a single one of them knew what to think.