Chapter 825 Ceded
[You have entered the Dynamic Field Dungeon <Lost City of Greed>]
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Sylas barely had time to read this when another stream of notifications hit him in a torrent.
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[Your <Woodland Territory> is under attack]
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[Your <Woodland Territory> has been Corrupted]
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[Your <Woodland Territory> has been Conquered]
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Sylas felt something in his heart drop—not from his own emotion, but rather as though something had just been forcibly stripped from him without the chance to fight back.
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[You have ceded Territory to the Demon Race]
[The System is displeased, System Rebel]
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[You have suffered a Bronze Demerit]
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[System Curse Received]
—
Sylas continued to stare at this screen calmly, his expression not changing even once. Even the drop in his heart had been wiped away, its steady, rhythmic beating returning with a firm cadence.
"… Okay."
He spoke these words lightly and then turned. In a flash, he appeared over Casstle Main, descending from the skies.
He was the picture of calm, but inwardly, something was beginning to rumble.
Arcane Madness said he was supposed to die, was it? He had no chance, was that right? He should escape, was that so?
He stepped onto Casstle Main's walls, his gaze a picture of deathly stillness.
Soon, he reached the City Lord Mansion and took a step inside. He caught sight of his little sister and mother quite quickly, but he only gave them a perfunctory greeting before heading up the stairs.
Isolde tried to stand to ask her son what was wrong, but it was her daughter who caught her wrist with both hands.
"Why are you stopping me, Elara?"
"Sylas isn't in the mood, Mom."
Isolde frowned at this. What mother wouldn't? As far as she was concerned, that was all the more reason for her to go.
"It's not something you can fix," Elara spoke again.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Elara shrugged and let go of her mother's hands. She was only 14 years old—there was little control she could exert over her own parents and her brother, elder by 13 years.
After she said as much, there wasn't much more she could say.
She could already guess how it would play out if Isolde went. Sylas would listen to her, like he always did. But it would go in through one ear and out the other.
When he got like this, he didn't really have a fondness for listening to anyone.
Back on normal Earth, that was just fine. It just meant that he would become a professor instead of the leader of some multi-billion-dollar corporation or maybe the President of the United Coalition of Terranova.
But here… Elara scrunched her little brows.
She didn't know what it would mean.
However, retreating into a shell didn't seem likely. That was because… this world didn't have any rules.
That meant that if Sylas was in this sort of state again, it only really meant one thing.
He was going to unleash unholy hell.
But whether that unholy hell would leave his life intact enough for him to breathe again tomorrow… well, that was a different story entirely.
—
Sylas entered his room and closed the door behind him.
He knew that he should be outside now. There were a great number of changes taking place, and the fact that this was a Dynamic Field Dungeon meant that danger was literally around every corner.
Just returning to Casstle Main and pretending as though nothing had happened didn't make much sense.
But inwardly, he also knew that things wouldn't be so simple.
"He said it was a shame I didn't manage to earn the Legendary Quest before all this triggered…"
Sylas' mind flickered with several thoughts, but he couldn't come to a quick conclusion about what that meant.
It was true, though, that initially, his Rune Enlightenment Quest had been at the Silver Grade. After the male half of the Twin Moon Healers gave him the golden coin, it upgraded to Gold.
Judging by the words of Arcane Madness, he had missed out on an opportunity to increase it further.
'The preparation and steps leading up to the Mountains of Giza allowed me to be well prepared for much of the finer details. A large reason why I was able to speed-run the Split Realm was because of all that preparation.
'Now, however, I have none of that preparation, and what looks like an even more difficult challenge to deal with. Maybe the lack of a Legendary leg of the Chain Quest is precisely the reason for that.
'In that case, I will need to figure out much of everything myself. That said…'
Sylas' mind pulled up something lodged deep within his memories… a map.
After he cleared the Gold leg of the Chain Quest, this map had appeared in his mind, and it was also because of this map that he chose to return to Casstle Main like this. That was because he knew that this Dynamic Field Dungeon had only just begun to grow.
By the time it finished, it would likely swallow up much of the York City-State and beyond, along with a large chunk of the ocean.
If he was correct, it would take up as much as 2-3% of Earth by the time it was done.
And it was precisely because of that that it spelled trouble.
Sylas didn't know with 100% certainty whether this was by design or not, but what he did know was that this Dynamic Field Dungeon would change everything.
Once again, Earth had been manipulated beyond the point of no return.
He looked out through the window and toward the pillar of light. Inwardly, he wondered if Professor Broussard was still alive under there. Unfortunately, the volatility of the Aether alone would have killed him if he got too close. He could only calmly wait.
Calmly wait to see whether he would come out on top… or if Arcane Madness would turn out to be correct.
The door to his room twisted open, the lock shattering.