Chapter 868 Vorthyx
[Vorthyx Coralspire (FFF+)]
[Level: 21]
-
[Physical: 3344]
[Mental: 3287]
[Will: 2001]
—
Sylas didn't act immediately. The first thing he noticed was Vorthyx's Will stat.
This was the first time he had come across a person of Earth with a Will stat beyond 999. Everyone else had been stuck beneath that threshold.
This hardly seemed like a big deal when every other BOSS creature he came across had long since left this threshold behind. But Sylas' intuition was blaring warning signs in his mind. Despite how high the other stats were, he couldn't take his eyes off of it.
Then a second arrow came.
Vorthyx seemed to realize that he had been exposed, likely sensing the scan. After a brief shock that Sylas could scan him from such a long range to begin with, he acted quickly, leaping out of the foliage he had hidden behind and unleashing a rain.
'… He's not an archer…'
Sylas reached this conclusion immediately.
He had fought a true archer before and knew what it felt like. That Dogon woman made the bow an extension of herself, and every arrow felt like it could take his life.
Vorthyx, by comparison, was just painting the skies with arrows and hoping one stuck. The invisibility of the first arrow was a nice trick, but Sylas had still picked it out immediately.
'The Class…'
Bits and pieces of deductions clawed their way through Sylas' mind until he understood most of the picture.
Then he moved.
He weaved through the rain of arrows with ease. There was no hesitation in getting closer and closer to an archer—he simply didn't respect Vorthyx's marksmanship the same way he had Vaekra's.
To Vorthyx's credit, he realized the issue immediately as well, and the bow vanished from his palm. His aura changed, and he raised his fists.
A vortex seemed to form around him, rippling lines of water cutting into the earth.
BANG!
Sylas landed on the ground a distance away.
In the same instant, the vortex of water lines suddenly burst out of the ground, forming a sphere that shattered the Glassvolt blade that suddenly appeared behind Vorthyx.
The two reacted the same way.
The instant the blade shattered, they shot forward, their forearms slamming into one another, their knees following up in the same fluid motion.
Clashes echoed through the air, Water Aether and Glass revolving, rebounding, and shattering against one another.
For a moment, the loudest sounds were that of flapping fabric and stone smashing against stone. Their attacks were so crisp and quick that their clothing almost sounded like harsh leather slapping against leather.
Their pair of cold eyes darted across one another, quickly reading the other's reactions and responding in kind.
They danced through the forest, balancing on the edge of life and death with the calmness of a scholar transcribing an ancient piece of literature.
There was something eerily silent about their approach despite the reverberating impacts.
And then the situation changed.
Mixed Martial Arts.
Sylas' aura changed, his Aether becoming a raging sea within him. He seemed to swallow up Vorthyx's style of combat in an instant, and rather than reading and reacting to it, he predicted it.
He could feel the endless, relentless flow of the Clypsian's style. One attack almost poured into the next, but it also meant that he never put 100% of his power behind a single strike.
That said, by the time he got to the last strike in the combo, he was already using 120%, almost as though he was feeding the bits of power he hadn't used in the earlier strikes into the next one.
Sylas sidestepped a fist, feinting an uppercut at Vorthyx's liver.
The Clypsian reacted to it, the flow of his martial arts never stopping as his elbow slid in a strong downward stroke to counter. At the same time, he was already following up with a hook to the side of Sylas' skull.
However, it hit nothing but air.
Sylas' footwork was like a butterfly fluttering down onto a leaf. The softness of the soil and the water being continuously pumped into it didn't faze him in the slightest—as though he had never even noticed that the Clypsian was subtly trying to change the landscape over the course of their battle.
Instead, his toes glided over it as though he weighed nothing more than a feather falling from the skies.
And that was because he was precisely that light.
After a single feint, he had already pivoted again, his Speed hitting its peak in a blink as a pair of red-gold wings appeared on his back.
He swiped out a leg, slashing at the back of the Clypsian's knee.
Vorthyx surprised him, smoothly transitioning from close combat to Aether production. A shield of water jetted out from the ground, blocking Sylas' kick.
However, seemingly having learned something about the Clypsian's martial arts methods, Sylas' next attack was already prepared. His hips pivoted in the air, flowing into the next kick seamlessly and sending it right at Vorthyx's head.
The Clypsian still had half his back turned to Sylas and shouldn't have been able to react properly at all.
So he didn't.
Sylas' Scorned Wrapped foot slammed against the side of his head, and he fell like a rag doll.
Almost too well.
The Clypsian became akin to a sack of water, his entire body going limp. Sylas felt as though his kick had landed on a bag of water, all of the power dispersing throughout and failing to burst the sack itself.
Carrying the momentum forward, Vorthyx slammed a palm into the ground the instant he was about to truly collapse, sending a heel right at Sylas' chin and using the momentum to turn to face his opponent at the same time.
Sylas crossed his arms before himself, suffering a blow that made his forearms rattle. It felt like all the strength of his previous attack had been sent right back at him.
With a grunt, he was sent back several meters.