Chapter 881 BADUM.
Sylas' hand seemed to carry the power of the world.
Vaekra hovered in the air, blood leaking out of her eyes and the holes in her body. A deep unwillingness was raging in her Will, but it didn't matter in the slightest.
She hacked up a mouthful of blood, the sound coming out like more of a choke. However, because her face was covered in bone armor, it spilled out through the cracks.
Pitiful was the best way to define it.
Merciless was the best way to describe it.
Her head struggled to turn in Sylas' direction as though to give him one last, venom-filled glance. But she didn't even manage to make it before Sylas' clenched fist opened.
She burst apart, her bone shattering from the inside out.
The density of black fog around Sylas only increased. Extricate pulsed with life, pulling at Vaekra's body.
A large blob of golden Blood Essence took shape in the air, far more substantial than anything Sylas had gathered from the temples, and it only made sense.
Sylas had already guessed that the Dogons had two states. After battling Vaekra the first time, and witnessing her changes, there was definitely some sort of evolutionary trigger that took Dogons from a powerful Race to a truly transcendent one.
Whatever that change was had been curated by the Dogons and passed down to the giants of the temples. However, those small droplets couldn't possibly compare to what was in Vaekra's body.
They only had a few drops… but this was Vaekra's entire being.
She was so powerful as a mere Level 10. If she had successfully killed him and become a member of the Overlord Race, there was no telling how far she would have managed to progress. Dwarfing even Aki's stats would have only been a matter of time.
And now everything she was or had been would now be the Bone-Tailed Lizard's.
Sylas could feel his Insight Path Talent speaking to him. This would take the Bone-Tailed Lizard in a completely different direction from the Spinecoil Serpent from which it was descended, but if he could pull this off, the potential that he could pull out from it just might be far beyond a Bronze King Beast.
There was something particularly special about Vaekra. That was because she wasn't born as this level of Dogon, but rather had evolved into it. Because of that, much like with Sylas, the evolutionary changes weren't part of her foundation. As a result, they could be far more easily Extricated.
But now wasn't the time to follow through on this evolution.
There was still one more person he had to kill.
Sylas pulled what remained of Vaekra into the Madness Key, storing it away.
At the moment the last bits of Vaekra's life were truly snuffed out, Sylas took a breath. For a brief instant of time, he felt like he had accidentally pulled too hard, a large amount of air flooding his lungs and expanding his chest to the point where he felt it might burst.
His steps felt lighter, and deep inside, he could feel like the cracks in his Crown were beginning to heal at a faster rate, many of them fusing shut.
It felt like he had been buried under water and was suddenly gasping for breath on the surface.
BADUM.
Sylas almost felt his eardrums shatter. He had been about to put all his attention on Aki, but his hands moved involuntarily, covering his ears.
Blood began to leak from them, his heart shuddering at the impact.
BADUM.
The second wave came just as violently, but somehow Sylas found himself quickly adjusting to it. He didn't understand what it was just now, but what he did know was that it wasn't going to stop any time soon.
BADUM.
And that was because, deep inside, Sylas could feel that the sound had always been there.
BADUM.
It had existed since the very beginning of time; it had never left, it was just that he hadn't been able to hear it until now.
BADUM.
It was the call of a world, the core of its very being.
BADUM.
It was something that he should have been able to hear long ago, but because of the system placing his Overlord Race status in limbo, his connection with Earth had been partially severed.
BADUM.
He was at the center of the Earth, right at its heart. This call, this echo, was something he should have been listening to from the very beginning.
BADUM.
His eyes seemed to open up, his Rune Spark Mastery flourishing like it had only just gained its wings. Runes flooded around him, whispering into his ears and spontaneously forming to a mere thought of his.
The dense black fog around him only multiplied, growing stronger and stronger with every passing second.
BADUM.
Sylas' body seized, an overwhelming amount of power flooding through him. He didn't even understand what was happening, but it was as though the Earth was giving him everything it had left.
BADUM.
Rather than making him calmer, this only made Sylas realize just how bad the situation was. There was only one more enemy before him, and yet the world didn't feel like he had even the slightest sliver of a chance.
BADUM.
No, it was worse than that.
This power, it wasn't something that the Earth was giving him. It had been his own power from the very beginning. This was nothing more than the world reminding him just how much had been taken away by him, by the mistakes of the impotent system, by the machinations of those that wanted to take this world for themselves.
BADUM.
It was telling him that this was their last chance, that if he couldn't manage to be what the Madness Key wanted him to be, that Earth would be finished.
BADUM.
Sylas' eyes, having once been forced closed, opened with a raging light.
His gaze landed on Aki.
BADUM.
The Thryskai looked up with a menacing grin.
BADUM.
The roar of a Tiger King filled the skies.