Chapter 885 Not an Option [Top Five in Golden Tickets Bonus Chapter]
Aki blinked as though he couldn't believe the words he was hearing. However, that only lasted for a moment before his pupils constricted into pinholes.
A crown appeared above Sylas' head, full and whole. There wasn't a single crack on it remaining, and the difference was palpable.
Before Aki could even pull on Professor Broussard's Will from deep within him to mask his non-Overlord status on this planet, Sylas' tail swung again.
Aki directly ignored it. The result was plainly obvious to him.
That was a mistake.
Sylas' tail pierced right through his eye. Something that should have been intangible, unable to even touch Aki, thrust right through him. A large burst of Spinecoil Poison was injected into his body all at once. This time, it wasn't nearly so easy to dispel.
And how could it be now that Sylas could force his Scorpion Warlord Armor to interact with him?
The pain hit Aki far later than his shock. He felt the change to the atmosphere even before the pain rocketed through him. Even after several moments, he couldn't understand what was happening.
Sylas landed on the surface of the blood lake, his scorpion tail twisted into Aki's skull. His arm cocked back, his aura spiking as he unleashed a fist with all his might.
BANG!
Aki felt all the air leave his body. His bones, once sturdy and nearly unbreakable, seemed to have been forced into a more malleable state by the Spinecoil Poison.
He felt his ribs bend and almost give way, countless fractures racing across them as he was suddenly blasted away.
Waters rippled violently under Sylas' feet, his aura growing with every passing moment.
He had known that his crown wasn't complete. Cracks wouldn't appear in it without rhyme or reason. So, he had waited, patiently biding his time as he felt it mending.
Here in the center of the Earth, the speed at which it could repair itself was clearly far more substantial. And that waiting had paid off.
Aki shot across the surface of the lake like a skipping rock, his body rebounding above it again and again until he crashed onto the shore. And then he convulsed, a large amount of blood coming from his lips.
Sylas didn't chase after him, clenching his fists.
This was where the true battle would begin.
If Aki thought mentioning the fall of all the heroes of Earth to him would make much of a difference, he was sorely mistaken. He was no one else but Sylas Brown. He was his own man, his own person…
What did the failure of others have to do with him?
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Aki landed on his back, looking up to the skies in abject shock. What just happened? How had Sylas' Scorpion Tail even touched him? How had its abilities worked on him?
He hurried to use his Will to suppress the poison in his body from spreading further, but much of the damage had been done. The skeleton of this body that he had painstakingly built up was compromised. Unless he had time to reforge it, he was permanently weakened…
And how could Sylas allow him that time?
Even now, Sylas' aura was continuously growing. Runes bloomed around him, manifesting with such speed that keeping track of them would make even the best of F-Grade Rune Masters' heads spin.
They seemed to be pulled out from the depths of time and space, plucked out already at completion.
And that was also precisely why Sylas' armor worked.
He had been observing how their armors interacted all the while, and he realized something quite interesting. They were both still active, so how had they just passed through each other as though the other wasn't there?
The answer was that they had been displaced through space, missing each other as though existing on another plane of reality.
All Sylas had to do was shift the space in which his armor existed using the ability he awakened after reaching Rune Spark.
When the battle began, he thought he made a mistake choosing to focus on the Rune Lineage rather than learning the second and third layer of his Scorpion Warlord Armor.
But time bore out that he had actually made the correct decision.
If he learned those layers, he would be lying uselessly, dead.
But because he had focused everything on the Rune Lineage, he had a chance.
The determination in Sylas' eyes had never faded even a single time. He could stare death in the eyes, unbothered. That version of himself that nearly collapsed that day in the volcano would never return. That was his promise to himself.
He trusted no one but himself, and he would always bet on no one else but Sylas Brown.
And once again, that bet had worked out.
Sylas clenched his fists, the countless Runes in the air solidifying into blades sparking with lightning. And then…
They lit ablaze.
Blade Aura ran through them, and in that moment, just in the presence of it, Aki felt as though his Will was being suppressed. Its influence on the region was being sliced and diced, the oppression of sharp blades running through it continuously and swallowing it all up.
The bloody lake trembled, Sylas' thick, curly mane dancing in the violent winds.
He took a step forward, vanishing. But his Glassvolt blades were even faster than he was, cutting across the skies like arcs of lightning before they solidified into swords and sabers once more.
Aki somersaulted to his feet, his body flipping through the air as he hopped from side to side, quickly dodging…
Only to suddenly appear in the path of Sylas' fist. It was as though he had come right to Sylas, presenting his body.
Sylas unleashed a roar and Aki's armor cracked, the Will of the Tiger King collapsing as seas of white-green spilled out in all directions.
There was no time for mercy or justice. Sylas knew that if he was going to win this battle, he was going to have to do so quickly.
He wouldn't hold back. He would give it everything he had.
His fist collided with Aki, collapsing his chest. Booming concentric circles of air blasted out from Aki's back.
Losing was not an option.
The depth of cold and blazing emerald in Sylas' gaze reached its peak.