As Sylas was lost in thought, Nosphaleen had already gotten to work.
It seemed that Sylas was still unable to properly scan Aurion's stats. That told him that the stat adjustments to the Quest weren't likely universal to the whole Skai Galaxy. However, from his Will, he could tell that Aurion's current suppressed stats were far inferior to Nosphaleen's. He wouldn't be able to resist her at all.
The reason he had her stay here this time was because he didn't want a repeat of what happened last time. There was no need to take such risks for just a little bit of comfort.
This time, however, the gap between Nosphaleen and her target was so large that it didn't take much. Aurion was groveling at her feet within minutes. He would have probably been licking at her toes had she had any.
…
Soon, the story was relatively known to Sylas.
As he expected, there was a strategy of efficiency. According to common strategy, there were two main paths to a World War event. The first was Sylas' path, but it was commonly ignored by those with enough foreknowledge and resources to plot ahead.
In the latter case, most would choose City Steles as their starters.
This intrigued Sylas because there were so many things limited by the system when you entered this place. So what foreplanning could they do that could carry over?
The answer was about what he expected.
Aether Treasures.
But there was a second answer that had been the missing piece of the puzzle…
Metarock.
What was truly shocking, though, was how all of this was managed. All of it boiled down to one fact…
City Steles were forged with Metarock as a key piece.
This secret was the reason City Steles could meld into the foundation of a world so easily, and how they were able to grow to the point of becoming a world's core as well.
City Steles started off at Villages, before becoming Towns, then true Cities. After this, the scale began to become larger and larger, growing to Kingdoms, and then Empires, and finally, what was truly important right this moment…
Worlds.
In order to embody the world they were in, Metarock was necessary. It was just that this Metarock was usually worthless outside of the value of the City Stele itself.
Metarock could only be used once. Once it attached itself to the laws of a world, it couldn't be reused. And as valuable as Metarock was, it was nowhere near the value of a City Stele of equivalent Grade. So destroying a City Stele just to get Metarock made no sense whatsoever.
As such, this became an open secret no one took advantage of…
Unless it was in such a specific circumstance.
In this case, there was a loophole to take advantage of. If one brought an Aether Treasure in from the outside world, it would be suppressed and forced into dormancy by the system.
But if one had a City Stele, and the Aether Treasure was of the type where it could be bound to such a treasure, then everything would change. You would gain the advantage of the Aether Treasure instantly and earn an enormous advantage.
Many of these Aether Treasures had shocking effects. Depending on how powerful the Aether Treasure was, certain insurmountable advantages could be gained.
For example, Aurion's own had allowed him to not only quickly find Subsidiary Cities to conquer, which seemed to be quite common amongst these Aether Treasures due to a special property they all shared, but also to summon those bearmen.
But there were other examples that Aurion was particularly wary of. Like Aether Treasures capable of speeding up the upgrade of cities, or ones that gave additional City Stele Abilities, or those that allowed City Lords to ignore certain rules and restrictions of their cities.
All of this information was very important, but Sylas' mind was consumed by one thought, especially as he watched a certain Mist Race member's Silver Genes continually shoot upward.
Was this what Lorien had been aiming for the entire time?
The answer was almost certainly yes. It couldn't have been anything else.
Whatever treasure she had snatched from himself and Ulrik… it was certainly doing its job.
And that meant that if Sylas took too much time, she might grow to the point his own advantages would become worthless.
Speed. He needed more of it.
…
After gaining all the information Sylas wanted about the World War, he shifted his target a bit. If he didn't at least try to learn about the Sylphs and what they were doing, he would be wasting his time. As important as this World War was, the fate of Earth's future sat on a pretty important plane itself.
"If we press much harder, master, his Will will likely collapse. He has very strong pride. Usually, this makes the cognitive dissonance easier to take advantage of. But if it's past a certain threshold, it makes it harder instead."
"That's fine. We don't have time to waste, and there's another Sylph on this list anyway," Sylas said, allowing Nosphaleen to continue on anyway.
Nosphaleen nodded. She had hardly asked the third question about the Sylph's backers, though, when Aurion's eyes glazed over.
"Death to all Devourers. Death to the Destroyers of the Universe."
Aurion's head exploded, his body slowly slumping to one side and collapsing. Pools of blood ran out of his neck, forming a long stream. Lost in thought, Sylas ended up following it for quite a while with his eyes.
He didn't know what that was exactly, but he had felt a Rune deep within Aurion trigger. But it was odd. Whoever placed this Rune seemed more interested in getting that message out than hiding anything.
There was a sudden swirl in Sylas' pupils. Something invisible, on the verge of implanting itself into Nosphaleen, shattered.
'Interesting.'
Sylas was fairly certain that had he only had Vitality Mastery, he would have missed that Rune just now. What implanted Rune could possibly need Spark Mastery just to detect?