[AN: I thought I uploaded this yesterday, but I guess not]
Sylas watched as they all died one after another. The blood fell in a rain, his gaze sweeping over them one after another.
'So… something like this is possible too…'
What Sylas had done wasn't actually all that complicated, at least not to him.
The Unique Gene of these humanoids was very firmly ingrained into their bodies. Every time it sensed something that it had to adapt to, it would trigger, and then holistic changes would occur to their entire being.
All Sylas had done was distill the Unravelling abilities of his Pupils into a series of Ancient Ithkuil syllables. He hardly had to think to deduce it at all. The ability to Unravel Runes came as naturally as breathing to him.
Obviously, the main issue was that while the Unique Genes weren't close to the 100 Foundation peak that came from F-Grade Runes, they were drawn by the system, and as such nearing the pinnacle of perfection.
This made them harder to Unravel than usual, to be sure. But the Rune itself only had 20 Foundations. As powerful as the system was, it wasn't to the point that it could make a 20 Foundation Rune bulletproof. If it could, even the likes of Extricate wouldn't work on them.
Once Sylas understood the principles of Unravelling the Rune, it was a simple matter of repeating what he had done with Gogo's true name, except orders of magnitude easier.
Rather than an entire textbook's worth of words and syllables to spill, it was a breeze by comparison.
When the humanoids repeated the words he said, they didn't know it, but they were essentially triggering the formation of a Rune that perfectly countered the core of their bodies themselves.
Ultimately… Runes were just another language, drawing them, speaking them, communicating them… it was all the same so long as the universe or the Mesh of Reality understood what you were trying to get at and you had enough Aether to trigger its formation.
It was all as simple as that.
'Can I replicate this…'
—
[Wave Two Cleared]
[Time to Wave Three: 00:00:59:59]
—
Sylas stood there for a while, knowing he had time. After a long while, he shook his head.
The first and most obvious reason this wouldn't work again was because how often would he fight against identical, replicated enemies?
Even amongst those of the same Race, especially if one had their Unique Gene passed down through birth and heredity, every Gene would have unique mutations and differences to them.
All Guiz might share the same Unique Gene, but they wouldn't be identical. It was hard to say if such a method would work on more than one. And if he had a Guiz Unique Gene to study, the person he wanted dead would, well… already be dead. After all, he couldn't use Extricate on living and unwilling subjects.
Though, to be fair, Sylas had already observed a Guiz Unique Gene before.
But there was a second issue… that because of the fact this Unique Gene was a special circumstance.
Because it was so broad in scope and abilities, adapting to anything thrown at it, it was distilled through the entire body. A change to it would mean death for the subject in question. But other Unique Genes might not be so easy to target.
Then there was the third reason…
Why would anyone but these stupid enemies repeat the words Sylas was saying of their own volition without understanding what he was saying?
'But… this is interesting… I wonder…'
Sylas' thoughts churned, but eventually he pressed them down.
—
[Demon Coins: 278]
—
He had gained more Demon Coins now than before by far, even though the Wave was about the same size. As he expected, the later Waves were worth more.
'These names, though…'
Sylas shook his head again.
Thinking was good, but only if he had enough information. Other than that, he would just be wasting time.
'There aren't enough of the ice affinity Serpentes left to use up all my Demon Coins.'
Sylas chose to summon what was left of them and then looked toward the city to see if he could find anything interesting. It would be foolish of him to completely ignore it if he had the time to check it out.
As expected, most of the available upgrades were for increased defenses. There were some more expensive ones for buffs for allies and debuffs for enemies, but even the cheapest of them was a hundred or so Demon Coins to exchange for.
The worst part was that many of these upgrades worked with a skill tree system. He couldn't trigger some without upgrades to other regions.
There was no doubt that this was a tough challenge, to be sure. Balancing how much to upgrade this city versus how many allies to summon… this was probably where the city management aspects came to play, albeit just to a small extent.
'The buffs are interesting. If I want to upgrade it to trigger the first 10% buff, I need to raise the walls to a Tower level, and that'll require 150 Demon Coins in total. Then an additional 120 for the buff for 270 total…'
Right now, he only had a little over 100 Demon Coins left; he couldn't even complete the first leg of the requirements.
'Is there really no way to increase the number of Demon Coins I gain?'
Sylas shook his head, just memorizing the entire skill tree of upgrades. It was best to know it now rather than later.
—
[Wave Three - Acrid Bellies]
[Time to Wave Four: 00:23:59:59]
—
Sylas smelled it in the air before it even came. If he was that sort of person, he might have grinned.
Serpentes.
It seemed he wouldn't have to use his army just yet once again. The system had been nice enough to give him two easy victories in a row.
With a flash of his eyes, the Serpentes couldn't even move.
He slaughtered them with ease.
For a moment, Sylas almost felt that there was truly nothing special about the Bronze City Stele trials at all. But he would never be foolish enough to let down his guard like that.
Not as the Fourth Wave took form.
—
[Wave Four - Misty Peaks]
[Time to Wave Five: 00:23:59:59]
—
'Mist…?'
Sylas' eyes narrowed as he thought of Lorien. He thought it was a coincidence until it became very much not.