Sylas finally settled his breathing and calmly gathered all the corpses.
The one thing that he hadn’t had a chance to go over were all the treasures on their bodies. He hadn’t even had the time to scan Sergan’s daggers, and he certainly wouldn’t have the time to go through all of this stuff.
The shame of it was that he was certain that there might at least be some stuff that was useful to him here. But the time crunch was too great.
Right now, he had secured the right to choose his opponent first during the next round. But if he was too slow, he wouldn’t have that right again.
He had no idea where Vayu’s strength ranked amongst the other teams, but what he did know was that the first to make it through the spirit wolf trials when they all went all out wasn’t Vayu, but rather Aerwyna and her team.
Without Rune Soul, the teams had to rely on their raw combat strength to make it through that first trial. So, if he extrapolated that, Aerwyna Galesong’s team was likely his greatest danger.
If he could avoid battling with her, that would be for the best. And in order to do that, he would need to capitalize on being first every step of the way. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have the right to continue choosing IV and skipping the team battle any longer.
“Let’s go.”
Sylas put everything away into his Madness Key and turned to leave. He didn’t have the time to care for Lolaleen’s emotions. Even if she was a close friend, he wouldn’t have the bandwidth to spare for her right now, let alone the fact she would certainly not be shedding these tears if he was the one to die.
Lolaleen instinctively wanted to refuse, but who would have thought that Sylas wouldn’t say this casually but rather directly command her through the enslavement contract?
The feeling of not being able to control her body like she wanted to make her want to keel over and vomit, but ultimately even that didn’t seem to be under her control.
“Focus on healing yourself.” Sylas commanded again. Then, he stepped into the portal and appeared before a familiar set of four doors.
Once again, he was alone. This was the only chance he had to extend the distance.
After the stair challenge, he was forced to wait for all the groups to appear. But after the team battle, he could directly enter the next stair challenge. This was where he had to claim his advantage in time.
If he was fast enough, then maybe he would have time to look through his spoils of battle.
…
The world swirled around Sylas again and he found a tall set of stairs before him again. The last stair challenge was related to Will, so this one should be combat again.
He already had his pauldrons summoned as he leapt up.
Sylas landed as Lolaleen was forced to follow after him.
‘This will… be a bit troublesome.’
A growl echoed in Sylas’ ears. The first thing he saw was a pair of yellow eyes, then came the bristling white fur, then he saw the beast’s entire form.
It was an ape with long arms and short legs. It had the body composition of an orangutan, but the usual face of a monkey. However, this wasn’t particularly the problem.
Sylas’ Rune Soul and Enchanted Scholar were already activated, just in hopes of getting a chance to take advantage of the situation like he had before. Ironically, that was what allowed him to see it.
It was hard to explain, but he felt like the creature was mimicking him. It had actually swapped out Frostbane for Sylas current inferior Ice-Poison Rune, the 32 Foundation one he had gotten from the Arctic King Cobras.
That much was fine considering it was weaker than what Sylas was capable of. But then it sensed Lolaleen’s appearance and then a second ape appeared. This one began to emit fluctuations that were only common on her and that confirmed Sylas’ speculation.
The question was… how far did this mimicking go? Did it copy Skills? If he used Rune Soul to summon his stronger Slow and Freeze Ice-Poison Runes, would they copy that as well?
He had questioned Lolaleen about all of this much earlier, but the problem was that the finer details of the actual trials were mostly unknown. They had some experience to lean on from their predecessors, but there would always be small changes from year to year that couldn’t be perfectly relied upon.
‘There has to be a mechanism through which they’re copying. So long as I find a way to counter that…’
SHUU!
The first ape suddenly shot forward and Sylas’ pupils constricted.
Its Physical stats were way beyond what one would expect from a Sylph, even closing in on what Sylas had seen from General Aleen, though not quite there. It seemed that they were matching their already oppressive Physical stats, with the overwhelming Mental capability of the Sylphs.
Sylas took a breath. This battle would be troublesome.
…
There was an eerie sort of silence over the Sylph camp. The bonfire continued to rage on, and the elder Sylph stood in the very same place, staring into the flames as though the smoke didn’t bother him in the slightest.
The weight of solemnity was only increasing with every passing moment. A cool wind passed by, swishing through the trees. It only increased the feeling of sheer hollowness.
At that moment, there was a flash and a figure appeared. At first, it was just one, but very quickly, there were three. They moved like blizzards, frosty air wrapping around them with the sharpness of blades.
“This isn’t a place you can be.” The elder Sylph said calmly. “Leave.”
The three figures didn’t reply. Instead, they suddenly launched a fierce attack.
The elder Sylph’s eyes sharpened and a blizzard-like aura erupted from him as well.
The sound of battle echoed through the hollow forest.
