Alex’s gaze flickered. “Do you still have my Beast Bewildering Amulet? You didn’t sell it off in that auction, did you?”
Sylas wasn’t surprised that Alex knew about Tasia’s auction. He might not have known for 100% certain that Sylas was truly involved—after all, it might be someone trying to use him as a facade to hide their identity—but he could definitely confirm this way.
Sylas would have never allowed Tasia to auction off a Legendary Path item. They were too rare and valuable.
—
[Beast Bewildering Amulet (Silver) (Treasure)]
[Level: 20]
[Target the mind of a beast and feed it illusions]
[While the beast is Bewildered, +10% Physical]
—
The value of such items was more than could be put into words. The only reason Sylas hadn’t used this treasure was obviously because the Scorned Wraps wouldn’t allow it.
The amulet needed to form a connection with his Wisdom first, and that required him to put it on. For obvious reasons, that was a huge no-no.
However, Sylas didn’t confirm or deny. Instead, he asked a question.
“Why?”
He wanted to understand. How would this amulet help them at all?
It wasn’t lost on him that this was likely a Dungeon, so there was a good chance that there would be a large number of beasts around. But as far as he understood, this Beast Bewildering Amulet only worked on one beast at a time.
Unless there was just one large guardian beast blocking everything, which Sylas doubted for various reasons, it wouldn’t be useful enough for Alex to mention as though it was the core piece of his plan.
When Alex began to explain himself, though, Sylas found his gaze flickering with understanding.
…
The two left the small city and headed out the next day. On the road, it was mostly Alex doing much of the talking, and Sylas found himself surprised at how a man could talk so much and yet say so little of substance at the same time.
Alex was either very good at talking nonsense, or he was clever enough to say a lot without giving away much of the information he knew.
It was probably a bit of both.
“—So what do you think, Syl? Do I have a chance with the dommy mommy?” Alex’s eyes lit up like a child on Christmas Day. He looked like he really valued Sylas’ opinion.
To Alex’s surprise, though, Sylas actually looked over at him. Well, it wasn’t the first time Sylas had done such a thing, but this time it felt like he was actually looking at Alex rather than through him.
“Not a single ounce of one.”
Alex blinked and then his eyes widened as though he had just made some shocking discovery.
“Fuck me! You let me talk about her like that all this time and didn’t say she was yours?! You’re trying to kill me here, man. Be honest. Are you planning my death already?”
Sylas looked away and shook his head. “Words are meaningless.”
“Really? So if I said I really wanted to bend her over a desk, you’d be fine with that?”
Sylas didn’t react even as Alex got more vulgar.
He truly didn’t care.
Why would he waste his time going around policing words and gazes? If he did that, he would probably have to spend all his energy in the future just killing men who looked at his woman for a little bit too long.
Was there a difference between Alex saying it out loud and thinking it in his mind? If there was one, it was negligible in Sylas’ eyes.
If Alex tried to act on it, though…
A flicker of killing intent sparked in the depths of Sylas’ green irises that caused Alex to jump back and hold his hands up. It was even a bit comical because the entire time, the man never stopped running across the sand along with Sylas. He looked ridiculous.
“Okay! Okay! I won’t say anymore! You lucky bastard.” Alex clicked his tongue.
Sylas didn’t say anything. The killing intent certainly wasn’t because of Alex’s words, but he couldn’t be bothered to distinguish it.
“You know,” Alex jogged back up to Sylas’ side, “you’re a bit slow given your strength. Well, you’re actually a lot a bit slow. How do you do it?”
Sylas’ stamina was decent enough, but his speed was far too slow considering the strength he had displayed. Alex himself could speed up another 50% easily and still have a lot left in the tank.
“I’m still Level 0.”
Alex’s eyes widened again. “… Son of a bitch…”
Sylas didn’t mind exposing this because there were many, including the Sylphs, who knew this.
“Holy fuck, this is crazy. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Alex accelerated, wrapping around Sylas once, then twice, as though he was trying to find the power cord coming out of him.
“There aren’t other Level 0’s in Legacy?”
This was the true reason Sylas exposed this.
“Uh… I guess I wouldn’t know, huh?” Alex blinked, understanding something. “If there were, they would definitely be in that Legendary tier.”
“Lauren isn’t on the Leaderboard. Is that because she’s Level 0? Or is it because she rejected the chance?”
“Probably the latter. I’ve seen her use Aether before, and it was mature. I should have realized before, but your Aether is lacking something, almost like it’s missing a heartbeat. It’s been so long since I was Level 0 that I didn’t connect two and two.”
Sylas nodded.
“We’re here.” Alex suddenly said.
The two came to a stop at the same time.
There was nothing around them but more sand dunes.
By now, the hot landscape had become quite chilly, a biting wind dancing about as the crescent moon hung high in the skies.
Alex became oddly concentrated, his smile fading. The two of them waited in silence until the wind suddenly became stronger.
The sand kicked up and a spiraling wind formed a small circle in the sand.
A portal was forming.
