There was an explosion in the darkness and General Thora’s eyes widened.
Those hidden away had protections of their own, the kind that Sylas’ visualization couldn’t see through easily. But the moment she coughed, Sylas had acted first, ripping his bolt through the air with a Physical of 1715.
With that sort of pace… how could those lurking in the dark even be able to react?
The charred corpse of a woman, still lit on fire, plopped to the ground. The Explosive Bolt had pierced right through her chest with a full 2000 Attack, erupting with explosives from the inside out.
She never stood a chance.
And the moment she collapsed, so too did the veil of those hidden around, and they found themselves assaulted by the very same bolts.
Sylas didn’t even look at them directly, appearing within a meter of General Thora.
He didn’t have much to praise this woman about as he hardly knew her, but if nothing else, her reaction was still sharp despite her surprise.
A heavy pair of twin axes appeared in her palms as an amulet danced around her neck.
She slashed down with both at the same time, as though trying to take Sylas’ head from his shoulders twice over.
Ice flashed beneath Sylas’ feet as his body ducked down. He could practically hear the sharpening of the blades swinging over his head as he popped back up, leaning his head to the side and driving a knee into General Thora’s body.
His knee felt like it had run into a solid wall, the armor that the General was wearing nearly cracking his kneecap.
This was precisely it. The advantage of treasures.
General Thora’s Physical wasn’t bad; however, it was still only about 60% of Sylas’ current 1251 Constitution, not to mention the fact Sylas had protections from his Aether skin on top of that.
Yet, this was the result.
General Thora was sent flying backward, flailing as she felt the wind almost entirely knocked out of her. But she recovered swiftly, landing on her feet and digging her axes into the ground to slow her backward progress.
She unleashed an almost manic roar and her body exploded in size. Rather than rising to her feet, her axes dug into the ground further and her hunched back bulged out.
Suddenly, her arms flexed and using her axes as an anchor, she shot forward like a speeding bullet. Her combat style became wild, her axes flailing about and her body moving like a raging gorilla.
SHIING! SHIING! SHIING!
Sylas dodged, and then dodged again before his gaze flashed with a red-gold light. A pair of illusory wings appeared on his back and he slipped through a duo of swinging blades.
He appeared in the midst of General Thora’s crossing arms, and she didn’t pause her movements for even a moment, pressing down as though she wanted to both hug him to death and pierce both of her axes into his back.
But Sylas shot an elbow out to one side, blocking her swing and knocking the blade.
CLANG!
Both axes clashed behind Sylas, having intercepted one another’s path before they could puncture his skin.
Sylas took a step forward despite the two of them practically being chest to chest, hooking his leg behind General Thora’s ankle and driving his second elbow into her head.
General Thora’s Aether skin, likely supported by the armor she wore, protected her nose cartilage from being driven up to her brain. However, that didn’t stop her head from being knocked back viciously. And because of the hook of Sylas’ leg, instead of being sent flying back, she fell right to the ground.
The timing was perfect. Just as she fell, the clanging of her axes sent them and her arms flying apart, causing them to miss Sylas entirely.
Sylas’ foot drove down from above, once then twice in quick succession.
A sickening crack echoed, but it was nothing more than Aether skin. It was the third crack that truly made one feel as though something was crawling beneath their skin…
And that was the crack that came from Sylas driving the heel of his foot into her neck.
General Thora’s eyes widened in shock, not thinking that she would die like this. She had so many more Skills and abilities that she hadn’t used. But by now…
It was far too late.
Sylas threw her corpse into his Madness Key, not to hide it, but because he would most definitely look through it to see if she had anything good later.
He scanned the battlefield to find nine charred corpses around him. There was nothing worth salvaging.
There was no time to waste, so he rushed ahead.
According to the preparation he had done, there were several entrances into the Mountain of Giza, but it was hard to tell which one he was supposed to go to.
He doubted that it would be one of the most obvious entrances, but the less obvious ones weren’t so well-documented either.
In the end, Sylas chose to forego all the complexities and directly entered through a ground passage.
He immediately found himself in a claustrophobic space. He had to duck and his shoulders barely had room for him to face straight forward and walk comfortably.
He moved as fast as he could, as best he could, until he made it to an opening in the chambers where he found Alex just standing and waiting there.
Looking back with a grin, Alex gave him a laugh. “Took you long enough, slowpoke.”
Sylas didn’t know how to respond to this, so he just waited for Alex to lead the way.
“What a downer,” Alex said with a shake of his head.
It wasn’t that Sylas didn’t know how to interact with jokes; it was more so that he wasn’t familiar with Alex and he also didn’t have the care to put up pretenses in a situation like this one.
Now wasn’t the time for a sense of humor, so he didn’t waste brain space on it.
“Be ready,” Alex said. “The pyramids are normal when there’s no Aether, but they’re aligned with the stars for a reason. Once Aether is active, they’re able to gather and concentrate it far better than most Templates could imagine, and because of that…”
There was a sudden ripple from the sides and a Winking Portal formed.
“… There’s probably hundreds of these in here.”
