[Bonus thanks to chronotitan :)]
Sylas looked down at his hand. His body itself had manifested in shimring green and erald. Right now, he almost looked more deity than man, ford of more energy than real matter.
And yet, his body felt no different to him.
In the last several weeks, Sylas' Rune Mastery had inched ever closer toward the Infinite Void of the D-tier, but he hadn't quite made it there. Honestly, that was because his focus was more on deepening his thods of using the Rune Mastery knowledge he already had rather than extending it further.
His comprehension of Will and how to apply it to Rune Mastery was on a completely different level. It was because of this he was able to force Leia to beco a Gluttony Disciple and ultimately find the Glutton, which finally led him here of all places.
It was all rooted in this comprehension.
What he hadn't seen until he was forced into one battle that pushed him to his limit after another was that when you reached this point of Rune Mastery, the lines blurred between it and his Will greatly, and by extension the division between his Rune Mastery and his telekinetic martial arts practically vanished.
His telekinetic martial arts was just a matter of summoning his Will to move and improve his combat. And the highest form of Rune Mastery was essentially the greatest form of Will Manipulation.
When they ca together…
The result was simply devastating.
And yet, it made Sylas realize just how far he had left to climb. The Zeus Puppet was no more perfect example of this.
It had no Will, it used no Aether, it didn't even seem to run on electricity or technology either. It was basically just like a chanical watch, running on stored kinetic energy that ca from nothing but movent at all.
But the thing with a chanical watch was that the kinetic energy ca from the user wearing it. But where was the kinetic energy of the Zeus Puppet coming from?
Sylas had been trying to understand it, feeling that it might help him take the next step in his telekinetic martial arts, and then he finally grasped it when the puppet suddenly exploded in size. When that happened, it couldn't hide its inner chanisms from Sylas anymore because it was forced to commune with the world again.
The puppet didn't have Will itself because its very existence was a reflection of a Will formulated by the Zeus Clan. It was an existence built upon the foundation of adaptation, it was the Will of adaptation itself distilled into the form of a puppet.
The so-called "kinetic energy" it was pulling from ca from the universe itself and every concept of adaptation there was in it as a whole.
The Zeus Puppet… it was a form of Arcane Madness all its own. Except this ti, rather than pulling on an infinite pool of a singular Sin, it instead pulled on the concept of evolution, of the very fundantal driver that pushed the universe itself forward.
It was no wonder so many feared it, no wonder so many would have simply accepted their fate and crumpled.
But there was sothing that Sylas knew that very few did, and even fewer had the audacity to take advantage of.
The concept of evolution pulled from the Will of the universe could never be infinite because the universe was capped with a crimson ceiling.
No matter how perfect everyone thought the Evolution Will Manifestation of the Zeus Puppet was, Sylas knew that it would never be so.
And his desire to defeat the puppets was only fueled further when he realized this.
If he could defeat sothing under the banner of the crimson ceiling, how would he surpass it in the future?
He refused to fall here. He would never fall here.
And now there was just one left.
Flecks of Will continued to fall from Sylas, but the intent in his eyes burned brighter than ever before.
The First Race was truly fantastic beyond belief. He had never been so impressed by a singular entity so continuously before. But then again… they weren't just a single person at all.
Maybe this was exactly what it would have taken to shake him so much.
But every ti they did surprise him…
It only made it less likely that they would be able to do it again.
Streaks of erald and violet lightning curled out of the corners of his eyes as he raised his scythe.
But the last puppet he was expecting didn't co, at least not imdiately.
"This will be the final round." The tortoise said. "Rember that anyone who succeeds in defeating the last of the challenges will gain an advantage."
A silence hung.
Deuvuo, Juxi, and Alpine weren't fools. The level to which Sylas had pushed the puppets was far beyond them. Trying to steal the last for an advantage would simply end up getting them killed.
In fact, they were more worried about avoiding death by Sylas' scythe, sothing that was sure to happen once Sylas decided to monopolize the rewards for himself.
'I need to survive and report this.' Alpine thought.
What he didn't know was that they were all having the exact sa thought without a single deviation.
Sylas didn't have an expression to read right now at all. All he did was silently look at the tortoise, his thoughts unknown to everyone but himself.
The tortoise nodded. "In that case… there isn't really a need for you all anymore, is there?"
The mountain began to rumble.
Juxi and the others didn't have the ti to react before there was a sudden surge coming from the stairs.
And then it appeared.
A singular Zeus Puppet as tall as five ters. It didn't look much different from the others outside of its height. The suit it wore was the sa, the smile of gears and rotating chanisms was the sa, its glass skin and beautiful, intricate craftsmanship was the sa.
The only thing that was very much not the sa was the Demi-God Aura it radiated in suffocating waves.
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