BANG!
Vaekra's foot landed on Sylas' back just as she had her foot hooked.
The grappling maneuver sent Vaekra off balance, her body being swept off her feet and sent into the air in one fluid motion. The rebounding power of her own kick had her flailing.
However, the grip Sylas and she both had on her bow kept her from falling entirely.
Her back arched and she pulled, trying to use Sylas' grip to pull herself back up, only for Sylas to suddenly violently push.
Vaekra crashed into the ground hard. If not for the soft soil, the damage certainly wouldn't have been light.
Without losing her bearings, however, she sent a shin right up toward Sylas' crotch.
This ti, Sylas was forced to let go, moving his uninjured hand to block her kick.
BANG!
Sylas almost felt his wrist shatter beneath the impact. If not for the reinforcent of the Scorned Wraps, they really would have. But that didn't stop him from grabbing her leg and slamming them toward the ground.
Red gold wings appeared to his back and he accelerated in a ground-passing maneuver, forcing Vaekra's leg to the side as he mounted her from a side position.
Vaekra tried to sit up but found her bow and arms pinned to her body.
After a single useless struggle, Sylas' illusory wings flapped once and Vaekra found her vision spinning.
Sylas gained back-control, his arms wrapping around Vaekra's neck and his legs controlling her hips.
A choked spurt of air ca from Vaekra's lips, veins popping up across her forehead.
From the mont Sylas got close, it was as though she had lost all right to resist. She could already feel her vision going black as the blood flow to her brain had been swiftly cut off.
She didn't want to die here… she really didn't want to die here…
There was too much she hadn't done, too heavy a burden that was still weighing on her shoulders.
However, that Will to live was being savagely suppressed by Sylas' Martial Will, Sparked Will, and Demonic Will all at once.
He was like a towering behemoth that crushed her from above.
Her brother's gaze flashed in her eyes. Had she made a mistake coming here? Was it her fault for wasting their last opportunity like this?
She had let down her brother's belief in her.
"No…"
Vaekra drew weak claw marks across Sylas' forearms, trying to free her neck.
"No…"
She dug deeper, barely drawing blood. But it was clear that with most of her Physical stats being put into Speed and Dexterity, Constitution and Strength weren't her strong suits.
"NO!"
BANG!
Sylas' pupils constricted as the danger ca out of nowhere, but there wasn't any ti.
Bone spikes suddenly grew out from Vaekra's back, piercing into his chest several milliters before he was forced to let go of her neck and his Constitution won out. In the end, he was sent flying back instead.
He rolled on the ground, his pupils constricting as he watched bones grow out from Vaekra's body in wild patterns.
That was when he rembered sothing Nosphaleen had said very clearly…
~
"If you run into a Dogon with odd bone growths coming out of them, however… Run the other way."
~
Vaekra grabbed her head, a banshee-like screech coming from her as a pair of bone wings ripped their way out from her back, shredding her upper garnts to pieces.
Runes pulsed into being across these bones like chiseled patterns into jade ivory.
Sylas could feel that Vaekra's strength had suddenly pierced through a thin paper veil, exiting on the other side as sothing that had undergone a complete tamorphosis.
Looking down at his body, Sylas found half a dozen heavily bleeding holes in his chest. He was already gasping for breath. The wound in his leg, left behind by Vesta, was only not slowing him down thanks to his telekinesis. But no amount of telekinesis would help if he was bleeding out.
At so point, it really was too much. Half of him couldn't help but wonder if this was really all just a coincidence… or if it was because of the system's distaste for him right now.
Just how many things could possibly go wrong on what was supposed to be a routine recovery mission?
Sylas coughed up a mouthful of blood, wiping it away with a forearm as Vaekra stood.
She turned toward him, bones extending from practically every part of her body. Her gaze was as dark as an abyss, the whites of her eyes having vanished in favor of an endless black.
—
[Vaekra Zyrakhn (???)]
[Level: ???]
—
The sound of his breathing echoed in Sylas' ears again. He had already thought it once before. But, he was just…
Tired.
He wasn't tired of the constant dance between life and death. Not tired of the injuries or the pain. Not tired of the constant targeting or feeling like the world was against him…
He was tired of the fact he had to face death at all. Tired that he was capable of being injured or feeling pain. Tired that these people and the system dared to target him in the first place.
But in the end… he was still just far too weak.
These were thoughts he wouldn't even be having had he not ford Demonic Will.
For as long as he could rember, he was an extrely pragmatic individual. He didn't like wasting thoughts on useless matters. What good was this unwillingness and arrogance? Would it make him stronger?
No.
It wouldn't.
There was one person at fault for all of it.
But…
It would make him feel better.
These issues he was facing. Every road block, every tweak of chance, every serendipitous twist of fate that weaved together to make his life just that little bit worse…
There was one person at fault for all of it.
Lucius Grimblade.
BANG!
Vaekra suddenly appeared before Sylas, swiping an open palm with a bone blade sticking out from the center of it toward his neck.
But Sylas didn't move.
BANG!
The Basilisk King's tail sent Vaekra flying into the distance.
Sylas turned his gaze toward the Basilisk King, frowning when he noticed several bones sticking out of its body. Obviously, that tail whip hadn't co without a price.
"Let's go."
Sylas put the Basilisk King away, catching Vesta as she fell out of the skies.
With a swift motion, he summoned the Violet Rose Peacock, wrapping it in his telekinesis and shooting off toward the tunnels.
In the distance, Vaekra's body pinballed through the forest before her bouquet of bones lodged themselves into a particularly thick tree.
She tried to pull herself out, but it was obvious that she was having trouble properly controlling her new abilities.
By the ti she managed to pull away from the tree, Sylas was gone.
…
The night air wasn't as cool as it should have been with the billowing heat from the Portal.
Sylas stood on the peacock's back in silence.
There was a deep dissatisfaction within himself that he couldn't easily get rid of. He had accomplished so much, and yet felt like it was still so little.
But in the end, he had felt it… he just couldn't hold on anymore. His body had hit a wall his Will couldn't drag him past.
He was proven correct very soon.
The mont the peacock zood out of city limits with the support of Sylas' telekinesis more than tripling its Speed, the last bit of Sylas' Will blinked out.
His vision swam and he collapsed onto the peacock's back. Down below, Vesta's paralyzed body hung from a long vine that wrapped her up tightly.
However, if one paid any sort of attention to the peacock's direction, it beca clear that upon re-entering Paradise, Sylas wasn't returning to Casstle Main at all.
He was returning to the Grimblades.
A murderous aura billowed from Sylas' unconscious body, the dense blackness causing Vesta's pupils to tremble with fear.
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