Chapter 504: Decision

Chapter 504: Decision

Sylas' visualization had never been good at looking through barriers. Even when he was in the ocean, it was highly limited by the waters alone. In this situation, even with how porous the sand was, he couldn't see more than a meter or so underground.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

However, that was enough for him to realize something.

The world around him was basically being held up by a large root system. The sparse trees might as well have been on an organic system, connected with one another, sharing resources and water. And it was because of this thick, continuous connection that the sand had anywhere to rest. But if one wasn't careful, it was easy to accidentally slip and fall into this endless network of roots.

The shocking part was that before the improvement to his Luck, Sylas wouldn't have been able to see far enough to realize this at all. He would have thought it was normal sandy ground and likely slipped down by accident, finding himself assaulted by a large number of poisonous creatures.

The roots were practically a den for populations of scorpions that seemed to be in the tens of thousands. It was hard to look anywhere and not find a scorpion territory in some situation.

If he agitated the roots without thought, he would easily become public enemy number one.

'Where did the street sign come from?'

This random thought made Sylas pause.

When he first got to the battlefield, a spiraling street sign had almost taken his head off his shoulders if not for the fact he caught it before it could.

But there didn't seem to be any cities or civilization nearby at all.

There seemed to only be two potential explanations.

Either it was a remnant from Ragnar's own village, or there was an underground city here somewhere.

The portal in the distance looked to be buried into the ground, and Sylas felt the odds that a small village like Ragnar's needed street signs were unlikely. In that case, there really was a network down below.

"Let's move on to the next phase," Lucius communicated with Nathan secretly.

"Are you sure? You still have plausible deniability right now," Nathan replied.

Lucius didn't reply immediately. He stared off into the distance as his Grimblades began to press into the village.

One way or another, he was going to stamp out this competition.

Contrary to what one might believe, he didn't make any plans with the Ravenclaws, nor did he communicate with the Sylphs. He was using them both.

It was just that he knew that the likelihood that they would succeed was minimal. However, if he placed his hands on the scale a bit, it was possible that Sylas might really be forced into a

corner.

It was exactly this sort of ambiguity that made the plan viable. That was because right about now, if Sylas had sniffed anything out, he was probably thinking that he was in collusion with the Ravenclaws, whereas in reality... Ragnar was still under the impression that he was working on his own.

Funny enough, he and Ragnar both had the same thoughts. Ragnar was about to sacrifice his village for the sake of taking out Sylas, believing he could turn the situation around so long as

he wasn't around.

As for Lucius, he was willing to sacrifice even more than that.

He was now standing at a crossroads once more and staring down two options.

Nathan was right. If he backed out now, if Sylas somehow survived, there was still plausible deniability. But if he did this... there was no going back.

"I've made my decision," he replied, his gaze calm. "Get Bloom here."