Chapter 564: Toxic

Chapter 564: Toxic



Sylas' fist careened through the air, its speed so fast and its power so great that the frosty winds around it spiraled out of the way, moving with a sharpness that seemed to add to the power of the blow rather than detract from it.

BANG!

Fist and heart collided, both wreathed in the chilliest of winds and the densest of cold.

For a moment, it looked as though nothing happened. Sylas' fist met a resistance it couldn't blast through, and unlike before, where the elasticity of the heart made it somewhat more manageable, this time, the heart felt almost like a solid brick wall.

However, that was when the power traveled through the heart, and the portions of the creature that had yet to ice over rebounded.

That spelled the Violet Rose Heart's death.

There was a ripple through its flesh, and the rebounding force bounced back toward the frozen portions.

They sheared right at their connection point, the overwhelming Constitution of the creature becoming the root of its destruction.

KACHA! CRACK.

With a sudden burst, shards of ice exploded in all directions, and Sylas was sent flying back once again.

But this time, he was ready for it. His Aether was running on empty by now, but he was still able to use his Rune Essence Mastery to form a platform of ice that he glided back along.

Eventually, he slowed to a stop, gasping for breath.

Up ahead, the heart hung in silence from its own Aether veins and arteries. A fleshly pulp fell from its edges, and the silence almost felt dreary in a way.

It looked as though some sort of frost monster had taken a huge bite out of it. There was a large piece of its "body" missing, and the wound was lined with jagged edges of icy blueness. It was dead.

[Dungeon <Violet Rose Brush> Cleared]

[Dynamic Field Dungeon of <Violet Rose Brush> Cleared]

[System Curse Evaded]

[+405 Intelligence]

[Ability: Toxic Touch; Toxic Domain]

...

[Durability: 350/350]

This was also the first time that Sylas had seen a Treasure with such high Durability. It was likely as a result of its high level.

On Earth now, this sort of armor would have people chomping at the bit. Now that Sylas had access to a Nexus, he would have to start taking the option to sell more seriously.

He had run out of money before he could exchange for the grappling Gene Skill, and that was still bothering him a bit. Maybe this would help him get over that threshold.

Plus, if there was anything that he was going to sell, an armor like this one was perfect. After all, even if he ran into the person who he sold this armor to, it would be useless against him. At this point, there was probably not a single poison on Earth that would work against Sylas.

Plaguefire was the most interesting, and it would definitely help shore up one of his greatest weaknesses... if he could use it, that is.

Well, it wasn't that he couldn't use it. He certainly could. The main issue was that it would use up a large amount of Aether and take an obscene time to raise the Mastery of. Plaguefire was a Poison-Fire Gene Skill. So the issue couldn't have been more obvious.

Sylas didn't have a fire affinity and he didn't plan on ever getting one.

Although it seemed like he could just lump any and all Mancer Paths together, that wasn't the case. In fact, he had already sensed some clashing between his Wood and Ice affinities. Wood and poison matched well, but Wood and Ice were too antithetical to one another. The latter restrained the growth of the former, and the former broke the restraints of the latter.

Wood wanted to be flexible, but Ice wanted to be rigid.

The choice had already been made, so there was no going back. But Sylas was already trying to find ways to fix the issues he was dealing with now.

One of those possibilities was increasing his wood affinity further. A second he thought of was

pivoting from wood to earth...

But the potential first solution came to him first.

His gaze landed on the dead heart before him.