Sylas felt waves of danger pinging him continuously, but he didn't move a single inchβ not out of fear, but instead a different sort of pride he couldn't describe. That, and the feeling that taking a step back might actually be what cost him his life.
His heart skipped just a single beat before it returned to normal, relaxing to a steady, calming rhythm.
The King Serpent continued to look at the Madness Key for a long while. It seemed as though the creature had forgotten about Sylas' existence itself, only caring about him insofar as he related to the treasure hanging from his neck.
When it finally did look back at Sylas, finding those cold and indifferent eyes, its own slit narrowed just the slightest bit.
The creature exhaled a breath for seemingly the first time in what may have been hours just as easily as it could have been years.
The rainforest remained in complete silence, and yet a hot wind spread along the entire forest floor, causing trees that had stood for thousands of years to sway heavily, their large bodies threatening to snap in two.
Sylas, though, continued to stand in the very same spot, the chains on his Scorned Wraps rattling.
"Arrogant."
The voice was deep and ancient in ways that were hard to describe. It practically growled, but its Will was so powerful that Sylas could feel its thoughts projecting out into the world.
The air in front of Sylas exploded as though a cannon had slammed into his chest. There was a ripple across the air, his hair dancing so violently it almost felt as though it might rip free from his scalp.
Yet, he still remained unmoved, an equally powerful ripple of emerald dancing across his exposed skin.
It was just a single word the King Serpent had spoken, but Sylas could feel it all. Every ittle bit of intent behind it.
It was angry about something, and it wasn't the Madness Key. It was something else. Gogo. It was calling him arrogant because it could smell the scent of Gogo on him.
Now Sylas understood.
He had come all this way, but he had still not been able to sense anything about this King Serpent. All he knew was that the evolutionary trigger for Gogo was hidden here and related to this thing.
But the moment he had approached, it was like all the senses his Vipermancy had given him had been stripped away. The serpent was like a bottomless hole, swallowing up everything in its path and violently oppressing it.
Was this King Serpent related to Gogo?
Sylas didn't actually believe so. If this was another Basilisk, he would know. No matter how good this serpent was at hiding its origins, Sylas' connection with Gogo was too strong for an F-tier of its kind to be right before him and for him to be unaware. However... it seemed to be following a similar path to Gogo... somehow.
A King of some sort. A monarch that embodied all the same sorts of things Gogo's ancestors had.
"Gogo." Sylas called out.
Much like the system had a hard time properly rating Will, it likewise had a hard time rating beasts. And this was ironically also related to Will.
Just like Gralith had said. The Beast Warlord Sanctum wasn't a Sect of Rune Masters, it was a Sect of Will Grandmasters, people who focused on Will.
Much of the power of beasts, their potential, how they could progress was built on the Will passed down to them from their Ancestors.
At best, the system could try and grade this Will and how powerful it was, but it wasn't perfectly accurate.
Gogo was a Gold Beast, an existence that would be the equivalent to a B-Grade humanoid at worst, and even equivalent to some A-Grade humanoids at best. And yet... Gogo's stats were in the double digits, averaging around just 50 stat points.
This was completely misaligned.
So what happened when the potential of an A-Grade Race was fused into the body of someone with Wil as powerful as Sylas?
it completely changed everything.
Who was to say that Fusion only had to help in one direction?

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