“Nosphaleen.”
Sylas pulled her out of the Hibernation Realm and matched her gaze.
“Yes, master.”
Nosphaleen lowered her head, a slight blush on her cheeks. Sylas was finding that her tone and feel around him were changing more and more every day, and a part of him was starting to think if Old Brama’s words about Charysms held some light truth to them.
He certainly wasn’t a Demon, that much was obvious. But if he was characterizing himself purely on the characteristics of a Charysm, he had all the tools that were necessary.
He had Demonic Will, and he had an ocular method capable of projecting his Will out into the world. These were the two main components of what made a Charysm.
Well… there was also the evolution of Charisma itself, but Sylas had never received a Title for that, and even Andromeda hadn’t had any backend information about it either. It was either this information was sealed tight and hidden away, or no one knew anything about it.
‘It should be possible…’
“We’ll be using Total Merge. I’ll have to borrow your body for a while.”
Nosphaleen blinked, a bit surprised. But then she nodded.
“I understand.”
She knew instinctively through her connection with Sylas how it would work.
They both sat in the snow across from one another, and Sylas slowly took deep breaths.
Using Total Merge required a lot of trust, trust that Sylas had only really built up with Gogo. But Nosphaleen had been by his side for a very long time as well, and especially after he saved her from the three Monarchs of the Africor Continent, her demeanor around him had begun undergoing subtle changes.
Sylas could see that, and even more intimately sense it because she was his contract, but she was also nowhere near as useful to him as Gogo was.
Her stats had been impressive on Earth, but they had long fallen far behind. There was simply no need for him to use her in a full Fusion. At best, she was good for some Semi-Fusion use here and there when he felt the need to confuse someone’s eyes or control their mind for a moment.
“Focus,” Sylas said calmly.
“… I’m sorry, master. It’s very difficult.”
Sylas slowly opened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I… your eyes… they’re very overwhelming.”
Sylas frowned, raising his hand up to one of his eyes as though he would be able to feel the difference. Also… weren’t his eyes closed just now?
“I can feel it even when they’re closed… especially when we have to merge. I don’t know if I can do it. It feels like… it feels like you’ll erase me.”
Sylas fell into silence when he heard this.
Total Merge worked by melding two Wills into one. Theoretically, if one Will was so much more superior to the other, one of them would certainly be snuffed out of existence.
Of course, this would only be temporary, but it definitely wasn’t a nice feeling.
Even with Gogo, Sylas was only comfortable with using Total Merge for now because the Basilisk King was basically an infant. He didn’t have complex thoughts, and Sylas’ experience could take command of things. Any thoughts and emotions that would have come from Gogo would be easily controlled by Sylas.
‘This is a problem…’
Sylas thought he had come up with a great plan, but he hadn’t thought that he would run into a roadblock here before he could do much of anything else.
He also wasn’t just going to force Nosphaleen to comply either. If he did that, not only would it not work, but it would also cause whatever trust had been built between them to crumble as well.
It wasn’t worth it.
Sylas considered for a moment.
There is another way…
If he could give himself Overlord status, he could certainly do it for his Contracts as well.
This was a plan that Sylas already had in mind. It would make leveling up his Contracts far easier, and he wouldn’t have to go through so much trouble in the future. The only reason he hadn’t done it already was because he had gone right from the Level 30 Bazaar, to the Golden Grove, and now he was on a time crunch to deal with things here.
He didn’t have the time or luxury to even consider building up his army right now. The strength they could give him was too limited versus what he would be facing. Plus… they were already all almost max-leveled already.
Now, however, it seemed he would need to act. It was just a question of if he could find someone with Overlord status here.
He was wasting time away with every breath he took. He couldn’t afford to go off-world to find what he needed.
The Bazaar had had a large concentration of elites, and yet it still took him a bit of time before he could find someone with Overlord status to take advantage of.
Sylas’ gaze sharpened. He would just have to rely on his Luck again.
Once more, it was even sharper here than it had been on the Level 30 Bazaar. But what he was looking for was almost taboo in a way, making the feeling far vaguer than when he had used it earlier.
Even so, after a few moments, he managed to feel out a general direction.
He placed Nosphaleen into the Hibernation Realm again and shot off into the distance.
**
Fort Bane Encampment.
Cold steel and snow were a combination as old as time. For a prison that had existed for what felt like generations at this point, it was even more fitting.
But what was truly odd was the almost… communal nature of what should have been a very clear prison, humanoids with blue skin and smiling faces rushing around as though they all had somewhere very important to be.
At the core of this encampment, there was a tower, tall and looming, and perfectly fitted for the atmosphere.
“There’s been an oddity detected in the spatial field, Commander Hama.”
A Sylph with steely blue eyes stood staring into the distance.
“I felt it, too…”
—
[Cenk Hama]
[Level: 107]
