Sylas suddenly froze in place. It wasn’t just him—practically the entire planet was suffering the exact same fate.
The vague outline of a crimson Eye and a sapphire Eye formed in the skies, pushing and bucking up against one another, but neither seemed capable of forming entirely.
Inwardly, Sylas shook his head. He didn’t know how this was going to end, but what he did know was that he would certainly be caught in the middle of it.
He could only hope that the Eye of the modern system would protect him properly. Right now, he had a Progenitor Merit with it, while for the All-Seeing Eye… well, he wasn’t exactly sure how wild his Demerits were with the Legendary System right now, but he knew for a fact that it was quite bad.
At the very least, whatever stage he was at currently would make his previous Silver Demerit look like child’s play. If not for how limited the scope of the All-Seeing Eye was right now—and the fact that Sylas had left its range for a while—he would have probably already suffered more than just one attempt on his life by now.
Though… Sylas had personally thrown himself into the fire against a D-Grade, so maybe the All-Seeing Eye thought he was suicidal enough on his own.
Sylas slowly closed his eyes, taking deep breaths as he felt the presence of both Eyes. There was something particularly fear-inducing about both of them.
This wasn’t the first time he was seeing either, but every time, there was something visceral that triggered inside of him—a fear that came from the depths of his soul, as though to remind him of his inferiority.
He hated the feeling both times, but just like always, there was too little he could do to change things regardless of how he felt.
Now, facing off against both of them at the very same time, it was like he was being ground to dust from two directions. So, he did what any sane man would do in this situation…
He foolishly reached out with his Will.
Sylas almost immediately felt like he was about to be crushed. The essence of his Will was being ground down again and again, but he had learned something from observing the Clypsians these last few hours.
Their Wills were far weaker than his own, but their control was to be commended.
Sylas felt like, compared to them, he was always using his Will like it was some sort of sledgehammer—and he could get away with it, too, because he was usually so much superior to the opponents he came across.
He lacked a subtlety—a refined sort of control.
As the presences of the two Eyes fighting for the right of entry into the world pushed against him from both sides, Sylas could feel the frayed edges of his Will being compressed and chipped away at, almost like the impurities were being flushed out and replaced with something else entirely.
It was at that moment that Sylas touched the Greed Seed.
Much like it had been a while since Sylas used the Gluttony Seed, he had neglected the Greed Seed as well—though for much less indifferent reasons.
However, after his experience not long ago—when he lost his mind for several moments and began to dissect corpses as though he had lost himself to his own Greed—he knew that just ignoring it wasn’t enough, even if it wasn’t useful to him for the time being.
The real reason he didn’t use the Greed Seed much was because the Scorpion Warlord Armor did what it could do, but better—as did his Grimblade Unique Gene. Plus, there was his own personal Healing Factor to consider as well.
The Greed Seed was able to absorb Blood Essence to heal him, but the Scorpion Warlord Armor could do the same with his own Blood Essence—not to mention the fact that his Grimblade Unique Gene could swallow other Wills to replenish and strengthen himself.
But there was more to the Seeds. Sylas knew that.
And right now, he had a feeling that he just might be able to…
Pop.
The feeling was almost like his shoulder jumping out from its socket. No, it was even more visceral—more painful—as though it was his leg jumping out from its hip joint instead.
There was a pop, then a stretch, then waves of pain that came in an avalanche.
It hadn’t taken Sylas much to purify his Will to the greatest extent, but as he felt that one of the Eyes was about to win, he knew that he couldn’t wait much longer to test out his theory.
Regardless of which of the Seeds it was, both were not liked by the modern system. And as far as Sylas could tell—if he had to guess, anyway—the Legendary System was probably responsible for the fall of the Madness Disciples to begin with.
Although Arcane Madness called the modern system impotent, it didn’t seem to be out of a place of rage, but instead indifference and disdain. That didn’t seem like the kind of feeling you’d have toward something responsible for placing you in a cage.
This meant that whatever had happened to the Madness Disciples had been triggered by a previous system. Since the only two Sylas knew of were these two here, and he hadn’t seen any evidence of a third, he could only assume that the root of all of it was the All-Seeing Eye.
So at that point, even trapped in all this chaos, Sylas had a wild thought surface in his mind.
The All-Seeing Eye hated him already, right? What was the harm in it hating him a little bit more? In fact, why not use that hatred to his benefit?
Sylas pulled on the Greed Seed with all the might he could muster, and right at that moment, the All-Seeing Eye trembled as though a poked bear—its Eye splitting existence apart to appear—as it turned toward Sylas.