Sylas had just suddenly attacked Alex, and they hadn't even managed to get a grasp on the situation before the latter was heavily injured.",

There was no time to explain. Sylas could only rush after him, casting Astral Bind again, only to be rebuffed by some mysterious strength.

Alex glared daggers at Sylas as though trying to bore the man's visage into his psyche. He felt humiliated, but he also felt that it was his fault. It wasn't just Sylas' stats that had calmed him, but also the fact the man was at the end of his rope. And yet somehow he had still let this happen.

Suddenly, Sylas took out the second Trembling Spear from his Madness Key. His eyes reflected with a cold, indifferent glint, his emotions unreadable.

Alex's gaze glinted. That was the second item they wanted to procure in this excursion, a serendipitous coincidence, if you will. But the cards hadn't fallen.

A normal person would have let their guard down after Lauren exposed herself, but somehow Sylas had seen through him. Clearly, there was some sort of flaw the two had left behind.

Alex's body suddenly gleamed like metal beneath the moon's light as he pushed out against the coming spear.

The clash shook his arm, but he used the momentum to carry him backward even further, using his agility to slip into the cascade of trees.

"Sylas! Stop!" Cassarae called out. "You're too spent!"

She had seen how heavily Sylas had been breathing until just now. But it wasn't just that he was tired, he was clearly brash as well. She was usually the rash one. It was Sylas who was the voice of reason. If he was so certain that Alex was a traitor, why not use him as bait? This would make things more troublesome.

What Cassarae hadn't considered was that Sylas felt he had no choice. The methods of these people were too deep. They could hide their stats, apparently they could fake their affiliations as well or else Cassarae would have long since seen through their Favorability, Lauren had somehow just disappeared into thin air, and just now Alex had managed to keep his hand after lashing out against the equivalent of over 350 Effective Strength with just a fist.

You could only use such a tactic against people you understood the limits of. If you didn't understand where their limits lay, then you'd just end up dying before you understood what was going on.

Even so, Sylas came to a stop, his breath coming out in heaves. Cassarae was right. He really didn't have the strength left to go after him. Just those few failed casts of Astral Bind and pumping that spear full of Aether just now had made those searing Paths within him cry out in horror again. It felt like he had just dumped a bunch of rubbing alcohol on an open, festering wound.

However, that didn't mean things would end like this.

"No!" The sudden cry came from the forest and a familiar figure was sent flying back into the wet marsh.

Alex landed in the tall, wet grass, scrambling backward. He still had a hand pressed heavily into his neck, but his gaze was flickering with emotions that ranged from astonishment to fear.

At that moment, a black snake slithered into view, barely perceptible under the night air. In fact, if not for the two orbs of crimson that pulsed with their own light, its silhouette would be hardly discernible.

Alex didn't understand. Beasts this strong shouldn't appear in this location of the Amazonian Wilds. They were much further into the rain forest, at least hundreds of kilometers from this location. How could only be here?

He had already lost way too much blood. His effective stats were plummeting by the second and the healing Elixirs he had only worked as well as he could avoid getting injured again.

This was the absolute worst-case scenario.

Or so it seemed.

At that moment, a small bead of flesh suddenly appeared. He couldn't react as it burst, a greenish liquid falling over him and his wounds.

It was yet another situation that he simply didn't understand at all until he was suddenly paralyzed. No matter how hard he tried to move, his nerve endings simply wouldn't receive his mind's signals. Even worse, his Aether had slowed to a crawl.

This was all so absolutely infuriating. He was certain that under normal circumstances, his Constitution would be strong enough to shrug off this low-level venom. But now

Alex lay there, helpless, a black scaled creature looming over him while another green-eyed beast, this time in human skin, loomed behind him.

"I asked you a question," Sylas' voice came from behind him as everyone else caught up. "Who are you?"

Sylas frowned when Alex didn't answer. "I know your Constitution is high enough to resist the venom and speak. This time, if you don't reply, I will just kill you."

Alex's spine tingled. The last time Sylas made such an ultimatum, he had really died. He truly didn't dare to

The arrow came out of nowhere.

Maybe it was because Sylas' mind was too fatigued from the continuous battles, but that wasn't how he remembered it.

When he recalled this day, he would remember something too fast, too slippery, too steeped in shadows to react to.

It tore through Alex's mouth, through the roof of his skull, and plunged into the soft soil, causing an eruption of dirt.

Sylas' gaze flashed as his head turned sharply toward the direction it had come from or, rather, the direction he thought it had come from

It was truly too sudden and too fast, and with how the arrows of this world could curve, the angle it hit the ground at was useless information to him.

If only that beautiful tapestry of colors his mind had been able to form earlier hadn't vanished under his fatigue

Sylas stood in silence, as did everyone else.