Panic would have been a proper emotion. Maybe fear, that felt right.

When one stared death in the face, it was inevitable that even the strongest of men would feel such a thing. In truth, Sylas was far too hard on himself for what happened that day in the volcano. There wasn't a single great man who had never had such a moment. And those that hadn't had simply been handed everything they had.

What decided the sort of person you were was what you chose to do after this.

Would you fold like the majority?

Or take a step forward?

For Sylas, at a moment like this, he seemed to have peeled any sort of fear or uncertainty from himself. Feeling his life slipping away, he didn't give a single thought toward this being the end.

His eyes flashed, and for the first time, he used his new Runeweaver Eyes.

The world shuddered as a Charisma the likes of which morphed gravity and twisted space appeared. His eyes shone brighter, as though a veil that had been over them was shaken off, and in that moment, Salivar, who had been so very certain he had a great grasp of Sylas' Will, felt his own falter.

Salivar's control over his Aether was stripped, the Aether pouring into Sylas being broken down, separated into the Foundations and Strokes that formed it, and scattered into the wind.

The chains on Sylas' arms rattled, and the pair of swords were shaken back.

Taking a step forward, the gold coating Sylas' skin shattered into a rain of ashy ambrosia. It trickled down from the skies in a beautiful cascade, forming the backdrop for Sylas' dancing white hair, thick as the mane of a roaring beast.

Since Mixed Demonic Arts wasn't working anymore, he would just have to use overwhelming power.

Sylas swapped to Madness, and the world nearly shattered before his gaze. Runes of Space and Time arrived at his beck and call, his Runeweaver Eyes fusing them into a complex tapestry.

BANG.

A single fist careened across the air. Wind compressed and a void collapsed, a dense blackness being all Salivar registered before a hole was blown out of his shoulder.

Salivar just barely managed to dodge on instinct, the blood-red Aether taking control of his body. It was a subtlety that Sylas didn't miss in the slightest.

As for the golden lightning Aether, it snapped back. Salivar unveiled his own eyes. They roared with life and vitality, the control that Sylas had gained over his Aether faltering and then collapsing entirely.

A pair of gazes, both within the realms of the D-tier—a tier that should have been far beyond a pair of F-tiers to control—clashed. Sparks of emerald and gold lightning shattered against one another. It felt almost as though a pair of nebulas—one a royal green, and the other reflecting the color of the gods—had clashed in the depths of space.

And then came their roars.

Blades flashed and fists descended akin to meteors.

A glow of emerald hung around Sylas' body. He was no longer predicting Salivar's movements as far ahead as before, and Salivar no longer felt like he was a child fighting against a grown adult.

But in return, Sylas' raw power touched onto a new realm entirely. Every fist was as heavy as a mountain, every kick swifter than lightning and sharper than howling winds.

Every time he collided with Salivar, the latter felt like his bones were rattling, the Constitution he was so very proud of—especially as an Intelligence expert—falling to the level of what was brittle and fragile.

And yet Salivar himself could only be called kingly. Sylas was certain. He was maintaining not just one Comprehension at once, but two of them. Not only was he maintaining two Comprehensions, but he was constantly swapping one of them for a third.

In his normal base state, he had two Comprehensions active for both of his Aethers, boosting his Intelligence to exaggerated levels. It felt like the reserves he had were endless.

But every time he felt himself about to get overwhelmed by Sylas' fists and close-combat methods, he swapped one of them out for a sword mastery Comprehension.

In that instant, he became sharper, quicker, more lethal in ways that nearly cost Sylas his life several times. Cuts littered his skin, some as deep as bone, while for Salivar, he looked as though craters were constantly forming across his once pristine tea-green skin.

It simply didn't feel like a fight between F-tiers. Granted, one of them was truly an E-tier. And yet, even so… it felt like E-tiers shouldn't have this level of strength either.

A laughter erupted from Salivar. His eyes still seemed glazed over, and Sylas was still unable to pinpoint his exact Will, and yet something from within him had erupted nonetheless.

His swords became faster, one attack setting up the next—a series of combinations that flashed from the sharpness of bolts striking from above to the fluidity of a maelstrom of blood turbidly tainting a river.

Sylas' Rune Armors glowed in kind, one palm surrounded by the heaviness of space, twisting and bending the Aether that came around it, while the other churned with a rotating storm of emerald lightning that shattered Salivar's control over his Aether the moment they made contact.

All the while, their gazes remained locked. On one side, the Runeweaver Eyes. On the other, the All Seeing Eyes.

Their Wills formed a tangible storm in the skies, the world around them shattering to the point they battled not on glaciers any longer, but on turbid and raging seas.

"VOID." Salivar roared from within his laughter.

WHOOSH.

A rushing wind peeled out, leaving the two in a vacuum. Sylas' Aether sputtered out, his Rune Armors flickering as though they might snap out of existence at any moment.

Taking advantage of a brief flicker, Salivar's blade pierced through Sylas' guard, running right through his heart and exploding out from his back.

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