Because Sylas' forward momentum suddenly came to a stop, Alex's counter was mis-timed. Before, his peak strength would have exploded right at their contact point. But with this current momentum, he would have to slash out before his blades reached Sylas.

He realized the issue, but it was already too late. He immediately began to calculate what he could do to deal with the aftermath. What he didn't expect was that Sylas had his own plans.

<King's Bind>.

The bracelet activated once again. It was an instant cast, something that Sylas shouldn't have been able to do with the space between them being so close. Despite the previous deployment of <King's Shield>, it seemed as though Alex had yet to realize where that Skill had come from. Sylas' relentless pursuit hadn't allowed him the ability to think about anything else.

However, Alex still snorted. A bind Skill this powerful was rare, but he still had the ability to counter it. He didn't hesitate to use his strongest Dispel Skill.

But Sylas' timing was simply far too good.

He activated <King's Bind> just as Alex's crossblade attack Skill reached its climax. There was a clash of Aether that made Alex cough up blood, but he was still able to tank it. He was already prepared to activate yet another Defensive Skill, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a shine of the sun.

He barely had time to register that it wasn't the sun at all.

The second ballista that Sylas had set up fired. But this time, there wasn't a normal ballista bolt on it, but rather the Wind Reaper Javelin.

[Wind Reaper Javelin (FF)]

[Level: 10]

[Ability: Swallow (Wind)]

[This treasure swallows Wind Aether proportional to the Speed it travels at. For every 50 kph, Piercing power increases by 100%]

Even a ballista of ancient times had an exit velocity of upwards of 90 meters per second, which translated to over 300 kilometers an hour. At such a close distance, and with such a powerful ballista created by Archibald the engineer, it would easily reach over 500 kilometers an hour, increasing Piercing power by 1000%.

With such Piercing power, even if it was in the hands of a child, Alex's Constitution would be nothing but wet tissue paper before it, let alone here and now.

But what was maybe the most shocking to Alex was that not only had Sylas triggered such a thing, but he had dared to do so when there was less than two meters between them.

Alex had, of course, seen these ballista on the roof. But who would shoot a ballista at themselves? How confident did you have to be in your aim to dare to do such a thing? With how fast that javelin was…

There simply was no room to dodge.

Alex tried to twist out of the way, but the javelin drove right through his upper right chest, shattering his collarbone. It was so fast that it exited the other side of his body before he could do anything at all.

He was stunned for a moment, and then the pain hit him in waves.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood and then collapsed, his body shuddering.

At that moment, Sylas appeared before him, driving a powerful fist into Alex's hip just as he keeled over.

All the air in Alex's body was forcefully ripped out in that moment. He could feel every inch of his hip shattering before his entire body shut down.

With swift movements, three kunai came from Sylas' Madness Key and surrounded Alex, cutting his clothing into ribbons and then stripping everything off of his body.

Quickly, Sylas found exactly what it was that was causing the cobra to go so crazy.

There was a necklace hanging from Alex's neck.

[Beast Bewildering Amulet (Silver) (Treasure)]

[Level: 20]

[Target the mind of a beast and feed it illusions]

[While the beast is Bewildered, +10% Physical]

What took Sylas off guard, though, was that the moment he took this necklace off of Alex, it dimmed and the thrashing of the waters beneath them began to grow calmer. At the same time, he got a strong feeling of repulsion from the treasure, as though even if it wasn't for the Scorned Wraps, he wouldn't be able to use it.

Sylas realized that there was no time to waste. The hold that Alex had on the Emperor had vanished.

But at the same time, he also knew that even if the Arctic Emperor Cobra managed to regain control of itself, it would be severely weakened. Just how much water had it swallowed up while it was thrashing about below the river?

Sylas looked down at his body and realized that he was in an absolute mess.

He threw Alex onto the roof of a cottage, not having any better means to deal with him for now. Although he wanted to kill him, he also felt that Alex had far too much information that he would need. Even if Alex, by some miracle, managed to escape, he had taken all of his things so Sylas still hadn't lost out.

He turned toward the river, hoping to find the javelin, but it was a pipe dream.

The river was relatively small compared to others, so the javelin was still within range of Sylas' visualization, only 10 meters or so beneath the surface.

But the problem was that it was so deeply embedded that it was impossible for Sylas to use his telekinesis to pull it out. The force he would need was too much.

'It's still not up yet?'

Sylas turned his visualization to the Emperor cobra only to find it weakly trying to crawl its way up to the surface. It seemed that he had severely underestimated how weakened it was right now, even its Will had plummeted by several measures.

However, it was crawling toward the wrong side of the shore. If it appeared in such a weak state over there, then the one to kill it would likely be a member of Legacy or the government.

Sylas grit his teeth.

He refused to allow that. Not after everything he had been through.

With a determined glint, he pressed his foot into the ground and shot forward again.

'Three minutes… I have three minutes left of Fusion…'

Worse than that, he knew that even if he could hold on for that long, whether his body would still be in working condition afterward was up in the air.