"Was it a coincidence? Sylas felt that that was unlikely.

"What was their disagreement about?"

"I really don't know. All I'm aware of is the fact the government gave Professor Broussard too much power. He's not the leading figure in his field, but no one knows more about this section of the ocean than he does, so in most cases, what he says, goes. I can only assume that there was some dissent in opinion about how to approach this matter, and he didn't take kindly to it…"

Now that the cat was out of the bag, the Sergeant could only be honest. But there was nothing else to say on the matter; this was everything he knew.

"When does the government plan to make a move?" Sylas asked.

Sergeant Cherie hesitated again, but this time, Sylas understood without him even saying anything. It seemed that the government didn't have a plan, or rather, not having a plan was the plan.

The two Portals were obviously in contention. No matter who the City Lord was, it was inevitable that they'd have to deal with a flood of beasts, not just coming toward their city because of their own Portal, but even more coming from the underwater Portal.

Why let either one take advantage of them when they were likely to destroy one another?

Obviously, the Sergeant could guess at this too.

Sylas continued to ask the Sergeant questions about the city to the point where the man's head spun. After he was satisfied, he knocked him out again and then vanished.

This time, killing the man would do Sylas no good, so he let him live. In fact, letting him live this time might actually benefit him more than harm him. That was because the last string of questions he had asked the Sergeant were nothing more than a misdirection.

Even the Sergeant probably couldn't have guessed that Sylas got all the information he needed out of their first five minutes of interaction and only continued for another half hour to lead him down a different trail.

...

Sylas returned to the river.

After this series of questions, he was about 90% sure that the City Lord was Cassarae. He still didn't know what conflict led to Cassarae making such a reckless decision, but right now, Sylas knew he had to make it there.

The question was: How?

Sylas' steps came to a stop in front of a small fishing boat. Compared to the small yachts that dotted the backyards of most of these cottages, it was quite minimalistic, but it was still sleek and quite modern, all things considered.

'Perfect.'

Sylas jumped in and then summoned the Basilisk King. Using the rope that had held the small fishing boat to the cottage, he tied the Basilisk King to the vessel.

With a sway of its long, powerful body, the Basilisk King rocketed forward through the water, vanishing beneath the surface.

No motor? No problem.

...

The Basilisk King proved to be a strong swimmer.

As far as Sylas knew, his Dire Wolf mount could be used in the water as well. However, not only would it cost more Aether to sustain it, but it would also suffer a 50% hit to its top Speed. The hit would be even worse when the weight of the boat was taken into account.

Of course, there were aquatic mounts that didn't have such problems. But it seemed that the Basilisk King was a better solution for this than he could have ever expected.

Sylas took a breath and focused. This trip could very quickly become dangerous.

If he had really wanted to just use the ocean and river as a path, he could have made use of his Aether to walk on the water. But that wasn't good enough for several reasons.

First, his visualization was both distorted and far more limited when trying to sense things through water. If these were just normal waters, that would be fine. But these were waters where, presumably, there would be oceanic beasts coming. He couldn't afford a range as limited as five meters in this situation, so he had to rely on the eyes of the Basilisk King.

Second, he needed some added flexibility. There would no doubt be battles to come, and if he couldn't have a foothold when he needed it, his death wouldn't be far away.

This was the best he could do.

Of course, this matter wasn't just about saving Cassarae either. Just like he had said before, she had managed to survive so long on her own, she most likely didn't need him to suddenly swoop in. Although her village's combat power was lacking, Castle Main had once been ranked number one among cities. That meant something.

Still, there were two main reasons Sylas insisted on doing this.

First, the next step of his plans was inextricably linked to Cassarae. He couldn't have a village himself because he couldn't afford to be locked down to a single place, so Cassarae was perfect for this. He needed to find a way to connect with her; he just didn't expect that it would happen like this.

According to their original plans, they were supposed to find a path to the Amazonian Wilds on their own and then meet up. That, of course, included Sylas, Morgan, and the others.

And the second reason… well, what better way was there to gather merit for the Silver Slot Machine other than jumping into the thick of conflict?

It took the Basilisk King a half hour of following the river before it made it out. Sylas put it back into the Hibernation Realm for a time so that it could recover from any poisoning it might have suffered, then they continued minutes later.

Entering the ocean, Sylas felt small. It was so impossibly vast that one could only feel that way. But when he thought about the power of those who messed with Earth's laws… he couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever reach a point where even this vast blue expanse was like a drop in his own world.

Sylas looked into the skies, his mind wandering.

'It seems that it's about to storm…'