Chapter 672: Shia vs Sylas (2)
As Sylas struggled to recover from Shia’s relentless assault, there was, for the slightest and briefest moment, a pause in his mind amid her furious onslaught as she charged straight toward him.
In that fleeting instant, one single thought emerged—clear enough, sharp enough—that he could finally focus and channel his powers with precision.
There was no roar to announce it, no wild rush to herald his intent. No grand, dramatic display of fury or overwhelming force—just quiet, decisive resolve.
He simply... snapped.
Snap!
The sound was small — almost insignificant — like the quiet breaking of a single dry twig in a silent forest.
But in that moment, everything in the void froze.
The roaring Divine Horrors mid-leap, their grotesque mouths open in mid-scream, suddenly hung motionless in the air.
The Existence warriors, had their weapons raised and faces twisted in rage, became statues of flesh and armor.
Explosions that had been blooming in brilliant flashes of gold and void-black light halted mid-expansion, their destructive energy suspended like frozen fireworks.
Even the wind, the conceptual pressure, the very flow of causality in the area — all of it came to a complete, unnatural stop.
A sleek, metallic gauntlet materialized over Sylas’s hands, its surface etched with shifting runes that shimmered in silver and gold light.
Alongside his double-edged sword, it was the second weapon he reserved for only the most desperate of situations.
This was no crafted artifact, but something he had possessed since birth—an innate part of him.
It was more than just a weapon; it was deeply tied to the very fabric of Pantheos: the Gauntlet of Existence Narrative Manipulation.
At the sound of his fingers snapping, Sylas muttered under his breath, his voice rough but steady.
"This place needs... balance... and you are standing in the way of it!"
HUMMMMMMMMM!!!
The moment the last word left his lips, the impact of his snap was instant and catastrophic.
Dead Existence warriors rose from the ground, their wounds closing, their broken bodies reforming as if time itself had been reversed for them.
The Divine Horrors that had been torn apart by Shia’s madness suddenly reappeared, their forms stabilizing as the conceptual corruption that had fueled them was forcibly balanced and undone.
Not only that, but even the madness Shia had unleashed — that invasive, splintering force she’d driven into Sylas and the battlefield — was completely dispelled, erased as cleanly as ink scrubbed from parchment.
The chaos, the howling storm of death and delirium that had raged mere moments before, suddenly fell silent, the battlefield settling into an uneasy stillness.
Sylas grinned, blood still trailing from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes now shone with sharp, unshakable focus.
"Get ready," he murmured, his voice low and edged with danger.
Snap!
In the next instant, he snapped his fingers again.
This time, it wasn’t only to steady himself — it was for something entirely different, something that would let him fight without a shred of fear.
It was plot armor.
HUMMMMMMMM!!!!
The gauntlet burst to life with a dazzling silver glow, and in that moment, Sylas’s very being was fortified by the story itself — a shield born from the narrative, crowning him as the undeniable protagonist of this scene, the one who could not be easily defeated or written out.
Shia’s manic grin stretched even wider as she sensed the shift. She didn’t just feel it—she could see exactly how it affected Sylas.
With Plot Armor in play, killing him, shattering his mind, or anything of the sort was completely off the table.
On top of that, his odds of survival and success had skyrocketed to something almost absurd.
Strangely enough, this only sent a thrill racing through her, making her more exhilarated than ever.
A wild laugh burst from her lips, her black eyes shining with unrestrained battle lust.
"Now we’re talking!" she yelled.
She raised her right hand, and with a sharp, fluid motion, a thin, elegant katana materialized in her grip.
HUM!
The blade was sleek and deadly, its edge shimmering with an unnatural, almost predatory light that seemed to thirst for the clash.
She had been using her fists until now, reveling in the raw, personal brutality of it all.
But the moment Sylas reinforced himself with narrative armor, she decided it was time to get serious.
In that instant, they didn’t hesitate—no, they simply vanished, and when they reappeared, they were already locked in combat.
BOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
Unlike any other encounter before, Sylas charged straight at her, his double-edged sword gleaming with a fierce silver light as he swung it in a flawless arc.
Their blades met with a brutal crash—his heavy, double-edged sword colliding against her slender katana, igniting sparks of silver and white that burst between them.
The sheer force of the blow sent shockwaves tearing through the space, splintering and fracturing the very fabric of the void itself.
Shia moved with ease even with Sylas being on a level fighting field now.
Her katana flashing in a series of lightning-fast strikes.
Each swing carried not just physical force but the narrative weight of pure madness— strikes that sought to fracture Sylas’s mind even as they aimed to cut his body.
Though it may seem completely useless, she only was biding her time.
CLANGGGG!!!!!
CLANGGGGG!!!!!
Sylas, now reinforced by his plot armor, his movements were sharper, more deliberate, as the narrative itself seemed to favor him in this moment.
He countered her slashes with precise, powerful swings of his own sword, forcing her to dodge and weave between his strikes.
The two of them traded blows in a furious, back-and-forth exchange.
Shia’s wild, unpredictable style pushed Sylas back, only for him to counter with reinforced slashes that forced her to retreat and reposition.
For the first time since the fight began, it was no longer one-sided.
They traded blows — Shia’s raw, taunting strikes clashing against Sylas’s seemingly untouchable defense.
But in the chaos, Sylas spotted his chance.
With a fierce roar, he twisted mid-air and delivered a sharp, crushing kick straight to Shia’s midsection.
BOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!
The impact was absolutely thunderous.
Shia’s body folded slightly as the force sent her flying backward like a cannonball through the chaos.
She tumbled uncontrollably through the air, crashing through swarms of Divine Horrors and Existence warriors alike.
And their bodies exploded on contact, black ichor and golden blood spraying in wide arcs as her momentum carved a brutal path through the battlefield.
Shia quickly twisted in mid-air, regaining her footing with a graceful flip. Her black eyes still burned with exhilaration as she stabilized herself, katana already materializing in her grip once more.
But Sylas’s voice was already ringing out across the void, deep and resonant, carrying the weight of absolute judgment.
"I care not for your taunts," he declared, his tone cold and final, like the voice of inevitability itself.
"My mission is to push Existence to the brink... and anyone who stands in my way will be balanced. Erased... and utterly removed from the scales."
He raised his hand, the Gauntlet of Existence Narrative Manipulation glowing with silver light.
HUMMMMMMMM!!!!!
|Divine Decree of the Final Balance|
Though it was mentioned that at this stage powerful beings rarely needed to use their abilities, that was mostly true for those outside Pantheos.
When Gods clashed—or in this case, Novel Creators—the power system was designed so that every battle felt like a genuine threat to one’s life, especially between those of equal strength.
That’s why elements like Decrees, Divine Authorities, and other conceptual powers Ash introduced into Pantheos continued relentlessly until they pushed one step beyond its very bounds.
The decree activated with absolute authority.
Instantly, a wave of conceptual force washed over Shia, attempting to impose perfect balance on her strengths and weaknesses, forcing her existence into a state where every advantage she held would be neutralized, leading inevitably to her downfall.
At the same time, he unleashed one of his innate powers.
HUMMMMMMM!!!!!
|Existential Reckoning (Above Origin)|
The instant it activated, half the beings on the battlefield — horrors, warriors, and everything in between — were immediately marked.
Their bodies wavered and shimmered as the strange force tried to erase or weaken them, all in some effort to restore balance.
Shia’s eyes narrowed, her body tensing for the first time since the clash began.
She could feel the decree curling around her, trying to pin her down, to bind her within its rules — but it slipped away, unable to cling, like water rolling off oil.
She scoffed, her voice dripping with mocking disdain.
"How can you balance or judge something... that cannot be judged?"
In one reality or another, such a thing might have worked against Shia or any other being that wasn’t ineffable.
After all, how could you judge, measure, or define someone who existed far beyond any concept tied to such ideas?
The moment it touched her, the decree shattered instantly.
Thanks to Ash, she and everyone else existed beyond perfection—beyond any scale that could measure or contain them.
At that same instant, Sylas’s plot armor, which had been bolstering his presence in the story, fractured and fell away.
And then, his existence began to fray at the edges, unraveling from the simple mistake of trying to judge and force an ineffable into balance.
However, even still Shia didn’t give him the mercy of a quick end.
HUMMMMMM!!!!!
She activated one of her own innate powers.
|Narrative Distortion (Above Origin)|
In that moment, the battlefield around Sylas warped and twisted.
The chaos, the horrors, the warriors—everything disappeared in an instant. In their place, a nightmarish vision took hold of him.
He saw his own future.... A future where he saw himself inside of Pantheos, long after this war.
