Chapter 2377: Yawn

Sylas had barely turned away from the petrified Efivara when another Heaven-wide notification rolled through the Beast Heaven, its voice carrying farther than the ordinary system prompts that had followed him since entering this place.

The announcement declared that Sylas Grimblade had entered a Frenzy, and the bounty on his death had increased from one hundred times the points he had accumulated to ten thousand times that amount.

Sylas glanced at the words once before letting them fade from his vision, treating the escalation with about as much interest as he would have given a change in weather.

Nosphaleen noticed the notification too, but from the smile on her face, it might as well have been a restaurant menu hovering somewhere in the distance. Her attention was focused almost entirely on Sylas’ hand, which she had taken the moment they started walking, her fingers sliding between his while she quietly enjoyed how completely his palm enveloped her own.

She seemed to have reached a conclusion about their relationship while Sylas was busy unraveling the structures wrapped around her existence, and that conclusion was simple enough: if she wanted anything to happen, she was going to have to make it happen herself.

That realization appeared to have made her much bolder than before, especially now that she was reasonably certain Sylas wouldn’t become annoyed with her for doing so.

Nosphaleen rubbed her thumb over his knuckles as though the texture of his hand was the most fascinating thing she had encountered in the Beast Heaven, then gradually pulled his arm closer until his elbow and forearm were pressed against her chest.

By the time she had practically wrapped herself around his arm, Sylas had already decided there was little point in commenting on it.

Space shifted nearby.

Vaelith appeared a moment later with Yamero, and the expression on her face became strange almost immediately as she took in the scene before her. Nosphaleen didn’t even notice at first, too occupied with Sylas to care that someone else had arrived, but after several seconds she felt a gaze resting on her and finally looked up.

Her expression changed instantly.

Vaelith felt a sharp prickle behind her eyes as Nosphaleen’s clear blue gaze hardened, the warmth from moments earlier disappearing so quickly that the transition almost felt violent.

Instinct urged Vaelith to move back half a step, but her pride refused to allow something so obvious, leaving her standing where she was while her own expression settled into a faint frown.

Sylas noticed the exchange and raised an internal eyebrow.

Apparently, freeing Nosphaleen from the cloud hanging over her mind hadn’t removed the edge from her personality at all, though he supposed that should have been obvious considering she had once challenged Cassarae to a life-and-death battle over him.

If anything, removing the influence pressing down on her might have made it easier for that side of Nosphaleen to express itself without hesitation.

"Who is she?" Nosphaleen asked, her voice calm enough that someone unfamiliar with her might have missed the hostility underneath it.

Yamero immediately started laughing off to the side.

Sylas gave him a glance that made the Rune Serpentes straighten slightly, though the grin remained stubbornly fixed across his face. Before Sylas bothered answering, Vaelith stepped forward and smiled with the polished composure she had recovered after the initial surprise.

"Vaelith of the Thryskai."

Nosphaleen’s eyes turned murderous.

The reaction was so immediate that even Vaelith’s smile stiffened, while Sylas understood the reason without needing an explanation. Rhykan was Thryskai, and whatever complicated relationship Sylas himself had with the man didn’t change the fact that Nosphaleen had effectively spent a portion of her existence enslaved through his machinations.

That wasn’t even the only reason she had to hate them.

The Clypsian Race had suffered after their Summoning failed, their people falling into slavery through circumstances tied back to the Thryskai as well. Nosphaleen had more than enough history with the Race to despise them on principle, and discovering that one of them was now standing comfortably beside Sylas didn’t exactly improve matters.

There was, admittedly, another side to it.

A Thryskai was also the reason Nosphaleen remained alive rather than having vanished permanently after her death, but gratitude for that fact did very little to outweigh everything that had happened afterward. More importantly, Vaelith wasn’t merely another Thryskai in Nosphaleen’s eyes right now.

She was a beautiful woman standing far too close to Sylas.

Nosphaleen tightened her hold around his arm.

Half of Vaelith wanted to immediately clarify that she wasn’t interested in stealing anyone’s man, if only to remove the increasingly dangerous look from Nosphaleen’s eyes. The problem was that when Vaelith tried to form the thought properly, the words refused to become convincing even inside her own head.

Her frown deepened.

Yamero’s shoulders began shaking as he fought not to laugh again, his eyes shifting between the two women with far too much interest in whatever was about to happen. Sylas considered silencing him preemptively, but before either Nosphaleen or Vaelith could speak again, the surrounding space trembled.

A sound rolled across the Beast Heaven.

Sylas’ expression finally changed.

It wasn’t pressure shaped like a yawn, nor some technique designed to imitate one for dramatic effect. Someone had genuinely yawned, and the sound of it was spreading through the stars with such impossible reach that worlds, warships, and battlefields seemed to fall beneath its lazy echo.

Nosphaleen’s grip on Sylas tightened slightly as the sound continued traveling.

Vaelith slowly looked toward the distance and even Yamero stopped smiling.

Sylas frowned as the last trace of the yawn rolled through the Beast Heaven, and from the way the sound continued stretching outward, he wasn’t entirely certain it had stopped there.

A yawn? It sounded like a beast, but it was simply impossible to tell. Unless...

Sylas’ eyes narrowed. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one playing around with the limits of the Seeds. Rhykan had always been a troublesome opponent, and Sylas got the feeling that he was about to get a lot more troublesome very quickly.

There was a flicker as flecks of gold danced in the border of Sylas’ irises. A dense air of Sloth coloring everything he saw.