Genetic Ascension

Sylas watched the screen quite calmly.

He had felt it that day, but the aura coming from the pair of father and son that walked down those stairs, and Gralith’s aura… they were almost too similar.

But that wasn’t all.

When Gralith was walking up those steps, it felt like the stairs were facing off against an enemy they wanted to eradicate at any cost. Yet, Sylas himself hadn’t felt any of that.

At first, Sylas thought it was because Gralith was shielding him from it, and maybe that had been true in part. But for him to not even feel a single sliver of that same hatred when he could feel it coming for Gralith so clearly?

There was something odd about that.

How was it that Gralith seemed to come from the same Race as that pair from the Emperor Sanctum, and yet he was here?

Those people certainly came from a B-Grade Race at the very worst. Given that fact, Gralith should be far superior to what he was showing… logically, anyway.

As for why Gralith had tempered himself to this degree, Sylas didn’t know. But there was one thing that lingered in the air between them, something that Sylas still didn’t have an answer to.

How had Gralith’s inheritance appeared on Earth?

That was the core question, now wasn’t it? And now Sylas was fairly certain that this matter was related to why Gralith’s origins were so great and yet he was stuck here.

Something also told Sylas that it just might be another good reason for him to wipe the floor with the Emperor Sanctum in the future.

All of this said, Sylas had been pretty sure that things would end exactly like this. But this wasn’t the only reason he felt that way, though.

Gralith had been able to gain quite a bit by teaching Sylas as well. He had had a chance to observe the Chrono Casting Tome. In addition, not long ago, he had had the chance to meditate on Sylas’ mutation of his F-Grade Scorpion Warlord Armor.

Maybe it was the fact that Gralith would have won anyway, but that didn’t matter so long as the result was as expected.

The Scorpion Lineage had come out on top, and the result was something that dealt a near-death blow to the momentum of the Thryskai and especially the Bat Lineage.

BANG!

Prione swiped out a claw and shattered an obelisk the size of a monument to pieces. The power was so great that even the largest rock was a mere size of a fingernail; the sort of strength it would take to do something like that was simply unfathomable. And yet not a single soul—and certainly not Prione himself—gave a damn about that.

Sylas’ reversal of the situation months ago had already left him completely and utterly infuriated.

The issue wasn’t that Sylas had succeeded. From Prione’s perspective, things were fine because Sylas had proven himself to likely be even more valuable than the Bat Lineage alone.

In this sort of situation, having both Sylas and the Bat Lineage seemed logical.

However, something else had happened after Sylas left that day…

Vaernon, the best genius the Thryskai had sent, collapsed and died the moment he left the pod.

By that point, Sylas had long left with Cassarae in tow, and there was no one there who saw what happened or how it happened.

But the truth was truth for everyone to see.

Sylas had told Vaernon in front of many people that these would be his last moments of life, and then the man collapsed the moment he left the Secret Realm challenge zone?

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Who would believe that Sylas didn’t have anything to do with it?

Vaernon wasn’t the same as Urolius. Maybe if Sylas had killed Urolius, the Thryskai would be willing to look the other way for the sake of the bigger picture. But to the Thryskai, Vaernon was at about the same level of importance as Bellarouse.

If the geniuses of the Thryskai were separated into three tiers, Urolius would be at the lowest, while those lower than him they wouldn’t care to rank in the first place. As for Vaernon and Bellarouse, they would be in that second tier.

They were great talents, worth nurturing, and they were rare enough to become the backbone of the family in the future. Each one of them was valuable and while the Thryskai could bear to lose them, it would still touch upon their reverse scales to do so.

Sylas had completely humiliated them, then threatened one of their tier-two geniuses in full public view, and then executed him without even being there.

At this point, even if Sylas had just been framed by someone else, it wasn’t something that the Thryskai could allow to slide. Their reputation had taken enough hits that many Clans and powers were beginning to question if they should really roll over so easily.

Even if it was the case that the ascension of the Kaelthar would be beneficial to them, if the Kaelthar were so weak, then what chance did they stand against the other Mortal Thryskai Clans?

In that case, they would just be putting their lives on the line for a losing party when they could just sit on the sidelines and keep the current status quo. That was a much better use of their time.

The Thryskai had yet to retaliate because they were focused on the outcome of the Challenge Rite first. But now that they had actually lost… How could they continue to let things remain like so?

The chance to progress to Demi-God was far too important for the Kaelthar. They would never just roll over and accept their death.

If this approach didn’t work, they would just take a more aggressive approach, one where they might come to directly force the Sanctum into subservience.

At that point, the delicate plans that Prione had been trying to form to elevate the Sanctum might all come crumbling down unless he fell in line and became an obedient lapdog.

And he refused to be the lapdog to anyone.

Even the Thryskai.

Knowing he would likely have to stand with the Scorpion Lineage against the Bat Lineage now, he was all the more infuriated.

“Sylas Grimblade.”

He ground out the name through his canines, his golden hair dancing like a wild mane in the wind.