Genetic Ascension

“FUCK.”

Authrione appeared in the void, his body surging with waves of a mysterious water Aether. As Sylas had previously detected, it carried hues of water and space both, combining into waves and troughs that formed a powerful heft that superseded anything at least Sylas had come across before.

If there was one word that could be used to describe Authrione’s Aether, it was…

Heavy.

And right now, this Aether was churning in a violent mass, almost rummaging through his body and peeling through his flesh as it sought to expunge every hint of poison there was in him.

The poison, though, was especially difficult to get rid of, and even after chugging a detoxification Elixir, it was shockingly useless. Authrione could hardly believe that an F- tier could craft an F-Grade poison that was so effective against him.

The worst part was that when he used his Aether to target the locations of the poison in specific, he found that his control over his own Aether actually wavered.

This wasn’t just because of Aether Suppression, though that shockingly also played a small part. It was because his Aether was controlled and managed by none other than his Will, and his Will was precisely what this poison was eating away at.

It was the worst poison that Authrione had ever come across. It didn’t even attack his body, but it was slowly shutting down all its functions. How could you live without Will?

If the poison had just been in one location, Authrione would have been able to focus in and at least crush it a decent deal by now. But it seemed to have jumped to several locations in his body as though they had been teleported there.

Authrione’s expression became grave. If he had chosen to stay in that battle, he would have certainly died. The poison was rapidly multiplying, and it seemed to be accelerating. There was an odd character to Sylas’ Will that seemed to make it especially infectious.

What Authrione didn’t know—and even Sylas had quite yet to put into real thoughts and expressions—was the fact that the latter’s Demonic Will was the antithesis to everything that was humanoid on this side of the universe.

Sylas’ Glassvolt Rune was tainted by his Path of Glassvolt, his own selfish path built on the foundation of his Will. By extension, that meant the power of his Poison Rune came not just from its 100 Foundations, but Sylas’ Will itself.

And his Demonic Will

“You lost?”

The voice seemed to finally inform Authrione that he wasn’t alone. But he was so focused on expelling the poison from himself that he didn’t pay attention.

“You didn’t just lose, you came back with nothing more than a bloody nose? You ran in the end? I let you have Champion and you scurried away like a cowardly little rat—?” “SILENCE!”

Authrione’s voice boomed, his senses flashing into the endless dark expanse around them to land on another of his kind, a man no less tall and imposing, his torso rippling with muscle above the four proud legs of a black-scaled steed.

Meeting the gaze of his cousin, Authrione was truly furious. But he only had a chance to be so for a few fleeting seconds before more sparks of lightning flashed in his eyes.

This time, his expression turned pale. He lost his temper at a critical point, and the lightning came back harsher.

“You’ve been poisoned,” Authrione’s cousin seemed to finally realize. He had noticed the Elixir Authrione took earlier, but their Constitution was so impossibly high that he would have never thought that Authrione was actually trying to detoxify himself.

Most Poison Masters couldn’t even get their poisons to gain purchase on their bodies, let alone leave them in a life-or-death situation like this one.

The Pelagor Race was well known for their shocking defenses. This was even more so for those of them who were born with the Fathomless Depth Comprehension and joined the Sanctum. They were practically immune to poisons because of this.

As Authrione’s cousin watched him struggle against this poison, taking hours to slowly rein it under control, he realized that maybe he had judged his cousin a bit too quickly.

A poison master not just able to poison them despite their shocking Constitution, but also to apply and penetrate their defenses and Will to administer it in the first place… It seemed that this Tower of Champions entry wasn’t going to be simple in the slightest. “Are you the one who fought the Primus Imperium?” he finally asked as Authrione stabilized his situation completely.

“The what?” Authrione’s head snapped toward his cousin.

“Check your notifications.”

Authrione’s expression grew serious as he checked things. When he saw the announcement that there was a Primus Imperium present and the Tower of Champions was undergoing changes as a result, he was truly shocked.

What he didn’t expect was for another notification to trigger moments after.

[A Primus Imperium has been detected]

[Quicktime Event has been Triggered]

[Quicktime Event Triggered]

[Ode to Invincibility]

[Level Recommended: 50]

[Description: It has been many cycles since the last Primus Imperium has appeared, but on today’s great day of days, we have been blessed with not one, but two. Auspicious as it is, the Tower of Champions can only have one True Champion, a single true Hero] [Event Type: A Twist of Fate]

[Clear Requirements]

>[Kill a Primus Imperium and claim your place as the single True Champion]

–

Sylas had been floating on the ocean for a while. He could have returned to the endless abyssal scape they had been originally waiting in, but he was still studying this world, still reading it. There was something fascinating about that blue lightning in the skies that captured his attention.

He had spent quite a lot of time refining the Glass aspects of his Glassvolt Mancy Path, but the lightning portions, well… that had been a much more recent addition, one he almost added randomly. A lot of the character of his Glassvolt was focused on the Glass aspects, and not nearly enough on the Volt.

That was when the notification came.