Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1841: Once

It was hard to say exactly what he was feeling right now, mostly because even that feeling was being stripped from him. One would think that the Angels wanted him to suffer, for his tears to become the tonic of their oppression. Maybe they should want him to beg and plead, to lower his head and grieve in his regret.

But they seemed entirely uninterested in even this. They didn't allow Sylas even to feel regret or even really fear for his life. It was like even his Will itself was frozen in time, restricted and restrained.

He was no human. He was a lab rat strapped to a table being slowly dissected only so that the weak and unintelligent masses had the time to register what was happening.

They didn't feel the need to make a spectacle of his grief. The aftereffects would speak enough for themselves. The wasteland that was left of Earth would be the memento to this occasion, projected for the world to see.

And as one Horizon after another managed to patch in, slowly expanding the scope of who was seeing what and what was seeing who, the limbs that fell from Sylas' body only became a silent scene of one thing.

Acceptance.

It had been so very long since the last time one had dared to put their hands on the descendant of an Angel. The world had forgotten what it meant to fear them.

Today, they would be reminded.

And it was in that moment, armless and without legs, his blood pouring down from above in heavy streams... That Sylas laughed.

He shouldn't have been able to move. Shouldn't have been able to feel or express his inner thoughts. He should have been a prisoner in his own mind, his body being splayed out and filleted beneath his own eyes just as much as the eyes of the rest of the world.

But slowly, the laughter spread, and a crown began to flicker above his head. It blinked out of existence as quickly as it formed, but then it came back before winking out again.

And then again.

Then again.

The world churned as the blade suddenly came for Sylas' neck.

In response, Sylas' teeth bared, a crimson and black glow radiating from their canines as his head suddenly turned.

He bit down.

The sound of metal scraping against metal echoed, sparks flying through the air that set acres of forest on fire.

Xalor's expression seemed to finally show the slightest bit of a shift. He tried to pull his blade back, but Sylas' bite only grew heavier, his canines growing as he growled with a wild madness in the depths of his eyes.

He was furious.

BANG.

The crown of Primus Imperium took shape on his head, a ring of broken swords and tarnished blades trembling with blood.

A green-gold aura coated Sylas' fallen limbs and they rushed back toward him.

Sylas understood what was happening. These people hadn't known he was a Galaxy-level Progenitor. But the moment they did know, they simply adjusted the scope of their control, focusing no longer on just Earth alone, but instead the vastness of the galaxy as a whole.

Sylas had originally shattered their edict and control over the region by wielding might that extended beyond Earth alone. But once they too extended beyond Earth, there was nothing but a dead end left for Sylas.

Or rather, there should have been.

Flashing with gold, Sylas' hair pulsed as his limbs snapped back onto his body. But he was no machine. His limbs couldn't just fuse back into him just because he slapped them back into their original locations.

And yet, under the effect of his telekinesis, the difference hardly looked to matter.

It mattered even less when his Monkey King Armor manifested and the aura of a Demi-God leaked.

Sylas was no Demi-God. He couldn't afford to be. The danger it would place his family in was too great. So, he had given up the right, pouring all of it back into the Emperor Sanctum.

But if the world thought that he couldn't tap into it again...

They were sorely mistaken.

He was the Ancestor of the Monkey King. He could tap into that Karma whenever he needed it.

BANG.

Sylas' bite became even heavier and a large chunk of the great sword was ripped apart.

Xalor shot back, all of the pressure he had been putting into trying to retrieve his blade causing him to slip.

Suddenly, the gap between himself and Sylas was several hundred meters. By the time he entered to a stop, the sick crunch of metal echoed through the air, aftershivers and cracks of what was left of the great sword pieces grinding to dust in Sylas' mouth before he swallowed it whole.

BOOM. BOOM.

The pieces sank into Sylas' stomach like pairs of nuclear bombs. Energy rampaged through him, and yet there was

a dense Comprehension that hung in the air that seemed to make everything darker.

Mixed Chaotic Arts.

[Primal Gut] was brought to an unapproachable level.

A chaotic energy shredded Sylas' upper clothing apart. It looked like a war was being fought in his belly until it suddenly smoothed down, veins of red, and then suddenly gold spreading with it at its center.

Sylas' eyes went completely black, the gold of his hair turning ashen.

Sylas' fists squeezed and his calves flexed, but the sight was more eerie than anything as the wounds that separated them were still so very visible.

His healing factor wasn't as strong as it needed to be. He had yet to gain any Physical Legendary Genes and couldn't keep up with this level of abuse.

But for whatever reason, he wasn't using Fusion.

Down on the ground, Elara watched from her bedroom window, a memory coming to mind.

She hadn't even been four years old back then, but she remembered that laugh from her brother before. After he came back that day, he was handed the first suspension he ever got from school.

What no one ever talked about that day was the fact the young man who had taken Cassarae on a date ended up in the hospital. If not for their parents' intervention and hundreds of thousands of dollars, he would have died in his

hospital bed.

Elara smiled.