Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1975: Someone [Bonus]

[Bonus chapter thanks to Ricky_D_Reader <3 Enough is enough. Anyway, I need to go to Macau this coming week for author event related things, so no bonuses until next April. Babye, I hate you all] The 713th Whale Emperor looked down at herself. The Spirit that was constantly trying to rip its way out of her had gone so calm she couldn’t believe it.

Suddenly, she had gained access to 100% of her strength again, and then some.

Just… what was this feeling?

All Sylas had done was draw a D-tier Armor. How could it possibly cause so many changes within her? Just what level was this boy at?

Her enemy attacked in her distraction and she was shaken by the change and slow to react, and yet the sword was blocked by her Whale Armor. She had hardly had a chance to put up a defense, but it was like her natural defenses had grown so substantially that she had unwittingly become untouchable.

It felt like her enemy had to pass through a quagmire of folding and unfolding space just to make it to her, and by the time they did, they were entirely crushed.

“What… level of Rune Mastery… is this…”

She and any other Rune Master here could tell that Sylas had had a massive breakthrough. Somehow, in the middle of a battle with a B-tier, he had come out with a Rune Mastery breakthrough.

But what they didn’t understand was what sort of level this was.

They innately wanted to say D-tier Spark Mastery, but they also innately knew that that was wrong.

What they could have not once imagined was that Sylas hadn’t made a D-tier breakthrough at all.

He had made an F- and E-tier one.

But they had a hard enough time wrapping their heads around the fact that a D-tier breakthrough could possibly give off such pressure. For someone to give off this sort of pressure due to a breakthrough at a tier lower was simply impossible to fathom.

What might have been even harder to accept was the fact that Sylas didn’t even spend much time observing what was certainly his magnum opus until now.

The number of Whale Disciples on the battlefield were much fewer as the disciples of the four main Lineages had almost all gone within the Mancer Scape. And yet, the small number that were here practically became forces of nature.

They had already been lynchpins of the battlefield, but now it was exaggerated to a completely separate degree. It felt like when they moved… space itself moved and time bowed.

Yet Sylas still didn’t give them a glance, catching an orb out of the air.

The Scorpion Lineage.

Sylas hardly looked at it before letting it fall from his hands. His telekinesis caught it before it smashed against the ground, but he just let it rest there as though he didn’t care about it in the slightest.

He reached out a hand again. This time, the orb that Yamero dropped into his palm was another interesting one.

The Serpent.

Soon afterward came the Ape.

By now, Sylas had already done the Whale and the Lion. It seemed that these were two of the four main Lineages left. As for the last Lineage of them all, that was the Scorpion. He wouldn’t be touching that one for the time being.

By now, he had practically flipped the entire fate of The Sanctum on its head. Since that was the case, he might as well see it through right to the very end.

He crushed both the Serpent and the Ape at once.

Sylas had thought a lot about how he wanted to approach this. Technically speaking, he really could make The Sanctum the hub for the Madness Disciples.

The Serpent for Gluttony, the Ape for Wrath, the Scorpion for Greed, the Monkey for Pride. There were still some stragglers he hadn’t even dealt with yet properly, but even if there weren’t, it wasn’t like The Sanctum even had a limit on the number of Lineages.

They had quite literally had dozens to the point of triple digits. It was just Sylas’ prerogative to combine so many of them into a stronger, cohesive whole.

One could even say it would only be easier now. After all, Wrath was dead, so the path forward was wide open. Sylas even half wanted to have Cassarae take on the mantle.

In the end, he dismissed that idea. Cassarae’s Path did seem oddly tied to Madness, and yet it was completely separate. There was no need to muddy her waters unnecessarily.

However, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. With as much pressure already on the Sanctum, did it make sense to add even more pressure to them by allowing a potential tie to the Madness Disciples to be formed?

There might be those out there already speculating that Sylas was a Madness Disciple. In fact, Rhykan almost certainly knew just due to how much he had interfered with Earth. After all, Aki, the Thryskai enemy Sylas first fought on Earth, was a Purvon.

This would never be something Sylas forgot.

Even so, promoting it further or giving Rhykan an easier way of having others accuse and target him wasn’t smart. It would just unnecessarily bog him down and limit his chances at successfully clearing the Mirror Dungeon like he wanted to.

However… Sin was one thing.

What about Virtue?

Even if he couldn’t comprehend it himself, was it possible for him to sense it just enough to force their Armors down a new Path?

Sylas hadn’t even had Fathomless Rune Creation for long and he already wished to push it to its absolute limits.

What use was there in being a supreme genius if he couldn’t find himself a challenge?

That was what he loved more than anything else. Pushing himself, relentlessly… again, and again, and again.

The shattering orbs didn’t even make Sylas’ pupils dart around anymore. He could feel every Stroke, every Foundation, every Rune through the very Mesh of Reality itself, each one whispering its emotions to him like sound carrying across waters.

Sylas was just about to begin when something unexpected happened.

The formation protecting The Sanctum shattered a day early. Yamero wasn’t able to hold on.

No. It wasn’t that Yamero wasn’t able to hold on.

Sylas looked at the Scorpion Orb sitting on the ground.

Someone had told the world that the Ancestors of the Sanctum were out of commission.

Someone had also turned the formation off from the inside.

Meteors rained down and screams filled the air.