Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1995: Crimson [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to Douglas_Bell <3]

Deacon vanished, his foot tapping the ground and leaving a stream of white gold in his wake as he appeared just outside the range of the long bolt of emerald.

He had wanted to kill Keyesen, he had wanted to kill him in the most humiliating fashion possible. But every time he was close, he felt that it was too easy. So he pulled back, and then pulled back again.

Every time it just felt like… it wasn’t nearly enough, that there simply wasn’t a good enough reason. In the end, that final strike was the only satisfying one he had found.

But then, right after, he felt an overwhelming amount of danger consume him. His Dove Legacy was a path of utmost purity, but how he applied it was incredibly flexible. Speed was practically just a byproduct, as such the road he took was even more important.

He hadn’t quite decided what that was just yet, but he knew corruption when he sensed it. There was something so very ugly about Keyesen’s Will right now, and it was only growing further with every passing moment.

At that moment, a Scorpion Spirit ripped a path out from Keyesen. It was a gorgeous violet color, one that reflected the light of the most common of the Scorpions, one of self-preservation… the Earth Escape Scorpion Lineage.

But then, right afterward, came a black Scorpion. Its aura was more wild, more unrestrained. Chains wrapped around its tail and it looked like it was willing to devour anything that came into its path. It was a scorpion willing to fight no matter what the circumstances were. Even if it lost all its limbs, all of its eyes, its heart, even its Will. It simply didn’t matter.

It would fight until it had not a speck of life left in it.

The Chain Scorpion Lineage, one that had been ostracized and left for death along with Gralith’s expulsion. To think that even in his death, Eliwine would have succeeded in doing exactly what he wanted to do all along… Take that Lineage within his own bloodline and make it his own.

However, the momentum of Keyesen’s breakthrough wasn’t slowing. In fact, it only seemed to be increasing with every passing instant.

And then it all erupted.

A third Scorpion appeared, one that wasn’t recognizable by the Ancestors at all, and one that finally made Sylas pay attention.

It was a crimson Scorpion, one draped in blood and carnage. There was a savage air to it as though it had soaked in destruction all its existence. It reflected the lights of a red giant star on the edge of the end of its life, or light dilated and slowed so far there was little more than death at the ends of its beam.

This scorpion was destruction incarnate. It would do whatever was required to take what it wanted. It would devour and devour until nothing but the heat death of the world was left.

It was Greed.

Sylas’ eyes narrowed.

Streams of power erupted from Keyesen, but then something even more unexpected happened.

The crimson Scorpion turned toward the Chain Scorpion Lineage and struck. Its tail peeled down from the skies, ripping right through its carapace and devouring it. It clamped down with its claws, snapping it into three pieces and then swallowing them whole.

The violet Scorpion shivered in fear, too shaken even to move. Its ending was even more pitiful. It was like the crimson Scorpion had known it wouldn’t dare to fight back, so it had attacked the greater threat first.

The crimson Scorpion grew in size. Sparks of violet appeared in between its crimson carapace and black chains wrapped around its tail.

And yet, the aura it gave off didn’t become muddied in the slightest. If anything, it only grew in strength, becoming more pure all the while. It somehow took from others and yet became more of itself at the same time. It was in essence completely contradictory, and yet maybe its highly existence was exactly that.

Why did it want for so much? Why did it feel the need to devour everything? To take from everything?

It was for itself. But wasn’t it also in its best interest for the world to survive? So why did it take to the point of even hurting itself? Wasn’t that contradictory?

But that… that was the very essence of the True Scorpion.

The True representation of Greed.

Keyesen unleashed a howl that shook the skies, his power billowing off of him in waves.

A scream came from above and a cloaked figure was shredded to pieces.

Sylas looked over with indifference as the figure that the 713th Ape Emperor had been fighting became little more than a corpse with a floating necklace.

The Rat. Again.

Sylas had already noticed something odd with that figure, he just hadn’t done anything about it. This time, he truly wasn’t sure how The Rat had slipped through his fingers. He should have been trapped in the ocean of Earth.

But… it was probably far more difficult to trap him there when over 70% of Earth’s oceans were now a protective formation.

Still, something told Sylas that this man wasn’t the same Rat he had known. The answer to who he was almost mattered little now that he was dead though.

The Madness Key around his neck shattered to pieces.

Sylas looked back toward Keyesen. Power thrummed through him in waves.

It only took a moment for Sylas to understand why Keyesen seemed to be gaining so much more from the formation of his Virtue Seed. This was the true state of the Spirit Beasts.

Their bodies… they were better equipped to make functional use of Seeds from the very beginning. They were the very embodiment of Wills themselves.

The problem was that much like Hydras, because they were born with it, they had not ever learned how to properly use it.

Keyesen had though.

So infuriated by missing out on what he thought he deserved, what should be his, what he would claim…

He stepped into the realm of God Beast on his own.

Became the Virtue of Greed.

And stepped into the realm of Demi-Godhood.