Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2049: Hypocrites

Sylas’ aura flared, his hands forming claws as he grabbed at the air before him. Space shook and time twisted as he yanked it down.

Runes fluttered into motes of light and dancing butterflies, the continuous cascade of them looking like both a relentless waterfall and a stream of moonlight.

It felt like he was pulling against the world itself, every creak and wrinkle in space sending out a violent ripple as far as the eye could see.

And then he swept down completely, stepping forward and through the blockage that was before him.

In his wake, little more than a river of blood was left behind.

Sylas almost stumbled forward, gasping for breath with every inhale. But his air came out even faster than he took it in as though he was hurriedly pushing the CO2 away in a desperate grasp for more oxygen.

Gales swept through the dark space, a pounding headache hammering at his skull continuously.

The sight before Sylas should have already been enough to snap him out of his fatigue, but even standing there, staring ahead, there was little more than a slight flicker in his expression.

He hadn’t quite made it to the peak of the mountain, but when he made it about 80% of the way up, he had sensed an opening. If he completed the leap in a single go, he was sure he could make it past a barrier.

He just didn’t expect this barrier to open up to a lab. One that not only hardly had any equipment at all, but instead had a single man floating in a vat of bubbling liquid.

The bubbles almost looked as though they came from the breath of the floating man, like he was breathing the waters in and out like it was little unique from air.

The eyes of the floating man suddenly snapped open.

Even then, Sylas didn’t flinch. He just rose there, looking at the man as he caught his breath.

The man could only be described as perfect. His eyes were nothing but orbs of darkness, his body looking like it was carved out of a deep mahogany that almost carried the slightest undertones of violet.

His physique hardly looked like it was carved of flesh, but instead like it had been chiseled from stone, every muscle being defined to an exaggerated extreme.

“You should not be here.”

The voice of the man didn’t sound like it was filtered through the waters at all. Instead, it was like he was booming his words right into Sylas’ ears, practically like he was shouting from right next to him in a rave.

Yet, the man didn’t seem to be straining in the slightest.

Sylas didn’t reply, but he never took his eyes off the man as though his entire body was focused on even the slightest action the man could take.

Sylas had already faced off against Gods before. Two of them, in fact.

One of them was so powerful even its passive stomach acid almost cost him his life. The second had lost 99% of the beast it once was, and still took schemes to put down for good.

He couldn’t quite tell if the man was the third or not, but what he knew was that he was at least as dangerous as the Hydra.

“To step in here as a member of the Fathomless while not having the strength of even a Demi-God…” the man suddenly chuckled. “Heaven and Fathomless must be rolling in their graves.”

The answer of who this man was came swiftly.

Hell.

That much should have been obvious from the path the mountain had restricted him to.

“This is why I told those fools that trying to account for every detail in their little plans was worthless. To think a decoy would make fools of us all. I set up this mountain to block out the best of our Race, and it’s a mutant with not even 1% of our abilities that manages to break it.”

Hell’s head tilted slightly. “You plan to take all my hard work for yourself, don’t you? Now that’s not very fair, is it?”

Sylas still didn’t reply, but his breathing was slowly becoming more even with every gasp of air.

And then he calmed completely, standing to his full height.

It seemed that there was nothing he could do here after all. That was a shame.

He had come here in hopes of taking the entire mountain for himself, but Hell had already done so.

In Hell’s current state, doing anything was impossible. His body wasn’t quite ready yet, and he likely didn’t want to risk missing perfection by taking action against Sylas right now.

But that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be decisive enough to cut his losses if Sylas forced his hand. The mountain was too valuable to give up on.

This led to a stalemate where Sylas was neither strong enough to deal with Hell nor claim what was his, while Hell didn’t want to have to deal with Sylas if he had no other choice.

Both men had run into something unexpected, and while one was a lot chattier than the other, that didn’t change the fact they didn’t need to exchange words to know what sort of situation they were in.

Hell smiled. “I quite like you, boy. What do you say? My Hell Clan has been forced to sacrifice quite a large swath of our number in order to reach this point, and not many remain. I could use a successor.”

Sylas shook his head. “I won’t be following the Hell Path.”

Hell slowly nodded and didn’t seem to mind. “In that case, let me give you something anyway.”

The mountain rumbled and what sounded like a boulder rolling down in an avalanching clash echoed.

Sylas frowned, his senses clear enough to see the enormous piece of black ore rolling down the mountain and crashing to the earth below.

“You wonder why I do this?” Hell laughed. “I just like people who aren’t hypocrites. Isn’t that enough?”