Chapter 2407: Crippled

Sylas walked out of the World of Spirits with the same calm expression he had worn when he left Rhykan behind, the shifting light of the Sanctum fading from his body as reality settled around him again.

Reversing what had just happened was still possible, at least in theory, especially if Sylas combined what remained of his own hold over the Beast Sanctum with Yamero, who was in many ways a far more perfect vessel than Caracos Thar had ever been.

That was the reason Sylas had taken Yamero with him in the first place. In fact, he had several other potential solutions to the current situation as well.

At first glance, that might have made Sylas’ loss look stranger than it actually was. If he had already understood that Rhykan possessed Slovenly Madness and had independently considered using Yamero in a similar role, then why hadn’t he realized what Rhykan intended before the final stage ever began?

The answer was simple enough.

Sylas hadn’t failed to see the possibility, he had failed to account for how far Rhykan was willing to take it.

Sylas had never planned to use the Madness Path itself as the conduit. His intention had been to build an entirely new path through Yamero, something that suited the spatial serpent almost perfectly when Yamero’s body was quite literally constructed from many of the same principles that governed Sylas’ Rune Mastery.

That was only the beginning of what Sylas wanted from the opportunity.

If the Beast Sanctum truly wanted an evolution of Will, then Sylas had planned to use that moment to push beyond the narrow problem it presented and see just how much of Rune Mastery itself he could overturn in the process.

Yamero was already a living expression of Runes in a way almost nothing else was, which made him an ideal bridge between Will, Rune structure, and whatever path Sylas intended to create afterward.

There had even been a possibility that Sylas could lay the foundation for something much larger.

He had already begun finding ways to step outside the shadow of the Dragons, refusing to remain chained to the source of one of his greatest strengths forever. If he could do something similar with Rune Mastery, then there was at least a chance that he could begin laying the path to one day break free from the Phoenix as well.

That was what Sylas had been preparing, but Rhykan had taken a very different road. He had essentially crippled himself on purpose for the sake of victory.

Calling it a sacrifice would have been too simple, especially when the immediate benefits were so absurdly high, but that didn’t change the underlying problem. Rhykan had taken an existing path, made himself its supposed originator, and then wrapped both himself and the Beast Sanctum around it so tightly that the system had accepted the arrangement as something worthy of Progenitor Status.

The rewards were enormous, yet the cost would grow right alongside them.

If Rhykan couldn’t eventually find a way to free himself from Slovenly Madness, then no matter how powerful he became, he would always remain capped beneath the ceiling established by someone else. He could improve the path, refine it, perfect its applications, and become stronger than anyone who had ever walked it before him, but unless he truly escaped it, the foundation itself would never belong to him.

Worse, the very process of searching for that escape could make the problem more difficult.

Every improvement Rhykan made would feed the narrative that he was the originator of the path, every person who followed it afterward would strengthen the Karma tying it back to him, and every success would make the bond between Rhykan and Slovenly Madness harder to separate. The more effort he put into becoming free, the more he risked reinforcing the chains holding him there.

It was a vicious cycle. He was chaining himself to a path of Will that had clearly already failed in the past. Otherwise, why would they have the impotent system instead of the Madness System now?

If Rhykan became powerful enough before finding an answer, the consequences might become even worse.

Sylas had already seen what happened when enough Will, belief, Karma, and history accumulated around an idea. The Fate Dragon and Phoenix were proof that something could become so entrenched in reality that even the person standing at its center could no longer casually define what it meant.

Rhykan might eventually create something similar around himself. A concept born from his own success, fed by everyone who followed his path, reinforced by the system’s recognition, and strengthened until it became another cage that could look down on its supposed creator. The irony was sharp enough that Sylas almost found it amusing.

Of course, Rhykan wasn’t an idiot.

If he had dared to take this road despite everything it implied, then there were only two reasonable conclusions. Either he was enough of a madman to gamble his entire future on finding an answer later, or he was so confident in a method he already possessed that none of these consequences mattered to him.

Sylas wanted to know which one it was.

That curiosity was part of why he had left without challenging the result.

There was little value in tearing apart the Beast Sanctum now when Rhykan had already contaminated its path with something Sylas had no interest in inheriting. He could still try to reverse the outcome, especially with Yamero beside him, but doing so would mean fighting for a foundation Sylas no longer wanted.

Rhykan had won. More importantly, he had won in a way that made Sylas curious about what came next.

Sylas took another step and the space around him folded.

Elara vanished from one side of him, Fanelei from another, while Yamero’s long body dissolved into flowing spatial Runes as all four of them disappeared from the edge of the World of Spirits. The next instant, the familiar interior of the Hollow Ship formed around them as reality locked back into place.

Sylas stepped onto the deck without looking back.