Chapter 2409: Cheat

The voice that reached Sylas was clipped enough that he couldn’t make out more than fragments, and even those pieces seemed to break apart before they properly formed. What did come through clearly was the Will behind them, and that alone carried enough intent that Sylas didn’t need the exact words to understand what Slithering Madness wanted from him.

He wanted help.

Sylas had been to Hell once before when he went after Fanelei, but that didn’t mean he had some open doorway waiting for him whenever he felt like returning. He had taken advantage of a very specific set of circumstances back then, and unless he suddenly decided to sabotage his own path on purpose, there was no reason to believe he could reproduce that route casually.

Just opening a path to Hell would already be a tall mountain to climb, and whatever waited on the other side would almost certainly make that look like the easy part. If Slithering Madness had reached the point where he was asking Sylas for help, then whatever problem had appeared wasn’t something Sylas could treat lightly.

Fortunately, figuring out where the problem came from didn’t require much thought.

It almost certainly had something to do with Rhykan. More specifically, Slovenly Madness.

That was also one of the reasons Sylas hadn’t seriously considered what Rhykan had done to be cheating in the first place. Whatever method he had used to appropriate Slovenly Madness, force its path into the Beast Sanctum, and have the system acknowledge him as Progenitor couldn’t possibly have been something thrown together on the spot. It was too layered for that.

Rhykan must have been preparing for this long before Sylas ever began considering the Beast Sanctum seriously, building one piece after another until he had enough control over the situation to force everything into place. Rhykan called it cheating since he had started planning much earlier, but Sylas didn’t see the relevance of that distinction.

A loss was a loss. He didn’t need an excuse to make it prettier.

What was becoming clearer now, though, was that Rhykan either hadn’t cared what happened to Hell afterward or had considered whatever damage followed an acceptable price. If Sylas was right about how deeply Slovenly Madness had been tied into the Beast Sanctum, ripping that path away and redefining its origin couldn’t have left the place it came from untouched.

Slithering Madness’ Will faded before Sylas could probe any deeper, leaving behind only the impression of urgency. He had probably known from the beginning that his words wouldn’t come through properly and had simply trusted that the Will behind them would be enough.

If Sylas still possessed the Gluttony Madness Key, perhaps that connection would have been clearer. Unfortunately, he didn’t.

That didn’t mean he had no connection to Madness anymore, though.

Sylas still held three Madness Keys of Virtue, and if he counted Nosphaleen herself as an extension of that system, then there were effectively four separate points of contact within reach. His gaze flickered slightly as he considered several possible routes into Hell, discarding each one as he thought through the risks and requirements.

The Creation Tower made the most sense. It was already capable of connecting across Planes and Heavens, and its structure ignored many of the boundaries that would normally make this problem impossible. If there was any place Sylas could use as an anchor to force open a route into another Plane entirely, then the Creation Tower was the obvious starting point.

That left a much simpler question, then. Should he go?

Sylas wouldn’t have been surprised if Hell beginning to collapse was somehow part of Rhykan’s plan rather than an unintended consequence. If Rhykan truly understood the cage he had just built around himself, then destroying or destabilizing the origin point of Slovenly Madness could very well be one of the methods he intended to use to loosen those restrictions later.

Helping Slithering Madness might interfere with that. It might also drag Sylas into a problem he had no reason to care about.

He didn’t dislike Slithering Madness, but he wasn’t particularly fond of him either. The ancient Serpentes seemed to like Sylas well enough and had watched his progress with interest, yet that relationship had mostly consisted of Slithering Madness observing from a distance rather than stepping in whenever Sylas needed something.

Sylas saw no reason to overextend himself simply to return a favor that had never really been given.

There was also the timing issue.

He had only just returned home while thinking about how strange it felt to suddenly have nothing pressing to do, and almost immediately an ancient Madness was reaching across Planes asking for help. The coincidence felt a bit suspicious, even.

Tomorrow would be fine. For now, Sylas decided to do nothing.

The rest of the day passed almost strangely after that decision. Sylas spent time with his parents and listened to Elara receive several more rounds of punishment that she absolutely deserved. He quietly watched his household settle around the reality there would soon be granchildren running about everywhere.

His mother was predictably impossible once the subject of grandchildren came up, while his father handled it with considerably more restraint despite looking no less pleased. Nosphaleen adjusted to the family faster than Sylas expected, though the occasional look she gave him whenever Cassarae or the Xarvenya entered the room made it obvious she hadn’t forgotten where she stood in the apparent order.

For once, Sylas let the hours pass without turning them into training. By the following morning, he would deal with Hell. But first he would need to keep his promise to Nosphaleen.

**

Januar chuckled as he looked across at Ekear, the amusement in his expression finally carrying more weight than the lazy curiosity he usually wore.

"I thought I’d made a wasted trip."

Ekear’s expression didn’t change much, though the muscles along his jaw tightened slightly.

"To think I’d find such an interesting anomaly of the Nethum Clan here instead." Januar leaned back, studying him with far too much interest. "Tell me, what do you think the Nethum Clan would do to you if they knew you’d awakened your memories before you were supposed to?"

Ekear remained silent but Januar’s smile widened.