Chapter 2474: Challenge Issued (1)

Sylas had lost on purpose. The decision came the instant Tomoe crossed Earth’s outer defenses without disturbing a single layer of the formation wrapped around the planet, appearing inside protections that should have rejected her without giving Sylas so much as a warning.

The Void was the only explanation, though it wasn’t like Sylas’ expression of the concept and Tomoe had shown nothing like it during their battle in the World of Spirits. He had watched her Formless Will invade Aether, blur the distinction between herself and her surroundings, and turn almost anything within reach into an extension of her sword, yet this application had escaped him entirely.

Sylas had already gone through every reasonable explanation by the time he recognized what she had done. Tomoe could have concealed it from him during their battle, developed it afterward, or arrived at it through some interaction between Formless Will and the Void that Sylas had yet to understand, but none of those possibilities changed the fact that she had walked through Earth’s defenses.

His Pride Seed tightened faintly within his chest, and Sylas recognized the sensation before it grew strong enough to distract him.

The last time his Pride had begun to give beneath its own weight had been after Nosphaleen died by Cassarae’s hand, when mistake after mistake forced Sylas to confront the gap between what he expected from himself and what he had actually managed to accomplish.

He had come out of that period demanding more of himself, not less. Sylas could accept that no person had perfect information and that some failures could only be understood after they occurred, but he had refused to turn either truth into an excuse he could hide behind whenever someone paid for one of his decisions.

Now Tomoe was standing on Earth, and the first failure had already presented itself. Sylas had fought her personally, studied her Will at close range, watched the way she interpreted the world through her sword, and still failed to recognize a method she could use to bypass the strongest defenses he had ever built.

He had considered weaving his own Void Path into Earth’s formation long before today, then discarded the idea once he understood the scale of what such a change would require. The First Race’s structure reached through Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, land, and surrounding star system, while Sylas’ own Void comprehension still lacked the foundation necessary to support something so large without compromising everything connected to it.

At C-tier, forcing his Path into the underlying structure would create more openings than it closed, and Sylas estimated that B-tier was the bare minimum before he could even begin making those changes safely. The calculation remained correct even now, yet the correctness of the calculation did nothing to alter the result it had produced.

Tomoe had found the weakness Sylas knowingly left untouched, even if he had never expected anyone to exploit it this soon. His Pride Seed gave another slow pulse as that distinction settled into place, not enough to truly threaten him yet, but enough that Sylas refused to ignore it.

The Authority Challenge in front of him stopped mattering to him the moment he sensed her arrival. He had already solved the Rune structure placed before him, so instead of repairing its final connection he shifted one piece out of alignment and watched the entire formation collapse.

—

[You Have Lost]

—

The notification appeared exactly as Sylas intended, and the challenge space around him immediately began to dissolve. He only needed the tower to finish releasing him, after which Earth was a thought away.

The Creation Tower wasn’t tied to some distant physical location Sylas needed to travel toward, and with the authority he possessed he could access it from almost anywhere. Whether he could return quite as easily after leaving was uncertain, but between the tower and his wife, there wasn’t enough of a decision there to waste time.

The Rune floor beneath Sylas began fading into loose strands of light, only for another authority to press into the tower before the process completed. Those same strands reversed direction and wove themselves back together beneath his feet, rebuilding the challenge platform while a younger man’s laughter carried across the space.

"So this is Sylas Grimblade? Ancestor made you sound considerably more impressive."

Sylas looked over properly for the first time, taking in the deep-blue Creator robes and the white-gold cloud patterns moving across them. The man appeared to be somewhere in his twenties, though that meant almost nothing at this level, and the design of his robes was enough for Sylas to place his connection before the man introduced himself.

Heaven Ancestor Oura couldn’t enter this challenge himself, as C-tier was the absolute cap and the old man stood far beyond it. Sending one of the strongest descendants he could fit under the restriction accomplished almost the same thing without asking the tower to violate its own rules.

"Rheos." The young man touched two fingers to his chest, introducing himself. Then glanced toward the fading remnants of Sylas’ failed formation. "You can remember it if you manage to stay here long enough."

Sylas looked toward the edges of the challenge space instead, waiting for them to finish dissolving. Rheos followed his gaze, understood what Sylas expected to happen, and raised a hand before the tower completed the process.

"Again. I don’t think we’re finished yet."

—

[Authority Challenge Issued]

—

Runes rushed beneath Sylas’ feet and sealed the platform once more. Another formation began taking shape between them before the last one had even fully disappeared.

Sylas had assumed losing would free him. There had been little reason to predict otherwise without knowing the exact challenge rules, yet once again, he was facing a variable he hadn’t accounted for and an unreasonable opponent who didn’t seem to understand how to win with grace.

The pressure around his Pride Seed tightened again.

"You’re much quieter than I expected." Rheos watched the next Rune formation assemble between them, his gaze flicking between Sylas and the increasingly complicated structure. "From the stories, I expected someone arrogant enough to at least pretend he belonged here."

Sylas gave the formation one look and found the flaw near its center. Two Rune chains were competing for the same stream of Aether, and separating them before reversing the second would stabilize every dependent relationship around them in seconds.

He left it untouched and kept most of his awareness on Earth. Cassarae remained alive, Xarvenya had moved, and Tomoe’s presence continued shifting, countering perfectly with two methods that made his chest tighten further.

Behind him, Nosphaleen stopped studying the Rune challenge and began studying Sylas instead. She had watched him deliberately destroy the previous formation after clearly solving it, then ignore another answer sitting plainly in front of him. There wasn’t a single part of her that believed Rheos had suddenly become capable of overwhelming her Master in Rune Creation.

"Master, is something happening outside the tower? You solved that one already, didn’t you?"

Sylas kept his gaze on the formation without touching it. Despite him not answering, Nosphaleen eased slightly at the confirmation she was sure she had received even if the concern remained in her eyes.

Rheos mistook the exchange for something far more flattering to himself and stepped closer to the challenge boundary. "What happened to all that confidence? Sylas Grimblade, favored by the Creation Tower, impossible genius, the man who somehow forced my Ancestors out of a tower that should have belonged to them."

His gaze swept over the untouched formation while a thin smile spread across his face. "This is what they were worried about? I’m beginning to think Ancestor Oura has grown cautious in his old age."

Sylas barely registered the words. Rheos could spend the rest of his life listing every flaw he imagined Sylas possessed and never touch his Pride, while Sylas’ own judgment could accomplish far more with considerably less effort.

He had rebuilt Earth’s defenses personally, taken what the First Race left behind and bent its authority around his own position as Progenitor. He had connected those defenses to the wider star system and watched them withstand forces powerful enough that almost nothing on the Demi-God Plane should have been capable of approaching his family unnoticed.

Somewhere during all of that, Sylas had become confident that it was enough. Confident that his Rune Mastery and preparations were enough. Confident that he and his family would remain untouched no matter what his enemies did.

And yet...

—

[You Have Lost]