Genetic Ascension

Sylas landed on the ground, a frown on his face.

Gogo hardly had a place on his body where he wasn’t bleeding. Though his aura was still vigorous, it was clear that he had suffered a great deal.

While Sylas had had an idea that this would happen, he hadn’t believed that it would be to this extent. It had to be remembered just how powerful Gogo was now.

But then again… Sylas had also ordered Gogo to not use his King Beast abilities. He had thought that Gogo’s stats alone would be enough to allow him to hold off, but clearly he had still miscalculated.

The young prince hadn’t even been Level 50 yet. Judging by the reaction of the Runes around him, and the various suppressions he faced, he wasn’t even Level 40 yet either.

Sylas hadn’t even bothered to try and scan him. Someone with so many treasures on him certainly had something to protect his name and stats. It was the same reason he didn’t even try to take the old man’s Genes.

But… he had observed the Unique Genes. As for what he found from them, it was nothing but oddities.

As far as he could tell the young prince and the old man were both human. There was potential that they were in disguise given how secretive they were being, but the old man also hadn’t exposed himself after death either.

Of course, Sylas wasn’t knowledgeable enough to say with certainty that that was impossible. But it at least made it less likely.

“Go rest.” Sylas said calmly.

From his Insight, he could tell that Gogo’s injuries were just surface level. Given the current strength of the Hibernation Realm, it would only take a few minutes at most for him to be back up to full strength, and even that was an exaggeration of the time needed.

‘How many unknown powers like that are there in the galaxy?’

Most Summonings succeeded by going under the radar. Finding worlds undergoing them was incredibly difficult.

What was even more difficult was wrapping your head around the sheer vastness of a galaxy in the first place, let alone a cluster of them, or the universe itself.

Earth was already so large Sylas needed a special treasure just to get around it in a timely fashion, and that was with his current strength.

Who knew how many worlds there were in the Skai 11331 Galaxy alone?

Earth only felt so great because they had somehow been found and targeted. But were they truly so special?

And how much larger were the Thryskai or even just the Florineth by comparison? Just how powerful did they need to be to sit atop something as vast as the galaxy? And how much greater were the Golden Grove than them?

The thought just felt… overwhelming.

For the first time, Sylas was seeing the scope of the universe not through the tiny lens of what was thrown at him every day, but instead through what it truly was…

An impossible vastness.

The young prince probably had no idea that the most crushing loss of his own life would carry with it the same shocking upheaval in the mind of the man he wanted to surpass so much.

Sylas clenched his fists for a moment and then released.

‘I still have the power to overturn everything. The rage of the system… it’s almost certainly because of me. If I can do it once, I can do it again. The system has its bottom line, and if it’s provoked, it will react.

‘This time, I plan on pissing it off quite a bit… I guess we’re going to have to gamble.’

On one path, there was death. On the other… there was also death.

Either the Madness Key would kill him or the system would.

That was what the odds said, anyway. But he wouldn’t be playing by them.

With a step, he vanished.

…

The young prince ran, his eyes filled with rage and his fists clenched.

This wasn’t just about the death of the old man, but also an upheaval in their plans as a world. Without the old man, claiming this bazaar would be impossible.

The only choice was to retreat. Every fiber of his being wanted to stay, but he knew that it wasn’t the smart choice. They had already lost a lot today; he couldn’t allow them to lose more.

BANG!

The young prince had been paying full attention to exactly where he was going, and yet he still slammed into something nonetheless. The figure didn’t move a single inch, but the young prince was sent flying.

“Jala Hall, is it?”

The young prince shot to his feet, the blazing rage in his eyes subsiding into a cool caution. How did this person know his name? With the treasures layered onto him, even Sylas couldn’t read his stat page despite his Will having reached Forged.

“Who are you?” Jala asked.

“Jala Hall, son of Deray Hall, grandson of Aby Hall, great-grandson of Jae Hall. Your great-grandfather owes us a great debt. You’ve been hidden for quite some time, I didn’t expect to stumble onto you like this while I had a very different target in mind.”

Jala was even more on guard after hearing this. His great-grandfather owed a debt? To who? And for what?

“There’s no need to ask so many questions. Your great-grandfather’s debt will be paid soon. Now that I’ve found you, I know that he is here and his time will come.”

Jala’s gaze flashed and he suddenly threw something out.

The figure shook their head and the explosion that rocked the earth didn’t even faze him.

As the smoke, ash, and flames faded, the figure was still there.

“I hope we’re done with that nonsense for now. I’m going to need you as a proxy to do some things as the system has been very… antsy recently. I can’t interfere in an inferior system too directly or I’ll be the next to suffer, but there’s also something too interesting happening here that I can’t ignore.”

The figure shook their head.

“A Demon Spawn appeared in this galaxy? How can I miss the opportunity to study such a thing?”