Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1232  Golden Battlefield

Sylas looked at the Duchess in silence for a long while.

Now, he was very curious—very curious about these secrets the Golden Grove seemed to be holding. However, he didn't know how involved he wanted to get just yet.

There was definitely something odd here… that being the fact the Demons seemed to believe that this world was an opportunity for them too.

Why were they getting rewards for killing if this was a prison? And hadn't she just said that they didn't have the benefit of the system, so where were the rewards for them even coming from in the first place?

Something wasn't adding up.

It made Sylas realize, especially with how the Unitar and Aurans had taken such a huge hit to their talent as well… that maybe things weren't so cut and dry.

Maybe, just maybe, the line between the Demons and the Gold Lineage wasn't as clear-cut as it seemed.

This was all just speculation on Sylas' part, but he was rarely incorrect.

'It's still possible that I'm overthinking things. If they had to seal these Demons away like this, it's likely they were just too powerful to kill. But…'

Sylas wasn't a fan of reading fiction. He found the things that some authors did for the sake of stoking conflict to be absolutely ridiculous, and it often felt like when you were following a main character, the writer would try to make you root for them while placing you in their shoes.

For someone like Sylas who chased after perfection, the idea of following someone imperfect and often foolish was too much for him. But what was worse than that was when the conflict driving the story didn't make any sense either.

This felt like one of those tropes that made his skin crawl.

An enemy so powerful you couldn't kill them… but you could seal them away? What sort of convoluted, ridiculous mess would allow such a thing?

If they were so powerful you couldn't kill them, then how the hell did you trap them? And if you could trap them, then why couldn't you kill them?

The part that was even worse than that was that these foolish authors writing these cliché stories rarely if ever actually explained it in terms that made any sense.

But that was exactly what was making Sylas' warning bells go off.

This wasn't a novel. It was real life.

And if it was real life, there had to be a reasonable explanation he could find for this.

By extension, if there was a reasonable explanation, then his feeling that the Gold Lineage and Demons were more tied than it seemed was more likely by the moment… and yet potentially unlikely…

'It could be a sacrifice of some sort…'

An equivalent exchange.

Sometimes, in order to accomplish something, something equally as grand had to be given up.

Sylas' gaze flashed as he felt he suddenly understood something.

'The most obvious answer isn't necessarily the case. It might not be that the Gold Lineage has traitors in them, but instead that their ancestors decided to chain themselves to these Demons…'

This world functioned on a curious set of laws, but the laws obviously benefited both the Demons and the Golden Champions that entered.

By chaining both to the same laws, they benefited in the same ways while being restricted in the same ways.

If Sylas put himself in the shoes of the Golden Lineage, and say he was in the middle of a war where he really needed to defeat not just a handful of people, but an entire Race of them… what would he do?

'Too much speculation…'

Sylas snapped out of his thoughts, though he felt like he was going in the right direction. If he continued down that route, he would just end up wasting his time.

He didn't have enough information to leap to so many conclusions.

"Then what do you want of me?" Sylas said.

"This world is separated into two regions. The one we are in right now is unnamed and is just the normal half, a place we live out our lives. The other region is the Golden Battlefield.

"It's a dangerous place, and often, if you want to improve beyond Level 50, it's the only place you can go. We've all been there, but it's a variable place that could kill anyone. It also tends to become more dangerous depending on your Level. This is why the only Level 100 in our world is my father. Most people aren't even Level 80 because the leap in difficulty every 10 Levels is shocking.

"We have good reason to believe that the Golden Champion is using this Golden Battlefield as their hideout, staying in the most dangerous region."

"Then why not wait for them to get themselves killed?"

"Because we would get no rewards if they die like this. Also, while we are restricted to the E-tier, the Golden Champion is not. There's a chance that the Golden Champion could use the Golden Battlefield to break through and reach the D-tier. At that point, we would all be sitting ducks waiting for death.

"We planned to send an expedition in very soon. This was what we were planning last night."

"And this is related to me because?"

"Because you have an advantage in this case. You are Level 50, and you are exceptionally powerful for an F-tier. If you enter the Golden Battlefield, you would be like a fish in water. You have the highest chance of finding and killing the Golden Champion, claiming the rewards for yourself."

"And how exactly would I kill someone who is on the verge of D-tier?"

"The Golden Battlefield has many odd rules. The Golden Champion might not necessarily be close to the D-tier—they could be a Level 51, or a Level 100. We do not know.

"What we do know is that the Golden Battlefield was designed so that any talented Golden Champion of the E-tier could challenge this world for a reward."

Sylas raised an internal eyebrow.

They should have said all of this from the very start. In that case…

This would be easy.

"And how can I know to trust you?" Sylas asked.

The Duchess' face became weird. It seemed that these were words a Demon would never say.

But then her expression became weird. Was that what Sylas meant?

"You..."

She fidgeted in place.