Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1254  Enter

"Enter," Sylas said, motioning toward a twist in space.

Alex and Jala looked at it for a moment, then toward one another.

"You mean to say that you could have let us enter before, but you didn't?" Alex pouted. "We almost died, you know. Several times."

Normally, Sylas wouldn't respond to something like this, but this time he actually looked between the two of them.

"I bring you two along because you might be useful to me in the future. However, you not only grow at a far slower pace than I do, but you are weak. Unless you can reach a certain standard, it's not worth my time or effort.

"This time I'll protect you like this only because it's too great of a challenge. Nothing more, nothing less."

Alex's pout only grew deeper. He didn't need Sylas to say these things out loud; he already understood him maybe too well. The only one who seemed to finally "understand" was Jala himself, but it was hard to tell if he was happy about it, or just more disappointed.

In the end, not having your own life in your own hands wasn't something that most people could accept. And it was even less possible for Jala, who was now somehow the last of his Hall Clan, and yet had nothing but treasures that seemed utterly useless when push came to shove to show for it.

"I think he's getting soft on us," Alex whispered. "He actually explained something."

The Hollow Wing's flapping wings sent the two flying in before Jala could reply. Of course, the Hollow Wing hadn't done this on purpose. It, too, was just flying into the Hibernation Realm.

With that, Sylas turned to enter.

…

The world flashed around Sylas and the first thing he felt before he sensed anything else was a weapon coming right at him.

It was an odd feeling. His Luck warned him first, his eyes next, but his visualization… it seemed to fall on nothing more than emptiness, as though the attack was echoing from something different than the plane of existence he was still on right this moment.

Sylas immediately changed his tactics, using his sensitivity to the Mesh of Reality instead, but to his surprise he still landed on nothing.

He blinked for a moment, not understanding, his thoughts moving so fast that the blade was still only about halfway toward him by the time he managed to adjust himself again.

This time, rather than just focusing on the Mesh of Reality holistically, he focused on time alone, grappling with his Temporal Delay Progenitor Flame Ability.

For some reason, when he ignored the implications of space —or maybe it was more accurate to say the complexities— everything fell into place properly and he was able to see things for what they were.

He couldn't help but be reminded of the little girl's warning that his two Rune Mastery Paths were not compatible.

It was just that logically… everything seemed to point toward it making the most sense for time and space to work as one.

Despite his confusion, Sylas reacted fast, \[Chaotic Menace] already activated as he rushed to clamp down on the blade… only to be confused again.

Just as his claw was about to trap the blade, it vanished from his senses once again. What made things odder was that this wasn't a failed attempt on Sylas' part, or a technique by the echoing ghost blade. In fact…

Chi… CLANG!

Sylas caught the blade just as he had anticipated. It was just that he could only see and feel the blade; he couldn't sense it with the ethereal senses he was used to anymore…

Until he switched from focusing on Temporal Delay back to Astral Stutter.

'I see… so I have to focus on the aspects of time until the ghost interacts with me. At that point, it will have more physical form in this plane, so I would then have to use space. But presumably because of it echoing from a past event, or maybe even coming from the past in some ways—or maybe the only way that matters—when it's interacting in this timeline, it doesn't have real form and can't be sensed in the normal ways…'

Sylas could understand… and yet he still didn't feel like he understood.

It was an odd feeling, almost like being able to understand that 1 + 1 = 2, and yet not being able to prove why it didn't equal three instead.

It was an intuition that wasn't built on instinct, but instead a learned behavior. Almost like the world showing him in real time that even if he felt time and space should work together, it was beyond his mortal capabilities to make it so.

Rather than a simple math equation, it almost felt more like trying to wrap your head around nothing as not just an absence of something, but as truly nothing itself… a state that came before the Big Bang, before the universe was even a universe in the first place—how something had come from nothing.

Sylas frowned, his claw squeezing down and shattering the blade before him. The ghostly warrior took shape in rusted armor, skeletal and rotten; it looked as though it could collapse any moment, but its strength was around the low Level 50s.

A single strike was all that was necessary.

'This battlefield has deteriorated along with everyone else.'

If the enemies had the talent levels of the Noble Demons before their suppression, there wouldn't be a chance for anything here. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

But Sylas found himself still lost in the battle of time and space, almost forgetting that he was actually here to save someone… no, this wasn't even just about saving Megean anymore. If he couldn't preserve her life, he would be trapped here for the rest of his life as well.

Taking a breath, Sylas slowly exhaled. If there was a secret to be found here, he would find it. But he had to have his priorities straight.

He didn't have infinite time.

Soon, though, Sylas realized that maybe he would be a fool not to pay more attention to this.