Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1342: 20%

"Why are you looking at me like that?!" Gwenu raged again less than a split second later. "Where’s the surprise!? The rage?!"

Sylas wasn’t surprised because he knew this would happen the moment he couldn’t defeat Magnus. Of course, defeating Magnus wouldn’t make things go their way with 100% certainty, but what it would do is make them second-guess their approach.

If he defeated Magnus, it would give them about a 30% chance of going another route entirely and giving up their attempted integration. That still left 70% odds that they’d try to find another way in, but about a third of a chance was better than no chance.

The reason for that is exactly because of what Gwenu mentioned about reallocation.

When there was a new Sanctum, territories had to be split, a new moon had to be prepared, and resources had to be redistributed.

Normally, a new Sanctum would be quite weak. If they were leaving their former Sanctum, there was probably a reason for that. Either the Sanctum had been destroyed, they had irreconcilable differences with one or multiple other Lineages in their former Sanctum, or they had been beaten down and kicked out.

In almost all situations, they would be down on their luck and too weak. As such, they would just take a small piece of the pie after a new Sanctum voted them in.

However, the Sanctum was an organization that followed the Path of Beasts. Everything was done by meritocracy and the survival of the fittest. Meaning... even if one was "voted" in through "peaceful" means, there was a very unpeaceful way one could go about securing resources, one where Sylas wouldn’t be able to command as much control at all.

And that was once again a Challenge Rite. It was just that this time, the Challenge Rite wouldn’t be one-on-one battles, it would be a sanctioned war.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the same as a Sanctum War. This time, there would be rules about casualties and such, and if the death rate was over a certain limit, then the Rite would either be voided, or the challenger—in this case—would be rewarded with the resources they were deserving of.

There was a catch, though. And that catch was that this War Challenge Rite had a gambling aspect to it. In order to make a bid for more resources in this path, a challenging Sanctum had to put up the same amount of resources.

In addition, there would be divisions of F-tier to D-tier. This time, there would be no C-tier battles. Since this path had rules on limiting casualties, it was obvious that the life of a C-tier was too valuable to waste on such a thing.

Meaning... F-Grade resources would be put up as stakes for F-Grade resources, E-Grade resources would become the stakes for E-Grade resources, and D-Grade resources would become the stakes for D-Grade resources.

The newcomer would put up what resources they had, challenge other Lineages to match, and then begin a battle to claim new resources for themselves.

When it came to territorial disputes, the same would be done, though through different means. If there was a specific territory on the main Sanctum planet the newcomer wanted, they would have to put up an equivalent amount of resources to match its value.

This path was much harder than if the Bat Lineage had won their original Challenge Rite. Had they been able to prove themselves against the entire Sanctum by beating their best in every Tier, best three out of five times, then their resources would be evenly divided from all Lineages and handed to them on a silver platter.

Now, however, they had to take this route.

This was why if Sylas defeated Magnus as well, it would make things far easier.

If Sylas had the power to defeat the likes of Magnus, then even with numbers, they could kiss any chances of claiming resources for the F-tier goodbye. Then, between Sylas and Gwenu, they would have better than 70% odds of repeating the same feat for the E-tier as well.

F-tier resources could be procured any number of ways and weren’t nearly as valuable. But E-tier resources... those couldn’t be ignored so easily.

There was a very good argument to be made that the E-tier was the backbone of the Sanctum, though just as many would say D-tier. Still, it was much harder to grow E-tiers than F-tiers.

They were already taking a huge risk by leaving their Sanctum. If they couldn’t control resources, rather than gaining strong control over the Sector like they wanted, they would end up regressing instead.

Why was Sylas so sure that they would be challenging the Scorpion Lineage? There were dozens of other Lineages to go after, and it seemed smart to avoid the one with both the number one F-tier and number one E-tier.

By now, they should know that Sylas had also defeated Morvok. Though, they wouldn’t know that that was only because of his Profession.

Of course, the reason for that was the reason the Bat Lineage took such an aggressive stance to begin with.

Face.

They needed momentum, power, and public fear. They needed to be seen as powerful, and they couldn’t allow the Lineage that had defeated them so openly and easily off the hook.

If Sylas couldn’t defeat Magnus, then they felt they might have a chance to overwhelm him with numbers in the F-tier, then sweep the E-tier with their number of quality geniuses.

However, Sylas wasn’t sparing any of this much thought at all. Instead, he was thinking about something else entirely...

And that was the fact he was certain of his assumptions from before. There was a strong contingent in the Beast Warlord Sanctum 073 that were in the pockets of someone else. But there were so many conflicts of interest and different dynamics and politics at play that it was impossible to tell who.

Not everyone who voted yes would certainly be a traitor. But... it was a good place to start.

"Why would I be angry? I’m allowed to kill 20% of them now."