Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1368: No Second

Sylas almost fell to a knee, his body burning up from the inside. He had focused so much on his mind that his organs were shutting down, their function atrophying.

Spots of grey began to appear on his skin, his body shaking uncontrollably. It could feel that there was more of his mind to give to it, but Sylas was cruelly refusing. He had pulled so much away from his body that even smooth muscles that should expand and contract all on their own seemed to have stopped functioning entirely.

His digestive system shut down, his heart was hardly beating at all, and even raising and lowering his foot for just the fourth time was taking everything out of him.

But not for a single moment did he think of stopping. In fact, he wasn’t even sparing thoughts toward internal motivation.

Maybe someone else would be thinking thoughts like "keep going," "you can do it," or "don’t give up."

Sylas’ mind, however, was a blank canvas, only focused on Rune Mastery and the golden road before him. He didn’t need such ridiculous sentiment, such weakness.

He was better, far superior, and what he was trying to do right this moment would only prove it.

Chrono Casting?

No, his sights were set higher.

From the very start, they always had been.

He was warned that the fusion of the two paths was impossible, but he just didn’t care.

The problem was that it didn’t make any sense.

Honestly, at the start, Sylas thought that it might be an issue with Earth’s education. At the end of the day, Earth was a small world, in a small corner of the universe. Even though they had potential great enough to be the target of so many powerful Races, those Races had been after the first Race of humanity, not Sylas’ iteration of Earth’s Overlords.

As such, the idea that Sylas’ education and understanding of physics and the physical laws of the world could have mistakes was more than possible.

Because of that, although he disagreed when the little girl said they weren’t compatible, he wasn’t vehemently opposed to her position. The only reason he had taken both tomes anyway was because even in the case that they weren’t compatible, he could at least make an informed decision about them moving forward by grasping the fundamentals of each.

At that point, he didn’t believe it would be too late to abandon one or the other.

However, there was another reason Sylas had clung to this ideal...

It was because after he spent time with Andromeda in the Golden Grove, he hadn’t found anything that contradicted his thoughts. If anything, he found that Earth was actually far more advanced in its knowledge than it should have been.

There were many worlds far more powerful than Earth with far more limited understandings of the sciences, relying too heavily on the system and other powers to fill in the gaps they didn’t grasp themselves.

And then Sylas came to the Beast Warlord Sanctum, and then even perfected his Spark Seed.

At that point... Sylas was sure.

He was sure that even if the little girl was right, it wasn’t because Chrono and Spatial Casting were truly incompatible...

It was because the combination of Chrono and Spatial Casting was too much for any one person to wield. It was too close to the power of true creation, the strength to rewrite reality and shape it to your will, the unilateral might to paint the world you wanted.

Sylas imagined that in the past, with each formation of a system, there came an existence who faintly touched on the edges of such a thing, a powerhouse that was so very close to the strength to draw the universe itself with nothing but their minds.

Maybe they hadn’t taken the path of Chrono and Spatial Casting. Or maybe they had and kept the secrets of how to do so for themselves—or maybe they didn’t have to because they were the only monsters across time, space, and history to ever be capable of such things.

Regardless of what the truth was, he was Sylas Grimblade, and he would forge a path that wasn’t just no weaker—it would be stronger.

That man, whose face he knew but name remained unknown to him—that Scorpion Emperor Lineage hack that came down and spoke to him of the unfairness of the world, of where his place should be, as though he was a child that needed to be explained to...

He spoke of what was possible and what wasn’t.

Well, Sylas planned to show the world that what they felt was impossible wasn’t the case for him. He might not be strong enough to rewrite reality just yet, but he was strong enough to rewrite what they assumed his limitations were.

And the first step toward doing that was doing the impossible.

Chrono Casting.

Spatial Casting.

These two legacies were just the writings and teachings of others, paths they had already followed all on their own, aspects of reality that had already long been explored and plundered for their truths.

They weren’t his path.

His path would be a combination of the two. One where his Will alone was enough to rewrite the world as he saw fit.

Sylas took a fourth step, and suddenly he was 80% of the way through the path. His heart shut down completely, his breathing hitching, and his body on the verge of true collapse. His blood ran cold, his bones creaking as though they might fracture.

And yet, he still raised his next foot.

In that moment, he seemed to perfectly mirror Gralith’s step. As though he was facing off against that golden temple once again, those stairs so wide and overbearing they seemed to shine brighter than even the stairs above...

He took another step.

BOOM!

The entire tower shook, swaying from side to side so violently it seemed that collapse was imminent.

And yet, all the world could see was a single line.

—

[All-Time F-Grade Spark Mastery Leaderboard]

[1. Sylas Grimblade – 68:37:22]

—

There was no second person on the list.