Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1439: Masquerade

It was a question that had been lingering in Sylas' mind for a while, one that he didn't have an answer to.

However, what he did know was the trigger point.

The Milky Way Galaxy was once known as the Skai Galaxy. There was a number attached to it as well, but that was all but irrelevant at the moment.

After the All-Seeing Eye appeared, the manifestation of the Legendary System triggered by an item of The Professors of Legacy, things changed. After that point, even the impotent system itself began referring to it as the Milky Way.

Originally, Sylas dismissed this. He assumed that the original name of the galaxy had been Milky Way until the Thryskai laid claim to it, before naming and numbering it.

This made sense.

Until the system started referring to the Sector as the Milky Way Sector as well.

And now, it was calling this Horizon—the name for groups of Sectors—the Milky Way Horizon as well.

Sylas didn't know how far this would go, or what the purpose of all of it was at this point.

It had started off as something innocuous, and quickly became a mystery that left him baffled. But even then, he had so many other things to worry about that this loose end wasn't something he could spare much thought toward.

Suddenly finding out that others cared enough to cross Horizons to come and investigate, though… that changed everything.

That was because this Horizon—or, more accurately, this Sky, the name for a group of Horizons—was under the influence of the very same Demi-God Thryskai Clan that had been completely wiped from existence.

When Sylas got to this point in his thoughts, he became more confused.

Logically, if this Sky was under the control of that Demi-God Thryskai Clan, then it only went to show that this logic should follow much the same. If they had once renamed things here, and were now destroyed, maybe the names had reverted.

But there were two issues with this.

First, the system, as Sylas understood it, was basically a program that cut corners wherever it could. You had to prove yourself to make it waste any of its processing power. That was why Mounts couldn't be used in battle, or why it was so easy to trick, and likewise why it was so infuriated when it realized it had been tricked.

Why would the system waste time flipping a name back to normal when it could get away with leaving it the same?

That was the more complex reason this didn't make sense, but there was a far simpler reason…

If the answer was that simple, and it was a simple name reversion, then the Veil Humans wouldn't be here to investigate. They would have made the connection between the Demi-God Thryskai and the name changes.

Of course, there was the chance that they were lying. But… this was quite a convoluted lie to use for no reason other than to save face and avoid being questioned about why they had come all the way here.

The only conclusion that Sylas could come to was that there was indeed a secret here.

Maybe if it had been before his time in the Golden Grove's Secret Realm, he would find all of this silly. But now… he knew what kind of power True Names held, to the point that it could command the life of someone as powerful as the Duchess' father.

It could be said that if the Duchess never told him her father's True Name, even with his power-ups, Sylas would have been hard-pressed to come out of there alive.

The Sanguara—their existence, that broken remnant system that they were under the control and at the mercy of… they too were tied to the Legendary System of the past, weren't they?

No, did Sylas really need something so recent to understand the importance of names? He had learned how important names were to the system from day one, hadn't he?

If they were so unimportant, how had his name changed from Brown to Grimblade in the first place? Why did the system not acknowledge him as Sylas Brown?

Suddenly, Sylas' eyes widened as something shook him to the core once again.

'Earth. Earth is in danger.'

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Thinking of his mother, his father, his little sister, Cassarae's parents—everyone he had left behind—a feeling that Sylas hadn't experienced in a very long time was welling up in his heart.

Anxiety.

Fear.

Apprehension.

Names were important—too important. But he had come across someone in the past who had changed their name.

During his Quicktime Event to kill Professor Broussard, a series of events that led him to trigger the awakening of his Demonic Will and nearly cost him his life several times, he had come across someone.

Back then, he had almost killed Professor Broussard because she had become a traitor to Earth. Distraught over the death of her son, she felt like the governments of Earth didn't deserve her loyalty.

The details of back then had been glossed over by Sylas. He had come out on top, killed those that crossed his path, and stood unmatched. Plus, back then, he had finally made the decision to go to the Grimblade family and set things straight, killing those that needed to be killed and taking his real family away.

Because of that, and because he couldn't have possibly pieced something like that together back then, he didn't give a damn about such a "minor" detail.

Until now.

—

[Masquerade (???)]

—

Memories flashed by in Sylas' mind.

… "I met a man simply named Masquerade today. He's probably dead by now. A traitor through and through. Do you think his parents named him that? I don't know much about history, but I'm also fairly certain that a name like Grimblade was not common before the Sixth Summoning."… 'I'm a fool.'

The realization shook Sylas' mind.

He had had the answer right in front of him, but he missed it by a hair.