Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1471: Spiral

A young woman with hair formed of a nest of red-scaled serpents with golden eyes appeared. She held a long polearm in her hands with an odd U-shaped appendage on the end of it instead of a blade. Rattling from this appendage were golden rings and loops of various sizes, but perfectly symmetrical along the U-shaped curve.

Her odd staff was practically glowing ruby, almost entirely transparent from some angles, and it perfectly complemented the almost too-perfect "evil queen dress she wore.

The deep crevice that outlined the center of her chest was just one of the features, the high arch of the collars that fanned out like the fins of a fish and the puffy folds that fell beneath her hips completing the look.

This woman was certainly eccentrically dressed, and she was out of place amongst those that followed after her, a group of men and women with snakes of various colors in place of their hair. Each one of them wore real, substantial armor. And yet all of their auras and expressions seemed to defer to the young woman in front of them.

[Boradora Ouro][Level: 50]

(Physical: 192,888] (Mental: 221,997] (Will: 333,333]

"Miss!" Bluanca called out the instant she could. "Sanzi, please! Sanzi needs your help!" Boradora looked at Bluanca for a moment and then up at the skies before she looked down at the marsh her feet were in. Seeing her dress sinking into it, her face twisted with disgust and she waved her staff.

With a WHOOSH, there was a forceful change in the marsh.

"He is already dead," Boradora said plainly, double-checking to see that her dress was in fine condition.

Bluanca immediately paled when she heard this.

Slowly, her head turned back to find that the last of her fiancé's hydras had already been destroyed. What color remained on her face vanished, her desperation pooling into the reactions of her hydras. They drooped, the light in their eyes dimming.

“Who did you face? What Horizon are they from? Sanzi's information was clipped and limited.”

Bluanca seemed too out of it to even answer, and this made Boradora frown.

Seeing the situation wasn't good, one of Sanzi's younger cousins immediately stepped in.

“We do not know, young miss. He was entirely alone and Sanzi didn't say much about him before he made us run. However, he almost destroyed our combat formation all on his own without much effort."

"Oh?"

Boradora's expression became more serious.

The union of the Boros was one of their greatest trump cards. The power of their combat formation, especially with Sanzi at the center of it, would be substantial. Even she wouldn't dare to casually fight against it.

Of course, if they pissed her off enough, she would certainly do so—and win at that. But it wouldn't be a walk in the park. It would take her... a dozen or two exchanges, and she wouldn't hold back.

That was still fast, but for 12 relative no-names to be capable of pushing her so far went to show why they always insisted on having the Boros come along whenever they too entered the Tower of Champions.

However, to do it alone, and casually at that...

Could it be?

She came to the same conclusion Sanzi did without having seen Sylas just yet. This person just might be one of the two Primus Imperium present in the tower.

Her hydra hissed, raising into the air. The rattling of her golden rings kicked up a notch. "Support," she said coldly, practically looking through Sanzi's cousin and the others. They would do what they were brought here for, Sanzi's death or not.

A man with a blue-scaled hydra by her side took a step forward and pressed out a palm. Before Sanzi's cousin could react, it pressed against his forehead.

Resigning to his fate, he didn't fight back. This wasn't a true death... but it might as well have been a temporary version of such a thing.

Sylas appeared in the skies a not-too-distant space away, but he didn't act immediately. For one, he knew that the situation had changed by the pinging in his Quicktime Event, a notification that things had shifted. Second, he wasn't arrogant enough to believe that there was nothing that could surprise him right now. And third... What he was seeing reminded him of a very familiar ability.

Total Merge.

Sylas' first realization was that they were using a Total Merge-like ability to hide their presences. This way, these two teams could act as one without having to worry about the Quicktime Event pitting themselves against each other.

Just the fact that something like this was possible made Sylas realize just how many wide and variable abilities there were in the universe.

He reached a hand forward to attack. He wasn't just going to stand here and let them do as they pleased. Being cautious was one thing, but being stupid was another.

The instant he showed signs of movement, though, the blue-scaled hydra young man flashed through the skies. Wielding a heavy halberd, he descended from above Sylas, who was already standing quite high in the air.

Sylas' gaze flickered and his body seemed to split into two mirror images. Both clones drew a hand in the skies and the water converged, forming a pair of shields that blocked the halberd.

Reality snapped and then Sylas seemed to become just one man again, and yet the halberd still faced a shield that was twice as powerful.

The young man felt his wrists rattle, shaken by the blow. It was nothing but the water that fell from the skies right above them, and yet in Sylas' hands it had practically become the world's most impenetrable shield.

Before the young man could even process what happened, danger warning signs were blaring in his head continuously, flaring so many warnings he didn't even have time to field one before another was coming, and then another, almost as though in an infinite death spiral.