Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1503 Flare [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to Eeshoo97 <3]

The Sloth shook his head, feeling annoyed but realizing that things weren't going to be as easy as he wanted them to be. Many of his abilities were crafted to make things easier on himself.

The iterations Sylas kept destroying so easily were reflections of timelines where he could win with the least amount of effort. But it seemed that Sylas' control over time wasn't just better than his, but several orders of magnitude greater.

Not only was Sylas not confused, he directly shattered them.

But that left the Sloth feeling like Sylas was truly too arrogant. He preferred to use absolute power rather than take a more clever approach. If Sylas' sense of time was really so much more superior to his, then he should have spent the extra effort to use the Sloth's technique against him.

If the Sloth thought he had the upper hand but was actually confused about what was actually happening, then Sylas could take the chance to land a devastating death blow before he could react.

Instead, he had chosen to aura farm cool points.

As much disgust as Sylas had for him, the Sloth had maybe even more for him.

Pathetic.

This time, Sylas didn't see the Sloth get up. In one moment, he was on the ground, and in the next his claws were before Sylas again, extending as though a finger tapping the surface of a calm lake. But Sylas knew that there was nothing serene about this finger.

If it touched him, it could rip right through his defenses.

He took a single step back, his Morphic Silver Bearings flashing into being around him as though the shroud of silver wings curving from his back.

Sylas glided along the ground, his gaze sharp as the weaving lines of his irises pulsed. They layered into his tesseract one after another, forming a complex mesh of Runes that slashed down.

Coming to a stop, his aura pulsed with a deathly radiance, his Scorpion Warlord Armor piecing together once then twice over. In an instant, his Physical rose by another 50%, reaching over 150,000 points.

However, unlike before, the growth was far less superficial. Even without Martial Demonic Arts active, Sylas' Legendary Genes pulsed with life, and he immediately adapted to his new body.

The Morphic Silver Bearings shattered apart into a rain of mercury, slashing lines of space cutting grooves into Sloth's robes.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Sylas' eyes narrowed as his spatial blades actually did nothing to the man, but he was unmoved as Sloth appeared before him again.

His Speed was impossibly fast. There was nothing slothiike about it at all.

However, Sylas had already grasped why that was. The Sloth didn't seem like a Rune Master—probably because the bastard was too lazy to even learn. But his Will was exceptional, and his ability to impose that Will onto the world was second to none. Sylas had never seen anyone with this level of capability.

Whatever level his Will was at, it was beyond Marked. In fact, it might be at Infinite just like his own.

The difference was that Sylas' was temporary, while the Sloth's certainly was not.

Sylas' calf flexed as he drove the tips of his toes into the ground. He pivoted to the side hard, torquing his hips and dodging the attack—not with Speed, but with precision.

The blades that formed Sloth's claws barely scraped by his nose as Sylas drove a knee up to the former's gut.

It was a perfectly timed strike. The Sloth had overextended himself and wasn't in a position to dodge. And yet, his other palm appeared in Sylas' path, almost gently meeting his attack.

Smoothly, the Sloth landed with a flip, using Sylas' knee as a pivot point to just spin over it and avoid any damage whatsoever.

Landing on the ground with a graceful bob, he accelerated again.

A furious exchange erupted between the two, a series of attacking maneuvers that were deftly dodged or outpaced by the other. Every strike either landed on air or was almost carelessly parried. The lack of sound buffeted only by the harsh winds that followed their sharp attacks almost made it look as though they were sparring more with air currents than anything else.

They danced out their choreographed death steps, gliding along the edges of one another's blade as their exchange became sharper, faster, more relentless.

Their Wills clashed fiercely in the air, the roars of a Serpentes and guttural howls of a tortoise causing the room to tremble.

Sylas had never fought anyone with senses as sharp as his own. And ever since he had formed his Mixed Martial Arts, and then further his Mixed Demonic Arts, he had never fought anyone who could keep up with his chess-like style of combat.

This proved one thing.

He didn't believe the Sloth was as intelligent as himself. That meant that the Sloth's combat prowess was impossibly far beyond his. Sylas was only able to keep up because he was the Dominus Paragon.

What he lacked in combat reflexes and experience, he made up with his mind.

This left the Sloth feeling more and more shocked, while he didn't realize that it was actually Sylas himself who was the more surprised of the two.

Sylas dodged another pierce of the Sloth's claws, striking down his elbow at his own hip and trapping the latter's arm to it. With a strong step back, he twisted and kneed at the Sloth's opposite hip at the same time.

The two spun in the air, Sylas' knee missing as the Sloth carried their momentum to the side.

However, Sylas' Scorned Wraps moved at that instant, wrapping around the Sloth's arm. Leaping back before the Sloth could land solidly on the ground, Sylas pulled on his wrappings hard, yanking the Sloth and kicking at an ankle at the same time.

The Sloth's pupils constricted. One misstep and he could very well find himself flying through the air under Sylas' control—and they both knew how that would end.

His own Scorned Wraps flared.