Genetic Ascension

1583 Guttural

Sylas stood in silence, feeling out the burning pain. His expression didn't seem to change much, but when he looked over toward Ekear, the latter seemed just fine as well.

Is this what he meant by just the two of them? But how would he know that Sylas could be fine?

Technically, Sylas wasn't fine. He could be, but he would still need to do something first. Otherwise, this Gene Lock would be burned into himself.

He also didn't quite understand why this was happening.

At first, Sylas thought that it was related to the Legendary Gene that he had lost. But something about that seemed off.

If they were going to target him, they would target him specifically. Why would they target the entire Lineage?

No. This felt like a problem related to the Scorpion Lineage as a whole.

If it was just him alone, Sylas was sure that there were a full slate of people in the Sanctum willing and able to take advantage of it all. The best example would be the Lion Lineage Warlord, who probably had quite some grudge with him by now.

But they weren't here either.

So what was the reason for the Scorpion Lineage being targeted this time?

Sylas' gaze flickered as he thought of two possibilities.

The first were the Kaelthar. But this still felt unlikely.

In the past, Sylas didn't have a strong grasp of the hierarchy amongst powers, but the more he interacted with the world, the clearer these things became.

As a Mortal Clan, the Kaelthar were B+ Thryskai-they shouldn't quite be A. Most of them weren't even at this standard, being very comparable to mere C-Grade Races.

From what Sylas could tell, this was the fate of all Races that grew to a large enough scale.

Right now, every Grimblade could be considered a true A-Grade—at least within the F- tier. But as they expanded, grew, had children of their own, this blood would dilute. Unless there were efforts taken to mitigate this, it was inevitable.

Even the Grimblades of the past had very strict standards for who they married. After all, there was a reason Sylas' grandfather, and by extension his father, had lost the right to fight for heirship. If his grandfather hadn't married his grandmother but instead someone chosen by the family, Sylas' father would have joined Lucius and the others in a competition for the Bronze City Stele.

This was all to say that the larger the family, the more variation in talent-even if, technically speaking, they were all B+ in strength.

Of course, compared to other B+ Races, the Thryskai were on another level entirely. While most B+ Races just had a few tidbits similar to that of A-Grade Races, the best of the Mortal Thryskai might even be better than some A-Grade Races.

But this still wasn't enough to sway the Emperor Sanctum to this extent.

If the Kaelthar had this much sway in the Emperor Sanctum, why would they be sending the likes of the Bat Lineage to play politics with their 073 Sanctum? It didn't make any sense whatsoever.

Sylas had personally seen just how high the power of the Warlord Sanctums could scale. The strongest Sanctum he had come across was barely in the top twenty, but their F- tiers were monsters that could eradicate the E-tiers of their Sanctum with the raise of a finger.

How much more powerful would the top ten be? The top three? And how powerful would the Emperor Sanctum have to be to control them all?

This was why it felt so ridiculous. Even so, Sylas didn't outright dismiss the possibility.

The Thryskai were quite a mysterious Race, having expanded so far across the universe that even the weakest of them had this much sway, and yet there were two tiers of them beyond the Mortal Clans.

Who was to say that the Kaelthar didn't have some connections Sylas wasn't privy to?

Even a minor favor owed to such an existence could easily sway something like this in a Sanctum as minor as theirs.

So, Sylas couldn't ignore the possibility, as remote as it seemed. Especially since right now, it still seemed like the best answer.

But there was a second thought he had...

The pair of father and son that came down from the Emperor Sanctum to the Warlord Sanctum...

Why had they looked like they were from the same Race as Gralith?

So very human, and yet not at the same time—almost as though you were looking through a fuzzy mirror that wasn't quite right.

Those violet eyes...

The fact Gralith had those Scorpion King Eyes he had given Sylas...

And then there was Ekear's tone when he mentioned Gralith taking Kahn and Gwenu to train. There was something odd about it as well... It was almost like there was some secret about this Ekear wasn't mentioning... It was doubly odd since Ekear himself had been oddly absent despite all the turmoil the Scorpion Lineage was facing without him.

Where could Gralith have possibly taken Kahn and Gwenu in such a short time that was somehow also far enough away that they couldn't return in time?

Sylas hadn't been gone for that long. Just a handful of months ago, Gralith and his fellow disciples were here. There wasn't enough time for them to get far enough away that they couldn't return.

Gralith was quite literally here the last time Sylas came, and that was barely a bit over a month ago.

Sylas' eyes narrowed.

While the screams of the Scorpion Lineage disciples filled the moon, shaking the planet

as though something far deeper and more guttural was crying out, his thoughts had landed on what was very likely the solution.

This wasn't retaliation toward him.

This was retaliation toward something Gralith had done.

Gralith had likely done something he thought would go undetected. But because of the

sudden change in the timing of the gathering, he had been found out.

Now, he wasn't here to deal with the situation.

Just like Ekear had said...

There was just the two of them.