Genetic Ascension

1585 Impossible [3000 GT Bonus]

Sylas' forearm tensed for a moment as though he was going to make a move. But after a short thought, he chose to relax.

He watched as the scorpion was dragged to the depths of the moon where it had always been. But this time, it wasn't the God of their Lineage any longer. Now, it was little more than a prisoner in a world of its own making.

Sylas could feel the aura of the Scorpion plummeting. One's ability to sense the Path of the Scorpion with any sort of clarity had been severely hamstrung.

However, after this happened... the world fell into silence.

There was no follow-up message, no orders for what they should or shouldn't do-it was like a silent warning hanging in the air and then nothing else at all.

Quiet stretching to infinity.

A quiet that sank into Sylas' bones as well.

It poured into his being and turned the hot, poisoned blood of the scorpion to a running river of ice and chill.

Sylas didn't need to summon his armor to know that it had been weakened considerably. In fact, if his Armor was any weaker, he wouldn't be able to use it at all.

The only reason he could use it now was because he had already deviated from the path, having formed his own unique Scorpion Warlord Armor.

However, the other disciples...

The screaming finally calmed into an ebb, silence falling over the moon once more.

But every one of them had lost the strength they had spent a lifetime building. With a single decree, it was all wiped out.

Some of them might be permanently crippled, forever forced into a life worse than just subservience. True weakness.

Sylas looked over toward Ekear. The latter seemed relaxed, but there was a heavy Will around him.

Now, Sylas knew with certainty that the heaviness he had felt from the moon despite being so far away wasn't because of the decree. The decree hadn't even appeared yet, so how could it affect the moon?

No.

The reason for the heavy atmosphere was Ekear himself. His Will was so powerful that it swallowed the entire moon in his own ambience.

He was pissed.

Despite the lazy look on his face, he was harboring something very much different in the depths of his heart.

Slowly, Ekear stood to his feet.

"Come with me."

...

Sylas followed after Ekear without a fuss, and soon, he was in a familiar room. It was the same enormous space of marble and tall pillars where he had originally evolved his eyes. This was the same place Gralith had given those powerful Scorpion King Eyes.

Ekear stopped walking and then stood across from Sylas.

"Show me your Scorpion Warlord Armor."

Their gazes met for a moment, and Sylas wondered why Ekear was asking this of him. What was he trying to accomplish right now, exactly?

Emerald lightning sparked.

In an odd change, bolts of green and gold appeared around Sylas' feet, forming a spinning circle of radiant streaks of lightning.

Chi. Chi. Chi.

A blinding flash echoed outward, and even Ekear squinted. By the time it retreated, an armor of emerald and gold had formed. It radiated such a density of Runes and Aether that it looked almost as though it was etched out of glass. While still see-through, it felt... solid.

Ekear's pupils constricted.

He had known that Sylas' Armor was powerful, but he hadn't known that it was this powerful. He thought he had already overestimated Sylas a great deal, but somehow it just wasn't enough.

This should be a weakened version of Sylas' Armor. But it was more powerful than any Warlord Armor he had ever seen.

He had never personally seen the Armors drawn by those in the top ten Sanctums, but he imagined that they couldn't possibly be better than this. In fact, Sylas might have long left them in his dust... with the weakened version of his Armor?

Of course, what Ekear didn't know was that Sylas' F-Grade Armor hadn't been weakened at all. That decree had no ability to do so.

What had been weakened was his ability to stack his E-Grade Scorpion Warlord Armor on top of it. Because he had yet to perfect it, Sylas was using the E-Grade Armor as designed. Due to this, the effects of the changes hit it hard, and it wasn't worth it for Sylas to use the stack any longer.

But if Ekear had been aware, this might be even more shocking to him.

After a long moment of silence, Ekear's lips slowly parted.

"The ranking of the Sanctums isn't as simple as a resource exchange for those that perform well. There is a feedback loop formed between the Spirit Lineages and the Emperor Sanctums. The Emperor Sanctum doesn't just sacrifice some of their own Spirits for the sake of building power in weak regions-they do it for tangible gain.

"When you made your breakthrough in the Armor, the Spirit of our 073 Scorpion Lineage responded in kind, growing stronger. This adds to the main Emperor Scorpion Lineage, and they grow stronger in kind.

"When there is a re-ranking of the Sanctums, those that move up can gain a blessing in return, and this blessing will further strengthen the Scorpion Spirit, thus completing the loop.

"This is, unsurprisingly, very important to Master. Right now, Master, Khan, and Gwenu are more than likely trapped where they are. If my calculations are correct, we need at least a top 40 spot to receive a resonance strong enough for them to take advantage of.

"In addition, the direct strengthening of the only Spirit of Master's with remaining ties to him is also of utmost importance.

"But as you can guess, this would be extremely difficult. Even if you sweep the F-tier all on your own, it wouldn't be enough. The results of the E-tier, D-tier, and C-tier would drag the average results down far too much.

"You would have to get a top ten place in the F-tier and E-tier to pull this off..."

Sylas' gaze flickered.

There were five divisions of competition: F, E, D, C, and B.

Only the top 30 or so had B-tier existences in the first place, but they obviously had none at all. So, no matter what, their ranking would be terrible for this stage. According to the rules, it would become the default average of their first four.

The differences in the D and C-tier competitions wouldn't change and would likely hover right around 73 again.

Meaning... if Sylas got top 10 in the F and the E-tier, then that would average out to 42nd place for the F, E, D, and C-tiers. When 42nd was plugged into the B-tier, it actually dropped the average down a bit but still remained at 42 after being rounded.

That wasn't good enough.

If he managed to get top 5 in the F-tier, top 10 in the E-tier, and then the Sanctum averaged 73 for the D and C-tiers, only then would they barely-just barely-make the cut for 40th place.

If these were one-on-one battles, there would be no question that Sylas could do it... at least for the F-tier.

But they weren't.

It was Sylas against hundreds of thousands, millions of disciples with stats even stronger than his own... and those were just the numbers for one Sanctum. There would be over a hundred Sanctums.

On top of that, there was no guarantee the Sanctum would be able to maintain their average in the D and C-tiers either.

Then there was the matter of Sylas' chances of placing top 10 in the E-tier.

Authrione was only in the F-tier, and his stats were in the 200-thousands...

His Sanctum was barely in the top 20.

What sort of stats would his E-tier counterparts have?

What stats would show up amongst the top 10? The top 5?

All of this felt completely impossible.