Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1806: Human

Even while the world was seemingly ending around him, Sylas just kept staring at the little black box. In fact, saying that it was a little black box hardly did justice to what it well and truly was.

Not only was it heavy beyond compare, but it was so black it almost felt like Sylas wasn't holding an object at all, but instead a force of nature. Not a single bit of light that hit it could bounce away. It was instead swallowed into an unfathomable depth, never to rise again.

'Something feels off.'

A voice in the back of Sylas' head was continuously speaking. It was a little voice that always told him when he was missing something, or there was a line to connect that he wasn't quite yet ready to connect.

And then it suddenly did.

An image of Alex flashed in Sylas' mind. He remembered the mask the former always wore, the tendrils of darkness he used in battle, and just how much that reminded Sylas of the box he was seeing in his hands right

now.

The First Race of Earth was truly something.

Sylas finally recalled that back after he became the Progeny of the Milky Way, Alex and Jala had tried to escape. But because Sylas' Luck was so high, they ended up being randomly teleported right to the planet he was on.

Back then, Sylas had given Alex a chance to survive if he could last enough exchanges. This was Sylas' way of not only testing if Alex was powerful enough to be worth keeping around, but also as a way of seeing what cards he was hiding.

Sylas remembered clearly feeling like many of the abilities Alex was using back then reminded him of something even more fundamental than the Seeds. Alex's Will had been in a constant back and forth struggle with the world, half taking from it, but also half fighting back against something being taken from him.

Those were Sylas' vague recollections. His current sensory capabilities were leagues beyond what he was capable of back then, so the details of everything weren't as clear, and he hadn't brought Alex into this Demon World along with him this time unliek he had last time.

All he had to go off of were those memories... but Sylas' memories had always been impeccable.

'Why...'

Sylas' eyes narrowed.

It was exceptionally interesting if you thought about it. All of the Races of Earth seemed entirely disconnected from one another.

The First Race to the Clypsians, the Clypsians to the Dogons, the Dogons to the Dino Race, the Dino Race to the Great Apes... In every case, every single one of them was entirely disconnected. They evolved independently and without heavy influence on the other. The only real potential exception were the Clypsians and Dogons who appeared around the same time. They had more direct influence over one another because they were vying for Overlord all at once.

But they had still awakened and evolved independently. There was no overlap between them at all.

And then came the Great Apes and the Humans.

This was the one case, the singular instance in Earth's history where on Overlord Race evolved to become the next Overlord Race.

As far as Sylas could tell, Earth's science and theories were correct. It was all too easy for him to confirm as the Progenitor of Earth. The Great Apes did eventually evolve into humans.

But what was interesting about this was that the Great Apes first evolved into Great Apes, and then devolved into the apes Sylas had known in his time, before evolving once again into the Human Race.

It was the only instance of such a connection between Overlord Races... it was something that Sylas had always known, but hadn't given second thought to until just now.

He stared at the black box, recalling Alex once again.

The First Race of Earth had prepared so many things, but what was their downfall?

Their very existence itself.

The birth of the First Race was the entire reason why they were targeted.

If Sylas put himself in their shoes, and he was unwilling to give up-as clearly they weren't either-what would he do?

'Find a way to fold and hide what caused me to be feared by so many people in my descendents so that I could one day return.'

It was just speculation, but the more Sylas looked at it, the more sure he was in his conjecture.

What better way to hide yourself if not in the most inocuous Race in the entire universe? The Race that existed everywhere, that could be found everywhere, in infinite variations and mutations... What better Race if not the Human Race?

When Sylas thought of the Human Race, he couldn't even genuinely pinpoint what they were meant to be. He had been all over the universe by now, but he had yet to truly come across another Human Race aside from the Veil Humans, but even they didn't well and truly feel Human.

If you stretched the definition enough, maybe 50% to 60% of the Races in the universe were considered Human. There were even Races that looked so HUman from the exterior-like the Spirit Beasts-that the distinction felt meaningless in the first place.

One might even be able to argue that the Human Race was the foundational Race of the entire universe itself—at least in the Real World.

Everyone was Human... and maybe that was precisely why the word Humanoid was so common when one was speaking about Races in general outside of beasts.

The more Sylas thought about it, the more sure he felt, and the more inescapable the conclusion seemed to become.

The words that the Duchess had said not too long ago kept ringing in Sylas' ears.

She seemed very insistent that he wasn't Human for reasons even she herself couldn't seem to describe clearly.

Sylas wondered if he had just found the answer as to why that was.

The real question was... what should he do about it?