Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1908: Shattered

When Sylas entered, the first thing he saw was a familiar landscape of colors.

The world had always been beautiful beyond words, almost like one was seeing an array of colors on the light spectrum that simply didn't exist in the outside world.

Everything seemed to radiate with its own light rather than just reflecting what was already there. The greens looked like emerald, the reds like rubies, the golds as though they had been dug up from the ground and polished again and again until they shone like the most glittering of brasses.

It felt almost blasphemous to disrupt anything here.

Chi.

Sylas leaned back out of the way of a zipping red line through the skies and reached out, snatching it out of the air before it could vanish into the distance.

He raised an eyebrow as he noticed he was going to miss.

'Still as fast as I remember...'

Sylas' telekinesis flashed, and the red line was trapped before it could go any further. It was sucked right into his palm, and he looked down at the small mass. A beautiful little red snake lay there.

He remembered this creature. It was not the same one, of course. But the first time he had come to this land, it had attacked him as well.

[Ruby Finger Serpent (DDD+)]

[Level: 107]

[Physical: 15,233,222]

[Mental: 8,892,355]

[Will: 8,881,127]

As expected, the Mancer Scape was a place that was quite large and expansive.

The first time Sylas stepped into this world, the Ruby Finger Serpent had only had 10,000 or so Speed. But that was scaled to Earth's stats. Meaning, if Sylas adjusted... Its Speed would have been 10.

But the Speed of this Ruby Finger Serpent on that scale would be over 30 billion.

The Mancer Scape had to be large and expansive, and it also had to adjust the landing position depending on who was entering and from where. Otherwise, Sylas would have died to the very first Ruby Finger Serpent he had come across.

Unfortunately, one thing remained the same. These beasts had no physical forms. They were still just souls and spirits, just like the first time Sylas had entered. Meaning, contracting them should have been impossible.

So why was it that Sylas felt like something was different?

The Ruby Finger Serpent lay in his hand, unable to move in the slightest under the constant pressure of his telekinesis. It had great speed, but its other Physical stats were highly lacking, and its Will was weak as far as Sylas was concerned.

Even as an E-tier, Sylas' Will was more than double that of the Ruby Finger Serpent.

'Hm... it feels more real than before...'

Sylas could use Contract Echo on these spirits, but that wasn't enough to explain why they perceived more real to him now than ever before. It was almost like his eyes were playing a trick on him and they weren't illusory constructs at all.

Unable to figure it out rapidly, Sylas chose to use Contract Echo, and the Ruby Finger Serpent was immediately bound to him. It stopped resisting completely.

Sylas' Vipermancy Profession was only in the E-tier right now, but it didn't seem to matter as he completely subdued a D-tier beast.

'That also shouldn't have worked. So they aren't as real as my senses say. Something odd is going on. Is it...'

Sylas' eyes narrowed.

This location, in particular, was tied to the Sanctum. The secrets of the Mirror Dungeon and everything else were likely related to this place as well. Was what was happening now due to changes the Sanctum had made?

WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOSH.

Three figures shot forward and landed in front of Sylas. They had been waiting around for new disciples to enter, but Sylas was the only one here, leaving them a bit confused.

"Where are the others? Why are you alone?"

An Emperor Dove that looked frighteningly similar to another Sylas knew appeared. His speed was quite good. Not nearly as good as the Ruby Finger Serpent, but excellent nonetheless.

This Emperor Dove wasn't reminiscent of the one Fanelei had witnessed the death of, but instead reminiscent of one of the overseers of the 713th Gathering.

Sylas looked at them, completely uninterested in finding out. With a step, he had already appeared in the skies.

"Hey! Get down! You're going to attract all the beasts in the area toward this place. It's not safe!"

"Who is this idiot?!" An Emperor Raven to the side was absolutely furious, but none of them wanted to go into the skies after Sylas in order to avoid the possible commotion.

Didn't this bastard know that this was a region that could easily have B- and even A-tier beasts? They had to be cautious if they wanted to keep their lives!

Sylas didn't seem to hear their voices.

There was still one more thing he had yet to completely figure out.

What were the Spirit Beasts doing here? How would they use this place to improve?

Would they simply kill beasts and hope to incorporate the Wills left over into themselves? That seemed like the obvious answer, but Sylas felt like the answer was greater than just that alone.

Sylas scanned the region slowly, but all he saw was a sea of trees, one location that might have had a lake, and another direction with mountains that shimmered like they were cut from an arrangement of obsidian and diamond.

The encampment of the Emperor Sanctum, as far as there was one, was very well hidden, dispersed between the branches in tree houses of elaborate design but subtle influence.

'It's not in this plane of sight,' Sylas suddenly said.

His words were confusing, but he seemed to understand them perfectly well.

His eyes flashed, and a tesseract appeared within them, rotating in four dimensions as his gaze blazed with a great light.

And that was when he saw it...

Just how fragmented this world was.

This wasn't the Mancer Scape, at least not how Sylas knew it.

It was a broken piece of it, a shattered glass-like fragment that had fallen from the Demi-God Plane.