Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2032: Mistakes (1)

For some reason it felt like the entire rest of the world had become a sea of black, white, and grey. There was nothing that Sylas could focus on but the feather itself.

It drifted down, not just pulling on the winds that caressed it, but even the lines of the Mesh of Reality itself. Spacetime bent and twisted to its whims as though it wasn't as light as a feather at all, but instead carrying the mass of an entire world with it.

And then it landed in Sylas' palm.

Despite the changes, despite the variation, it was almost like it was always meant to land exactly there, like it couldn't have ever landed somewhere else. No amount of chaos, or tweaks, or changes in the wind or even spacetime itself could have changed where the feather sought itself to land.

And the moment Sylas touched it, it was like something had seized his heart, gripping it hard and refusing to let go. His Pride Seed wilted as though it was meeting a Seed far beyond itself.

Maybe under usual circumstances this would have never happened. But right this moment, it was like he was facing off against the world, as though the feather truly was something that weighed as much as a planet.

And yet, Sylas refused to let it go. Maybe it was out of Pride, or maybe it was out of something else entirely that he couldn't quite explain.

But he knew that he didn't want to let go, that he couldn't let go no matter what, that if he did let go, he would lose more of himself than he had before this moment.

And it was there, standing in the midst of the swirling storms of wind and space that shook the area the dark feather forced itself to be in that Sylas felt something click within him.

The Virtue of Pride Madness Key had been satiated, for but a moment. Somehow, it had registered him successfully culling the feather as something to be applauded and had released him from its grip.

But what of tomorrow? And the day after that? How long would he spend in this quagmire of his own creation?

He didn't know. But what he did know was that this feather... he couldn't lose it, he refused to.

He held it up and looked through its plumes. It really was just as light as one might have expected it to be despite what other impact it had on the world.

'Nosphaleen?' Sylas almost whispered it despite it being a thought. It was like he didn't dare to voice it just in case it might not be what he was expecting. 'What happened? How is this possible?'

A caw of a crow clawed at his ears. Its keening wails pressed into his ear drums, scratching and clawing at it continuously until even his own ears started to bleed.

Still, he refused to let go. In fact, he held onto it tighter.

There was something wrong here. This was somehow both like Nosphaleen and yet entirely different, almost like her Will had been twisted in some way.

But she was alive? Where was she?

'When...'

The word came to Sylas' mind and he shuddered at the thought.

Why was it that he wanted to ask that question? It was like it wasn't enough to try and figure out where she was at

all. But this feather, it had moved and whipped across time just as easily as it had done space.

Finding out where Nosphaleen would already be difficult enough. But finding out when?

'Dammit.'

Sylas closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing.

None of this made him feel any better, and it wasn't because of the fact that if Nosphaleen was alive, it was almost certainly due to the plans of someone far stronger than himself.

No. The real reason that he felt like this was because it didn't change anything about the state of his mind.

He still felt like he had failed, he still felt like he hadn't been able to do everything he could, he still felt like everything that had happened was his fault.

The difference now was that he was being forced to face that reality.

When Nosphaleen was dead, it was ironically almost like a shield, almost like there was a thin veneer keeping him from himself and his real emotions. He could vent out the problems through the conduit of her death.

Ironically enough, he still didn't admit to himself that he was so very hurt by the death either, it was just that all of his actions made it so obvious that there couldn't have possibly been any other possibility in the first place.

But now that she just might be alive, it was like that veneer was peeled right off and he was forced to look at the mirror beneath it.

He had failed.

That was the bottom line.

He failed to make his wife feel secure in their relationship. He failed to care enough to make Nosphaleen feel secure in theirs. He wasn't clever enough to find a solution that worked everything out for the both of them. He wasn't good enough for them to feel like loving him was enough.

No matter how he looked at the situation, no matter how he turned it over in his mind.

This was a failure.

He was a failure.

He wasn't good enough.

Sylas had never measured himself by the success of others, and there was no one in the world harder on himself than, well... himself.

The funny part about that was that maybe that was precisely why he had the defense mechanisms he had. Maybe pretending like he didn't have a perfect memory, pretending like he could just forget anything important on a whim so he didn't have to confront it, was the best way for him to just keep moving forward as though nothing had

happened.

But then something had changed a few years ago now.

That day in the volcano.