Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2083: Finished

"Silence." Sylas said coldly.

The Madness Key struggled even more wildly. But after Sylas put it in his Virtue of Pride Madness Key, there was nothing else that it could do.

He walked over to the Glutton's corpse and took it as well. It quickly vanished along with his scythe.

Sylas exhaled a breath, looking down at his gut. There was a hole in his clothing where the Glutton's fist had landed.

He had been very wary of using his full power here because there was something he was still lacking a few puzzle pieces to put together entirely. But he also couldn't risk giving the Glutton the chance to escape either, so he had created the decision to go all out for a brief moment anyway.

The Glutton had been stronger than he expected, likely because the latter was quite close to becoming the True Glutton Disciple. But you could only deal with one problem at a time.

Now, he was going to have another problem to deal with.

A familiar puppet phased into existence. The stairs shook and the wounds on it, caused by their battle, began to slowly fuse back together as though it was actively healing.

When it was complete, the Zeus Puppet had likewise fully solidified, facing Sylas with a familiar smile of rotating gears and tiny screws. The inner workings of the Zeus Puppet were certainly the dream of watchmakers everywhere.

But all Sylas could feel was the dangerous shift in the air.

He took a breath and exhaled. It seemed that things wouldn't be as easy as he hoped.

BANG.

The puppet shot forward, its fist descending with a howling wind. It almost looked like the head of a beast was forming around its arm, and in a blink, it had already manifested before Sylas.

As expected... the puppet wasn't following Sylas' original programming anymore. The wounds caused to the stairs had been healed, but that had happened while the puppet was also manifesting at the same time.

The result was this.

Sylas raised a forearm to block.

The fist of the puppet snapped his bone in two, the punch continuing until slammed into his chest.

Sylas skidded back, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

The puppet had already appeared, a cheery smile on its face as its follow up kick aimed right for Sylas' head.

'He did it on purpose.' Sylas came to understand as he faced an attack he wasn't sure he could dodge against an opponent with raw strength far beyond his own.

The Glutton hadn't made a mistake in cutting into the stairs, he had done it on purpose. He was then going to quit and let Sylas die at the hands of the Zeus Puppet, but Sylas had cut his head off before he could speak the words.

Unfortunately, the end result was still here.

But Sylas instantly made a decision. If he wasn't going to be able to chess match his way out of this, and the strength of the puppet had already gone beyond the bounds of reason, then there was only one way to do this. Pride radiated from Sylas' eyes.

He had been the one who asked for a challenge, hadn't he?

The Glutton was not that.

This puppet... maybe it could be.

Madness bloomed and Sylas' Will skyrocketed. Runes danced in his eyes, pulling on his Weaving Irises and Unravelling Pupils.

It was harder to use his Rune Mastery here.

Not impossible.

Sylas slipped through space, his body appearing just a foot further away. But that was enough for him to bend out of the way of the kick.

He clenched the fist of his broken arm, forcing the bone to snap back into place. The steel wires that were his muscles straightened his arm out completely.

Sylas teleported forward a single foot again, erupting with the very same uppercut, with the very same strength.

BOOM.

The puppet shattered to pieces.

Sylas exhaled a breath, a focused sharpness in his gaze.

"He's finished. We're finished." Juxi exhaled, a look of panic reflecting in her eyes.

She didn't get a response, but the look in the eyes of the others reflected their thoughts clearly enough. The Glutton had screwed all of them.

Regret chewed up their insides.

However, that didn't stop them from voting to force Sylas to take on the next round again.

BANG.

The next Zeus Puppet shot out as though from a cannon, moving so fast it blurred through the world.

Sylas didn't flinch, his eyes darting around as though there was nothing that could escape from his senses.

He unexpectedly dodged to one side, but the puppet's fist was so strong it blew a hole through his thick hair, the wind pressure alone slicing his cheek down to the bone as though a blade.

Sylas counter punched instantly. The same uppercut. The same strength. The same location.

The Zeus Puppet was left in crumbled pieces.

Sylas exhaled a breath.

He was voted in again.

And then again.

Every single time, Sylas won in the exact same way, the exact same uppercut, to the exact same location.

The problem was that the eyes of Juxi, Alpine, and Deuvuo were sharp. They could feel it getting harder and harder, they could see the shave with death getting closer and closer.

They could also tell what Sylas wanted to do. Winning with the same exact move every time would force the puppet to recalibrate and maybe overcompensate in one direction, allowing other things to work.

But the problem with that was that the puppet wasn't an idiot. The instant Sylas changed his method of attack, it would realize he wanted to set it up again. By that point, it would be ten steps ahead.

That was to say that the moment Sylas couldn't win with this one singular move anymore, he would already be finished. There was no difference at all.

Sylas huffed for breath, looking up at the mountain that still had a peak he could not see.

Just how many more stairs were there?