Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2294: Fate

Iskaleth yawned. Her jaw line reflected scales of pink and violet, her eyes carrying what looked almost like imploding nebulae. It was possible to get enraptured within them for a lifetime, and the moment you were trapped within their gaze, it would feel like you were staring at the most beautiful woman in existence… no matter what your definition of beautiful was.

She was no humanoid, though. Her body vanished into the darkness around her, the only light coming from the pond she rested her chin in, but even when she saw the notification, she didn't seem in any great hurry to move.

Her tongue flickered out and touched the dancing light of the pond before her. The taste sent a jolt through her body, but other than a dancing flicker in her eyes, one would have never thought that it happened at all.

'Dangerous,' she thought.

Despite her eyes, the Charisma that Iskaleth wielded was completely unlike what one might think. She was no seductress, her eyes just happened to be beautiful and enrapturing, her Charisma and Will so strong that the world bent to it.

After the last Quicktime Event Gentrixaul triggered, she had gotten extremely close to forming a kernel of Gluttony herself. If not for a moment of caution she had decided for in the end, feeling like she was falling into the plans and momentum of another, she may have already formed it herself.

Iskaleth came from a Bronze Lineage of Serpentes, a species known as the Dancing Lux. Her mother was a seductress, and her grandmother before her.

But Iskaleth had never lusted after such a path. She had always wanted her own…

Until she finally managed to do exactly that.

Her tongue flicked out again.

'Far more dangerous than the first time. Is it worth it?'

The last time she sensed danger, she chose to back out, but it wasn't because she was a coward. It was the opposite.

In her assessment, any risk was fine so long as the pay out in the end was worthwhile. The last time, her successfully forming such a Seed would have led to imprisonment. Even now, she was likely being monitored. She would never truly escape.

But this time… she found a sliver of light at the end that intrigued her.

The danger was more, but there was somehow also more hope as well…

How… curious…

Her tongue flicked out again and time seemed to warp as though she was tasting it. The laws bent and her Charisma pulled them toward her.

Her mother and grandmother seduced men.

She, however… would seduce her own fate.

…

Orokhun was known as Dry Mouth by his friends and family. It wasn't an amusing tale of a child who did something ridiculous like many nicknames came from. Instead, it was due to a birth defect that he had garnered this name.

Coming from a Clan of the poisonous Serpentes beasts, many would assume that such was his path as well. But due to his inadequacies at birth, Dry Mouth had never properly formed his venom sacks. To make matters worse, his fangs atrophied as a result.

In their race—the Silver Grade Race, the Vah Serpentes—their fangs and venom sacks formed a harmonious relationship with one another. Their fangs were part organic and part inorganic, and the blood supply the venom sacks provided to the organic aspects of their fangs was a huge part of how they were sustained and grown.

Because Dry Mouth had never formed his, his fangs never fully matured and he ended up with little stumps that looked little different from the rest of his line of teeth.

All things considered, he was lucky to end up with a name like Dry Mouth for his lack of venom instead of Stump Tooth. His younger brother had definitely tried to get that one to catch on.

But that was also the beauty of Dry Mouth's laugh. Most beast clans were as cruel about power as Demon Clans were. Such a weak child would have normally been snuffed out at worst, or at best ostracized from the clan and forced to go out on his own.

Dry Mouth's parents and brothers and sisters hadn't done this to him, though. Instead, they became quite protective of him and guarded him from the cruelty of the world. Though he didn't have much in his life, he had had family.

But Dry Mouth had always wanted more for himself.

He resented his lack of venom sacks, he resented his weakness. So he trained his body instead, grinding until his scales were harder than steel and his jaw had the strength to bite through the toughest earth even without his fangs.

But as much as he trained, little changed…

Until he one day found his little brother dead, lost in a struggle for power that sought to usurp his father's position as clan head.

And for what? All because he, as the eldest son, was too weak to take on that mantle?

It was his fault. It was his fault for being too weak and being unable to pass on the strongest bloodline of their family.

Fury burned through his veins and that day, Orokhun disappeared from the Vah.

When he returned, he found his Clan in a bloody war, a civil war that sought to crown a new king.

The power he had already returned with was enough to shake his enemies, but the timing of Gentrixaul's first Quicktime Event lined up with what happened all too perfectly.

Taking advantage, Orokhun led a bloody massacre, his mouth, once his greatest weakness, becoming a strength that tore through the flesh of his father's enemies. He took their sons and daughters, he let them lay in a pool of their own blood just as they had tried to do to his brother.

He crushed them until there were none left.

That day, he had returned as Dry Mouth in memory of his brother.

But he would have been far more accurately called Void Mouth.