Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2295: Kind

Sarethvane lay in a cemetery. It was his favorite pastime. It was so peaceful here, and the Wills were truthful, for once.

They didn't think too much of themselves, they weren't marred by hopes and dreams, false as they may be. They just told an account of what was. And that logic was one that Sarethvane had always appreciated.

Many thought that Wills instantly vanished after death, and in action, that was true enough… but what didn't disappear were the frayed edges of what was left behind.

Wills were all interconnected. The Charisma they used influenced the world around them, morphing and changing things. But when a person ceased to be, the influences they had once had didn't.

When you die, you might leave children behind that had some lingering similarities to yourself. You might have sown great Karma when you were amongst the living and people might long remember after you were dead… whether for good or for bad.

That Will was the truest form of Will. It wasn't warped and twisted by what someone thought they were. It was formed by the perception of the world of you. That was the only true form of Will in Sarethvane's opinion… And that was why he liked cemeteries. There were no arrogant, bloviating people here. Even those that had been were drowned out by the ill feelings people had had of them when they were amongst the living.

This was how things should be. Everyone was in their place.

People lied too much, even to themselves. Some faked humility, but very few were actually so. Often they had just learned how to play a game and manipulate those around them.

But such people were ultimately always found out. Death had a way of doing that… of showing you a person's true face.

No matter how good a person was at faking through their life, their real face would be shown in their final moments, and even they received their comeuppance.

That was Sarethvane's guilty pleasure. Putting people in their place, crushing the hopes of those who thought themselves to be grand and imposing.

One day he would do the same to Gentrixaul.

He couldn't help but think the supposed God to be so very pathetic. To feel so humiliated by a Mortal that you would cause such chaos on the Demi-God Plane just to deal with him. And after failing the first time, you actually wanted to try again. Though, it seemed that this mortal had become a Demi-God now.

But this Sylas Grimblade… he also seemed to think far too much of himself. A man must know his limits, to enrage a God not just once, but twice… Sarethvane could already see the arrogance in Sylas' eyes, the indifferent look on his face, that lofty expression as though he stood above and beyond the stars and the moon, the ceiling of the universe itself… A rattle echoed from Sarethvane's tail, but when one looked, it didn't seem like he had a rattlesnake's tip at all. Instead, his body was layered in coffins that covered polished grey slate scales.

His eyes flickered open, and from above it almost looked like the cemetery itself had come alive.

The coffins moved, climbing off of his body and forming a staircase to the skies. He almost carelessly slithered onto the first, and as his enormous body snaked forward, the last coffin went ahead to take the place of the first, forming a continuous ladder into the skies.

Sarethvane was very curious to see this Sylas Grimblade.

Would he be as strong as his arrogance suggested?

Or would he fold as easily as all the others had?

Honestly… Sarethvane could never remember ever having to bring out his full strength against an opponent of the same level…

The C-tier…

Was so very boring.

Sarethvane suddenly stopped. He blinked, almost slowly, impossibly slowly. It was like his body was still waking up from a long nap.

Up ahead, a man stood.

His face was just as indifferent as Sarethvane thought it would be. He was dressed meticulously, as expected of a person who projected that sort of confidence to the world.

A black turtleneck, white pants, a golden chain hanging from his neck and black shoes. There was a scythe angled one way on his back and a calligraphy brush angled the other way.

It was hard to tell if he had come for battle or if he had arrived to model.

And those eyes…

A grin spread across Sarethvane's face, teeth as black as night and death exuding a majesty onto the world.

This man was truly as arrogant as expected. He didn't stay on his world to defend. He had come out to kill all those with even the slightest intention of participating.

How utterly detestable.

Sarethvane's body shook and his coffins instantly changed formations. From a line into the sky, they became scattered and long, slithering lines.

Sarethvane spread his body weight across them all, coiling his body up as though he might snap at Sylas any moment. But Sylas didn't show any intention of moving. Instead, he spoke.

"You are somewhat interesting," he said calmly.

Sarethvane blinked.

What was that supposed to mean?

Sylas slowly pulled a hand out of his pockets and reached it out. His scythe shot out from his back and landed calmly in his palm.

It had been a long while since Sylas had taken in any new Serpentes. It was because he was entirely uninterested in wasting his time in searching for them.

It was also not conducive to his strength, honestly. While he could make any Serpentes he touched obscenely powerful, it was too heavily reliant on the system. He needed to break free from the system, not rely more on it.

But he had his hands full with trying to grasp his own Rune and Void Mastery already. He only had so many ways he could stretch himself thin.

But Gentrixaul was truly a kind soul.

He just put a beacon on every Serpentes worth his time.

And better than that, these Serpentes had all formed their paths without the system in the first place.

It was exactly what he needed to finally evolve Vipermancy once again.