Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2297: Never be Mimicked

Sylas didn't move.

Neither did Sarethvane.

They stood across from one another, mirrored down to the angle of their scythes, one wreathed in green Will and the other in a black so deep that the stars behind him seemed to bend the light in a vain attempt to continue shining.

Sylas understood what Sarethvane wanted. He wanted to take his shape, his weapon, his method, and beat him with it, because that was the only true way to put a man in his place. It wasn't enough to kill someone arrogant. You had to prove that everything they thought made them unique wasn't worth the land it stood on.

Sylas couldn't have understood it any more because it was what he had done countless times before.

And Sarethvane understood what Sylas wanted too. He wanted a Serpentes who had walked a path without the system, he could smell Vipermancy wafting from Sylas. But as arrogant as Sylas was… he hadn't even used it.

Both of them thought the other was a fool who thought far too much of themselves. But only one of them could have been correct.

Their scythes swung in unison.

BOOM.

The sound rolled outward, and the cemetery far below cracked open like an egg, headstones tumbling into the fissures. The black scythe met the green and the shockwave carved a groove through the atmosphere that shone white, the paleness struggling to heal.

They separated and then met again.

BOOM.

Every clash sent an echo across the battlefield, and every echo came doubled. Two identical silhouettes swinging identical weapons with identical footwork. Sarethvane's mimicry was flawless. He had studied Sylas for all of a minute and yet he missed not a single beat.

However, his wings hadn't shrunk behind him in the slightest. They still stretched to blot out the sky, vast enough to shadow a continent, dragging behind a body that stood no taller than Sylas'.

It was deliberate. He was smaller by choice, not by design. He had belittled himself to step into Sylas' realm.

But Sylas didn't seem to care.

That was maybe the most infuriating part of it all. He met every strike, matched every step, and looked as though he could keep going until the world beneath them fell to its own death. There was no strain in his eyes, no interest, either.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Their dance raced across the skies. As though the world was split in two with a mirror running through them to reflect the other side to perfection, their mimicry continued.

Sarethvane's brow furrowed.

The echoes of their battle were growing duller, softer, as though their edges were vanishing.

The first exchanges had shaken the planet. By the fiftieth, they were no louder than an axe splitting wood. By the hundredth, it felt like two children sparring in a courtyard with weapons carved out of pine, tapping and clacking away, the noise dying almost before it could leave their blades.

But nothing had slowed. Their dance was just as fast, just as violent. He couldn't understand.

He was still moving at a speed that would have reduced a lesser Demi-God to mist, still meeting Sylas perfectly, blow for blow, angle for angle. Almost too identically.

But he couldn't strike with the force he wanted. He couldn't strike with the grace he wanted, either.

Every time he committed to a swing, a subtle step from Sylas turned his hips a half-degree wrong. Every time he found his rhythm, a gentle twist of Sylas' wrist dulled the edge of it, it would alter his strike just enough that he would be forced to match Sylas, and yet not exactly in the way he wanted.

Something was missing.

Sarethvane couldn't grasp what.

And then he felt it.

The energy hadn't gone anywhere, it wasn't disappearing at all.

Every strike that should have shattered mountains, every collision that should have peeled the sky apart, had been folded, tucked away into the creases of space and the hidden crevices of the void around them, packed layer over layer, tighter with every exchange.

It was all still there, waiting, biding its time.

Sarethvane suddenly found himself in a rhythm he couldn't break out of.

If he took a single step back, faltered just a single time, the weight of it all would crush him in an instant.

So Sarethvane kept dancing.

He had no choice. He hunted for a seam, a stutter, a wrong note he could slip through, and he found none.

And then there was Sylas. He didn't seem focused or lost, neither rushing nor slowed. He looked like he had found his perfect match and was leisurely meeting it, but it didn't feel like that to Sarethvane.

The stakes climbed as the pressure continued to mount. The void thickened until the light of distant stars arrived bent and crawling. They tried to push through the heft of the concentrated energies, but they couldn't. Everything just felt heavier and more substantial, and soon even light couldn't make it through.

Sarethvane suddenly lagged, missing a note in their dance. His breathing hitched and he felt like his hope crumbled around him.

But just when he thought his life was over, Sylas slowed with him, almost carelessly matching his rhythm.

Sarethvane's blood ran cold as he realized what was happening. His distraction caused him to falter again, but Sylas slowed once more.

Sylas slowed again. And again. His swings shed force, his footwork shed sharpness, his Will dimmed from a green that lit the dark to something unimpressive.

Or so it seemed. Sarethvane realized then that he couldn't have been more wrong. The energy in the region had grown so dense that he simply couldn't feel the fathomless depth of Sylas' Will any longer.

And that was when he had a harrowing thought…

Had he ever been able to sense those fathomless depths…?

Or was this just Sylas telling him how easy it was for him to hide his true depth?

Sylas was following him down, dimming himself until Sarethvane could finally see himself for who he was.

Weaker. Weaker. And weaker still.

And still, always, half a breath ahead, and yet somehow matching his rhythm perfectly. The contradiction was suffocating.

Sarethvane's chest heaved. His borrowed shape frayed at the edges. His black Will fragmented, and the wings that had blotted out the sky curled inward as though to try and protect him, when in reality, it was because he was losing control of the vast stores he had stolen.

The rhythm broke. He couldn't keep up anymore.

Sarethvane coughed, and a mouthful of blood sprayed across his own scythe as a blow took him in the chest and hurled him back through the ruin of his coffins.

The folds came open and a deluge of energy surged to crush him.

Sarethvane saw it happen. He saw the void crack along thousands of cracked lines, saw the accumulated fury of every strike they had traded come pouring out at once with nowhere to go. Not for a moment did he think that Sylas would suffer from this blow… he would have to face it alone.

And just when he thought his life was over… Sylas spoke.

"Silence."

The world went quiet.

In a dull, muted sigh, the world gave way to Sylas, like all the energy they had accumulated from mimicking one another was little more than a blip.

Sarethvane lay in the dark, his black Will trembling, and finally understood what Sylas had meant.

Such a Will…

Could never be mimicked.