Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2308: Chamber

The Reader's eyes narrowed.

This was the most protected region of the Vosskarr Clan. Calling it secure hardly did the Archive justice. Patriarchs had been denied entry to certain halls, elders had died for crossing thresholds without permission, and there were ancestral words embedded into the walls that had outlived entire civilizations.

Every layer of protection had been written by someone who understood Will at a level most of the galaxy couldn't comprehend. Bloodline, identity, Karma, intent, even the rhythm of one's thoughts were checked before they could approach the Reader's chamber.

Someone capable of slipping through all of that should have been an expert amongst experts, an existence so old and accomplished that even the current Patriarch would have to treat them with caution.

Yet the woman standing across from her was only a C-tier.

That made the situation far more interesting.

The Reader didn't reach for any of the ancestral words around her, nor did she send a message to the Patriarch. Surprise was an emotion she had learned to suppress long ago, not because Readers were required to become emotionless, but because their role demanded observation before action.

She had spent more years than most civilizations survived reading the thoughts of the dead, studying what powerful people wrote when they believed their words would become immortal.

She had read declarations of eternal conquest from Clans that no longer existed, love poems written for bloodlines that had been wiped from history, threats from ancestors who once believed the Vosskarr would rule forever.

Enough time spent reading the past made certain patterns impossible to ignore.

Everything ended.

The Vosskarr liked grand words. They spoke about scarring reality, about leaving Will behind long after flesh vanished, and there was truth to those sentiments. Their strongest ancestors had accomplished exactly that. But even scars faded if enough time passed.

A Clan could survive a million years, ten million, a billion, and still eventually become nothing more than something another Reader studied.

That was what the position taught better than any technique. Everyone had limited time.

Sometimes that limitation was measured in decades. Sometimes epochs. It remained a limitation nontheless.

Iskaleth seemed to understand this well as she hadn't seemed to come for battle, nor was she prepared for it. Instead, she spoke calmly, showing no concern for where she stood or what could happen if the Reader decided this conversation had gone poorly. Her words continued for some time, and at first the Reader's expression didn't shift at all.

Then Iskaleth said something else.

The Reader's fingers stopped against the arm of her chair.

For the first time, emotion touched her face.

**

Sylas watched another world disappear beneath Serpentes.

He stood beyond its atmosphere with both hands in his pockets while countless bodies flooded through the defensive barrier below. It wasn't exactly an army, he wasn't directed them with any real effort, most of his Will was directed to projecting Beacon out further.

However, with numbers like these, direction wasn't necessary. Sylas just pointed them toward whatever world happened to be in front of him.

That was enough.

A massive Serpentes wrapped around a fortress city and squeezed until the walls split. Several smaller ones rushed into the opening immediately afterward, their bodies piling over one another while beams of Aether ripped through their ranks. Hundreds died within seconds, then thousands more poured in over their corpses.

Sylas didn't care.

"Continue."

Beacon carried the command through the swarm.

The world drowned.

Numbers solved many problems, but not all of them. The Serpentes responding to Beacon were still C-tiers, and even millions of C-tiers couldn't casually ignore the gap when proper B-tiers and A-tiers appeared.

Every world with a decent foundation eventually produced someone capable of tearing enormous holes through the swarm.

The advantage was that most of those people weren't particularly impressive.

A pressure erupted from the continent below. An A-tier shot into the skies, breaking through a dozen Serpentes on the way before burning another several hundred to ash with a wave of his hand. The surviving beasts recoiled from him, instincts warning them away.

Sylas vanished.

The man turned.

Sylas appeared beside him and slapped outward.

The A-tier disappeared into a mist of blood.

Sylas didn't slow down long enough to watch it fall.

That difference had become increasingly obvious since entering the Demi-God Plane. B-tiers and A-tiers were much more common here, but rarity and quality weren't the same thing. The environment itself made progression easier. Aether was denser, laws were more complete, resources that would have caused wars on the Mortal Plane could be found by the side of the road--quite literally.

Weak talents could climb higher.

On the Mortal Plane, Sylas had become accustomed to the opposite. The people who survived long enough to matter usually possessed powerful bloodlines, exceptional Classes, rare inheritances, or some combination of all three. When he fought above his Tier, he often fought people who had advantages layered on top of the natural suppression their level already gave them.

Here, he had mostly found mediocrity wrapped in higher numbers.

The Genesis Concord and Stormfall Covenant had been exceptions. Their A-tiers were genuine elites backed by powerful organizations, deep inheritances, and developed Rune Paths. Sylas had needed every advantage he possessed to deal with them, and even then there had been little room for error.

The A-tier he had just killed wouldn't have survived three exchanges with any one of them.

That was fortunate because Sylas had no intention of slowing down.

Another Beacon pulse spread.

The Serpentes changed direction and rushed toward the next inhabited world.

Sylas followed at a measured pace, his gaze drifting across the surrounding stars rather than focusing on the destruction ahead. He had already taken several worlds and encountered nothing that forced him to stop. Every defensive response had been local, scattered, and late.

That was the part he didn't believe.

There was no such thing as a truly weak galaxy in the Demi-God Plane.

A galaxy without power wouldn't remain independent long enough to be called weak. Someone would take it. Some Clan, Race, guild, or wandering powerhouse would eventually notice the resources sitting unprotected and claim everything.

Which meant someone ruled this place. Sylas simply hadn't met them yet.

Another world lit up in the distance as defensive formations activated. The Serpentes slammed into them almost immediately, bodies crashing against barriers until cracks spread across their surfaces.

Sylas ignored it. He waited.

Whoever controlled this galaxy had already received word. Too many worlds had fallen, too many communication formations had activated, and the movement of this many Serpentes across such large distances wasn't something anyone competent could overlook.

Someone more organized would come.

Sylas looked into the darkness between stars, his expression calm.

The only questions were from where...

And how.

That was when there was just the slightest shift in the air, an ebb here, a rushed flow there. The change was so subtle and stretched that had Sylas not pushed his Will across the void through such fathomless distances, even he might not have noticed.

Whatever it was, he was sure of one very important thing. It seemed that he had already been noticed. In fact, the Vosskarr has already taken action.