Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2315: Have You Heard...

Iskaleth's limbs went ice cold.

She had spent most of her life ensuring that no one understood what her eyes truly did. She hid when she could, avoided displaying anything unnecessary, and even when she was forced into the open, she let others assume the beauty of her gaze was the extent of what made it special.

Very few people had ever sensed the deeper mechanism beneath it, and fewer still had understood enough to connect it to Fate. Yet Sylas had looked at her once and immediately noticed something was wrong. Not only had he noticed, he had done so with such ease that Iskaleth couldn't even convince herself he had stumbled into the answer by accident.

Part of her wanted to blame his Profession. She could feel something strange around him, a connection that seemed to stretch beyond the Demi-God Plane and toward the God Realm itself.

A Profession like that might explain why his senses worked differently around her, why he noticed things another Rune Master would miss, but the excuse felt hollow the moment it formed. Sylas wasn't the sort of man who needed a treasure to tell him what stood in front of him. The Profession might have helped, but something deep in her instincts told her the conclusion had been his own, or it could have been had he wanted it to be.

Iskaleth lowered her head and slowly closed her eyes. It was a useless gesture in the literal sense, darkness was darkness whether her eyelids were open or shut, but it helped her thoughts settle. She took a measured breath, feeling the broken rivers of Fate around them twist with every passing second.

"Don't take my eyes," she spoke softly. "Let me live."

Sylas continued looking at her. "Why should I?"

The question almost made her laugh, not because it was funny, but because there was something brutally simple about it. There was no hidden mercy in his tone, but there was also no implication that he had already made a decision and was merely making her beg for entertainment.

He was asking for a reason, which meant she had one chance to provide something useful.

"A person can only be good at so many things," Iskaleth began, raising her head just slightly. "My eyes are excellent, that much you already understand, but they grow slowly. Extremely slowly. They aren't some ordinary bloodline organ that becomes stronger simply because the rest of my body does. If you take them, they will be yours, but you will lose the greatest advantage you possess."

Sylas' expression didn't change.

"The system," Iskaleth continued. "You can contract Serpentes and receive its guidance on how to evolve their abilities and how to grow their bloodlines. But you cannot contract yourself. If you take my eyes and make them part of your own body, you lose that guidance. You might be able to improve them eventually, but you would be doing it blind, and even more slowly than I do."

There was a small pause.

Then Sylas nodded, but Iskaleth felt no relief from it.

Sylas wasn't surprised. She had already spent enough time studying him to understand that much. The method used to disrupt Beacon had been hers, not the Vosskarr's. She had understood what he was doing before entering the Archive, and to understand that, she first had to understand why so many Serpentes were moving toward him in the first place.

From there, the possibilities narrowed quickly. There were only so many Professions capable of exerting that sort of authority over their Race, and even fewer that could explain the strange evolutionary changes some of the Serpentes around Sylas displayed. Once she had enough pieces, the rest was only deduction.

Sylas seemed to understand exactly how she had reached the conclusion because he didn't ask for an explanation. Instead, he looked at her eyes again and spoke with the same calmness as before.

"I'm not a normal man. There is nothing I cannot do."

Iskaleth's expression stiffened.

For several seconds, she couldn't think of a response. Then a bitter smile slowly appeared on her lips.

How was she supposed to argue with that?

Under ordinary circumstances, she would have called the statement arrogance, the sort of ridiculous confidence that eventually got talented people killed because they assumed the laws of the universe applied to everyone except themselves.

But Sylas had just rewritten a Vosskarr word across an entire galaxy, killed the Reader from an impossible distance, and walked into the most secure location of a ruling Clan. Even worse, Iskaleth could feel the streams of Fate around him changing while they spoke.

He wasn't bluffing.

If Sylas wanted her eyes, he would take them.

Nothing she said would change that.

Iskaleth exhaled through her nose and prepared herself for what came next, but then something about the silence bothered her.

Sylas hadn't moved.

He was still standing there, waiting.

Her bitter smile slowly faded.

A man like this wouldn't waste words after making a decision. That had already become obvious enough. Sylas didn't seem to enjoy intimidation for its own sake, nor did he linger in conversations simply because he liked hearing himself speak. If he had already decided to tear her eyes out, he would have done it. The fact they were still talking meant there was something else he wanted, or at least something he was willing to hear.

Why?

Iskaleth's mind spun.

Her Fate sight shifted, not looking forward this time, but inward toward the possibilities created by Sylas' restraint. Most paths remained black, severed before they traveled very far, but one faint thread persisted longer than the others.

Iskaleth froze.

Then she understood.

Sylas wasn't asking whether her eyes were valuable.

He was asking whether she was more valuable with them, or was he.

Her breathing steadied as a new possibility formed, and this time she didn't rush to speak. She followed the thread as far as she could, watching where it brushed against things too distant and powerful for her to read cleanly. Something ancient appeared at its edge, not a person exactly, but a shape in Fate so vast that even approaching the concept made her senses ache.

Iskaleth raised her face toward Sylas.

"Have you heard of the Fate Dragon?"

Sylas' eyes narrowed.