Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2316: Ceiling

Sylas had no idea what she was talking about.

He had seen a great deal since the Summoning, been through endless battles. He had seen worlds collapse and had even destroyed a couple of them himself by this point. But dragons had remained strangely absent.

He hadn't even come across a single corpse. They didn't even appear in Dungeon. The closest thing he had ever experienced came from something he still didn't understand. When Earth completed its fusion with the world the Efivara destroyed, its laws had begun to mend, and during Sylas' own breakthrough thousands of Spark Masters had manifested in a single sitting.

At that moment, two cries had echoed through existence, one carrying the undeniable Will of a phoenix, the other that of a dragon. Sylas hadn't seen either one. There had been no body crossing the skies, no enormous silhouette from beyond, and yet he had known what they were with absolute certainty.

It hadn't felt like recognition so much as declaration, as though something beyond the reach of his senses had pressed its existence into his Will and left him with no choice but to acknowledge it.

He had never managed to explain that.

Iskaleth's lips curled into a small smile, and Sylas could almost feel the change in her confidence. She couldn't see his expression in the ordinary sense, but she clearly didn't need to. The Fate around them had shifted enough for her to know that she had finally touched something he didn't understand.

"When dealing with someone like you," Iskaleth spoke, her voice steadier now, "the difficult part isn't finding something valuable. It's finding something you don't already know."

Sylas didn't respond.

Iskaleth's smile deepened just slightly. "Dragons aren't real."

That caught him.

She continued before he could interrupt. "Not in the way most Races believe. They are constructs of Dead Will, myths given enough weight that the universe began treating them as though they had always existed.

"Their forms differ between cultures, their abilities shift, their appearances contradict one another, but the principle remains the same. A dragon stands above. It is stronger, purer, more complete, more majestic. Whatever the Race beneath it values, the dragon embodies the final version. The best version."

Sylas' eyes narrowed.

"The important part isn't that dragons are powerful," Iskaleth continued. "The important part is that they represent power. They are ceilings given shape."

A flicker of light passed through Sylas' gaze.

"How do you surpass a legend that never existed?" Iskaleth asked. "How do you prove yourself greater than something whose limits can always be rewritten after you reach them? If one Serpentes becomes large enough to swallow a continent, the dragon becomes one that swallows worlds. If another masters poison capable of killing an A-tier, the dragon's venom kills Gods. The myth adjusts because there was never an original body holding it in place."

Sylas' thoughts accelerated.

Genius.

The concept was so simple that a day ago he might have ruined it by overbuilding the structure in his mind, breaking it into Runes, relationships, examples and counterexamples until he lost the elegance that made it work.

Now the idea flowed freely. His conscious thoughts caught pieces while his subconscious filled the gaps, Living Will interpreting what rigid information alone couldn't. He didn't need to construct the entire answer brick by brick anymore, he could feel the shape of it forming and then sharpen only the parts that mattered.

The Dragons were a leash.

Not one made of chains, but aspiration.

Create an impossible pinnacle and place it above the Serpentes. Convince them that everything they could become already had a greater example waiting ahead, then let their pride, greed, hunger and evolutionary instincts do the rest. They would chase that image forever, breaking through hurdle after hurdle because the summit always seemed one step further.

But the true brilliance was in the second half.

They could never arrive.

No matter how powerful a Serpentes became, the Dragon remained greater because the Dragon was not restricted by reality. There was no living body to contradict the myth, no Will capable of saying this is where I end. Dead Will simply accumulated definitions until the story itself became law.

Sylas' heart skipped a beat.

It was a formless suppression.

The Serpentes were pushed to evolve, but at the same time they were taught from birth that something always stood above them. Their arrogance could grow, but never without a shadow hanging over it. Their Pride was clipped before it could fully bloom because no matter what they achieved, they were still not Dragons.

Sylas' expression slowly hardened.

That raised a far more important question.

Why?

Why would anyone go through so much trouble to shape an entire Race's evolution like this?

It was a beautiful, elegant method, one that somehow had its cake and ate it too, both suppressing and raising the very thing it suppressed, all while making the concept it was using to do the suppression stronger with every generation. Sylas was rarely if ever impressed...

This time he was more than just impressed. He was very nearly in awe.

However, all of this also meant one other thing...

Whoever created the myth believed the Serpentes needed to keep advancing... also feared what would happen if they ever stopped looking upward.

Sylas' thoughts deepened.

The endless branches of Serpentes bloodlines, many of which seemed capable of evolutionary leaps other Races couldn't replicate.

What exactly were the Serpentes?

Why did they need a ceiling?

And if Dragons had been created for that purpose, then what about the other cry Sylas had heard that day?

The phoenix.

His eyes sharpened again.

Was that another artificial ceiling? A counterbalance? Something meant for another Race entirely? Or had the two been created together?

The implications widened too quickly for him to settle on one answer.

Then Iskaleth spoke again.

"There is one problem with creating an imaginary summit," she said. "Eventually, someone realizes it is imaginary."

Sylas looked at her.

"Fate Dragons were created because of that problem."

Her smile faded.

"They were an attempt to forge true Dragons."