Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2318: Cowardice [Bonus]

[Bonus chapter thanks to BobTheEngineer <3]

Iskaleth felt as though a hand had closed around her throat.

Sylas hadn't moved. His Will hadn't so much as twitched. There was no killing intent, no pressure descending from his body, and yet the moment the faintest possibility of her death entered his mind, Fate seemed to decide the matter was already over.

The world around Iskaleth darkened, countless paths collapsing beneath her senses until nothing remained but a single end. The Reaper stood behind her shoulder, its torn black robes trailing through a wind that didn't exist, the white-boned shaft of its scythe resting against her neck.

The blade didn't move, but phantom pain already dug into her flesh, cutting through skin, muscle, and bone until she could almost feel her head separating from her body.

For the first time in her life, Iskaleth wondered whether seeing Fate so clearly was a curse. Right now, she would have given almost anything for ignorance, for the ability to lie to herself and believe there was still some clever route hidden in the darkness, some path that led out of this Archive and far away from Sylas Grimblade.

She had made it so far. Climbing to the C-tier in the Demi-God Plane without belonging to an Overlord Race was already an enormous undertaking, but doing it as a beast only made matters worse.

Humanoid Races seemed almost obsessed with culling beasts for experience, resources, bloodlines, materials, and whatever else they could tear from their corpses. Iskaleth had survived all of that while walking a Path none of the Dancing Lux around her understood.

Her mother couldn't teach her, her grandmother couldn't guide her, and the ancestors whose blood flowed through her veins had spent generations refining seduction rather than Fate. Every meaningful step Iskaleth took had been built from nothing. Even her knowledge of the Fate Dragon had come at a price.

Being born in the eye of one didn't mean its secrets simply spread themselves open for her to read. When she was young, her abilities had been wrapped in layers of mystery, every thread of Fate little more than a vague pressure that could shift without warning.

Fate was never certain, that was precisely why she had learned caution before confidence, studying each current until instinct became understanding, then understanding became something close to sight. Slowly, carefully, she had built herself into one of the strongest C-tiers in the Skai Heaven.

And now it could all disappear because one man thought her Will was weak. Unwillingness surged through her heart.

She didn't want to die. She had been through too much, done too much...

The thought had barely finished forming when Fate crashed down harder, the Reaper's blade pressing deeper against her throat until her knees almost buckled. Despair flooded every path she tried to look through.

To retreat... death.

Resistance... death.

Deception? She would have laughed if her throat didn't feel like a vice was wrapped around it. Even begging seemed to produce nothing but different versions of the same corpse.

Sylas was too large within the web surrounding her, his existence looming across every possibility until it felt less like she was attempting to escape a person and more like she was searching for a path around infinity itself.

There was no way out. Fear tinged her gaze.

Then, somewhere beneath that fear, she felt the irony.

Maybe this was exactly why Sylas thought her Will was weak.

The realization was unpleasant enough that Iskaleth almost rejected it on instinct, but Fate had taught her too well not to ignore a conclusion simply because she didn't like it.

She had spent her entire life following the safest light through darkness. When danger appeared, she moved away from it. That method had brought her here, farther than her bloodline should have allowed, farther than her mother or grandmother had ever imagined. But what happened when Fate showed no road at all?

She stopped.

That was what she was doing right now.

There was no path leading away from Sylas, so her mind had accepted death before he had even taken a step toward her. Fate had never steered her wrong, and because of that, she had never learned what to do when Fate itself became the wall in front of her. Or, rather, she had never learned what to do when patience and caution, waiting out the danger or avoiding it, wasn't the answer to her question...

Iskaleth's heart beat once, hard enough that pain spread through her chest.

Then she thought of Sylas. Her calculations had been correct.

The Vosskarr methods should have worked. Their interference should have compounded, Beacon should have become increasingly inefficient, and Sylas should have found himself slowly buried beneath the consequences of stretching his ability too far.

Fate hadn't lied to her.

Sylas had simply changed faster than Fate could account for him. He had improved while she was watching.

Her perfect calculation had become worthless before she could even finish benefiting from it.

Iskaleth's breath caught.

Why couldn't she do the same?

The question appeared with a force that made her raise her head.

Why did Sylas get to invalidate everything set before him, while she treated every future she saw like a law carved into existence?

Her gaze met his.

The Reaper's scythe shifted only the slightest bit, almost lazily. She could feel the looseness of its wrist, as though it didn't care whether it cut down now or a thousand years from now. Its patience was painted in the confident strokes of a man who felt he could take her life whenever he so pleased.

Death crushed down again, heavier than before, and the faint spark that had appeared in her chest nearly went out beneath it.

Because there was another truth she couldn't ignore. As much as she wanted to, as much as she reached for that hope and feeling, that light at the end of the tunnel...

She wasn't Sylas.

She wasn't as talented as him, she wasn't as intelligent as him, she wasn't as strong as him.

She simply… wasn't as good as this man. Iskaleth's gaze dimmed.

So how could she do as he had done?

'So I won't... another path... another path of Fate...' Iskaleth still had little idea that Sylas was testing her. She only wanted to live.

When people reached their breaking point--humanoid and beast alike--there were two routes they could take. The first and most common was cowardice.

Tears, begging, pleading...

The second and rarer form... was defiance.

Iskaleth had never had to choose until today because she had always managed to avoid it.

So the moment her back was pressed against Fate's wall... something deep inside of her flared and sliver of gold appeared within the paths of endless black.

Her gaze blazed.