Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2327 Sky Roaming of the Grimblades

There hadn't been a single Gold City Stele across the entire galaxy. And, more than ninety percent had only reached the Rudimentary Kingdom Level, and of that group, more than ninety percent were Common Grade Steles.

To Sky Roaming the value of their progress was almost worthless. A single Common Grade Rudimentary Kingdom barely carried enough experience to push a Legendary City Stele through one of the earlier portions of Rudimentary Town.

The gulf in Grade was simply too enormous. What took one of those cities generations to accomplish was little more than a mouthful to something like Sky Roaming.

But... there were hundreds of thousands of them. When the experience of that largest group finished pouring in, Sky Roaming's theoretical accumulation had already reached Grade 1 Elite Town.

The remaining Steles from that same broad ninety percent were mostly Bronze Grade, and their value rose sharply enough for Sylas to immediately feel the difference.

Generations of work from a Bronze Kingdom carried far more weight than the Common alternatives, especially those that had been given enough time to properly mature.

Even so, by the time all of them had been swallowed, Sky Roaming had only climbed from Grade 1 to Grade 7 Elite Town. Of course, none of these advancements had truly occurred yet. Sylas had met the experience requirements and nothing more. Every rank and sub-rank carried its own conditions, and Sky Roaming had demands far beyond the ordinary because of its Legendary Grade.

Experience could accumulate in advance, but it couldn't force the City Stele to ignore the challenges it had set before him.

But that didn't stop Sky Roaming from continuing to consume.

Of the Steles outside that first ninety percent, roughly seven percent had reached Common Kingdom and another two percent Elite Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, those comparatively few cities did most of the heavy lifting. Their experience flooded in with a density the weaker Kingdoms couldn't approach, and the theoretical level of Sky Roaming jumped again, tearing through what remained of Townhood before crossing into City.

By the time those Steles had been completely digested, Sky Roaming had reached the experience threshold of a Grade 1 Common City, skipping over Rudimentary City entirely.

Thousands of weaker holdings had barely dragged it through Town, while less than a tenth of the galaxy's City Steles accomplished more than all of them combined.

Then there was the final one percent.

This group contained more Elite Kingdoms, but buried among them were several Empires.

Every one came from the Mortal Plane.

Had those City Steles begun their lives in the Demi-God Plane, Sylas doubted they ever would have been allowed to develop so peacefully. Stronger neighbors, denser competition, and more powerful City Lords would have swallowed them long before they accumulated centuries of uninterrupted progress.

The Mortal Plane had been weaker, but weakness sometimes came with time, and time was precisely what these Empires had been given.

One belonged to the Thryskai, a city the Kaelthar had abandoned when they withdrew from the Milky Way. Another came from Jala's family, the traitorous descendants of Earth who had quietly built their own foundation while separating themselves from the world they originated from.

The final Empire belonged to the Golden Grove... not that the Golden Grove knew it.

Sylas' gaze shifted slightly as Sky Roaming reached into the deepest layers of what had once been their territory. The Empire had remained hidden within the most obscure reaches of their Ancient Battlefield and the mutated Dungeon connected to it, isolated enough that even the Golden Grove itself had never properly uncovered what it possessed.

They had assumed the greatest City Stele connected to their inheritance might be Silver Grade at best, comparable to the strongest holdings Sylas had found among the Vosskarr.

They were wrong.

Gold.

And not merely a Gold City Stele, but one that had already reached Elite Empire. The moment Sky Roaming swallowed it, its accumulation exploded.

Grade 1 Common City vanished beneath the surge. The experience threshold shot through the remainder of Common City, crossed into Elite City, then continued climbing until it finally came to rest at Grade 10 Elite City. The very peak.

And still, it wasn't enough.

Sylas could feel the barrier of Kingdom waiting ahead, the rank he actually wanted. Once Sky Roaming stepped across that threshold, many of the restrictions that had made him hesitant to anchor the Legendary City Stele would vanish. He wouldn't need to constantly return to maintain his connection, nor would distance bind him nearly as tightly.

But the galaxy had been emptied...

Almost.

Sylas' eyes flashed.

There were still two City Steles he had deliberately left untouched.

The Milky Way World had always been strange. Exceptional. Even before Sylas understood what Earth truly was, the system had treated it differently from ordinary Mortal Worlds, summoning treasures and opportunities that had no business appearing so early.

Legendary City Steles were next to unheard of even in the Demi-God Plane. Yet the Mortal Plane's Milky Way had produced not only a Silver City Stele, but a Gold one as well. More importantly, both were unique.

The City of Glass.

The City of Gold.

They had once been pillars meant for the Milky Way, ancient inheritances connected to the First Race long before the current generation understood what they were. Their secrets had been overturned, their foundations cultivated, and their Steles carried enormous stores of experience and potential.

Now all of it belonged to Sylas.

Sky Roaming descended upon them.

The Silver City Stele shattered first, its accumulated power stripped apart and pulled inward. The Gold Stele followed, resisting for only a moment before its structure cracked and collapsed beneath the Legendary authority pressing down upon it.

Both became nourishment.

Sky Roaming trembled, and then something Sylas hadn't expected happened.

The requirements disappeared beneath the flood.

Sky Roaming surged directly into Kingdom in a single bound despite Sylas having completed none of the other advancement conditions.

BOOM.

A radiant light erupted through the canopy above, sky blues flowing into brilliant pinks and gorgeous violets as the entire city was washed beneath a rainbow glow.

A notification unfolded before Sylas.

[City Name: Sky Roaming of the Grimblades]