Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2344 Tool or Freedom

Sylas walked across the starry skies until the unfinished bridge between Heavens stretched clearly across his vision, then came to a stop without so much as glancing behind him.

Dry Mouth, Iskaleth, and Sarethvane finally caught up several breaths later, each of them breathing hard from the effort it had taken to follow, though exhaustion hadn't dulled the sharpness in their gazes.

Sylas barely paid them any attention because his focus had already settled on the distant chaos, particularly the gaps still forming throughout the bridge.

From what he understood of the Heaven System, something like this should have been completed almost instantly. It wasn't so impotent that constructing a stable pathway between two Heavens should require this much time, especially when it had already decided to trigger the event in the first place.

That meant someone was either deliberately slowing the process, or the system itself had decided to drag things out.

The second possibility was more interesting.

Perhaps the system wanted to declare a winner without allowing the conflict to bloom into a true war. That would be unusual because the system typically encouraged conflict rather than stability, especially when clashes created opportunities for growth, but this time its behavior didn't align with that tendency. Sylas' gaze narrowed as the answer became clear enough.

The system was afraid the Skai Heaven would be destroyed.

If that happened, then all the effort it had spent nurturing the Path of Will would crumble with it, and Will remained the only path the system had yet to fully complete. That made this situation fundamentally different from the clash between the Weaver Guild and the Seeing Eye Guild, where the system had wanted the confrontation because it had little reason to protect either side from the consequences.

Here, it was encouraging battle while also trying to keep the Skai Heaven alive. But that hesitation made it vulnerable.

A system with one foot in and one foot out would be much easier to manipulate than one committed to a single outcome, and that likely meant there would be more room for exceptions than the event description implied.

The odds that individuals above C-tier would find ways to participate were probably much higher than they should have been, especially on the side of the Skai Heaven, where the system had the greatest incentive to bend its own rules.

Sylas finally looked down at his Contracts.

"This will be your battlefield."

Dry Mouth's breathing steadied, while Sarethvane's expression darkened almost immediately. Iskaleth lifted her blind eyes toward Sylas, listening as he continued.

"You'll be fighting Serpentes with stronger bloodlines than yours, better foundations, and more advantages than you've had access to." Sylas' gaze moved across the three of them without softening. "Survive, and you may have the chance to truly change your lives."

Sarethvane looked anything but pleased, though he didn't argue. Dry Mouth's eyes sharpened instead, almost excited despite the exhaustion dragging at his body, but Iskaleth remained still as something else seemed to occupy her thoughts. Her gaze shifted toward Sylas' ear.

"Then what about that one?"

Sylas followed the direction of her attention.

The small earring hanging from his ear looked harmless enough, but Iskaleth had long realized that it was another Contract, even if Sylas never treated it the same way he treated the three of them. She hesitated for only a moment before gritting her teeth and continuing.

"Why doesn't it have to work as hard as we do?"

She expected the question to anger him, but Sylas' expression barely changed.

"The Ruby Ouroboros Serpent is less a Contract and more a tool."

Iskaleth's expression shifted.

"Its existence isn't much different from the calligraphy brush or the scythe on my back." Sylas looked between them again, his voice remaining calm. "The three of you are standing at a fork in the road now, and whether you like the choices or not doesn't matter."

Dry Mouth's smile slowly disappeared.

"You can maintain your autonomy and forge your own paths of growth, or, if you're too useless to manage that, I don't mind turning you into tools as well." Sylas' Will pressed down just enough for his meaning to become impossible to misunderstand. "I'll strip away your Wills and forge you into weapons instead."

Iskaleth trembled.

Sarethvane's dissatisfaction vanished beneath something much hotter and rage-fueled, while Dry Mouth's eyes burned with an outright refusal to ever allow such a fate to fall upon him. Neither of them spoke, but Sylas didn't need words from them.

"Go."

They moved immediately, plunging toward the battlefield below without another moment of delay.

Not long after they disappeared into the chaos, Yamero appeared beside Sylas with a chuckle hanging from his lips. "You actually like them quite a bit, don't you? I think fatherhood creeping around the corner has made you soft."

"You think so?" Sylas asked, his expression indifferent enough that it sounded like a genuine question.

Yamero laughed. "Well, it doesn't matter much. At the very least, I'm sure you like Dry Mouth quite a bit, while the other two you're still deciding on, but I think your path is correct. If you're too hands-on with them, Vipermancy will never take that final leap."

Sylas nodded once.

"Another thing," Yamero continued, looking almost pleased with himself, "you'll be interested to know that I am now a whopping three percent of the way through the history of the universe."

That was the book Yamero had been reading all this time.

"Anything interesting?"

"Not that I can see." Yamero paused, his expression turning more thoughtful. "Well, except for the fact that the origins of the Angels are murky even at the beginning of everything."

Sylas' eyes narrowed.

"Is that so? What do you think that means?"

"It may mean they existed before the beginning of everything, and they might be directly responsible for the ceiling."

Sylas' gaze flickered, but he didn't reply because something had already caught his attention.

He hadn't bothered hiding his presence when he arrived, which meant many people had noticed him almost immediately. Among all those figures, however, the first to turn toward him and begin crossing the distance was someone who didn't need a name or aura to identify him.

Vaelith recognized Sylas by visage alone.