Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2351 You Are...

Varkesh was the first to notice the shift.

The eight-winged Ashen White Serpentes turned toward the distant pressure gathering around Sylas, his black-scaled patches flexing faintly where limbs should have been as a grin spread across his face.

"There he is, the coward finally decided to show himself, and here I was starting to think I'd have to use someone else's spine for floss."

Rathyr's ruby scales brightened as fire rolled beneath them, the Cindermaw genius throwing his head back with a laugh while the air around his jaws shimmered with heat.

"He doesn't look like much from here, but I suppose that only makes it more entertaining, because if this is the human everyone has been crying about, I'd hate to think the Beast Heaven came all this way for nothing."

Beside them, the third Serpentes remained half-submerged in darkness, his body nearly impossible to distinguish from the void except for two pale eyes that narrowed toward Sylas.

"Don't rush," the dark Serpentes murmured, his name Veyrask carrying none of the boisterous arrogance of the other two. "Something about him is wrong."

"You said that already."

Varkesh laughed harder and spread all eight wings, but before any of the three could move, three other figures descended into their path. Dry Mouth landed first with a heavy sweep of his body, Sarethvane coiled beside him with several coffins already phasing into existence, while Iskaleth floated silently behind them, her blind eyes lowered despite the fact her attention had already locked onto the enemies ahead.

Sarethvane looked across the three Beast Heaven geniuses and sneered.

"The only person I'll lose to is Sylas, so if the three of you came here thinking your bloodlines made you special, turn around before I embarrass you." His coffins opened one after another behind him, dense currents of Dead Will spilling outward until even the void around them seemed to grow colder. "There's little I hate more than fools who think too highly of themselves without earning it."

Varkesh's grin sharpened immediately. "Little ants trying to play giant. You don't look like you have much energy left to play with anyway. I'll deal with you quickly."

His six lower wings and two larger upper wings buzzed at once, driving him forward as black fire gathered in his maw, but Sarethvane didn't retreat. Something in Varkesh's Will felt familiar, not identical to Sylas' Hollow Wing Combat Mount, but close enough that Sarethvane could sense the resemblance… "Good."

A coffin slammed shut between them just as Varkesh breathed.

Black flames struck the lid and spread outward, petrifying its surface before the stone began crumbling into ash, but Sarethvane had already shifted behind a second coffin and sent three more flying in from different angles.

Varkesh twisted between them with impossible speed, his eight wings making sudden changes in direction natural, while every burst of flame forced Sarethvane to abandon another piece of Dead Will before it could be turned to stone.

Rathyr's attention had already fallen elsewhere.

His ruby gaze moved over Iskaleth slowly before his tongue flickered from his maw. "At least the Skai Heaven sent something worth looking at, and if you're still alive after this, perhaps I'll let you crawl back with me."

Iskaleth's expression didn't change.

Dry Mouth's did.

"My girl doesn't get talked about by just anybody. Certainly not ugly bastards like you."

Rathyr turned toward him with amusement, only for Dry Mouth to vanish into the void and reappear directly beside his skull. A set of invisible fangs snapped down through space, severing the layer of heat Rathyr had wrapped around himself before Dry Mouth's tail smashed into his jaw and sent the crimson Serpentes spinning across the bridge.

Rathyr recovered with a furious roar, flames exploding from every scale along his body as though his blood had caught fire. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"Your daddy. Hurry up, I need a lemonade servant of my own."

Dry Mouth disappeared again as Rathyr breathed a river of crimson flame through the space he had occupied, then reappeared above him with his jaws opened wide. Void gathered around his fangs in thin lines, not consuming Rathyr's flames directly, but cutting the connections that allowed them to spread and forcing entire sections of the inferno to collapse into nothing.

That left Veyrask and Iskaleth.

Neither moved.

To anyone watching from a distance, their battle looked almost absurd, because there were no explosions, no clashes of flesh, and no dramatic manifestations of power. Veyrask simply sank deeper into the darkness until even his eyes vanished, while Iskaleth remained floating in place with her blind gaze lowered and her breathing slowly becoming quieter.

Then a thin line of gold appeared beside her throat.

It vanished instantly.

A second line appeared behind her head, followed by another beneath her ribs, each one marking a path where Veyrask might emerge from the void and kill her. Iskaleth didn't dodge any of them because none had become real yet, her mind instead tracking the possibilities as they split and multiplied around her.

Veyrask attacked from nowhere.

His jaws appeared from a fold of darkness behind her neck, but Iskaleth moved before the void had fully opened, sliding aside by less than an inch as his teeth closed on empty space. Her tail struck the opening he had created, not hitting his body, but disturbing the Fate tied to that path and forcing the void around him to ripple.

Veyrask retreated immediately.

His pale eyes reappeared far away, and for the first time, there was something sharper in them.

"You can see me."

Their battlefield vanished back into silence as golden paths began spreading through the darkness, while Veyrask moved from one impossible angle to another, searching for a route she hadn't already accounted for.

All three battles erupted in different directions at once, coffins colliding with black petrifying flame, crimson fire tearing across sections of severed void, and invisible paths of Fate twisting around a battle that barely seemed to exist at all. Above them, Sylas watched without interfering, while Vaelith stood nearby with her third eye open and Yamero looked between the clashes with obvious amusement.

Then the air changed.

A wash of polished pink, starry blue, and lavender reflected across the stabilized bridge as translucent koi-like wings slowed in front of Sylas. Selythra Mesmeryx hovered there with curiosity bright in her eyes, looking him over as though she had finally found the answer to a question she had been carrying for far too long.

"So you're Sylas Grimblade."