Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2376: Controlling Fate [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to Eeshoo <3]

The Efivara remained kneeling for several breaths before finally speaking, his serpent-like eyes fixed entirely on Nosphaleen as though Sylas wasn’t standing between them at all.

"Goddess, it took us an extraordinary amount of effort to locate you after your disappearance, and too much has already been delayed in your absence. Please return with me now so that the rites may continue."

Sylas listened without changing expression, though somewhere inside he wondered why so many people had decided that today was the day to test the limits of his patience.

He had already crossed an entire Heaven, killed a God, unraveled an ancestral descent, and finally pulled Nosphaleen out from beneath the influence strangling her mind, yet there was apparently still someone willing to walk directly in front of him and pretend he didn’t exist.

Fortunately for the Efivara, Sylas was in a good mood.

"Yamero."

Space barely moved.

One moment the air beside Sylas was empty, and the next Yamero was there with a bright smile stretched across his face, his body still carrying the oppressive weight of A-tier even though his arrival hadn’t produced so much as a ripple.

"YESSIR!"

Sylas gave him a slow nod. "I’m thinking... the God Plane. Be creative."

Yamero blinked. Then his grin changed.

For a moment, the rest of his body seemed to disappear against the surrounding space until only that toothy smile remained, and even Vaelith might have found the sight unsettling had she still been close enough to see it.

Yamero didn’t immediately know what Sylas wanted, since even at full strength he could only contend with an S-tier through considerable effort, and forcefully throwing one from the Demi-God Plane into the heart of some star on the God Plane wasn’t remotely within the range of what he could casually accomplish.

Well, Sylas hadn’t actually said anything about a star, but Yamero left "be creative" up to his imagination.

Yet, for some reason, Sylas had still told him to do it. That meant there was a path.

Yamero stopped considering the reasons it should be impossible and instead began searching for the condition that made it possible. The Quicktime Event couldn’t be enough on its own, since an S-tier capable of reaching this place wouldn’t have been stupid enough to expose himself to a loophole that obvious, but the Efivara standing before them wasn’t behaving like an ordinary participant either.

More importantly, Sylas had specifically mentioned the God Plane.

Yamero’s thoughts shifted toward Nosphaleen, then toward the strange relationship binding all of them together. Nosphaleen had once been Sylas’ Contract just like Gogo, and although both contracts had technically ended, the Will that had once defined those relationships hadn’t simply vanished without leaving a trace.

Yamero was stranger still. He existed beside Sylas like a Contract and yet not quite like one, his relationship with the Hibernation Realm occupying an awkward middle ground that the system had never seemed capable of defining cleanly.

That thought tingled at the back of his mind for a moment before several seemingly unrelated threads snapped together at once.

Yamero’s grin widened until it looked almost malicious. Sylas really was a diabolical bastard.

He couldn’t help wondering what sort of solution Sylas might have come up with if he hadn’t been in such a good mood.

"Well, then." Yamero looked toward the kneeling Efivara with obvious pity. "Sorry for your loss. Should’ve picked a better target, I guess."

His mind split.

One half reached outward through the surrounding space, reading the folds of the Demi-God Plane and the system restrictions wrapped around the ongoing event, while the other half turned inward toward the Hibernation Realm.

At the same time, Yamero allowed his body to collapse rapidly from A-tier toward C-tier, reaffirming the connection with Sylas that had always remained buried beneath the surface.

The system responded almost immediately.

It recognized the old Contract relationship and moved to stabilize it, treating Yamero once more as an extension of Sylas rather than a nearly, not-quite-so independent participant. That tiny adjustment was all Yamero needed.

His Will flashed outward and Nosphaleen stiffened.

Something hidden inside her moved with it, an authority she had accumulated as the representative Goddess worshipped by the Efivara. The S-tier kneeling before her had willingly submitted himself to that authority long ago, binding his own Will beneath hers as part of whatever structure had been built around her worship.

At the same time, Nosphaleen felt something warmer. The faint remnants of her former Contract with Sylas stirred.

She remembered what it had felt like to remain by his side, traveling wherever he went without needing some grander justification than the fact she wanted to be there. If she had the choice now, Nosphaleen would have gladly stepped back into that relationship without hesitation.

The instant that intent formed, something tightened against it.

The Efivara’s head jerked upward as he e sensed the shift.

His Will pulled back instinctively, resisting the possibility that Nosphaleen’s submission to Sylas might drag him beneath that same hierarchy. Blood leaked from his nose as the competing relationships twisted against one another, and Nosphaleen’s expression darkened at the resistance.

Yamero’s grin somehow widened even further.

"Wrong answer."

A sound like a snapping rubber band echoed across the world.

Far away on the God Plane, Gogo frowned. Then he groaned.

He really should have known Sylas wouldn’t let him disappear that easily.

A faint tether still clung to him through the Hibernation Realm, old enough and weak enough that Gogo could have shrugged it off with barely a thought. Before he bothered, however, space tore open directly in front of him.

Gogo’s eyes narrowed. He snarled and breathed out a stream of grey flame. The Efivara had barely appeared before it became little more than a statue.

Stone spread across his skin in an instant, racing from his face down through his robes until the imposing S-tier became nothing more than a rigid kneeling form. Whatever resistance he had been preparing vanished along with him.

Yamero almost immediately started laughing.

"That felt... amazing." His eyes brightened as he replayed the sensation. "What was that? It didn’t even feel like Rune Mastery, it felt like we just grabbed Fate itself and yanked it sideways."

Sylas looked toward the petrified Efivara with a distant expression.

"The power of Will Manipulation. Sometimes, embodying the void only means to be patient enough to allow what already exists to flow as it wills..."

Yamero’s laughter stopped.

His eyes widened as the simplicity of the answer settled in.

Sylas hadn’t opened some impossible portal through raw spatial mastery, nor had he brute-forced an S-tier across the boundary between Planes. He had followed the existing tethers of Will connecting Yamero, Nosphaleen, Gogo, and the Efivara, then shifted the relationships just enough that the system itself helped complete the route.

Yamero, Nosphaleen and Gogo were all his Contracts in name, all separated from him, whether wholly or partly, due to external means. The connection between them was very real and very true.

What Yamero could have never expected was that something like that could be used.

It really did feel like manipulating Fate. And somehow, all Sylas had done was move Will.

Whether it was the Fate Dragon or the Phoenix, both were existences that showed how the lines of reality could blur so long as the Will behind it was strong enough.

The Efivara had foolishly tied themselves down to a fake god, and then said fake god title was handed over to Nosphaleen. Such an obvious exploit... why wouldn’t Sylas use it?

Once he saw through that, it was only a matter of how to take advantage of it. Sylas had no need to send to the Efivara to Gogo, just the God Plane alone would have been enough. He had only done it to prove a point.

Even Gogo’s Will was within his realm of manipulation should he choose it to be. And now that the board of the universe was so clear to him, there was no move he couldn’t play.

He had done it to prove that regardless of what Gogo thought of himself now, his Will would always be tethered to Sylas in some way. Such was Karma.

And by the same token, he had done it to prove to the Efivara that what was his could not be so casually touched.

A lesson that Gentrixaul would learn by month’s end.

"Let’s go." Sylas said calmly.