Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2412 Afraid

After a long while, Sylas gave a small nod. "Thanks, but I won't be taking you up on the offer."

If anything surprised Ekear, it was the thanks rather than the refusal, and for a moment he simply looked at Sylas as though trying to decide whether he had heard correctly. He had expected arrogance, dismissal, or perhaps nothing at all, but gratitude was low on the list of responses he had prepared for.

After several seconds, Ekear nodded in return. "If you change your mind, the offer is still there. You're still my youngest disciple brother, and Gwenu misses you a great deal."

Sylas didn't answer, and Ekear didn't linger long enough to make the silence awkward. He turned and left, disappearing into the distance while Sylas watched him go for only a moment before returning home and putting the Nethum aside for later.

He found Elara on her hands and knees in the garden with dirt streaked across one cheek, working beside their mother with an aggrieved expression that made it clear this had not been her choice. Sylas stopped nearby and exchanged a few words with them, only for his mother to eventually straighten and look at him with her own sort of aggrieved expression. Though, this one was a lot more muted and a ton more stern.

"If you're going to be a husband and father to this many children, you need to be home more."

Sylas didn't immediately respond, not out of disagreement, but due to how familiar the principle behind the words was. His parents could have been no less successful than many of the Grimblade heirs back on Earth if they had wanted to push themselves that far, yet no matter how much work they had, they were almost always home before five, dinner was eaten together, and whatever ambitions they carried were expected to remain outside the boundaries they had placed around family time.

They had taken those rules seriously enough that Sylas had always thought their success was almost strange in context. They had built wealth measured in millions while treating work like something secondary to their home, and he honestly believed they could have become hundreds of times more successful if they had ever been willing to sacrifice that balance.

His mother had usually been much more relaxed about how often Sylas disappeared, though that tolerance had existed when he was single and his decisions mostly affected himself. Now that wives and children were involved, the standard had changed, and the fact the universe had become more dangerous only earned Sylas a certain amount of flexibility rather than a full exemption.

"I understand."

Elara immediately snickered from the side, clearly enjoying how rare it was to see Sylas being reprimanded instead of her. The difference was that while Elara usually sulked the moment anyone corrected her, Sylas only nodded once and accepted the criticism without argument.

His mother seemed satisfied with that, though she still gave him a look that made it clear agreement would eventually need to become action. Sylas had no issue with that either, especially when the more he thought about the state of the universe around him, the less impossible that promise seemed.

Things were becoming predictable again.

There had been a time after the Summoning when Sylas couldn't look more than a few steps ahead without running into something he didn't understand, some new Race, system mechanic, inheritance, or enemy capable of overturning everything he thought he knew. Now, however, he was beginning to see the universe in a way that felt disturbingly similar to how he once viewed Earth.

The pieces were larger and the stakes were more ridiculous, but the patterns themselves were becoming familiar.

Sylas had already killed three S-tiers and had practically toyed with two others, yet he was still only C-tier. Angels wanted him dead, several God Clans had more than enough reason to erase him, and despite all of that, none of them had managed to do anything meaningful.

Even worse, God of Hell had just reached across Planes to ask him for help. Was there even a limit to what he could do anymore?

Maybe there really wasn't a reason to keep his foot pressed against the gas every second of every day anymore. He had spent so long moving from one problem into the next that constant acceleration had started to feel natural, but if the world was becoming manageable again, then there was no point sacrificing his family simply to remain in motion.

It reminded him of the Milky Way World before the Summoning.

Sylas could have been far more successful back then if he cared enough to chase it, but very little had interested him. Money became predictable, people became predictable, and once he understood how the systems around him worked, climbing higher just felt like replaying something that had already happened in his mind. It would just be a complete waste of time.

The universe was beginning to approach that same point for him.

There was still one thing that interested him, which was breaking through the ceiling he could feel hanging over his path. If every one of his stats eventually reached Willborn status, Sylas couldn't imagine fearing ordinary Gods even if he somehow remained C-tier for the rest of his life.

That outcome no longer felt distant either.

Wisdom was close, Dexterity had just shown him an entirely new direction, and the remaining stats would likely follow once he found the right framework. At that point, his Classes would evolve again, his Will would take another step, and whatever limits the system thought it had placed around him would become even less relevant.

Sylas should have found that exciting. Instead, another thought settled into his mind as he watched Elara complain under her breath while their mother ordered her to fix another section of the garden.

What if there was nothing beyond it? No... what if there was nothing worthwhile beyond it?

Sylas had already reached the point once where the world around him stopped offering anything worth chasing. He hoped the ceiling above him would lead somewhere genuinely new, something difficult enough that understanding it wouldn't immediately turn it into another solved problem.

For the first time, though, he was almost afraid to break through and discover that there was nothing interesting waiting on the other side.