Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2413 First Time

Sylas returned inside to find Cassarae, Xarvenya, and Nosphaleen stepping out from the bath together, their hair still damp while a faint warmth clung to their skin. There was something different about all three of them now, a softness and vitality that hadn't been there before, and even without his senses Sylas would have recognized the glow for what it was.

All three stopped when they saw him.

Nosphaleen was the first to react, surprise flashing across her face before a pleased smile replaced it, while Xarvenya simply raised a brow.

Cassarae studied Sylas for a moment longer than either of them before speaking. "You're still here?"

"I plan on being here more often." Sylas looked between them before his gaze settled on Cassarae. "Especially once the children are born."

Nosphaleen's smile brightened immediately, and even Xarvenya's expression softened, but Cassarae understood enough to hear what Sylas hadn't said. Contentment settled over part of her almost at once, since Sylas only slowed down like this when he felt the world had returned to a state he could control, and if he was willing to spend more time at home, then whatever threats remained outside probably weren't threats he considered meaningful anymore.

The other part of her didn't like it nearly as much.

Cassarae knew better than anyone how Sylas behaved when something interested him, whether that something was an enemy, a puzzle, or a path no one else seemed capable of seeing. He could look almost inhuman when he became absorbed in those things, yet underneath all of that he was still a person, and she didn't believe anyone could spend the rest of their life without a direction and remain unchanged by it.

"You need a bath," Cassarae decided.

Sylas looked at her, then at the three women who had quite clearly just finished taking one themselves, but Nosphaleen was already smiling as though the decision had been unanimous. Xarvenya turned back toward the bath house without complaint, leaving Sylas little reason to argue when he hadn't planned on doing anything else anyway.

...

Steam drifted lazily through the room by the time Sylas settled into the water, his shoulders resting against the edge while Cassarae sat behind him and began washing his back. Nosphaleen claimed one of his arms almost immediately, slowly running warm water over it while Xarvenya sat nearby with the composed elegance she seemed insistent on always maintaining regardless of the situation.

For several minutes, Cassarae didn't bring up anything important, letting Sylas lean back while three sets of hands moved around him and the tension he hadn't realized he still carried gradually disappeared. Then, once she was reasonably certain he had stopped expecting the conversation to become anything more than that, she looked toward Xarvenya.

"I've been wondering about something."

Xarvenya glanced toward her. "About the Demon World?"

Cassarae smiled slightly. "That obvious?"

"You have asked me six questions about it over the last two days. No matter how much you pretended it was casual conversation, I have much more experience than you do. I can feel the difference."

Nosphaleen hid a smile while Cassarae continued washing Sylas' shoulders without the slightest embarrassment. "Then save me the trouble of pretending. What actually happened back then, and what started the war between your world and ours?"

Xarvenya was quiet for a moment, her gaze drifting toward the water as she considered where to begin. "There wasn't one moment that started it, at least not in the way people like to tell history afterward, but the beginning was the Madness Ceiling."

Sylas remained still, eyes closed while Nosphaleen worked her fingers along his forearm.

"In the distant past, Madness continued to rise until it reached a point where further advancement became impossible." Xarvenya spoke without drama, treating events older than most civilizations as though she were explaining the history of a neighboring kingdom. "Most people accepted that as natural, since everything else had limits. There was no particular reason to believe power should be the single exception.

"There is a limit to life, a limit to worlds, and even the universe itself has boundaries no one had ever proven could be crossed. From that perspective, believing there was a final ceiling to strength wasn't pessimism so much as a reasonable conclusion. Many accepted it. But...

"The Madness System disagreed," Xarvenya continued. "Or perhaps saying it disagreed gives it too much of a personality, but whatever governs it refused to accept that the ceiling was final."

Cassarae's hands slowed slightly against Sylas' back, though her attention remained on Xarvenya. "So what did it do?"

"It pushed."

Xarvenya leaned back, her expression remaining calm even as the subject darkened. "When peaceful cultivation stopped producing answers, conflict became the next experiment. The ceiling had already been reached, so powers were had been striving to maintain rather than to gain more, so there had been an odd peace during that golden age until everything changed. And when ordinary conflict was still not enough, the system began encouraging worse forms of it.

"It rewarded instability, magnified disputes that might otherwise have ended quietly, and placed opportunities in positions where several powers would inevitably fight over them. What began as competition eventually became wars, then wars between forces that had once possessed no reason to view one another as enemies at all.

"The belief was simple," Xarvenya explained. "If the existing order had reached its limit, then destroying that order might produce something capable of exceeding it."

Sylas' eyes remained closed, though the relaxation in his expression had begun to fade.

"The Madness System kept pushing for longer than anyone understood at the time, and each failure only made the next attempt more extreme." Xarvenya paused as though sorting through memories that didn't belong entirely to one lifetime. "Eventually, it pushed far enough that two worlds which had never properly touched were forced into contact."

Cassarae's fingers stopped for half a second before continuing.

"The Demon World and the Real World met for the first time."

Sylas' eyes opened.

The emerald within them sharpened so suddenly that Nosphaleen's hands paused against his arm, the lazy calm that had settled over him disappearing beneath an intensity that seemed to brighten the room. He didn't say anything yet, but Cassarae saw the change immediately and her lips slowly spread into a grin.