Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2421 Direction

The last of the Rune formations faded from the air, but Fanelei was already looking at Sylas as though the dead rat knights had ceased to matter. Her eyes practically shone with curiosity as she moved around to his side, studying his face as though she might be able to find the answer written there.

"How did you do that?" Fanelei's gaze sharpened. "Using my Aether through your body like that should have shredded your mind apart, and that's before adding whatever you were pulling out of her."

Her eyes flicked toward Cheri for a moment before returning to Sylas.

"My Will evolved."

Fanelei waited.

Sylas continued walking.

Her lips parted slightly before she closed them again, and after a few seconds, the curiosity in her expression shifted into something closer to understanding. She was a Legend herself, but that status didn't mean every part of her foundation had reached the same standard, and her Will Grade was one of the greatest weaknesses she still had.

She had no idea what Sylas' Will had become, yet there weren't many possibilities that made sense anymore. He was only a C-tier, and he had only recently stepped onto the Demi-God Plane, but he had just forced an A-tier's Aether and the buried aura of the God Realm through his existence without collapsing under the pressure.

That was ridiculous even by the standards she had grown accustomed to applying to him.

Sylas didn't need to explain Eternal Will for her to reach that conclusion, and he had no reason to volunteer more information than necessary. What interested him more was how much further the same method could have gone if his Will had already taken that final step.

Formless Will... His thoughts naturally drifted toward Tomoe, and the image of the swordwoman sitting on the fifth throne returned to him. If he had possessed her level of Will during the battle just now, he doubted borrowing Fanelei and Cheri's power would have strained him nearly as much.

Then again, the difference wasn't as large as it should have been.

Sylas' Charisma had grown too high, allowing him to impose his Will on the world with a strength that compensated for some of the gap in Grade. Even so, something about Tomoe still bothered him, especially after seeing how eager she was for battle while simultaneously feeling that she had never truly shown everything she could do.

She was holding something back, and he wasn't sure why, especially not with her personality. It was very odd. Was it a pride thing as well? Something else?

Sylas didn't know what yet, but he had little doubt that it was connected to Cassarae.

Tomoe understood too much about his wife's path, far more than Sylas did and almost certainly more than Cassarae herself. If her words were accurate, only the two of them remained, which under ordinary circumstances meant their paths would eventually collide whether either wanted them to or not.

Sylas had never been particularly worried about that.

If Cassarae reached an obstacle, he would remove it, and if something threatened her path, he would deal with that as well. There was simply no need for her to worry about such things. The only reason he was even letting her continue on this path in the first place was because it essentially meant more longevity for his wife.

Still, the more he thought about the two women, the more obvious the deviation between them became.

Tomoe had no connection to any system at all.

Cassarae, on the other hand, had practically become beloved by the impotent system after technically killing the last remnant of the former Legendary System. Their weapons and several aspects of their paths mirrored one another, yet the foundations beneath them were heading in almost opposite directions.

One existed outside the system.

The other had been embraced by it.

Sylas' gaze sharpened as the comparison brought his thoughts back to Hell, where he was walking through another example of two paths that should have shared an origin and yet had somehow become enemies. His Virtues were born from Madness, but everything around him treated those same Virtues as prey, and the deeper he looked, the less accidental that divide felt.

He began walking in a particular direction.

Fanelei followed without asking where he was going, while Cheri glanced toward the distant terrain and quickly noticed what Sylas had already seen. More creatures were appearing ahead, first scattered beasts climbing over the obsidian ridges, then humanoid rats in dark armor gathering between the lava falls until an entire wall of bodies had formed across their path.

Sylas didn't slow. It wasn't difficult to understand what this meant.

He had chosen a direction at random only in appearance, but the moment the resistance increased so sharply, that direction became the most valuable one available. Whatever intelligence was controlling these rats didn't want him going forward, which meant there was something ahead worth finding.

Another wave appeared in the distance.

Then another.

Fanelei looked toward Sylas, but his expression remained unchanged as the forces continued gathering in front of them. If anything, the more resistance appeared, the more certain he became that he had chosen correctly.

Rhykan had managed to take Slovenly Madness and somehow replace an Arcane Madness with something else, an act that Sylas still didn't fully understand. The entire process had allowed him to hijack the Beast Emperor Sanctum, become its Progenitor, and turn a path that shouldn't have belonged to him into the foundation of everything he gained there.

Someone in Hell had to understand how that was possible.

And if there was anyone who might know how one Madness could be replaced by another, it would probably be the existence that had already done something remarkably similar.

Sylas looked past the growing army ahead, his emerald eyes cutting through the red haze of Hell.

If Scurrying Madness didn't want him going this way, then Sylas had just found the direction he needed most. After all, he still didn't know how the representative of Greed had snatched its title from the Scorpion.