Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2436: Run?

Another chain snapped behind the doors, and the pressure rolling through Hell grew heavier with it as Greed pressed against everything within reach. Sylas felt the change before the sound finished traveling, the influence no longer behaving like an aura so much as a demand that everything nearby become something worth possessing.

Caelum took the worst of it, whatever little control he had left snapping after Sylas snatched something he truly wanted. The last traces of white vanishing from his eyes while the mechanical pieces buried within his sockets rotated without any of the control they had shown before.

His golden domain shuddered and then expanded with enough force to push the five Fallen Madness Disciples backward despite how much stronger their resonance had already made them.

Sylas watched without interfering, his attention settling on the distinction between Caelum’s Will and the Greed flooding through him. That distinction was disappearing quickly, Caelum’s obsession with growth and mastery being stripped down into something much simpler until all that seemed to remain was the desire to take whatever existed in front of him.

His fingers closed, and the Rune formations surrounding the five Fallen Madness Disciples changed at once. Order locked their bodies into place while Time stretched the instant around them, delaying their resistance just long enough for something else to begin happening beneath the golden light.

Their flesh greyed first, followed by the Aether trapped inside it, while even their fractured Wills began withering from the edges inward. The five should have been far too powerful for Caelum to erase so casually after their resonance had strengthened them this much, but their strength was disappearing at almost the same speed that their bodies collapsed.

Sylas recognized the principle a moment later.

It was Greed.

He had used the same ability before, though never with this lack of restraint, allowing the Virtue to strip power from the world around him and incorporate what it took into something else. He had even used that principle to strengthen his scythe on occasion, but Caelum wasn’t directing what he stole toward a weapon or a narrow purpose.

He was devouring everything, and it seemed his mind had been corrupted so much that he no longer cared about enraging the Professor he was working under.

The five Fallen Madness Disciples crumbled into ash while streams of warped Will flowed toward Caelum, entering his body alongside the Aether and vitality stripped from them. His frame trembled under the influx before his golden domain erupted again, growing denser and heavier as every stolen fragment was forced into his strength.

The Greed taking root in him wasn’t superior to Sylas’ own in foundation, and if anything, the opposite was true, even despite the fact Sylas wasn’t the best at using the Seed. What made it dangerous was how completely Caelum had surrendered to it, allowing Scurrying Madness to take control of him and to push the ability far beyond anything Sylas would normally consider reasonable.

Another chain groaned behind the doors while Caelum raised his hand, and the golden Runes surrounding Sylas changed in a way they hadn’t once during their earlier battle. Instead of colliding with Sylas’ Spacetime formations, several golden mechanisms attached themselves to the edges and began pulling information from them.

A golden gear caught one emerald Stroke and dragged the moment of its creation backward through Time, replaying the formation over and over. Order immediately began separating each repetition into smaller pieces and arranging them by function, as though Caelum intended to understand Space simply by watching Sylas construct it enough times.

Sylas’ attention sharpened slightly. Caelum was trying to copy his Rune Path.

That was the clearest expression of Greed he had shown yet. Defeating Sylas was no longer enough for him. If Sylas possessed something Caelum lacked, then the influence controlling him seemed incapable of accepting that distinction.

"If you have it..." Caelum’s voice came out strained and rough while another set of golden mechanisms attached themselves to Sylas’ formations. "Why shouldn’t I?"

Sylas changed the Stroke before the next repetition could complete, causing the copied structure to collapse, but Caelum adapted immediately and caught three others instead. Time gave him repeated observations while Order broke those observations apart, and Greed seemed to turn every scrap he understood into something his own Rune Mastery could begin incorporating.

Space folded beneath Sylas as several temporal restraints closed around him, carrying him kilometers away before they could lock his position down. Caelum answered by reversing the interval Sylas had crossed while using Order to establish the location he had left as the only acceptable result, forcing Sylas to break both conclusions at once before the formation could drag him back.

It was clever, but what interested Sylas more was how quickly it improved.

The Greed within Caelum wasn’t satisfied with stealing strength from flesh, Aether, and Will. It wanted the knowledge that created that strength as well, and every exchange gave Caelum another fragment of Fathomless Spacetime to study.

Sylas responded by changing his Rune structures faster than before, allowing one Stroke to become a spatial fold before changing into a temporal delay and then abandoning both meanings before Caelum could finish interpreting them. Fathomless Rune Creation gave him enough flexibility to remain ahead, but the fact Caelum could follow at all was already beyond what he had managed earlier.

Behind them, another chain cracked as Scurrying Madness pulled against the prison.

"Can we run?" Cheri’s voice carried across the battlefield, her composure finally beginning to break as the surrounding Hell lost more of its natural color. Wherever Caelum’s domain passed, Aether, residual Will, and even fragments of broken Rune formations were stripped away and drawn into him.

Sylas didn’t answer, and Fanelei only glanced toward him once before returning her attention to the doors. "He’s waiting for something," she muttered, her expression far more serious than it had been when they first entered Hell.

Cheri looked between them. "Waiting for what?"

Sylas had no interest in explaining something he wasn’t finished confirming.

Another web of emerald Strokes spread through Caelum’s domain, and this time the man didn’t destroy all of them. He consumed portions instead, drawing their structure into the golden mechanisms around him until a crude distortion appeared among the Runes.

Space bent.

Only slightly, and badly enough that Sylas could see several flaws immediately, but Caelum had managed to reproduce a fragment of the principle after observing it for only a short period. His Greed had demanded the ability, while the flood of Will he was pouring in seemed to be able keep up with his desires... Will that very clearly wasn’t his own.

Another chain snapped behind the doors, allowing one of Scurrying Madness’ metallic arms to pull farther free as laughter rolled across Hell. Caelum’s head jerked toward Sylas hard enough for the bones in his neck to crack, and his domain expanded again while greedily stripping another stretch of Hell bare.

Sylas remained where he was despite the fact logic would have told most that he was running to a dead end. .

He had seen S-tiers before, but Scurrying Madness felt larger, grander, far above and well beyond...

Sylas had no proof for that conclusion and no reason to pretend instinct was evidence, but his instincts had kept him alive often enough that he didn’t dismiss them either. If Scurrying Madness escaped completely, the creature behind those doors would stand on a level none of them present should have been capable of confronting.

Even so, Sylas didn’t move as Caelum rushed him again and Scurrying Madness wrapped both claws around the next chain, every action he made pulling closer toward an inevitable freedom. But...

Whatever Sylas was waiting for hadn’t happened yet.