Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2491 Diffcult

Xarvenya appeared before Sylas without a sound, her crimson eyes Lowered toward the ground as the last remnants of her True Blood faded from her body.

She had already recovered from the injuries sustained during her confrontation, but there were still traces of blood at the corner of her mouth, and the slight stiffness in her posture betrayed the fact that she hadn't recovered from everything. Her hands remained at her sides, and although she seemed prepared to speak, the words never came.

Sylas looked at her in silence.

The Demoness had always possessed a certain pride, one that came from knowing just how far above the rest of the world she stood. Even after coming under Sylas' command, there was a confidence to her movements that rarely disappeared, but now she stood before him With her head Lowered, almost as though she were waiting to receive punishment.

Sylas raised a hand and wiped the blood from the corner of her lips With his thumb, his expression remaining as unreadable as it had been since his return.

"The System doesn't need to exist anymore."

Xarvenya's pupils constricted.

The words had come so casually that, for a moment, she wondered whether she had heard him correctly. There had been no surge of Will accompanying them, no overwhelming declaration or promise made in the heat of anger, and yet the implications were enough to make even someone of her stature feel her heart tighten.

The System.

Something that governed the lives of countless existences, imposing its restrictions upon everything beneath its influence. Even she, With the strength she possessed, had been forced to bend to its authority, choosing between exposing herself and allowing an enemy to take Cassarae away.

And Sylas had just spoken of its existence as though it were a minor inconvenience that could be discarded whenever he pleased.

But what unsettled Xarvenya most was the indifference With which he had made the statement. She could have understood a furious declaration, perhaps even dismissed it as the temporary arrogance of someone whose loved ones had been taken from him.

This was nothing of the sort.

Before she could find the words to respond, Sylas disappeared.

Xarvenya remained motionless for several seconds before turning toward Nosphaleen, whose expression carried a rare trace of solemnity.

Neither spoke.

Alex nearly fell out of his chair when Sylas appeared in the middle of the laboratory.

"Jesus Christ! Sylas, you really need to stop doing that!"

A small collection of instruments scattered across his desk as he caught himself against its edge, his irritation growing when he realized that the person responsible hadn't even bothered acknowledging him.

"Seriously, would it kill you to use a door once in a while?"

Sylas' gaze passed over the equipment surrounding him, much of it built upon the recovered laws of Earth that Alex and Nathan had been studying. The laboratory had changed considerably since the two began their work, incorporating principles that blended the world's old technological foundations With the Runes and Aether that now governed its existence.

However, Sylas hadn't come to inspect their progress.

His gaze shifted toward Cheri. "What do you know about the Nethum Clan?"

Cheri blinked, her expression turning blank.

"The what?" She stared at him for several seconds, searching his face as though expecting some explanation for the sudden question. "Should I know what that is?"

Sylas studied her reaction, but found no indication that she was concealing anything. The confusion in her eyes was genuine, and considering what he already knew about her, that was an answer in itself.

He had seen the Nethum name in her status before, but that had never meant she possessed any knowledge of the Clan behind it. Whatever circumstances had brought her into this world, they had clearly left her unaware of at least part of her origins.

Sylas didn't press her further.

His options were limited enough that he couldn't afford to waste time demanding answers from someone Who didn't possess them, and in truth, he had only come here because one of the three possible paths he could see forward involved the Nethum.

The first was Hell.

Of all the places he had encountered, Hell was the most obvious candidate for possessing information about what existed beyond the Real World. Whether it provided an actual passage between universes was another matter, but the Arcane Madnesses had existed long enough, and operated under enough unusual restrictions, that Sylas found it dificult to believe they knew nothing about the boundaries separating worlds.

In fact, considering what he had learned about the Madness System and the possibility that it had once pierced through those boundaries, there were good reasons to believe Hell might be connected to that process.

The problem was that Sylas couldn't return there anytime soon.

Even if he could, what then? Ask Slithering Madness for help? Search for another Arcane Madness and hope it happened to be more accommodating?

Sylas almost found the thought irritating.

He had never been particularly good at asking others for help, and the idea of placing the fate of his family into someone else's hands was even less appealing now than it had ever been.

More importantly, information alone wouldn't solve his problem.

He had already attempted to trace the path taken by the mysterious existence, and the result had been more than enough to demonstrate how far he remained from forcing his way beyond the Real World.

With his current strength, even traveling freely between Heavens would be difficult, let alone crossing the boundaries of an entire universe. The resistance he had encountered wasn't something he could overcome through Rune Mastery alone, at least not at his current Tier.

If Hell possessed a passage, then using it would almost certainly require the assistance of someone considerably more powerful than himself, and that was unacceptable.

The second possibility was the Creation Tower.

Sylas had now established dominion over every Creation Tower within the Skai Heaven, and although he hadn't explored the full extent of that authority, he knew enough about their origins to suspect that there were secrets buried within them that went far beyond ordinary Rune Creation.

Then there was the mysterious old man Who had shamelessly taken him as his Master.

The brush he had received from that peculiar disciple had already demonstrated abilities that Sylas couldn't fully explain, and it wasn't unreasonable to suspect that its origins were connected to something beyond the confines of the Real World.

However, there were two problems.

The first was that Sylas had no idea how to contact the old man. Their previous encounters hadn't exactly followed conventional rules, and there was no guarantee that the man would appear simply because Sylas wanted him to.

The second was that, despite everything he knew about the Creation Tower, he had yet to see concrete evidence that it possessed authority beyond the Real World itself.

It was possible, perhaps even likely, but Sylas had no intention of gambling his family's lives upon assumptions he couldn't verify. And once again, the most direct solution would involve asking someone else for help.

That left the Nethum Clan.

Sylas' gaze remained upon Cheri, although his thoughts had already moved far beyond the laboratory.

The Nethum controlled the Poise Heaven, an accomplishment that would have been extraordinary for almost any Clan in existence. And yet, from what he had seen, they didn't appear particularly interested in expanding their influence into the neighboring Heavens.

That was strange.

A Clan With enough strength to dominate an entire Heaven should have had every reason to continue expanding, especially when its members were clearly still pursuing methods of improving themselves.

Why spend so much effort cultivating stronger descendants if they had no intention of using that strength to conquer more territory?

Perhaps they had reached some political equilibrium With the other Heavens, but Sylas doubted that explained everything.

What if their ambitions simply extended beyond the territory everyone else was fighting over? What if they already knew that the Real World was only one portion of something far greater?

That would explain why a Clan that had already reached the pinnacle of its Heaven continued pushing its descendants to such extremes. They weren't concerned With conquering another corner of the same world because their true ambitions lay elsewhere.

Sylas couldn't be certain, but he didn't need certainty to recognize the value of investigating.

The Nethum possessed information he wanted, and there were good odds they possessed the means to cross boundaries he couldn't currently overcome. Whatever they had, he would take it.

A sigh interrupted his thoughts.

Alex had stopped complaining about Sylas' sudden appearance, and his expression had grown considerably more complicated as he looked between Cheri and the young man standing before him.

"Now that you've asked this question in front of me, lid probably die if you found out I had an answer and didn't tell you, right?" He rubbed at his forehead. "You really make my life diffcult, Sylas Grimblade. Do you know that?"