Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2087

[Bonus thanks to chronotitan :)]

Sylas looked down at his hand. His body itself had manifested in shimmering green and emerald. Right now, he almost looked more deity than man, formed of more energy than real matter.

And yet, his body felt no different to him.

In the last several weeks, Sylas' Rune Mastery had inched ever closer toward the Infinite Void of the D-tier, but he hadn't quite made it there. Honestly, that was because his focus was more on deepening his methods of using the Rune Mastery knowledge he already had rather than extending it further.

His comprehension of Will and how to apply it to Rune Mastery was on a completely different level. It was because of this he was able to force Leia to become a Gluttony Disciple and ultimately find the Glutton, which finally led him here of all places.

It was all rooted in this comprehension.

What he hadn't seen until he was forced into one battle that pushed him to his limit after another was that when you reached this point of Rune Mastery, the lines blurred between it and his Will greatly, and by extension the division between his Rune Mastery and his telekinetic martial arts practically vanished.

His telekinetic martial arts was just a matter of summoning his Will to move and improve his combat. And the highest form of Rune Mastery was essentially the greatest form of Will Manipulation.

When they came together…

The result was simply devastating.

And yet, it made Sylas realize just how far he had left to climb. The Zeus Puppet was no more perfect example of this.

It had no Will, it used no Aether, it didn't even seem to run on electricity or technology either. It was basically just like a mechanical watch, running on stored kinetic energy that came from nothing but movement at all.

But the thing with a mechanical watch was that the kinetic energy came from the user wearing it. But where was the kinetic energy of the Zeus Puppet coming from?

Sylas had been trying to understand it, feeling that it might help him take the next step in his telekinetic martial arts, and then he finally grasped it when the puppet suddenly exploded in size. When that happened, it couldn't hide its inner mechanisms from Sylas anymore because it was forced to commune with the world again.

The puppet didn't have Will itself because its very existence was a reflection of a Will formulated by the Zeus Clan. It was an existence built upon the foundation of adaptation, it was the Will of adaptation itself distilled into the form of a puppet.

The so-called "kinetic energy" it was pulling from came from the universe itself and every concept of adaptation there was in it as a whole.

The Zeus Puppet… it was a form of Arcane Madness all its own. Except this time, rather than pulling on an infinite pool of a singular Sin, it instead pulled on the concept of evolution, of the very fundamental driver that pushed the universe itself forward.

It was no wonder so many feared it, no wonder so many would have simply accepted their fate and crumpled.

But there was something that Sylas knew that very few did, and even fewer had the audacity to take advantage of.

The concept of evolution pulled from the Will of the universe could never be infinite because the universe was capped with a crimson ceiling.

No matter how perfect everyone thought the Evolution Will Manifestation of the Zeus Puppet was, Sylas knew that it would never be so.

And his desire to defeat the puppets was only fueled further when he realized this.

Deuvuo, Juxi, and Alpine weren't fools. The level to which Sylas had pushed the puppets was far beyond them. Trying to steal the last for an advantage would simply end up getting them killed.

In fact, they were more worried about avoiding death by Sylas' scythe, something that was sure to happen once Sylas decided to monopolize the rewards for himself.

'I need to survive and report this.' Alpine thought.

What he didn't know was that they were all having the exact same thought without a single deviation.

Sylas didn't have an expression to read right now at all. All he did was silently look at the tortoise, his thoughts unknown to everyone but himself.

The tortoise nodded. "In that case… there isn't really a need for you all anymore, is there?"

The mountain began to rumble.

Juxi and the others didn't have the time to react before there was a sudden surge coming from the stairs.

And then it appeared.

A singular Zeus Puppet as tall as five meters. It didn't look much different from the others outside of its height. The suit it wore was the same, the smile of gears and rotating mechanisms was the same, its glass skin and beautiful, intricate craftsmanship was the same.

The only thing that was very much not the same was the Demi-God Aura it radiated in suffocating waves.