Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2196

2196 /2206

Sylas had actually wanted to "keep" Thessa. But the method with which he "killed" the Duchess and the Prince required a thorough, complete, and perfect understanding of their bodies and bloodline. That wasn't something he had had the time or stamina to do with Thessa. So… He directly killed her.

However, the irony of that was that Sylas had killed her precisely because he didn't understand how her bloodline worked, so it wasn't exactly impossible for her to have pulled the wool over his eyes in some way, especially since he had been more worried about the coming challenge from Kairos and the Monkey King.

It didn't take long for Sylas to realize why it was that Thessa might keep the Duchess alive.

The idea of the Duchess hating him was very much a good chance, but even if that didn't work out… how would this land at Nosphaleen's doorstep?

Not long after he ultimately rejected her in favor of Cassarae, he not only took in another woman, but she was even pregnant with his child?

If Nosphaleen was blazing through the path of Envy right now, how much more furious would something like this make her? It wasn't something that was difficult to understand at all.

There were only really two paths forward. Either the Duchess hated his guts—and that could end in a range of things between either trying to kill him or simply leaving after he freed her. Or, the Duchess would choose to listen to his explanation and stay.

Either way, Thessa would achieve her goal and stoke the flames in Nosphaleen's heart all the more.

The last time Sylas had sensed Nosphaleen, he could very clearly feel her love for him still there. It had an edge of something else to it, but that love was very much there.

However… the more that was prickled and prodded at…

They said that love and hate were two sides of the very same coin.

It seemed that Thessa realized that while Nosphaleen had become the specimen she wanted, if she wanted to use Nosphaleen against him, simply having her experience Envy wasn't enough—especially since it was the Virtue of Envy, albeit a twisted form.

She needed that love to become hatred, and Sylas only seemed to be helping her.

The only question that remained was…

How did Sylas know it was Thessa who had done all of this?

Sylas held the chains in his hands, running his thumb over them.

If he was correct, Thessa hadn't trapped the Duchess here by overwhelming her with power. There were some very complex time manipulations going on here.

Thessa had used echoes of other timelines to twist the path of the Duchess.

Right now, time was separated into two streams. One of them branched off into the closed loop that Sylas had crafted, and the other was the one the Monkey King had crafted.

In the latter timeline, the Monkey King was the creator of the Golden Battlefield, the Golden Race, and the reason all of this happened.

In the former timeline, the closed loop that Sylas had created, the Golden Battlefield and its creation was still triggered through the Split Realm, but the trapped Demons weren't nearly as powerful.

Because the Monkey King wasn't here to see things through, they were able to eventually escape the Split Realm.

Thus, the only reason the Duchess could be here in Sylas' estimation was that she had chosen to be here because she knew he would be here.

However, when he got down here, he realized that she was bound and chained here, seemingly by force. That suggested that if the Duchess had had the freedom… she likely wouldn't be here at all.