Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2297

Sylas didn't move.

Neither did Sarethvane.

They stood across from one another, mirrored down to the angle of their scythes, one wreathed in green Will and the other in a black so deep that the stars behind him seemed to bend the light in a vain attempt to continue shining.

Sylas understood what Sarethvane wanted. He wanted to take his shape, his weapon, his method, and beat him with it, because that was the only true way to put a man in his place. It wasn't enough to kill someone arrogant. You had to prove that everything they thought made them unique wasn't worth the land it stood on.

Sylas couldn't have understood it any more because it was what he had done countless times before.

And Sarethvane understood what Sylas wanted too. He wanted a Serpentes who had walked a path without the system, he could smell Vipermancy wafting from Sylas. But as arrogant as Sylas was… he hadn't even used it.

Both of them thought the other was a fool who thought far too much of themselves. But only one of them could have been correct.

Their scythes swung in unison.

BOOM.

The sound rolled outward, and the cemetery far below cracked open like an egg, headstones tumbling into the fissures. The black scythe met the green and the shockwave carved a groove through the atmosphere that shone white, the paleness struggling to heal.

They separated and then met again.

BOOM.

Every clash sent an echo across the battlefield, and every echo came doubled. Two identical silhouettes swinging identical weapons with identical footwork. Sarethvane's mimicry was flawless. He had studied Sylas for all of a minute and yet he missed not a single beat.

However, his wings hadn't shrunk behind him in the slightest. They still stretched to blot out the sky, vast enough to shadow a continent, dragging behind a body that stood no taller than Sylas'.

It was deliberate. He was smaller by choice, not by design. He had belittled himself to step into Sylas' realm.

But Sylas didn't seem to care.

That was maybe the most infuriating part of it all. He met every strike, matched every step, and looked as though he could keep going until the world beneath them fell to its own death. There was no strain in his eyes, no interest, either.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Their dance raced across the skies. As though the world was split in two with a mirror running through them to reflect the other side to perfection, their mimicry continued.

Sarethvane's brow furrowed.

The echoes of their battle were growing duller, softer, as though their edges were vanishing.

The first exchanges had shaken the planet. By the fiftieth, they were no louder than an axe splitting wood. By the hundredth, it felt like two children sparring in a courtyard with weapons carved out of pine, tapping and clacking away, the noise dying almost before it could leave their blades.

But nothing had slowed. Their dance was just as fast, just as violent. He couldn't understand.

He was still moving at a speed that would have reduced a lesser Demi-God to mist, still meeting Sylas perfectly, blow for blow, angle for angle. Almost too identically.

But he couldn't strike with the force he wanted. He couldn't strike with the grace he wanted, either.

Every time he committed to a swing, a subtle step from Sylas turned his hips a half-degree wrong. Every time he found his rhythm, a gentle twist of Sylas' wrist dulled the edge of it, it would alter his strike just enough that he would be forced to match Sylas, and yet not exactly in the way he wanted.

Something was missing.

Sarethvane couldn't grasp what.

And then he felt it.

The energy hadn't gone anywhere, it wasn't disappearing at all.

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