Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2308

The Reader's eyes narrowed.

This was the most protected region of the Vosskarr Clan. Calling it secure hardly did the Archive justice. Patriarchs had been denied entry to certain halls, elders had died for crossing thresholds without permission, and there were ancestral words embedded into the walls that had outlived entire civilizations.

Every layer of protection had been written by someone who understood Will at a level most of the galaxy couldn't comprehend. Bloodline, identity, Karma, intent, even the rhythm of one's thoughts were checked before they could approach the Reader's chamber.

Someone capable of slipping through all of that should have been an expert amongst experts, an existence so old and accomplished that even the current Patriarch would have to treat them with caution.

Yet the woman standing across from her was only a C-tier.

That made the situation far more interesting.

The Reader didn't reach for any of the ancestral words around her, nor did she send a message to the Patriarch. Surprise was an emotion she had learned to suppress long ago, not because Readers were required to become emotionless, but because their role demanded observation before action.

She had spent more years than most civilizations survived reading the thoughts of the dead, studying what powerful people wrote when they believed their words would become immortal.

She had read declarations of eternal conquest from Clans that no longer existed, love poems written for bloodlines that had been wiped from history, threats from ancestors who once believed the Vosskarr would rule forever.

Enough time spent reading the past made certain patterns impossible to ignore.

Everything ended.

The Vosskarr liked grand words. They spoke about scarring reality, about leaving Will behind long after flesh vanished, and there was truth to those sentiments. Their strongest ancestors had accomplished exactly that. But even scars faded if enough time passed.

A Clan could survive a million years, ten million, a billion, and still eventually become nothing more than something another Reader studied.

That was what the position taught better than any technique. Everyone had limited time.

Sometimes that limitation was measured in decades. Sometimes epochs. It remained a limitation nontheless.

Iskaleth seemed to understand this well as she hadn't seemed to come for battle, nor was she prepared for it. Instead, she spoke calmly, showing no concern for where she stood or what could happen if the Reader decided this conversation had gone poorly. Her words continued for some time, and at first the Reader's expression didn't shift at all.

Then Iskaleth said something else.

The Reader's fingers stopped against the arm of her chair.

For the first time, emotion touched her face.

**

Sylas watched another world disappear beneath Serpentes.

He stood beyond its atmosphere with both hands in his pockets while countless bodies flooded through the defensive barrier below. It wasn't exactly an army, he wasn't directed them with any real effort, most of his Will was directed to projecting Beacon out further.

However, with numbers like these, direction wasn't necessary. Sylas just pointed them toward whatever world happened to be in front of him.

That was enough.

A massive Serpentes wrapped around a fortress city and squeezed until the walls split. Several smaller ones rushed into the opening immediately afterward, their bodies piling over one another while beams of Aether ripped through their ranks. Hundreds died within seconds, then thousands more poured in over their corpses.

Sylas didn't care.

"Continue."

Beacon carried the command through the swarm.

The world drowned.

Numbers solved many problems, but not all of them. The Serpentes responding to Beacon were still C-tiers, and even millions of C-tiers couldn't casually ignore the gap when proper B-tiers and A-tiers appeared.

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