Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2389

The first few cuts across Sylas' body should have annoyed him, yet the moment warm blood slid down his forearm and another thin line opened across his ribs, the exact opposite happened.

Something inside him that had been quiet for too long finally stirred, and the reason he had been excited from the beginning returned with enough force that his blood seemed to heat beneath his skin.

What Sylas feared more than pain, more than death, was reaching a point where there was nothing left capable of forcing him to grow.

Tomoe was doing exactly that.

Worse, or perhaps better, she wasn't remaining still while he adapted to her. Every exchange stripped another layer of rust from her movements, every clash awakened something else that had gone dormant.

Looking at her started to feel uncomfortably familiar. It was like staring into a mirror.

The realization only made Sylas' grin grow wider, not warm or amused, but sharp with the same bloodthirsty anticipation now burning in Tomoe's eyes. If she was waking up, then so was he, and the moment that flame settled properly into his chest, the way Sylas fought began to change.

To an outside observer, his style became wilder. In reality, it became far more calculated.

His mind opened like a flower under sunlight, countless possible paths spreading from every movement Tomoe made until the battlefield became a web of deviations only he seemed able to read.

He no longer looked at the Runes and Wills around him as simple structures to manipulate, but as things carrying emotion, hesitation, excitement, resistance, and habits that changed depending on how often they were tested.

A current of Sword Will that reacted one way on the third exchange wouldn't necessarily react the same way on the hundred and third.

Sylas began reading those differences.

He could feel when Tomoe's Will anticipated resistance and when it expected him to retreat, when a Rune in the surrounding space leaned toward her influence and when it recoiled from being forcefully sharpened into something it had never been meant to become.

The battlefield became a living conversation where every piece revealed something about what it wanted to do next, what it would experience next, how it would react next.

Then Sylas' mind seemed to form a domain around him.

His fist came from beneath Tomoe's sword instead of meeting it head-on, grazing through a weak angle in the pressure before twisting into a shoulder strike that forced her blade several degrees off course.

The missed attack became his opening to shift one foot forward, that step became the setup for a counter, and the counter itself altered Tomoe's momentum enough that Sylas could slip past the next cut without wasting a single movement.

Every action fed the next.

His dodges stopped looking like retreats and became changes in positioning, while his attacks stopped existing only to deal damage and instead began shaping the next several exchanges. One fist redirected Tomoe's wrist, another forced her weight onto the wrong foot, and a slight turn of Sylas' shoulder made her next slash carry too far before he came back with an elbow aimed toward her ribs.

Tomoe laughed as the strike forced her away.

Then her blade danced.

The skies howled around her as Sword Will tore through cloud, space, and even the faint distortions of time left behind by their speed. Every cut carried enough weight to split mountains and empty rivers, yet the sword itself flicked from Tomoe's wrist with the ease of someone drawing lazy circles through the air.

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