Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2445

Chapter 2445: Knew

Sylas sat alone several hours after dealing with Weaving’s gift, the heart Slithering had torn out of Scurrying Madness floating several inches above his palm. It still beat despite everything that had happened to it, each contraction pushing blood through vessels that no longer connected to anything while a dense Greed Will pulsed along with every movement.

There were no traces of the machinery that had once surrounded it, nor anything left for the Omnimous to analyze in the way it had analyzed Scurrying’s cyborg body. Two had built technology around the heart and used it as part of Scurrying Madness’ new form, but what Sylas possessed now was simply flesh, blood, and Will.

That made the question of what to do with it simpler, though not necessarily easier. Sylas reached out with his Greed Seed and allowed only the smallest amount of its influence to leak free, causing the blood inside the heart to surge toward the side closest to him almost immediately.

The Seed buried within his existence stirred with enough force that Sylas cut the connection before it could progress any further. He could absorb the blood, and he had little doubt that doing so would strengthen his Greed considerably considering this wasn’t some diluted Will gathered from a random Disciple, but the heart of the creature that had once represented Greed before Rat replaced Scorpion.

Under ordinary circumstances, Sylas would have already begun, but this time he hesitated long enough for his thoughts to turn inward. Of his three Virtue Seeds, Greed was the one he trusted least, not because he feared losing control of it, but because it was the one Seed that had never truly been his.

He had killed Keyesen and reaped the Virtue of Greed directly from him, taking something that had only manifested because Keyesen’s Spirit Beast Lineage had produced a representation extraordinarily close to the original Scorpion. Sylas hadn’t understood Greed deeply enough to form the Seed himself, nor had his body naturally produced it through the path he walked.

Lust was different, despite the fact Sylas would have once considered it the Virtue least suited to him other than Sloth. Every major evolution he experienced had been followed by that same overwhelming demand from his body to reproduce, an instinct buried so deeply into his Genes that discipline could suppress his actions without ever eliminating the urge itself.

He had gone from an ordinary F-Grade Human born on Earth to an A-tier Demi-God Human Simioid in only a handful of years, compressing what should have required countless generations into a single lifetime. With every leap, his body had responded the same way, demanding that those improvements be passed forward before something happened to him.

That was the essence of Lust Sylas had come to understand, evolution followed by continuation, and the Virtue had formed naturally from that process. Even the increasing difficulty powerful existences faced in having children fit the concept perfectly. Greater Genes created greater value while also making successful inheritance far more difficult.

Pride was even more intimate.

Sylas’ attention shifted toward the Seed that stood above the others, and for the first time in a long while, his thoughts concerning it weren’t entirely comfortable. Pride hadn’t been handed to him and it hadn’t been taken from someone else. It had formed because his understanding of himself and his refusal to bend had reached a point where the Seed had no choice but to manifest.

He had even rejected the greater well of Pride that the universe offered. Where the Monkey King borrowed, adapted, retreated, and used whatever advantage was available, Sylas had built inward until his own Pride became something the universe drew from instead of the reverse.

There were few things Sylas possessed that felt more unquestionably his than that.

And yet, Humanity itself had been touched by the Monkey King long before Sylas was born.

That realization bothered him more than he expected, especially now that he had time to think about what it meant beyond the immediate battle in Hell. Sylas leaned back slightly while the Scorpion heart continued beating above his palm, his thoughts drifting toward the Human Simioid Race that had followed him for so long.

He had always found it strangely underwhelming compared to almost every other important aspect of his Foundation, though until now he had mostly dismissed that as a consequence of Humanity’s weak starting point. His Bloodline influenced him constantly, his Will shaped practically everything he did, his Rune Creation continued opening new paths, and even the Genes he built himself routinely changed the direction of his growth.

His Race, by comparison, mostly made his body stronger and gave him a foundation durable enough to continue evolving. That was useful, certainly, but considering how deeply Race could define an existence, Sylas had always expected there to be more.

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