Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2456

Chapter 2456: Sylas’ Answer. (3)

Xarvenya had gone pale enough that the color seemed to have drained from even her lips, one hand resting over her stomach despite the fact there was still nothing there for anyone else to see.

Her fingers moved once against the fabric before becoming still, and she stared toward the heavens as though looking away for even an instant might make the sight before her real in a way she could no longer deny.

There was almost nothing left of Sylas. Half of his skull remained beneath patches of fractured emerald, while pieces of black ribs, spine, and splintered limbs floated beneath it without enough structure between them to resemble a body; even the crystalline Phoenix wings that had dragged him back from destruction again and again had been reduced to a few dim fragments of light.

Xarvenya’s breathing had grown shallow, but Cassarae and Nosphaleen stood differently. Neither woman relaxed, and neither looked anything close to calm, yet their eyes remained fixed ahead with an intensity that made it seem as though they weren’t watching Sylas die at all, but waiting for the moment he inevitably did something that made everyone else feel foolish for believing he would.

They had seen that moment too many times.

The humanoid raised its fist again.

**

Within the emptiness where Sylas’ consciousness had been compressed almost to nothing, the distant Dragon concept remained beneath his grasp, too immense and complete for what little of him remained to hold.

Voidborn Wisdom changed that problem without making his mind feel faster or louder, allowing him to pull on the thought until its edges began separating, then fracture it further until what had once been an impossible whole became pieces small enough for him to understand.

Age. Patience. Memory. Authority earned through the weight of time rather than demanded through force.

Sylas took hold of those fragments, and something inside the void answered.

A sliver of his Will returned first, followed by another so faint that Judgment should have crushed them the moment they surfaced, yet the ceiling did nothing. The strands continued weaving together beneath the influence of that foreign Dragon Will, and Sylas understood the reason almost as soon as he felt his existence begin to expand again.

Judgment didn’t understand it.

The ceiling above Earth knew Dragon Will, but it knew the Dragon that had developed beneath this universe and the beliefs that had accumulated beneath its Heaven. What Sylas had reached through the void had never existed here, which meant the Judgment Will had no foundation from which to define it, let alone suppress it.

Sylas pulled harder.

His senses burst back into existence so suddenly that lightning, Aether, Will, and space all crashed into his perception at once. Voidborn Wisdom sorted the flood before it could overwhelm him, and only then did Sylas notice the white-gold fist already descending toward the surviving half of his skull.

Black bone grew from the remnants of his shoulder and formed an arm before the strike landed. His fist met the humanoid’s, shattered from the knuckles to the shoulder, rebuilt itself before the enemy could finish pressing through, then shattered again as Sylas forced more Dragon Will into the reconstruction.

The third arm lasted longer.

The fourth stopped the fist.

Sylas hovered there with barely half a skull and enough bones to suggest the beginning of a torso, his newly formed fist pressed against the humanoid’s while Judgment descended from above in a fresh wave. The pressure searched through the foreign Will, probing it for meaning and attempting to force it into a shape the ceiling could recognize, but the moment Sylas felt the first signs of understanding begin to form, he abandoned that version of Dragon entirely.

Voidborn Wisdom reached elsewhere.

A different Dragon surfaced in his perception, one curled atop wealth so vast that possession itself had become inseparable from its existence. Sylas didn’t attempt to comprehend the entire concept. He pulled free only the portion he needed, and the Dragon Will flowing through his reconstructed arm changed before Judgment could finish adapting.

Greed.

The humanoid’s next blow cracked his forearm without destroying it, and Sylas used the opening to drive his other fist through the creature’s chest. Lightning scattered from its back, only for the ceiling to begin correcting the weakness almost immediately, but Sylas had already reached through the void again.

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