Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2468

Chapter 2468: Chain

Cassarae was calmer than she thought she should have been, especially with Tomoe’s sword already close enough that its grey-black light reflected across her eyes.

One hand had found its way to her belly without conscious thought, resting over the child growing there while the other remained wrapped around the Executioner’s Blade, but there was no panic in her chest and no desperate search for some last-second escape.

Instead, of all things, Cassarae found herself thinking about swords.

Before the Executioner’s Blade ever appeared, she had already used one, and back then she had thought she was pretty damn good considering she had no guidance.

There had been something freeing about it, a faint rhythm and song that settled into her head whenever the steel moved through her hands, and while she wouldn’t have called it Sword Will back then, she knew now that something had been there.

That had been around the same time she met Olivia, back when this world was so new to them that everyday was just another brush with death. Cassarae had gone out carrying an ordinary sword and returned with Olivia beside her, and sometime during that trip, when she and Olivia had been on the brink of death once again, the Executioner’s Blade had simply appeared before her at a critical moment.

At the time, Cassarae had considered that incredible Luck.

She had never stopped to ask why the sword had chosen her, and there hadn’t been much time to wonder about it anyway when Casstle Main barely survived one disaster before another arrived.

She had people depending on her, enemies circling her territory, and eventually an entire Earth that seemed determined to collapse faster than anyone could repair it, so when a weapon appeared that made her stronger immediately, Cassarae did the obvious thing and used it.

The strange part was that the song in her head began fading almost from the moment she did.

Her old sword had never given her anywhere near the same power, but holding it had felt lighter in a way she could no longer properly remember. The Executioner’s Blade gave her Strength, let her convert Will into stamina and Constitution, grew alongside her, and seemed to provide exactly what she needed whenever she reached another wall, so questioning why the sword itself felt worse in her hands seemed ridiculous when everything else about it was better.

Then Sylas started pulling away from her.

Not emotionally, annoyingly enough. That probably would have been easier to deal with. But, instead, in strength.

Every time Cassarae improved enough to feel proud of herself, Sylas seemed to take another absurd leap forward, and with Earth constantly under threat she had no interest in throwing away the easiest path available to her just because some faint feeling from years ago told her she had once enjoyed swinging a worse sword more.

So she relied on the Executioner’s Blade more, and the song became quieter until she eventually stopped listening for it at all. By then, turning around would have meant admitting that years of progress had carried her farther away from whatever she had originally touched, and Cassarae had far too much pride for that when continuing forward still made her stronger.

Yet here she was. Still behind.

Defeating one of Xarvenya’s clones had felt damn good, and Cassarae had enjoyed every second of proving that she wasn’t just Sylas Grimblade’s wife trailing along behind him.

But she knew perfectly well that clone hadn’t represented Xarvenya’s true strength even then, and whatever gap existed back then had probably widened into something stupid by now.

Sylas was even worse. That asshole could make enough progress in a day to invalidate half the things Cassarae had been proud of the month before, but unlike almost everyone else, she had never confused that ability with perfection.

Sylas was human, with desires he pretended were calculations, hopes he buried beneath plans, mistakes he corrected so quickly people forgot he had made them, and more faults than he would ever willingly admit.

Maybe that was why Cassarae had always understood something about him that others didn’t, and maybe it was why she had never felt particularly threatened by the women who somehow kept appearing around him.

Sylas probably hadn’t consciously realized it himself, but Cassarae was fairly certain he loved her more than anyone else because she was one of the few people who never needed him to be the version of himself everyone else saw.

Maybe this was simply another mistake.

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