Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2469

Chapter 2469: Bucket [Bonus]

[Bonus thanks to Chronotitan <3]

For several seconds, no one moved.

Isolde’s face had gone completely white, her eyes fixed on the two halves of Cassarae’s body as though refusing to accept what they were showing her. Cedric stood beside her with his mouth slightly open, one hand lifting without purpose before falling again because there was nothing within reach for him to grab, nothing he could pull his daughter-in-law back from.

The last time he had watched Sylas get hurt, his son had escaped two S-tiers with half his Will torn apart and still looked his parents in the eyes and insisted that he would be fine. Cedric had thought him reckless then, wondered how many times Sylas planned to nearly kill himself before accepting that there were people waiting for him at home, but as Cassarae’s blood spread across the courtyard he understood the other side of that conversation in a way he wished he never had to.

This was what Sylas kept running toward before it could reach them.

Isolde made a broken sound beside him and Cedric reached for her, but she slipped past his arm and took a step toward Cassarae before stopping again. Her gaze had fallen to the hand that had been resting against Cassarae’s belly only moments earlier, and whatever fragile denial remained on her face collapsed with it.

Xarvenya hadn’t moved either.

Blood still stained her lips from the Heaven System’s punishment, but she seemed to have forgotten the pain entirely. Her eyes remained fixed upon the ruined body before her, and the silence in her expression carried something far worse than shock. Grief, helplessness, guilt... she had been right here, with more power in her fingertips than anyone else on this world could fathom, and yet she had still failed.

...

Elsewhere in the city, Geraldene Hale looked up from the book open across her lap.

She didn’t know what caught her attention, only that something had changed, causing every thought in her head to disappear at once. A tear rolled down her cheek before she even realized she was crying, and Paul frowned from the opposite side of the room as he crossed toward her and wiped it away with his thumb.

"What’s wrong?"

Geraldene touched the moisture left along her cheek and stared at her fingertips for a long moment. "I don’t know."

Paul waited. Thirty years of marriage had taught him when another question would help and when it wouldn’t. Geraldene closed the book without marking the page, then rose from her chair with a discomfort sitting beneath her ribs that refused to leave no matter how many times she told herself there was nothing wrong.

"I haven’t seen my baby girl in too long. Let’s go visit today."

"We saw her two days ago."

Geraldene looked at him.

Paul held her gaze for perhaps half a second before reaching a hand toward her. "We can go now."

...

Several streets away, Olivia stopped in the middle of tightening the bindings around her wrist.

A frown pulled across her face as she looked toward the center of the city, though there had been no sound loud enough to reach her and nothing obvious had changed in the Aether around her. But even if there had been, there was so much commotion between everything Sylas got up to and Earth being attacked every other week that she might not have been able to tell the difference.

She’d usually have the same thought she always had... Sylas will handle it. But this time...

She pressed one hand against her chest, waiting for the strange discomfort to pass. Then her frown deepened when it didn’t.

...

Back in the courtyard, blood continued spreading between the broken stones.

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