Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2474

Chapter 2474: Challenge Issued (1)

Sylas had lost on purpose. The decision came the instant Tomoe crossed Earth’s outer defenses without disturbing a single layer of the formation wrapped around the planet, appearing inside protections that should have rejected her without giving Sylas so much as a warning.

The Void was the only explanation, though it wasn’t like Sylas’ expression of the concept and Tomoe had shown nothing like it during their battle in the World of Spirits. He had watched her Formless Will invade Aether, blur the distinction between herself and her surroundings, and turn almost anything within reach into an extension of her sword, yet this application had escaped him entirely.

Sylas had already gone through every reasonable explanation by the time he recognized what she had done. Tomoe could have concealed it from him during their battle, developed it afterward, or arrived at it through some interaction between Formless Will and the Void that Sylas had yet to understand, but none of those possibilities changed the fact that she had walked through Earth’s defenses.

His Pride Seed tightened faintly within his chest, and Sylas recognized the sensation before it grew strong enough to distract him.

The last time his Pride had begun to give beneath its own weight had been after Nosphaleen died by Cassarae’s hand, when mistake after mistake forced Sylas to confront the gap between what he expected from himself and what he had actually managed to accomplish.

He had come out of that period demanding more of himself, not less. Sylas could accept that no person had perfect information and that some failures could only be understood after they occurred, but he had refused to turn either truth into an excuse he could hide behind whenever someone paid for one of his decisions.

Now Tomoe was standing on Earth, and the first failure had already presented itself. Sylas had fought her personally, studied her Will at close range, watched the way she interpreted the world through her sword, and still failed to recognize a method she could use to bypass the strongest defenses he had ever built.

He had considered weaving his own Void Path into Earth’s formation long before today, then discarded the idea once he understood the scale of what such a change would require. The First Race’s structure reached through Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, land, and surrounding star system, while Sylas’ own Void comprehension still lacked the foundation necessary to support something so large without compromising everything connected to it.

At C-tier, forcing his Path into the underlying structure would create more openings than it closed, and Sylas estimated that B-tier was the bare minimum before he could even begin making those changes safely. The calculation remained correct even now, yet the correctness of the calculation did nothing to alter the result it had produced.

Tomoe had found the weakness Sylas knowingly left untouched, even if he had never expected anyone to exploit it this soon. His Pride Seed gave another slow pulse as that distinction settled into place, not enough to truly threaten him yet, but enough that Sylas refused to ignore it.

The Authority Challenge in front of him stopped mattering to him the moment he sensed her arrival. He had already solved the Rune structure placed before him, so instead of repairing its final connection he shifted one piece out of alignment and watched the entire formation collapse.

—

[You Have Lost]

—

The notification appeared exactly as Sylas intended, and the challenge space around him immediately began to dissolve. He only needed the tower to finish releasing him, after which Earth was a thought away.

The Creation Tower wasn’t tied to some distant physical location Sylas needed to travel toward, and with the authority he possessed he could access it from almost anywhere. Whether he could return quite as easily after leaving was uncertain, but between the tower and his wife, there wasn’t enough of a decision there to waste time.

The Rune floor beneath Sylas began fading into loose strands of light, only for another authority to press into the tower before the process completed. Those same strands reversed direction and wove themselves back together beneath his feet, rebuilding the challenge platform while a younger man’s laughter carried across the space.

"So this is Sylas Grimblade? Ancestor made you sound considerably more impressive."

Sylas looked over properly for the first time, taking in the deep-blue Creator robes and the white-gold cloud patterns moving across them. The man appeared to be somewhere in his twenties, though that meant almost nothing at this level, and the design of his robes was enough for Sylas to place his connection before the man introduced himself.

Heaven Ancestor Oura couldn’t enter this challenge himself, as C-tier was the absolute cap and the old man stood far beyond it. Sending one of the strongest descendants he could fit under the restriction accomplished almost the same thing without asking the tower to violate its own rules.

"Rheos." The young man touched two fingers to his chest, introducing himself. Then glanced toward the fading remnants of Sylas’ failed formation. "You can remember it if you manage to stay here long enough."

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