Genetic Ascension

Bendazi ripped his arms down to break free of Sylas, the dagger aiming for the latter’s neck still arching down with menace.

Sylas’ expression became deathly cold.

He didn’t have time for this. If you were inferior, admit it.

Sylas’ telekinesis increased in strength, his grip on Bendazi’s arm strengthening.

With a kick, he targeted Bendazi’s knee, bending it in the wrong direction. The Ravult Race leader had already been pulling all his weight down in an attempt to pull free of Sylas. The instant he lost this pivot point, his entire body came crashing down.

A pillar of telekinesis fell from above, smashing him even further into the ground as Sylas released his hands, pressing a foot onto his head.

“This is your last chance,” Sylas said coldly.

Sylas didn’t want to kill if he didn’t have to, not because he had grown soft, but instead because doing so would cause issues.

This group was the strongest aside from the obvious two stragglers. Killing those here would cause problems in two ways.

First, it would give Kraziel and Veyric easy access to join, and it would weaken his control over the current group. If the little girl was right and he could trigger things to move forward ahead of time, then Kraziel and Veyric might not even get a chance to challenge in the first place.

However, if he had to kill…

Bendazi roared, his strength increasing again.

“Die.”

Sylas didn’t have the patience, a flash of emerald coming from his foot as he pressed down. There was a spark of green lightning and a sudden explosion of strength.

Bendazi’s head was splattered across the ground.

How exactly would you increase your Physical stats if you were dead?

The eyes of the other Ravult Race members blazed with light, their Wills flaming like torches in the midst of the mist of blood.

Sylas was about to challenge them when something flickered in his Luck.

Spatial Runes suddenly wrapped around him and he vanished as a blade passed through where he had just stood.

Bendazi’s head snapped back together as though his flesh and blood were made of magnets.

But where had that dagger come from just now?

Sylas could tell by the Will that it was Bendazi, but he had been beneath his foot at the time, and Sylas also didn’t feel like it was a use of spatial techniques either. He would definitely be able to tell.

Telekinesis? Something similar to Aetherflow?

Sylas’ eyes narrowed as Bendazi jumped up with a howl to the skies, blood running down his face as it reconstructed itself.

With a breath, Sylas closed his eyes. He was overreaching, and he knew it. It wasn’t a matter of fighting those that were stronger than him, but rather him not using his mind enough to win in clever ways because he was powerful enough to do without it.

This wasn’t enough.

He was better than this.

When his eyes flashed open once again, a dagger was already at his nose as though to split his head in two right down his ear line.

Sylas’ eyes sparked with lightning.

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The world slowed, an ebb and flow of Aether crushing the Runes in the surroundings until Bendazi found himself completely and entirely frozen in space. In his mind, he felt like he was still moving, but the gap of a mere few inches between himself and Sylas had somehow become so large that all of his momentum died out before he closed it by even a single centimeter.

Sylas reached a finger forward as Bendazi stumbled. It looked almost like the latter had come to die all on his own, his body collapsing into Sylas’ movement.

Chi.

The sound was so subtle, but the emerald lightning that erupted from Bendazi’s pores was anything but. In an instant, he looked like he had become a flashbang of cascading, branching bolts. From the far-off distance, it would have almost seemed as though an ancient tree without a single leaf on it had suddenly appeared for a brief moment before vanishing from sight.

Bendazi froze, his previous howl hanging in the air, still echoing into the distance and reverberating across the crimson dome.

Reaching a hand forward, Sylas grabbed his head, the claws of his hand stretching out before he squeezed.

This time, Bendazi stayed dead. The Ravult’s skull was crushed before their eyes; all that was left was a pair of eyes, white orbs radiating a pulsing white fog even now.

Sylas looked at them for a long while.

He had no need for F-Grade eyes, not when he had already upgraded his own to the D-Grade. However, these eyes… The crimson dome pulsed as the number requirement fell short by one. The Ravults that remained—two to be specific—looked toward Sylas with horror, and then fury.

They howled themselves and launched forward. But Sylas’ eyes only pulsed a single time.

Jagged bolts of lightning condensed into zigzagging lasers and pierced one of them through completely.

He froze, a hole forming in his body right at the center of his chest. He coughed up a mouthful of blood—or rather, he tried, but it instead came out as more sparks that wilted the crimson liquid to ash.

He fell to his knees, his eyes dimming as Sylas threw the pair of eyes in his hand to the side.

The third and last of the Ravults froze in place. When he saw Sylas’ challenge being issued, his expression turned white as ash, but he immediately gave up, hoping Sylas wouldn’t bother him.

And he got his wish. Sylas didn’t even spare him a second glance, his eyes finally turning to land on Dusk, the red-skinned young man who had almost challenged him at the very start of it all.

Seeing the challenge, Dusk’s soul practically left his body and he didn’t hesitate to give in either, leaving just one left.

The figure’s face was obscured, wearing a tattered cloak that seemed to have seen better days. The only visible parts of them were their hands and feet, both wrapped in bandages that seemed soaked in rusted splotches of color.