Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1817: Alone [Bonus]

Sylas cancelled his fusion with the Hollow Wing and it vanished with a flap of its wings, appearing so high in the skies that it could hardly be seen even by Sylas' own naked eye.

The Hibernation Realm didn't seem to have defined borders, or even a real sky. The ground beneath Sylas' feet somehow felt like it was formed more of Runes and energy than it did real, tangible soil. Despite this, it felt no less sturdy.

It was clear that the Hibernation Realm was not a real world. It only mirrored one. And because Sylas had neglected to try and truly define those edges, it was still basically a clay ball that had yet to be formed.

Very soon, that would change.

Honestly, he had expected a Demon or two to spawn. That was part of the reason why he was so curious to do things immediately. He wanted to understand what he was getting himself into before investing so much.

A City Defense wasn't a life or death matter if he didn't want it to be. Unlike most of the trouble Sylas got himself into, he could give up whenever he wanted.

The trouble with having a city that spawned Demons was obvious enough. The City Stele was a creation of the system and its abilities were even more reliant on it than any Profession or even Combat Mount.

If his city spawned Demons, Sylas would have to seriously reconsider whether he wanted to move forward.

But now it was unnecessary.

The other thing he was somewhat expecting-or maybe even hoping for-was for a few God Beasts to randomly spawn.

But it seemed he wasn't so lucky either.

According to his original thoughts, if Demons spawned, he would likely give up on the Legendary City Stele. It wasn't worth it.

If Demons spawned and God Beasts spawned, the risk would be worth it, and he would continue with the defense.

If God Beasts spawned and Demons didn't—which he had thought had likely the highest odds of happening—he would certainly continue with the defense.

Instead, he only received Humans.

Though he speculated that they might have the Grimblade Bloodline, he wouldn't be able to check for certain until he completed the City Defense and gained access to the full scope of abilities a City Lord would have.

This wasn't the most disappointing result, but it was close.

It made Sylas wonder where he had miscalculated. Usually, he wouldn't get something like this wrong.

It couldn't be that a Legendary City Stele was too weak to form God Beasts. There was no City Stele in existence stronger than it other than Unique Legendary City Steles.

Unique Legendary City Steles could be formed after the fact, though, by matching a City Stele with an appropriately Graded Fortress or other treasures of the like.

Even so, Sylas didn't believe the problem was the level of his City Stele.

'Gene Lock.'

The answer came to Sylas instantly.

The Legendary City Stele couldn't spawn any Azurex or God Beasts because they had their own protection against it. He had only ever thought about Gene Locks in relation to how they helped against the common people. But, what he had never considered was... How it helped protect against the system.

It made sense. When you were up against a nigh omnipotent existence that lorded over everything, that could spawn new versions of you whenever it wanted, why would you not protect against it?

The system was a truly shocking creation no matter how much people called it impotent.

If it was up to the system, it would constantly spawn the strongest creatures in all of existence and pit them against one another. All the system cared about was accelerating humanity to the pinnacle existence possible.

In that case, allowing the spawning of Gods made perfect sense.

It was no wonder, then, that Sylas wasn't sure whether they had the Grimblade Bloodline yet.

Even though he wasn't the City Lord, Sylas was still the Ancestor of the Grimblades. He should know his people when he saw them.

But between the Scorned Wraps and Reaper Sealwright, even though he hadn't actively given himself any protection against the system, in function he had a partial defense anyway.

The system could form the shell of the Grimblade Bloodline, and Sylas could easily allow the spawns to gain it whenever he wanted. But it wasn't able to take whatever it wanted.

Meaning, if Sylas wanted his City Stele to spawn Azurex...

'I'll have to do something about that personally.'

BOOM.

A hole was blown through reality.

Sylas sat at the top of the city walls, his gaze calm.

The sight of torn space was enough to make one feel as though they were staring into the abyss of an ocean. It felt so much larger than you, so much more powerful, so much more violent.

But Sylas couldn't feel much of anything as reality was torn as though a chainsaw had just ripped right through it.

The portal spun round and round, yet the first thing Sylas sensed was the roar that came afterward. He didn't see a single Azurex just yet, and yet he could feel them.

Pa.

Space popped and a single one appeared.

It snaked up, its aura radiating downward. It was only an F-tier, and yet it was larger than even Gogo and far more powerful.

Its roar shook the city walls and it felt like all the Aether in the air had become on the verge of going nuclear.

They split apart and heated up. As though watching fission reactions in real time, Sylas found it difficult even to control the Aether in his immediate surroundings.

The Azurex were strong to be sure.

However, this F-tier found itself looking around after a moment.

Why was it alone? Could only one enter the portal at a time?

And then came the pain.

Sylas still didn't move, but his Beast Totem appeared above his head. Its debuff didn't even hit the Azurex before something else hit it first.

BANG. BANG. BANG.