Chapter 2365: Command the Skies (3)

The moment that first scale dimmed, the balance of the battle changed.

Sylas didn’t need a second exchange to understand why. The Life and Death Seals were born from the Reaper Sealwright Profession, built around the understanding of Genes belonging to both the living and the long dead, then taking that understanding and turning it into suppression, restriction, extraction, or whatever other use Sylas chose to impose.

That made the feathered Serpentes almost uniquely vulnerable.

The Runes covering his feathers weren’t constructs he drew himself, nor were they techniques layered over his body through study. They were direct expressions of his Genes pushed outward into the world, his bloodline writing itself across every emerald-gold feather until his natural Heaven Rune Creation became both his greatest weapon and, against Sylas, the largest opening he could possibly provide.

Sylas watched another feather flare and understood more.

Every Rune the God activated exposed another fragment of the Gene structure beneath it, giving the Life Seal more information about the living foundation supporting his power. If he stopped using those Runes and pulled everything inward, he could protect himself from Sylas’ analysis, but then he would lose the very advantage that allowed him to contend with Sylas at all.

The Serpentes understood the trap almost as quickly.

His feathers folded closer to his body, Rune output dropping sharply as he rushed forward behind a concentrated beam of violet-white light. Sylas stepped aside, external Runes forming beneath his fingers while telekinesis sank into the Core Stat Runes of his Genes, and the moment the God tried to reinforce his tail for the follow-up strike, another section of his plumage dimmed.

Sylas’ scythe carved through it.

Blood sprayed across the skies.

The God twisted away with a roar, slamming atmosphere into Sylas from every direction while thousands of feathers attempted to reignite at once. That gave Sylas thousands more samples to read, and the Life Seal rotated behind his eyes as he began suppressing one cluster after another before their full strength could manifest.

The Serpentes’ expression twisted. He could feel himself being dismantled.

Every exchange made the next one worse, because Sylas wasn’t merely learning his battle style or predicting his attacks. He was learning the foundation beneath them, reading the Genes responsible for every feather, every Rune, and every natural command of the skies until parts of the God’s own body began refusing him.

He stopped attacking. For a fraction of a second, all of his Runes contracted inward.

Then he turned and fled.

The skies exploded behind him as his feathers released a violent burst of force, his body crossing thousands of kilometers before the sound could follow. Sylas watched him go with the same cold expression he had worn throughout the battle, then stepped once through folded space and appeared directly in front of him.

The Serpentes nearly crashed into his scythe.

He twisted at the last moment, but Sylas’ free hand struck his chest, telekinesis reinforcing the blow while several Core Stat Runes surged in perfect synchronization. The impact folded the God’s body around Sylas’ palm and sent him crashing downward hard enough to split a floating continent beneath them.

He erupted from the debris almost immediately.

"You—!"

Sylas was already descending.

The Life Seal flashed.

Several feathers across the Serpentes’ back went dark at once, and when he tried to raise the atmosphere into a shield, the formation collapsed before it could fully take shape. Sylas’ scythe slammed into his shoulder and tore through layered Rune Armor, forcing him deeper into the broken land.

The God understood then that ordinary escape was impossible and his eyes reddened. He didn’t understand how there could be such a strong Rune Master.

He knew too much to give all of this credit over to Sylas’ Profession. No Profession could possibly be this broken on its own.

A scale near the base of his neck suddenly inverted.

Sylas’ gaze sharpened as something ancient unfolded from beneath it, a second layer of scales emerging over the Serpentes’ body that didn’t belong to him at all. Their texture was older, darker, carrying Wills that had long since lost the spark of life, and the instant they appeared his damaged Rune Armor stabilized under a completely different authority.

The Serpentes vanished again. But this time, Sylas didn’t immediately pursue.

His Death Seal rotated.

The inherited scales weren’t merely treasures grafted onto the God’s body, because they carried preserved remnants of ancestral Genes, pieces of deceased members of his bloodline that had been passed down and fused into the living. To another opponent, it might have looked like an entirely new defense appearing from nowhere.

To the Reaper Sealwright, it was simply another door, and the Death Seal opened it.

Black and emerald markings rippled across Sylas’ palm before spreading outward, and the inherited scales covering the fleeing Serpentes trembled. One dimmed, then another followed, until the ancestral protection he had relied upon began collapsing in sequence.

"No!"

The God staggered in midflight.

Sylas appeared behind him.

His hand closed around the Serpentes’ tail and stopped his escape so violently that space ruptured around them. He swung the enormous body downward, smashed him through the remains of another floating landmass, then dragged him back up before he could recover.

"If I had my full strength, you wouldn’t stand a chance!" the Serpentes roared, blood spilling from between his teeth. "You think this means anything when I’m forced to fight at a fraction of what I am?"

Sylas didn’t answer. There was nothing useful in the complaint.

His telekinesis tightened around the God’s body while the Life and Death Seals overlapped, living Genes and inherited ancestral remnants appearing before Sylas like layers waiting to be separated. If he took the Serpentes alive for even a short while, he could learn far more about the boundary between Demi-God and God than killing him outright would provide.

The feathered Serpentes felt the pressure closing around him and finally understood that Sylas wasn’t merely preparing to kill him.

He was going to capture him.

Panic broke through his fury and the last of his restraint disappeared.

A mark hidden beneath the feathers at the center of his chest ignited, and the entire Mesmeryx world seemed to shrink beneath the presence that descended from somewhere far beyond it.

Clouds collapsed, oceans sank against their basins, and even Sylas’ telekinetic grip loosened as a vast ancestral aura pressed through the boundaries of the Plane.

A voice laughed from above.

"So this is what you’ve been reduced to?"

The feathered Serpentes ground his teeth but lowered his head slightly.

"Ancestor."

The presence continued descending until the faint outline of another colossal feathered Serpentes formed across the heavens, its body stretching farther than the eye could easily follow.

"Struggling this badly against a mortal, and here I thought your generation was supposed to make me proud."

The younger God swallowed the humiliation without protest.

The ancestor’s gaze shifted toward Sylas.

"Do you want me to kill him?"

The feathered Serpentes’ head snapped up.

"No." His voice came out as a growl. "I’ll take his head myself."

Silence followed for a moment before the ancestor laughed again, this time with clear approval.

"Not bad."

The enormous presence turned fully toward Sylas.

"Then I won’t kill him." The heavens darkened beneath his gaze. "But I still need to teach him a lesson for taking things this far."