Chapter 2371: Dividing Line

What was the dividing line between humanoid and Beast?

Sylas had thought about the question countless times before, though never from this particular angle. Beasts relied on bloodline, Talent, and instinct to a far greater degree, while humanoids were expected to comprehend what they wielded and carve their own paths forward, but the distinction had never been absolute.

There would always be humanoid fools who leaned so heavily on Talent that they were little different from Beasts, just as there would always be Beast geniuses capable of stepping beyond what their bloodlines had prepared for them.

Yet there was only one reason Sylas had suddenly thought of Beasts now.

His gaze returned to Nosphaleen.

Everything about her had been reconstructed, her existence twisted into the Goddess the Efivara believed in while some unknown hand reshaped her Virtue, her Karma, and even the way the world itself perceived her.

Despite all of that, they had kept the Mesmeryx portion of her existence intact, even though the Mesmeryx were hardly some pinnacle Serpentes bloodline valuable enough to justify protecting at all costs.

Why?

Sylas’ thoughts shifted toward something else he had accepted for far too long without questioning.

Slithering Madness.... Scurrying Madness...

Every manifestation of Madness he had encountered followed the same pattern, regardless of how different their abilities or appearances became. They were all Beasts.

Why were the representations of Madness always Beasts?

More importantly, if Madness manifested through Beasts, why was its lineage accessible to humanoids at all? Sylas had seen humanoids carry Madness Seeds and interact with their power, yet he couldn’t remember ever seeing a Beast develop a Madness Seed of its own.

The temperature inside the oasis plummeted.

This wasn’t some vague pressure caused by the change in Sylas’ expression, nor an illusion born from his killing intent. Frost began crawling along the edges of the lotus beneath Nosphaleen while the warm mist hanging above the water crystallized into tiny shards, and goosebumps rose across her soft skin despite the control she possessed over her body, yet Sylas barely noticed.

He had learned more about the Fate Dragon in recent months than he had ever expected to know, enough to finally understand the enormous concept hidden beneath something he had once treated as little more than another mysterious Beast. Even now, though, he still hadn’t uncovered any meaningful clues about the Phoenix that had appeared alongside it.

The Fate Dragon represented dominance, not merely in the crude sense of strength, but the accumulation of enough Will and belief to force one interpretation of existence above all others. Its path sought to become the Dragon that stood over every Dragon across Spacetime, until the very concept itself bent around its existence.

The Phoenix had appeared under very different circumstances.

Its emergence had coincided with what was essentially the rebirth of Earth’s people, a moment when countless new Spark Masters awakened and trajectories that should have remained fixed suddenly changed.

Even the word Spark felt difficult to ignore now, considering what a Phoenix represented across so many myths: life emerging again, change born from destruction, and something small blooming into an entirely new beginning.

One represented dominance. The other represented hope for change. But neither concept was inherently good.

Dominance could become oppression when pushed far enough, twisting everything beneath it until no competing possibility was allowed to exist. Hope could become just as poisonous in another direction, convincing people to surrender everything they already possessed for the promise that something better waited just beyond their reach.

The connection felt tenuous enough that Sylas should have discarded it. Instead, his mind latched onto it with frightening intensity.

His gaze dropped toward his hand once more, piercing inward until he could see the golden pathways left behind by his blooming Seeds. Their roots stretched through him in branching networks, splitting again and again as they descended through his Layers until they looked less like veins and more like the spreading limbs and roots of an enormous tree.

A memory surfaced.

There was an old legend surrounding the phoenix and the wutong, the Chinese parasol tree. The phoenix was said to be so noble that it would perch only upon the wutong, choosing that tree alone as the place worthy of carrying it.

A Phoenix and a tree. One descended upon the other.

Sylas stared at the branching structures buried through his existence, and suddenly the idea of Seeds blooming, taking root, and spreading deeper no longer felt like arbitrary terminology.

If the Phoenix represented the force of change, then perhaps the tree wasn’t merely symbolism surrounding the Seed system at all, but the structure meant to receive something once it had grown far enough.

Madness manifested as Beasts, and yet the Seeds appeared in humanoids. Why was it that he had never seen a Madness Seed in a beast? Was Slithering Madness even a Gluttony Seed wielder? Or did he just represent it alone? What was the difference? What was the answer?

Separate pieces that had seemed unrelated began sliding against one another, and Sylas felt the outline of something far larger without yet possessing enough information to see its complete shape. For the first time he had started looking at them as a structure someone had deliberately designed.

’Is that so...’

Sylas waved a hand.

Nosphaleen felt a gentle force wrap around her body before lifting her from the lotus, giving her no opportunity to resist even though the pressure itself carried no violence. She rose onto her feet and then moved forward until Sylas pulled her directly into his arms.

Her body stiffened. For the first time since he entered the oasis, Nosphaleen’s mind seemed to go completely blank. ℯ

She looked up at Sylas from within his embrace, the strange calm she had maintained beginning to fracture as her heartbeat quickened beneath the translucent scales covering her skin.

Somehow, after sitting naked before him without the slightest concern from the moment he arrived, this was the first time Nosphaleen became keenly aware that she wasn’t wearing anything at all.