Chapter 2464: Except for One

Gros Tera appeared at the opposite end of the lobby as the challenge formation finished sealing the space around them. Black markings ran from his wrists beneath the sleeves of his robes, and every time his Will stirred, the Mesh of Reality around those markings seemed to settle beneath an invisible weight.

Sylas recognized the principle almost immediately, having seen a far simpler Hell Rune built around the same idea during his first visit to the Creation Tower.

Gros had taken that principle and turned it into a Path, using Runic weight to decide which portions of a structure the rest would be forced to accommodate. It suited the Sage Heaven well, especially with its long tradition of Decoders and Rune Masters who specialized in dismantling the work of others. Whether it was good enough to matter here was another question.

He likely had no idea that Sylas had deduced his path the moment he walked in.

"So you’re Sylas Grimblade." Gros looked him over with a faint smile. "The Ancestor told me all about what happened the last time you came here, but I wonder how much of that confidence remains now that the Creation Tower isn’t protecting you anymore."

Sylas didn’t respond, and Gros’ smile sharpened as he spread his hands toward the empty lobby around them.

"I’d like to see you kick the Tera Clan out again without the Tower doing it for you." He waited several seconds before realizing Sylas had no intention of answering him.

The floor beneath them lit up before Gros could continue, splitting into two equal fields as the rules of the challenge appeared overhead. Rather than pitting their Runes directly against one another, the Tower would give them three problems and judge how well their respective Paths solved them. Completion perfection came first, while speed would only matter if their results were otherwise equal.

—

[Authority Challenge Initiated]

[Challenge Type: Path Contest]

[Three Trials will be generated.]

[Victory Conditions:]

[Higher Completion Perfection]

[If Completion Perfection is equal: Lower Completion Time]

[Two victories are required.]

—

Gros glanced over the rules and seemed satisfied with what he saw. "Good. At least there won’t be any excuses when this is over."

Sylas’ attention had already shifted away from him as the first Trial began forming between them.

A single C-tier Rune appeared inside a transparent sphere, only for its internal structure to begin shifting before it fully settled. Changes in the surrounding Mesh kept forcing small adjustments through the Rune, and each correction created new relationships that caused further changes elsewhere.

The task was simple enough to understand: stabilize the Rune without destroying its function, while making as few unnecessary alterations as possible.

Gros moved first, sending several black Runes into the Mesh surrounding the sphere rather than touching the unstable structure itself. Whenever one portion shifted too far, he increased the Runic weight surrounding it, forcing nearby sections to reorganize around that point before moving the pressure elsewhere.

The method was clean, and after a little over thirteen seconds, the entire structure settled.

—

[Gros Tera]

[Completion Perfection: 99.47%]

[Completion Time: 13.22 seconds]

—

Gros looked toward Sylas as soon as the result appeared, but Sylas had already finished understanding the problem. There weren’t thousands of separate instabilities inside the Rune; there were four relationships repeatedly feeding changes back into one another. He altered those four points and let the structure settle on its own.

—

[Sylas Grimblade]

[Completion Perfection: 100%]

[Completion Time: 13.25 seconds]

—

Gros’ expression stiffened while the first Trial disappeared beneath his feet. Sylas didn’t look at him, because the result hadn’t surprised him enough to warrant it. The second Trial began almost immediately afterward.

Thousands of C-tier Runes unfolded across the lobby, connecting through channels of Aether that ran through the floor, walls, and several larger nodes suspended overhead.

One section failed before the formation finished stabilizing, forcing too much Aether into another channel and starting a cascade that spread farther with every new break. Within seconds, failures were appearing across almost every layer of the formation.

Gros reacted much faster this time, spreading his Graveweight Hell Path through the larger nodes before the damage could move much farther.

He increased the weight of stable channels to draw excess Aether toward them, reduced the burden on weaker sections, and then used the strongest parts of the formation as anchors while everything else reorganized.

Sylas watched indifferently.

—

[Gros Tera]

[Completion Perfection: 99.91%]

[Completion Time: 24.71 seconds]

—

Only after the result appeared did Gros finally look across the formation and notice that Sylas had yet to move. Something changed in his expression then, a flicker of relief that he failed to hide quickly enough. He seemed to believe the larger scale had finally given him the advantage.

But Sylas had simply been watching.

Most of the failures in front of them weren’t independent problems, but consequences spreading from eleven original errors, and ten of those existed because the first had altered the pressure moving through the rest of the formation. Sylas changed that Rune, corrected the connection beside it so the restored Aether wouldn’t overshoot in the opposite direction, then returned his hands to the pockets of his trench coat. The rest of the formation repaired itself from there.

—

[Sylas Grimblade]

[Completion Perfection: 100%]

[Completion Time: 24.01 seconds]

[Challenge Victory]

[Authority Defended]

—

Gros stared at the result as the challenge space began to dissolve around him. Whatever he had expected when he came here, it clearly hadn’t included losing two Trials before Sylas had bothered to speak to him once.

Sylas was already looking toward the deeper sections of the God Plane’s Creation Tower by the time Gros began fading from the lobby, as though he was impatient for the next challenge to come down.

His message hadn’t been sent yet, not by a long shot. If this was the best that they could send forth, then his enemies were in for a terribly rude awakening.

**

A thin cut opened across the skies of Earth and widened just enough for Tomoe to step through.

She landed near the edge of a cliff with the Executioner’s Blade resting across one shoulder, her blood-red eyes sweeping the land below as she searched for the presence she had followed here.

Sylas’ trail had been clear enough at first, but somewhere near Earth it had disappeared beneath layers she couldn’t immediately peel apart.

Tomoe found herself overlooking one of the Grimblade courtyards, where Cassarae and Xarvenya were reclining beneath the open sky with enough food spread around them to feed several people. Cassarae looked up first, irritation crossing her face at the sudden intrusion, while Xarvenya’s attention settled on Tomoe with far more care. Tomoe barely noticed either reaction before the Executioner’s Blade resting against her shoulder gave a low vibration.

Her eyes shifted back to Cassarae.

There was something woven through the woman’s aura that Tomoe knew immediately, the same Execution path she had followed across the universe and cut down wherever she found it. She had always thought she had killed all the others until she met Sylas and realized one trace remained, but no matter how widely she spread her senses, that final presence had somehow stayed hidden from her...

Until now.

Tomoe lowered the Executioner’s Blade from her shoulder and looked at Cassarae properly now, her earlier disinterest fading slightly.