Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1459: Maybe

”The only way to rest is by successfully making it to the safe houses, but weʼre only going to spawn in one so luckily at the start. After clearing this Event, weʼll have to get to the next one the old-fashioned way.”

While she said this, Neyara didnʼt seem to notice the oddity here at all—the fact that Sylas hadnʼt spawned in the safe house along with them like he should have.

But this left Sylas with more questions than answers. Even if he did have immunity to being immediately picked out by the Quicktime Event, there was no reason it should impact his teleportation as well.

“Someone is interfering with my existence in the tower, they just didnʼt expect that doing so wouldnʼt throw me into the line of fire like they expected. But who can do something ike that?”

Was it the other Primus Imperium?

Maybe.

Was it the system itself?

Also maybe.

Was it a third party?

That was also a maybe.

Sylas didnʼt have enough information, he just felt that something was very odd about this. It was obvious enough why someone would try and do things like they had. If things had worked out as they expected, Sylas would have been attacked from the very first minute. In addition, if they were messing with Sylasʼ teleportation, they might have also expected Sylas to be disoriented and confused when he came out as well.

Being teleported into the safe house was obviously a method of ensuring everyone had enough time to recover from the long-distance teleportation, while Sylas obviously didnʼt need such a thing.

However... was that really all?

Were they just trying to tire him out so that—

Sylasʼ eyes flashed as he thought of something. He was a fool.

Was he really being targeted? Or was he being helped?

He had almost forgotten one key part to all of this. The map in his notification screen. The map had never implied that he would have to enter a Dungeon to make it here, though it may very well have. What if the map actually had a method of allowing him to enter the Tower of Champions without the help of the system in the first place?

It had to be remembered that the map was a reward not of the impotent system, but of the Legendary System. And now that Sylas thought about it, this Dungeon was not like the others he had ever entered.

What if the Tower of Champions was a remnant from how the Legendary System had once done things?

Something like multiple teams entering the same Dungeon and competing against each other... when was the last time Sylas had heard of something like that again?

Wasnʼt it when he entered the Split Realm hidden in the Mountains of Giza?

An idea suddenly came to Sylas.

“If I had to guess, you mention hexagonal territories. So there are six territories we can enter from here, correct?”

Neyara blinked. ”Yes. Once we clear this Event, we can decide which direction to go, but entering a new territory will trigger a new Event. And sometimes, it might be a territory another team is in, so it will trigger a special Survival Event where only one team can make it through alive.”

”And itʼs a race to the next floors?” Sylas asked again.

”Yes. The point of the Events is to find the entrance to the next floor. Every time a team enters it, the location changes and it can either end up closer to us or further away, but itʼs impossible to tell exactly where it would be.

“It can take years to play out just a single floor, but usually there are three floors to make it through where the scope gets smaller and smaller, not to mention more dangerous.” Sylas could tell why Neyara was shivering with so much fear right now.

The difference between this Event and the preliminaries was that there were actual rewards this time, which was good. But because of the nature of this Event, it screwed over everyone from the weaker Horizons.

The system had changed the scale so that even an F-graded monster would have six- digit stats, whereas the geniuses from the Milky Way Horizon would only have five digits at best. Their enemies were easily five or more times stronger than them.

How were they supposed to do anything?

At best, they could just sit in this safe house for a few years until the Tower of Champions crowned a winner and they could finally leave.

After all the hope she had built up, this was an unfortunate result for Neyara. She wanted more for herself, but she wasnʼt going to throw herself to the wolves just because.

Even a single reward from the Tower of Champions could be life-changing. But this... This was too unfair.

”Mm.” Sylas nodded slowly. ”Wait here.”

After saying this, Sylas turned and left without a word.

Neyaraʼs gaze flickered as she looked toward everyone else, but in the end, she shook her head.

As a Primus Imperium, Sylas wasnʼt allowed to hide from an enemy he knew of the existence of, so she didnʼt think much of it. She could only hope he didnʼt die.

Even if they did stay here, if another team came into their territory, they could still lose their lives if they were particularly sinister. This safe house was large enough to house many people, but this world liked to devour the weak too much... she couldnʼt place her hopes in people being reasonable.

However, she would never be able to guess the scene outside.

Sylas walked right through the spawned minions. Though his steps were slow, the ground seemed to warp around them, sending him forward kilometers at a time.

The world here was too easy for him to manipulate. He had expected something different from the earlier challenge, but it seemed he had thought too much.

This world was also formed of F-Grade Runes.

It didnʼt take Sylas more than a dozen or so steps to make it to the end of his first territory. He pressed a hand forward and felt a reflective glass shudder.

Then, he actually passed right through even without clearing the Event first.