Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1915: Big

Was he really inside a creatureʼs body?

Sylas touched the walls again. They didnʼt feel like flesh in the slightest. If anything, on a second attempt-even while specifically looking for a fleshly feel-it felt even more inorganic than before.

Unless this was something beyond his understanding, these walls were real rock and stone.

Another oddity was that what kind of digestive system worked like this? Why were there pockets of acid instead of a whole stomach?

ʼJust how large is this creature?ʼ

Sylas knew the answer already. On a small enough scale, if you shrank down enough, even the human body might have pockets like this.

The stomach lining, and the intestines especially, were designed to maximize surface area. Many things in the body were like that. The lungs, for example, had veins designed to branch and shrink until you could finally get to a point where oxygen and CO2 could be exchanged with blood.

These things were matters that Sylas already understood back on Earth thanks to his studies. He had taken more biology classes than he cared to recall by now. At this point, though, his understanding of his own body was far beyond what anyone on Earth could have taught him.

The intestines especially were a lot like the lungs in this regard. They were where the nutrients broken down by the stomach were actually absorbed by the body.

As such, there were countless wrinkles, and wrinkles within wrinkles within them. If you shrank down to a compact enough scale, you might get to the point where you were looking at minerals you might very well confuse for rock or stone.

While it certainly wouldnʼt be as exaggerated as what Sylas was experiencing here, it was enough of an explanation that you could imagine how a creature of a different species could very well be on another level entirely, thus explaining everything.

However, if Sylas was really inside of a creatureʼs body...

He had wasted this trip.

There was no way there would be anything inside of this creatureʼs body that was alive and available to be Contracted in the first place. He was only alive out of sheer coincidence, and he just might be lucky that this creature wasnʼt in a state of real digestion right now.

From the looks of it, it had been a while since the last time this creature fed on anything. But that was beside the point.

The real problem was that there was no way this beast was an E-tier. Those E-tier Runes he had seen were the product of Runes, Genes, and other things of the like that had been broken down by the creatureʼs stomach acid until that was all that was left.

A creature this large-so large that Sylas was lost in the folds of its intestines-God or not, was well beyond the E- tier. They were certainly well beyond the D-tier, the C-tier, even the B-tier didnʼt do a creature like this any sort of justice.

This creature was, at the weakest, an A-tier. And even that was Sylas being hopeful.

A creature this impossibly large?

ʼ... S-tier.ʼ

There was no doubt in Sylasʼ mind. He couldnʼt confirm, and even if he could it would be the pinnacle of foolishness to even try. But he knew.

He was interacting with a creature at a level that didnʼt even exist in the Mortal Realm for more reasons than just its God Foundation.

It hadnʼt noticed his presence yet. Maybe because it was asleep. Maybe because he was quite literally on too small a scale for it to care. Or maybe it just mistook Sylasʼ existence for one of the countless bacteria in its own gut.

Regardless of the answer, it had been a long while since Sylas had been made to feel so small.

It would take nothing more than a thought for a creature like this to kill him.

Sylas walked past the wall and around another corner to lay eyes on a small pool of bubbling acid again.

ʼIt must be asleep. A deep sleep.ʼ

In the end, Sylas felt this was the most likely answer. That would explain the relatively dormant state of its intestines. A creature of the S-tier would have far more aggressive stomach acid than this.

Part of Sylas felt that he should leave. This was far more than he bargained for. For all he knew, this S-tier could just roll in its sleep once and he would be dead from a flood of stomach acid falling from somewhere else.

However, Sylas kept staring at the pit.

Obviously, there was nothing he could do to this creature. Contracting would not only not even remotely work, it wouldnʼt even wake the creature up. What it would do is probably lead to a Will backlash that would wipe him from existence.

Yet, there was one mused boiling away in Sylasʼ mind, one that was getting more and more fiery with every passing moment.

And then he began to walk.

He didnʼt use his space abilities directly. Instead, he picked up the pace from a walk to an all-out sprint, curving his way around walls and speeding toward a location maybe even he didnʼt fully understand.

Hours later, he skidded to a stop, grinding to a halt.

ʼItʼs true.ʼ

Sylas looked ahead at a slightly larger pool of bubbling black tar than normal. It looked no different from the others, yet Sylasʼ eyes seemed so very focused on it for some reason.

There were only a few reasons a creature like this would sleep.

It was unlikely to be a normal sleep schedule. Sylas hardly needed sleep now as an E-tier. By the time he got to S- tier, maybe heʼd go centuries without needing to rest. What were the odds heʼd happen to bump into a creature of this size during the exact period it just so happened to need rest?

Low. Too low.

In that case, the better odds were that this creature was either in a state of hibernation, likely due to old age.

Or...

ʼItʼs digesting something particularly big.ʼ