Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1920: Risk

The Hydra didnʼt reply immediately, but then swiftly and suddenly burst into a chorus of laughter. Sylasʼ skull fractured, his eye rupturing beneath the pressure. At this point, blood wasnʼt just pouring out of the corners and ducts of his eyes anymore, they were pouring out from the torn fleshy pulp itself.

”Do I want to live? Do you think you can save me? What? You want to stuff my Will into your little self-created meat puppet? Do you think I cannot tell that your Profession reeks of Serpents? You want me to lower my head and become one of them, one of the bastards whoʼve hunted my kind from the very beginning?

”If you werenʼt the slightest bit entertaining, Mortal boy, I would have already killed you!”

The voice thundered and Sylasʼ skin burst apart into a rain of blood. It looked like he had been skinned alive, but worst yet, the World Serpentʼs digestive system began to react to the influx of nutrients as small as it might be.

The walls and floors around Sylas began to ooze with a dense poisonous liquid. Sylas quickly focused all of his attention on healing, trying to get out of the situation.

He needed to pull away. Just the small fragmented portions of the World Serpentʼs acid had almost killed him earlier. If the full brunt of the S-tier acid took shape, it wouldnʼt even need to touch him. All it would need to do is appear in the vicinity and the fumes alone would rip him to ash.

Sylas really hadnʼt expected it to work. Someone with the Will to watch their body be digested and still maintain their Will all this time was endlessly Prideful. But... it possibly also meant that they felt their lives were extremely valuable as well.

Sylas didnʼt reply. The pain shaking him to his very core was all too real, but he was rapidly reforming his skin, trying to use a combination of his own internal energy and his Rune Mastery, but his body was of the E-tier and his Infinite Void Rune Mastery was only at the F-tier.

Gathering up his strength, Sylas finally vanished from where he was, shifting to another location in the World Serpentʼs belly.

It was a huge risk. There was a reason he hadnʼt been using his Spatial affinity since he entered this place. It was already lucky enough that the World Serpent didnʼt react to him teleporting in, but if he continuously used Spatial affinity, the World Serpentʼs body might see that as a threat and react in kind even if it didnʼt wake up.

He gasped for breath and he felt a rumble.

His pupils constricted into pinholes and the walls around him that were seemingly like solid rock in one moment rippled like flesh.

BANG.

Sylas slammed against a wall, too slow to dodge one of the waves.

He coughed, but his telekinesis caught his blood before it hit anything, pulling it back into his body and trapping it within even as countless bones of his body shattered to pieces.

Just a slight involuntary pulse of its intestines and Sylas nearly died.

He heaved for breath, falling almost to his knee again, but just barely managing to stand once again.

He had to leave this place, even if it was a risk. The Hydra wasnʼt going to be someone or something he negotiated with. If it cared more about its Pride, that was fine, Sylas didnʼt begrudge it. But he wouldnʼt die here.

Getting the Hydraʼs Will into the body he could create would be impossible anyway. An F-tier body would never be able to accommodate an S-tier Will.

Old Brama wouldnʼt have been able to revert without a literal epoch-long scheme tied to a level of Spacetime mastery even Sylas couldnʼt fathom right now. And until Sylas did, there was no chance of him using that battlefield for anyone other than the Gold Races.

He needed to take the risk. No matter what. Sitting here to die at the whims of a Hydra lamenting its last moments wasnʼt how he would fall.

”HEY!” the Hydraʼs voice boomed in Sylasʼ head, but Sylas was already moving. Even the shattering of half his skull, his skin imploding from the inside out did nothing to stall him.

His Will was steely and relentless, his body thrumming as he pulled on his Hibernation Realm.

The walls of the place stirred again and Sylas found himself flung once more.

The World Serpent. It was waking up.

It had already been close to finishing off the Hydra completely. Sylas had walked around for so long but he didnʼt find a single piece of the Hydra that was beyond the D-tier. To the S-tier it had certainly once been, this was worse than ashes or crumbs.

The World Serpent was only in the process of taking in nutrients now.

But if it had to awaken...

It could.

And Sylas was banking on it.

He just needed the Hydra to freeze for an instant, to fear the World Serpent for the briefest instant of time, just long enough that his teleportation could take hold, that he could phase back into the Hibernation Realm, and snap back like a rubber band right to the Mancy Scape.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Sylas only heard the start of it, but he knew instinctively it was a roar, one of nigh manic fury.

How could a creature have such rage within it? Why was it that this rage was so visceral it woke up with it flaming in its belly?

A sea of acid surged right for Sylas. It came across to form out of thin air, but he had already moved.

Even if the World Serpent did have some spatial affinity to restrain him, would it be used to using it within its own belly and in such a small area?

The answer was almost certainly no. And Sylas took advantage, vanishing in a flash right then and there.

BANG.

Sylas tumbled out of the air, his body was in worse than a terrible state. Half his skull was blasted to flesh and bone. There wasnʼt a single bit of skin left on him at all. He looked worse than a zombie.

BOOM.

He smashed into a mountain, hacking and wheezing for air.

But he had made it. He had made it back.

”Finished?”

The voice of the Hydra shattered Sylasʼ brain.