Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1940: Reclaim

”SYLAS!”

Nosphaleen felt as though her heart had suddenly been ripped out from her chest. The blood drained from her face, her knees collapsing to the ground so hard it practically cratered as she caught Sylasʼ corpse before it landed.

A wisp of blue and silver rose out from where Sylasʼ head had once been, the jagged edges of bleeding flesh and just the slightest protrusion of what had once been his spine poking out in the oozing red.

Nosphaleen didnʼt know what to do with her hands, she simply couldnʼt believe what had just happened.

One moment, Sylas was on top of the world like he always was, and in the next moment he was... nothing.

From dust to dust.

An echo whispered in her ears as though the world itself was lamenting Sylasʼ death.

Someone like the Hydra wasnʼt foolish enough to just destroy Sylasʼ head and call it a day. He destroyed the very Will that Sylas had been so proud of. Sylas was dead before his head even fully exploded. There was nothing of him left.

”No need to cry, little Mesmeryx. After I snatch that little baby boyʼs body, Iʼll warm you up and make you forget this fool. Youʼre a beast now, why do you pine for humans so much?”

The scoff of the Hydra echoed through the air and Nosphaleenʼs head snapped up. Even in her grief, she could piece enough of what happened from those words alone. And it distilled down into one thing.

This had killed him.

She was about to lunge when an overwhelming pressure crushed her. She was forced back down to her knees.

”There you go. Isnʼt it better when youʼre on your knees?”

The Hydra suddenly felt a wisp of it slip away and it focused. It was easily distracted with the current state of its Will, but it knew that without a vessel, it was too injured to just continue indefinitely like this.

The Hydra was an S-tier. Surviving with just its Will alone was as easy as breathing. But things werenʼt that simple.

If it could have just left the belly of the World Serpent, it would have done so long ago. It had been forced to use its body as a continuous sacrifice to protect its Will from decomposing like the rest of it. But even then, its Will had suffered continuous damage over the years.

A lucky stroke had allowed Sylas to appear and give it a chance to escape, but then it had to give up even more of itself to deal with the Greed Spirit in Sylasʼ brain stem.

However, it had still done that with very good reason. That Greed Spirit allowed it to snatch an aura that could mask and hide from the system in this world.

While Sylas thought he was just integrating himself and playing nice, the Hydra was actually building up its own trump cards. Without this method, it would have just been struck down by the system the moment it left Sylasʼ body.

But now... it could act independently.

For a momentary time, anyway.

ʼLetʼs focus on the task at hand first, then vent on the woman later. I cannot believe Iʼve ended up in this situation, but to find a Basilisk...ʼ

The Hydra moaned with pleasure as it thought about it. In a flash, it had emerged before Gogoʼs cocoon, the latter being none the wiser.

Gogo had no reason to feel like he was in any real danger in this place. This was Sylasʼ personal space. No one could get in, and with the City Defense Quest over, there was no reason for the system to send another challenge.

But even if Gogo had felt it was possible, his consciousness was too far away now, in the process of being baptized by his Ancestors as his body grew into the form it was always meant to take.

”A Basilisk, a basilisk. They once called you Kings of the Serpents,” the Hydra laughed almost maniacally. Without Sylas as a vessel, parts of itself were being stripped with every moment it spent outside.

The gate Sylas had cracked open to allow God Aura to seep in wasnʼt helping at all. In fact, it was accelerating things.

But soon, that would all be fixed.

”But you ended up buried in the dirt with the rest of those pitiful little worms, werenʼt you?” The Hydra sneered. ”And now, your legacy is going to be mine. The Hydra will rise.

”Just you wait, Gentrixaul. I will rip your scale by scale, claw by claw, galaxy by galaxy for what youʼve done to me.”

The Hydraʼs Will shot forward, piercing through Gogoʼs cocoon with ease.

A roar pealed through the skies.

The cocoon was ripped apart as the Hydra pierced into Gogoʼs body.

”I have no time for your little evolution. I will show you the power of a God. THIS is how a God evolves.”

Rippling waves of God Aura radiated out from all directions as the chaotic mesh of Aether was sucked violently into Gogoʼs body.

Finally, the gate Sylas opened up to the God Realm helped the Hydra rather than restricting it.

Using Gogoʼs body as a catalyst, it pulled large amounts of it in, quickly refining the energies that would have taken Gogo decades if not centuries to fully digest... even accounting for the Hibernation Realm and its existence.

Gogo couldnʼt even fight back. His Will was in such a dormant state that he wasnʼt even aware that a foreign Will had invaded his own. All his instincts seemed to realize was that his evolution was accelerating, and that was a good thing to him.

The Hydra grinned, its Will splitting off into countless heads.

It needed Gogoʼs Will alive for this process to be completed. It would help, help right until the very end of it all.

And right then, when the Basilisk King had truly returned to the world, when Gogoʼs body had become a vessel of utmost perfection... The Hydra would slaughter him and rebuild its own body.

What sort of monster would it become with Basilisk King Blood as a sacrifice?

It would be untouchable. Even if it meant starting from the F-tier once more, it would return under this mighty rebirth and lay claim to S-tier strength soon, crushing everything in its path.

Right then, the world fell into silence.

The Hydraʼs grin widened.

The Basilisk was ready. It was time for it to reclaim what was its.