Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2142: Is It?

Sylas didnʼt know what his women were talking about. As he walked through the A-tier Golden Battlefield, he felt strong tugs on him from every which direction, each one trying to crush his Charisma and yet ultimately failing in the end.

His eyes slowly scanned the region, trying to make sense of it.

Sylas knew that he could get Earth to the Demi-God Plane today. But he was unwilling to face the challenge that was this dungeon when it had access to Demi-God Aura. So he had to clear it now if he wanted to take it with him as well.

The problem was that while he could deal with the A-tiers, dealing with the complexities of the Runes that made this place up was a completely different matter.

If he could do that so easily, then he would have been able to help Fanelei increase her strength much more than it already had been.

However… he had a certain advantage. That advantage was that his Fathomless Rune Creation was built on Archon Casting, a path he had created himself based on the foundation of space, time, and the void.

The Golden Battlefieldʼs strongest presence was that of time. It was actually simpler than his Archon Casting technically speaking. But in practice, it had layers, depths, and complexities to it that went beyond what Sylas had already absorbed.

The battlefield was constantly sending forward echoes of the past. But it wasnʼt just that, it was the very Wills of the warriors who had fought back then that were coming through.

In a way, this battlefield was helping them to replicate a level of Will Mastery that stood on par with the Monkey King. This level of Will projection was something Sylas had only seen from that entity.

However, this battlefield was more impressive than the Monkey King, because it was giving that ability to those not strong enough to have it… at least not everyone on this battlefield had such a right.

Some, though… did.

As Sylasʼ eyes scanned things, he saw some of those that were worthy to stand here on their own. But even they werenʼt actively trying to do this.

Someone had set up this battlefield ahead of time, and had such a mastery of Will Manipulation that they could influence the Wills of others to be projected ahead like this.

Sylas thought he understood the battlefield before, but it wasnʼt until he reached Fathomless Rune Creation that he truly came to understand the feat that he was experiencing now.

And now that he stood on the strongest of the battlefields, trying to figure out how to comprehend it had become several times harder.

ʼJust what level of Rune Mastery is this?ʼ

Sylas raised a hand and passed a palm over the air before him.

ʼAnd why do they claim that space and time cannot be combined?ʼ

Sylas had affirmed a lot of his initial comprehension of spacetime in this place. But the more he understood it, the more he felt that it heavily leaned toward time alone, while space only existed as a byproduct as neither could exist without the other.

Why did even Rune Mastery of this caliber seem incapable of truly fusing the two? Sylas didnʼt understand.

It almost felt like he was looking at the foundation of the Luck Gene again. He couldnʼt make heads or tails of it.

He remembered Gralith telling him the path was a dead end. But he had always found it to be incredibly easy. But now he was seeing Rune Mastery he couldnʼt fathom falter at a true combination of the two.

But was it truly a faltering? It wasnʼt like he could see any flaws in the battlefield. It was perfect as it was and it performed its function just as perfectly.

It was so perfect that Sylas began to wonder if it was because he just didnʼt understand enough, or if it was the case that you truly didnʼt need space and time combined to reach perfection like he thought.

He honestly wasnʼt all that sure.

Sylas didnʼt doubt himself often. But he could also acknowledge the need to change when it was necessary, not to mention learn from his surroundings.

As he finally reached the middle of the Golden Battlefield, he found that the world around him had reached some sort of perfect harmony.

And then it clicked.

ʼSpace… itʼs a measure of distance, it can calculate weight and presence, but it is very much in the now. It is rigid and strict, and if it bends too much, laws break around it.

ʼBut time… time is endlessly flexible, endlessly relative. It is affected by speed, by perception, and depending on your frame of reference, all points in time might very well be… occurring… right… now…ʼ

Sylasʼ last thoughts slowed to the point it felt like he would never complete them.

It was odd.

Space could be so rigid until it wasnʼt.

Time could be so flexible until it wasnʼt.

Space could bend, it could fold, it could be manipulated, technically speaking.

Time could be unbending, and relentlessly unforgiving. One only needed to get trapped in a loop of relativity, coming back to a world where everyone had long aged without you, to understand that.

However, what was interesting was that when one was rigid, the other would bend. And when one bent, the other would be rigid.

Whenever you played with the parameters of one enough, the other would respond in its own way.

If you tried to exert ultimate control over both…

ʼImpossible.ʼ

Sylas thought that the conclusion that would reveal him to be wrong would be something he didnʼt know or understand. What he couldnʼt have imagined was that the information he needed to be proven wrong was already learned by him in high school.

But was he wrong?

Didnʼt the universe make spacetime work?

But the universe he saw only allowed time to move forward in one direction, at one pace from your own vantage point.

The problem was that there were an infinite number of vantage points in the world, and each one experienced their own relativity.

The only way for spacetime to work as a Rune Mastery path was either to have a Will so powerful that you could force everything into your own frame of reference, or to become the universe itself.

There were problems with both.

If you forced everyone into the same frame of reference, you would contradict yourself. Not only would you have to fight against the entire universeʼs relativity, but by definition your own time abilities would have to affect both yourself and your enemy.

Self-inflicted wounds.

But ”becoming the universe” didnʼt make any sense either. What you would actually have to do was form a completely new plane, one that followed its own rules. But it was impossible to take that step unless you took a million steps before it, each one that would require a path more comprehensive and balanced than spacetime.

It was a dead end, and Sylas finally understood why in earnest.

His gaze flickered.

ʼIs it?ʼ

His eyes narrowed, his gaze landing on the ghosts flickering around him.