Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2143: Faulty

The problem with the ”becoming the universe” problem was more complex than even Sylas was letting on. But the best and simplest analogy was the chicken and the egg.

By virtue of existing, the universe was the only existence capable of melding spacetime the way it did. Every framework fell within it, it was existence itself, in fact.

Trying to replicate it would need to step completely outside of its frame, but Sylas needed it to comprehend spacetime in the first place. Every understanding of spacetime he had, by definition, was crafted based on observing the world around him.

But by virtue of using the world to comprehend spacetime, he was being trapped within its frame of reference.

This forced him into an endless loop seemingly with no clear starting position. Eventually, the loop formed a ceiling that pressed on him from above.

With his intelligence, he could take this path quite far. But eventually, he would find himself reaching a ceiling, one ironically lower than even the red lightning and crimson energy he had seen before.

Let alone the ceiling, by the time he started reaching certain levels of power, as strong as he seemed now, those that reached that level would have paths just as complete as his own, and by virtue of making it that far, they would have grasped a certain understanding of the universe that would allow them to step outside the realms of his control and even apply pressure onto his path.

That was to say that Sylasʼ path was the sort that was extraordinarily powerful in the early game, but the more he progressed, the weaker it would become in relation to everything else… Because unless he was the universe itself, he would always be subject to the frames of reference of anyone he fought. And the more powerful a person was, the more control they would have on their own frame of reference and the more difficulty Sylas would have at manipulating things to suit his needs.

There was a third path, however… and that was the path of not becoming a new universe, but instead embodying the universe in all of its forms at any given time.

To account for every potential variable, every frame of reference, every tweak and change as though he could see the future itself… because that was what it would require.

That was what it came down to.

To the universe, there was no difference between the first moment of time and the last moment of time. All times were simultaneously occurring to it, and time was both instantaneous and infinite all at once.

For a subject within a universe to ever fully grasp spacetime, they would have to be capable of experiencing time in the same way. While others could only learn from the past and experience the present, he would have to be capable of peering into the future toward the end of everything.

And while others could only project forward so as not to break causality…

ʼI will have to be able to go back.ʼ

Sylasʼ gaze blazed with a powerful intent.

He was certain that he had done that before, and he would do it again.

”Break.”

Sylasʼ Will pulsed outward and the ghostly echoes shattered around him in torrents of Time Runes. They flapped above like fluttering butterflies and then shattered like scattering glass across marbled floors.

The trickle of beautiful light descended and Sylas coughed up a mouthful of blood.

However, he didnʼt move from where he stood.

To take into account every variable in the universe was beyond him right now, but a single battlefield, one that he had seen many times before, that he had grasped from the F-tier up to the B-tier already, was a different matter entirely.

This might be the greatest task he had ever faced, and he was someone who had pulled Earth out from the depths of hell, succeeding in a Summoning that even the First Race could not.

And yet, here they were, trying to return to claim what was his.

He had a wife and concubine now. He had a mother and father. He had children on the way, a sister who was waiting for him on the Demi-God Plane.

Despite all of these thoughts, there was something that motivated Sylas all the more. Well, two things. Two things that burned at his Pride and urged him forward.

The Zeus Clan had existed for far too long given the timeline. How had the First Race managed to do it? Had they already succeeded in the very thing he was trying to do right now?

He couldnʼt allow it.

He couldnʼt allow someone else to succeed in something that he could not, and if they had, it only meant that he needed to grow better to match them.

But that was only the first aspect.

The second aspect was something that maybe only Sylas himself could ever think.

If he could do it in the future, why the hell could he not do it now?

Sylasʼ Will flared, his Charisma roaring as his Pride Seed rolled, wrapping into his Lust Seed and forcing his Will and Charisma out into the world in tsunami-like waves.

Every detail, every thought, every aspect and change was compared and contrasted in his mind. He was quickly deducing every variable of the battlefield by forced, rote memorization.

With the layers of the F-tier to the B-tier built up in his mind, every time he found a gap he forced what the A-tier battlefield provided into the slot.

Even as blood ran down his nostrils, ears, and eyes, he continued to push.

He wouldnʼt lose. He would never lose again. He would never make a mistake again.

And what would adjusting his entire Rune Mastery Path be if not a mistake?

If he had a misconception, a misunderstanding, a hole in his knowledge, he would acknowledge it and fix it.

However, this wasnʼt that. He had known this path was faulty from the beginning and he had still chosen it.

That was unacceptable.

If the path was faulty…

He would make it so no longer.

Sylas roared and the battlefield shattered, his body vanishing in a storm of spacetime.

When silence fell, there was nothing remaining.

Including Sylas.