Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1291: Middle Lane [1400 GT Bonus]

Gralith slowly looked away from Varkhul. Since he had said so, there was nothing stopping it. Since Scarval had decided to act, there was no way to stop him unless he chose to withdraw on his own. But at that point, there would be penalties for the man himself to suffer.

It had seemed that with the Rhino Lineage sending so many, no one else would bother to participate. But in the end, Sylas wasn’t so lucky... if you could have been called lucky to face off against such a ridiculous number of enemies to begin with.

In terms of the history of the Disputed Rites, this was certainly amongst the top ten in terms of sheer numbers involved.

Adding on top of that four top 300 F-tiers, two of which were in the top 100, and one of them even being the undisputed number one...

This was practically unheard of.

Slowly, Gralith took his seat, crossed his arms and then closed his eyes. At this point, whatever happened would happen.

The 713th Rhino Warlord tilted his head back and laughed again, a silvery aura radiating from him.

”Who would have thought that Gralith of all people would choose two fire crackers as his last two disciples. You aren’t really living up to the hopes of yoru Scorpion Lineage, now are you. You started off so well with Ekear, and then just decided to go all the way off the rails. Well, don’t be too side, old bastard. You still have Gwenu. Hopefully she doesn’t end up as stubborn and Scarval and progresses to D-tier already.”

Gralith didn’t respond, his breathing even.

GONG.

The sound of the bell shook Planet Sanctum.

**

Sylas’ eyes slowly opened, an emerald light shaping within them. He stood to his feet, leaning a palm against the side of the opening of the bell tower. Resting a foot onto the ledge, he looked out onto the forest below.

From this vantage point, he could see what felt like everything, and yet not nearly enough. The trees were too dense to see the true dangers, while the temple was nothing more than a small dot of silver and gold in the distance even with the sharpness of his own gaze.

The Beast Warlord Sanctum’s planet could only be said to be absolutely enormous, so much so that they could dedictate such a shocking amount of space for one task and one task only.

For a while, Sylas just stood there, not moving. He wondered... what was the best way to approach this?

Using his free hand, he tested the air, only to find a predictable result. He couldn’t fly here with his telekinesis. He was land locked.

There was an odd pressure in the air. But it was interesting. Weren’t their any aerial beast Lineages? Would they be land locked as well? Or would they receive a different sort of challenge?

What was stopping him from Fusing with Nosphaleen and shooting to the end of the path?

Of course, they would see him and try to stop him. Whether they would be able to succeed while they were stuck on land, though, was a different matter entirely.

Sylas’ eyes flickered and the weaving shadows of different shades of green and emerald rotated and wiggled about in his irises. The sights he saw changed and he began to see through the Runes that covered the skies.

They were strong E-Grade Runes, ones that he couldn’t see through with ease. He could use his Unravelling Pupils to desconstruct them by force, but there were so many that he would run out of Runes before he could.

’Interesting...’

This entire landscape had come alive the moment the ancient bell rung. Before, there had been nothign for Sylas to analyze, just a normal world. But now everything was laid out, so he noticed something.

This piece of land was adaptable. In all likelihood, if he was an aerial beast in-name disciple of some sort, the landscape woudl be different, and the challengers would almost certainly come with different sorts of preparation.

But since he wasn’t, they just made the entire sky part of the danger zone.

A straight forward organization of people, indeed. They wanted him to prove him mettle on the ground.

Sylas’ foot flexed on the ledge and he lightly leapt down. The winds raged around him, his trench coat rampaging about as his speed only increased.

SHUUUUU.

Chi.

Somehow, he landed on the ground with hardly the slightest sound, a glow of green reverberating around him.

Suppressing his telekinesis completely would take Runes a lot higher than E-Grade. But that was fine... he would play their games.

Sylas began to walk forward. He didn’t veer to the left or right, and when he saw the Lanes of the forest open up, he chose the one that was right down the middle.

What need was there to overthink things? Taking one of the main Lanes seemed like the only natural choice.

Those watching on the outside, though, felt that Sylas had made the worst decision he possibly could have. And they felt that he had only done it because he didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side...

Very soon, he would be in for a rude awakening.

...

Udone took the middle Lane, leading a charge of 500 or so down the winding paths. Though it was a Lane, it wasn’t perfectly straight, nor was it smooth. However, after he passed the half-way mark, he thought that Sylas was unlikely to cross his Lane.

Sylas should be moving at his fastest speed, and even if he was a new F-tier in-name disciple, his Speed wouldn’t be bad enough to be slower than a legion of hundreds. The fact they hadn’t met him at the half way mark should probably mean he took one of the more difficult to cross smaller Lanes. They should be getting reports of him soon.

Once they did, they already had a systematic method of cornering him using the series of smaller safe paths while not congesting themselves too much.

But Udone was floored when he was already over 80% down the middle Lane only to finally spot Sylas just standing there in a clearing, his expression calm, his hands in his pockets, his mane-like hair gently resting down his back and sprawling across his shoulders.

He was so shocked he almost forgot to send out the report.