Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1891: Before my Pride (3)

Sylas coughed up a mouthful of blood. It felt like every inch of his body had shattered in unison as he was pile- driven into the ground.

The butt of the staff drove into his chest from above, expanding and expanding until he broke through the platform on the mountain peak, and then through the mountain itself.

He was driven further and further until flames erupted across his body and down his limbs, a fire that burned hotter than just what was caused by air friction alone, but something beyond that.

It was almost like he was being punished for a misdeed, almost like his body was being wrung dry and pulled across the depths of hell for daring to merely bump up against the Pride of the Monkey King.

The echoes of laughter shattered air and space, all Sylas could seem to grasp.

He could feel every fiber of the Monkey Kingʼs being. Larger than life, boisterously arrogant, indifferent to regulation-even those he might very well have levied at himself.

He had no contradiction because he, himself, was the contradiction. And if you felt angry about it...

So what?

It was the sort of Pride that didnʼt come only from a sense of invincibility. It was the sort that came from the root of believing that invincibility was whatever he dictated it to be, under whatever rules he carelessly decided to use in the spur of the moment, even at the cost of thickening his face.

This wasnʼt the same sort of unbridled Pride that Sylas had. It was a very different sort.

Sylasʼ Pride was more structured. It had rules. It would collapse beneath the weight of his own expectations if he were ever to deviate from it.

Once again, Sylasʼ Pride was finite.

The Monkey Kingʼs Pride was infinite. The Monkey Kingʼs Pride was superior.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Sylas hacked up another mouthful of blood, barely managing to stop the staff from going all the way through his body, and yet realizing just the same that it hardly mattered.

The staff might not have gone through his chest, but it had collapsed it, turning his heart to minced meat and his bones into its very own blender.

He couldnʼt even cough up blood anymore without flesh and bone following it. His body had already been in a terrible state before this battle even began, let alone now.

His Monkey King Armor, or what was left of it, was flickering out of existence, barely holding on by Sylasʼ willpower alone and nothing else.

Yet, high in the skies, the Monkey King balanced on the tip of his staff, using Sylasʼ body as some sort of pivot point. The staff swayed from side to side, every jolt sending a new spike of pain through his body.

But the Monkey King continued to stand there, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze a bit murderous and yet also a bit curious at the same time.

Sylas reached up, grabbing the end of the staff that was driven almost all the way through his chest, his one good arm bulging with veins as his grip on it tightened with every passing second.

A burning sensation ran through his palms, but he didnʼt seem to register it at all.

There was a shift in the air and the world whined. For the first time in a long time, Palms of Fate whirred to life. And yet, as quickly as it took shape, there was a flash in the Monkey Kingʼs eyes and it shattered apart.

Sylas coughed again, the energy that was swirling into being to protect and heal him vanishing before it could even make any real impact.

And yet, his eyes were radiating a blinding light.

He understood the Monkey Kingʼs Pride. It was quite exceptional.

But he had no plans of dying here.

His grip on the staff became firmer, and then firmer once more.

Sylas roared, the slightest bit of separation between his lumps of flesh and the staff opening up.

The staff swayed again and threatened to fall back down, but the burning sensation increased as Sylasʼ grip firmed

once more.

Veins popped along his arm, his roar growing louder and more fervent in pitch as he slowly pushed himself up.

It noticed as though he was trying to sit up with a mountain on his chest, his body protesting as even strings of muscle snapped in his abdomen, unable to withstand the strain.

The Monkey King resumed to hardly move as though he couldnʼt see what was happening at all. His expression was masked in darkness, a murderous air hanging from him. And yet he took no murderous actions at all. It bordered on baffling.

And then Sylas suddenly sat up, the staff barely held above his head.

Snap.

Half of Sylasʼ tricep was ripped off the bone, his chest turning an even bloodier red.

With one final roar, Sylas threw the staff off him. It shot upward and through the hole he had been driven through. And yet, it landed just the same on the ground above, the Monkey King still almost carelessly balanced on its tip.

Sylas pulled himself up, standing up to his feet. His Monkey King Armor still fluctuated, but as it did so, so too did his hair. It danced between a black and a white-gold, a crown pulsing above his head as well.

The cracks in his Pride Seed grew, and grew.

There were two ways one could respond to having their Pride shattered.

The Monkey King had experienced it many times in his life. He hadnʼt always been this strong, and maybe in some far-off future, he would experience being slapped down from the skies again.

But he had always adapted, changing his definition, finding new, more manageable goals until he could build back up to the ones that had crushed him.

But there was another way to respond... a way to be so prideful that you smashed your head against the same wall again and again.

No, that wasnʼt the right way to look at it...