Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2181: Small

It was a peculiar feeling.

Not death, that was. Sylas had unironically experienced that several times by now, or at least a close enough shave that the difference was likely to be irrelevant.

He was actually referring to the feeling of smallness. It was easy to imagine, and yet hard to actually experience that feeling.

One could theoretically know that the world around you was impossibly larger than you could actually grasp, but how did you actually explain that to a person?

Would a skyrise do that? Would describing how long it would take to walk to a city do that? Maybe describing how lengthy it would take for a ship to travel just to the next planet, let alone the next star system?

Maybe it was explaining the idea that their universe just might be a marble in an obscure game aliens larger than they could fathom were playing.

It didnʼt really matter what sort of imagery you would paint it out as, as in the end, something or another would force a person to experience that one day.

But ironically enough, it would never be the actual science, or a measurement of math, or some existential dread you couldnʼt fathom that would do the trick.

It would be something equally small on the scale that would do it, ironically enough.

It would be a job you failed to get, a school rejection letter…

The death of a loved one.

Those things were objectively small on the scale of the universe, and yet they would rock your world to the point you would feel just as small as you truly were.

There would be nothing you could do, nothing you could fix, no video game sliders to turn down or up, no manager you could speak to, no tool you could fit into a hole, no magic words you could say to change anything at all.

That was when it would truly settle in… just how small you were.

This day wasnʼt that for Sylas.

He had experienced those days before, though.

That moment in the volcano… Nosphaleenʼs death…

They were reminders to him of how much further he had to grow, how much more he had to accomplish, how much he couldnʼt keep making mistakes no matter how tall the mountain he had to climb was or how steep the challenge that sought to slide a knife between his ribs happened to be.

He would never allow it, could never allow it.

This moment, though, was ironically the opposite of that.

It was a figure who was little more than a myth back on even Earth, a legendary warrior who had fought against time and the Gods themselves, plotting and scheming for an impossible span of time just to kill him.

This wasnʼt something that made him small, it was something that had made him feel large. Not because he cared about the Monkey Kingʼs opinion of him, nor because he measured himself against the ruler that was the Monkey King.

No…

It was because it proved that his future self had become the man he always knew that he would be.

And yet that he still had more to strive for nonetheless.

That was why he grinned.

Because if his future self was truly so infallible, and yet the Monkey King had still managed to plot out all of this… Didnʼt that mean that there was still a higher ceiling after that? That there was still more to chase? More to do?

Sylas never feared being too small. He had always had the opposite problem.

He had feared being too large. That there would be no fun left to be had, no challenge left to be faced, no mountain left to be conquered.

He couldnʼt stand that idea… the idea that if he just peeled back his mind just that little bit more, that he unleashed upon the world what was hidden within himself… That it would be too much for it to handle.

That was why he grinned, that was why his heart palpitated and his blood boiled.

The existence of this Split Realm, of the Golden Battlefield, of the Monkey Kingʼs presence here itself only proved one thing to him.

That even after he reached this height there was still more to go.

And that filled him with so much happiness he wanted to tilt his head up to the skies and laugh.

And so he did.

Sylas laughed, and he laughed. Even as the glaive came down toward his head, the last of his Will looking like it was about to be snuffed out in its entirety, he laughed almost uncontrollably so.

His indifference didnʼt come from a false facade or veneer. The world was truly too boring.

That night when he perceived the notification to enter the wider world, to face off against the Summoning, to yank Earth up from its depths of despair up to its true potential, he had been excited, but reserved.

What if there was no more challenge remaining even after he had stepped out into the universe?

But this, this felt different. It felt like he could finally stand atop the world and face it with a different sort of fervor, a different sort of fight, a different sort of grit and happiness, and pulsing determination.

He could pull out just a little bit more of himself and not be worried that the snowglobe he played with would crack between the palms of his hands.

And that… that was more than he could even begin to ask for.

Supreme Commander Rosʼ glaive edge just barely touched the tip of Sylasʼ forehead. But this time, instead of slicing through, it seemed to be pulled in and then swallowed.

A scream echoed out and she was shredded to pieces.

The Monkey Kingʼs pupils constricted and he took a step forward, but it was already too late. They all knew that it was already too late.

Another attack landed on Sylas, only for it to be sucked into him as well, and then the next, and then the next following that… —

[Title Upgraded]

[An Infinite Will > An Infinite Will]

[A Will Infinite in Substance]