Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1557: Key

ʼNo, it canʼt just be that one corpse had this amount of power stored in it.ʼ

Sylasʼ eyes flashed, looking around the world and noticing the mangled Runes that were left behind in the wake of the explosion. When he saw this, it didnʼt take him much longer to comprehend.

Somehow, the Runes of the Glass Giant had a sort of cancerous effect on the Runes around it. During the explosion, the like-shapes of the Glass Giantʼs Genes, Blood Essence, and Bone Essence made it so that it was especially effective against Runes that were similar in kind to itself.

The army was quite uniform in the paths they took and the Genes they shared. Because of that, the explosion was especially effective on them.

Sylas had only vaguely likened this ability to having a nuclear bomb in his arsenal, but he didnʼt realize until now just how right he was. Not only did this corpse bomb of his have a baseline explosive might, it also had the cell deconstruction and obliteration ability of radiation.

But unlike a nuclear bomb that simply latched onto anything that it came across, this bomb was targeted.

Sylas realized then that this wasnʼt just a matter of destruction. With something like this, he could create a bomb in the future capable of targeting just a single Race, wiping them out of existence before they even understood what happened.

The moment he had the thought, though, Sylas grew incomparably solemn.

There was nothing that Sylas figured out that he was arrogant enough to believe no one else in the universe had grasped before. If he had as much time as the other Clans, powers, and various organizations in the universe, he would be more confident in unearthing ideas none of them had ever thought of. But he wasnʼt at that stage yet.

That meant that right now...

Anything he thought of was probably already in the hands of the strongest Races there were.

He looked back up at the mangled Runes in the air, and his heart sank further.

Those mangled Runes... they looked so very familiar...

Wasnʼt that precisely the state of Earthʼs current Runes?

The difference was that this Trial World was quickly healing, and after a few blinks, it was already back to normal. However, Earth, despite undergoing an evolution, was still not back to its full health. There were still many mangled and broken Rune laws that made up Earthʼs foundation even to this moment.

Could that possibly be a coincidence?

Sylas was so lost in thought it was almost as though he didnʼt feel the blade cutting toward him. The unsettling feeling in his gut and the remembrance of the fact that Alex had been foolish enough to pick the Legacy of the mysterious First Race of Earth left Sylas with the realization that he was right to come back so soon.

If he didnʼt go all out and find a way to change everything...

Earth would be finished.

Whoever it was that targeted them all those years ago, deeming it necessary to wipe out a Race in its infancy before it could even grow again, wouldnʼt just sit idly by as Alex revived it.

A murderous intent flickered in Sylasʼ eyes. It was split into perfect halves-one for Alex himself, and the other for that mysterious looming threat.

”Just die,” Sylas said.

This City of Glass Trial had been more than capable of killing him before. But he had grown not just once, but twice during this battle.

He grew tired of it and simply wanted it to end.

He had things to do.

**

Sylasʼ vision blurred, and he found himself standing before the City of Glassʼ gates once more. In his hand, the head of an enormous frost giant lingered.

The last wave was truly something else. There were 100,000 enemies, and a thousand of the frost giants he had faced before. However, the real shocker was that within that number there were King Beasts.

It had been a long while since Sylas faced off against King Beasts. He had yet to meet one in the outside world. In fact, that was part of why the King Serpent made sure to emphasize that it was nothing more than a clone.

The clone of the King Serpent was little more than empty stats, while its real body was that of a King Beast-a creature whose stats werenʼt the true foundation of its strength to begin with.

A King Beast before a Progenitor, though, was worthless. The trouble was that during the City Stele Trial, Sylas didnʼt have access to his Progenitor Status, likely because he was transported to another world entirely.

So, he used [Glassvolt Throne] instead. When that was matched with his comprehension of Glass, the King Beasts found themselves suppressed before they could even run him over.

Before Sylas established his Dao, this would actually have taken quite a while and would have nearly cost him his life. But with Pride as the core of his Foundation now, it was like [Glassvolt Throne] had been stabilized in unexpected ways. Its ability to suppress, comprehend, and grasp the core of new worlds was exceptional.

The fact that the Trial World was a world formed of F-Grade Runes too, of course, helped a great deal.

A Key slowly floated down and entered Sylasʼ palm. With a clench of his fist, he moved it toward the gate, and it rumbled.

Snow was plowed out of the way, large dunes of white crumbling beneath the heft until the city opened up to Sylas.

The first thing he saw was the castle of Glass in the distance. Beautiful, it looked carved of ice and reflective mirrors, standing tall and proud as the City Lord Mansion of the city.

The roads were paved in a heavier icy-blue material, every shop and every building reflecting stainless steel in the most beautiful of ways.

This city had instantaneously become the strongest in the entire Sector. In fact, it might very well be the strongest city in the whole Horizon.