Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1938: Symbol of the Grimblades

The Pride the Ruby Finger Serpent had spent so long and so much agony building up was ruthlessly crushed.

To Sylas, it wasnʼt a matter of fairness. He didnʼt even spare a thought toward it.

While it was true that the Ruby Finger Serpent was only growing so robust because of his help, when it tried to rebel, Sylasʼ thoughts started and ended at the fact he wouldnʼt allow it to go because he wanted it.

That was all.

The Ruby Finger Serpent was free to be resentful. It didnʼt matter in the slightest.

Here, in this place...

Sylas was Emperor.

WHOOSH.

The chaotic fog was sucked inward until all that was left was a small serpent of barely the same length. Its scales had become a beautiful violet, but one thing arose out so very clearly... It still only had a single head.

Was this really a Hydra?

[Ruby Ouroboros] [Status: Healthy; Mentally Fatigued] [Loyalty: 0/10]

[Skills] [>Eternal Cycle] [>Boundary of Worlds] [>Undying Proliferation] [>Bloodburn]

[Gene Talents] [>Infinite Hunger]

Sylas didnʼt even react to the 0 Loyalty, though, funny enough, even Gogoʼs Loyalty had been higher at the start, and he had literally beaten him into submission. Though this wasnʼt much different.

Instead, Sylas was more interested in feeling out the abilities of this new creature he had created.

[Eternal Cycle] was an interesting application of the Hydra-like abilities. Clearly, the former Ruby Finger Serpent didnʼt have multiple heads, and it didnʼt even have a large body... on the surface.

[Eternal Cycle] essentially allowed it to use every part of its body as though it were infinite. The wounds it experienced, any severings it suffered, could not only be consumed by it to heal itself, but it could even simply decide to become two creatures, three, four, even more than that.

If Sylas sliced the Ruby Ouroboros into five pieces right now and it chose to use this Skill, it could instantly become five separate contracts at once, each one with the same amount of power as the first one.

The only limitation to this ability was how far it could stretch its Will to control all of these constructs. That was because even if it had multiple bodies, it still had just one mind.

But the most interesting aspect to Sylas was the fact it could ”consume” its own wounds to heal itself. That was something that even he couldnʼt quite grasp.

Just what level of Gluttony application was this? It was beyond just food and savouriness. It reached a point of swallowing constructs.

But the idea of devouring its own pain and wounds to... heal itself?

What sort of broken ability was this? It broke the laws of the universe.

And yet it was just the first.

[Boundary of Worlds] was an ability in two parts. First, it allowed the Ruby Ouroboros to almost endlessly extend the length of its body. The second part came with what it could do after doing this.

It could form an infinite loop by biting its own tail and completing a circle. In the region trapped within its loop, the flow of time, fate, and causality was dictated directly by it, leaving anything inside completely helpless.

Once again, this ability was only limited by Will, that being the Will of the Ruby Ouroboros, the world it did this in, and that of the creatures trapped within.

The size it could grow to was only dictated by the first two, but the last only factored in after it closed its loop.

However... what Sylas could see immediately was that in a battle in a place like the depths of space where there was no world to suppress the Ruby Ouroboros, or on a world personally controlled by Sylas himself... This ability wouldnʼt have to wait until the Ruby Ouroboros was an S-tier to display its true might.

[Undying Proliferation] seemed a lot like [Eternal Cycle] on the surface, but it functioned differently. [Eternal Cycle] fed on wounds and injuries. [Undying Proliferation] fed on death.

Even if the Ruby Ouroboros had its head chopped off and suffered death, so long as its Will was intact, it could split its injured body into two and be reborn in both.

If [Eternal Cycle] was eating pain and injuries, then [Undying Proliferation] was eating death itself... and therein lay the most devastating part of this ability.

If it was directed instead toward a target, the Ruby Ouroboros was more than capable of either using this dead creature it had consumed as a replacement sacrifice for its own life in the future, or directly devouring its abilities for itself.

That left [Bloodburn] as the last of the skills, and seemingly the most unimpressive. Spilling the blood of the Ruby Ouroboros, whether it was nigh immortal or not, was not so simple. Its blood was concentrated with some of the strongest venom there was, poisoning and corroding everything in its path.

However, the truly devastating part of this ability was that the longer the Ruby Ouroboros suffered attacks without choosing to use its other abilities to heal, the more devastating this ability became. The corrosion could increase infinitely.

The Ruby Ouroboros could even turn this corrosiveness on itself, allowing its blood to burn it from the inside out until it was quite literally a skeletal creature.

In that state, after choosing to sacrifice even its ability to heal, the Ruby Ouroboros would reach its absolute strongest state, a state where it would carry the weight of the world.

In this case, the Ruby Ouroboros would be devouring the causality of the path it didnʼt follow, retroactively taking all the energy it could have used to heal itself and turning it into strength.

And that left the last ability of the Ruby Ouroboros, a Gene Talent that brought it all together, one that would truly make this creature a beast amongst beasts and just maybe rival the greatest of the God Beasts one day... Infinite Hunger.

The Ruby Ouroboros could not be satiated, it could not be starved, nor exhausted. It could endlessly devour its own negative emotions and that of others, it could eat at Spacetime itself and even devour causality.

Its Hunger knew no limits. Its Gluttony was endless.

Sylas waved a hand and the Ruby Ouroboros became a shadow that darted toward him and clipped itself to his ear, forming a simple sliver-black earring.

”You will become the symbol of the Grimblade Clan.”

Sylas took a step and the earth shook.

He didnʼt need a fourth beast after this. Gogo, Nosphaleen, and Ruby would be enough to conquer everything.

Now it was time to fix the Emperor Sanctum.

There was a flash of black and a scythe appeared, resting between the crook of Sylasʼ elbow and his shoulder.

There was no doubt that this would require having some heads roll.