Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1200  Hive [Bonus]

They hardly lasted a single blow.

Without his stats, Sylas had no real idea of how much he had improved, and the fact that Effectiveness of stats also scaled with the Grade of your Race made it even more tricky. But what he did know was that he had yet to come across a single Demon that oppressed his Will.

He had gotten used to picking out the strength of an opponent through their Will alone, and Demons were no different. In fact… he found it even easier.

It didnʼt take Sylas long to realize that this was about Mixed Demonic Arts. He hadnʼt actively used his Comprehension just yet, but it came to him as naturally as breathing.

Even now, he didnʼt understand why Mixed Martial Arts had evolved into Mixed Demonic Arts. But what he did know was that it allowed him to read these Demons as though they were open books.

But as Sylas killed one of the Horned Hornets after another, he was slowly beginning to realize that something was off.

He paused.

ʼWeʼve been here before.ʼ

Jala looked to Alex with a confused gaze, but Alex only shrugged.

”When you follow Psycho Syl, just turn your brain off. It isnʼt worth it. Youʼll catch a severe case of inferiority.”

Jalaʼs eyes flashed with annoyance. ”Can you stop saying things like that? Youʼre a man. Act like it.”

He was truly starting to get annoyed, but Alex only laughed.

”You see? Thatʼs that inferiority speaking already. I should have warned you much earlier.”

”Shut up! Not everyone has the same complex as you do. If you want to get fucked, just go bend over somewhere.”

Alex burst into a brighter fit of laughter, laughing so hard tears came from his eyes.

”Fuck.”

Jala looked away, only finding himself getting more annoyed.

He had never felt so suffocated in his life.

He lost his uncle, and just when he thought that was the worst pain he could experience, his entire family was wiped out, and then he was unceremoniously signed into slavery by this bastard. In fact, both of the people who had screwed him over the most were right here.

ʼThe most? Maybe not.ʼ

He still didnʼt know who destroyed his family. No one had been clear about that at all.

But now, as though all of this wasnʼt a big enough blow to his ego, the man who enslaved him was practically a lap dog to the man who had killed him. That was worse than a bruised ego; it was practically like his face was a revolving door of continuous slaps.

Even as he was half losing his mind, Alex was still laughing, and Sylas was ignoring them as though they werenʼt even there. Why the latter had even brought them in here, Jala had no idea.

”I know one thing youʼre much better at than Psycho Syl,”

Alex said, wiping tears from his eyes. ”Youʼre much funnier.”

Jala didnʼt respond. He would just get angrier, and that would lead him nowhere. There just wasnʼt a point.

He had all this anger built up in his chest and nothing he could do with it.

Alex patted him on the back a little too hard.

”Donʼt fucking touch me.”

The words had only just left Jalaʼs mouth when a stinger whizzed by his head.

A cold sweat matted Jalaʼs back.

”Focus up, or youʼre going to lose your head.”

Sylas didnʼt even look back. He had crouched down to the ground again; the stinger that had come for him was deflected by a series of Runes that flashed into existence. He was so focused on the ground that he didnʼt even see what attacked; he just reacted.

ʼWeʼve been here already,ʼ Sylas said. ʼInteresting…ʼ

His spatial awareness was probably one of the strongest aspects of his mental acuity. Part of the reason he was able to solve the Mountains of Giza puzzle as a nine-year-old was precisely because of this.

His understanding of shapes, his ability to arrange them in his mind, and draw conclusions on distance, geometry, and things of the like, was pretty much unmatched by anyone he had come across before. It was probably where much of his Rune Mastery talent came from.

That was why Sylas was so sure that he hadnʼt walked in a loop just now.

Even when he first started entering Dungeons, he had been able to keep tabs on the twists and turns he took, ensuring that he was constantly walking in a new direction. In fact, his very first night in the Trial, despite having no real wilderness experience, he had been able to cross great distances just because he had followed that elk enough to know that region of the forest.

He was sure they were in some sort of hive right now. The number of hornets was only increasing, and their strength was only growing as well, so it felt like they were going deeper.

So why was it that the marks here were the exact same ones left behind by their first battle here?

Sylas looked up.

”Uh, Syl, buddy… these are E-Grades, and we really, really, really, cannot deal with them… so if you could, um…” Alex coughed, his eyes flickering toward the array of stingers rushing over in this direction.

ʼSpace?ʼ Sylas thought. ʼNo, Iʼm too sensitive to—.ʼ

His eyes sharpened.

He understood. The hive was quite literally moving. This odd, waxy substance— it was just a larger symptom of something he had already seen here.

The bone and bone control of the hornets. Their stingers, the lances they had for hands—all of these were bones.

And this white, bulbous material was like the organic and inorganic mesh of substances that formed bone in a much more cancerous form.

That meant that there was a Demon here actually strong enough to manipulate and change this entire hive around.

ʼBut…ʼ

Sylas looked back down at the marks he saw.

The fact that this hall was the exact same meant that this hive had a huge weakness to exploit.

”Shit, I guess this is how I die.” Alex pressed his palms together in prayer.