Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1750 Mountain Peaks [Bonus]

There was a sea of mountains as far as the eye could see, each one capped with a peak of gold. These golden peaks were perfectly trimmed, perfectly sculpted, each one a temple of grand beauty.

At the very tips of these peaks, their temples held gems polished and shimmering with very specific colors that reflected the Spirit they represented.

At the center of this sea of mountains were four. They stood taller than all the others, facing one another in a perfect balance.

When the world shook, these four mountains originally remained stable and unmoving. The peaks of the other mountains did all the moving, their gems shimmering, and one after another, their spirits began to manifest.

Cheetahs and tigers, doves and ravens, minks and mice. A sea of creatures as far as the eye could see, many so weak that the Emperor Sanctum no longer cared to reserve a clan for them, but many more so powerful that their presence alone shook the skies even more than the mountains beneath them.

One after another, the ancestors of these various spirits stepped out from their temples, their eyes flickering with shock. They didnʼt know where this commotion was coming from, but they certainly knew exactly what was causing it.

Ancestor Scorpion was amongst this number. To him, it had been little more than a blink of an eye since he had had his talk with Keyesen. Not even half a month had passed, and his descendant had phoned him a ”coward.”

When he stepped outside, due to the commotion and his high opinion of Keyesen, he had honestly thought that there were good odds that it was related to this stubborn youth with the potential of a God Beast.

But by the time he stepped outside, he knew that this couldnʼt have possibly been the case. The Scorpion Temple wasnʼt reacting nearly as fiercely as it should. And... Ancestor Scorpionʼs pupils constricted into pinholes as his head wheeled toward the four central temples. They began to shake as well, their gems glowing.

One after another, the Ancestors of the Lion, Whale, Serpent, and Ape were all forced to make their appearances as well, the last of them feeling a shift in himself the most fiercely.

The titles of Ancestor Scorpion or Ancestor Ape and things of the like were quite ubiquitous amongst the elders of the Emperor Sanctum. The title had become quite loose over time. But in the most formal of settings, there was only one person in each lineage truly worthy of this title.

The True Ancestor Ape of the Ape Lineage was an old man who hunched over his cane so much his body practically formed the curve of an S. His back curled over his cane, while his legs couldnʼt seem to unbend into a straight posture anymore.

His beard was as white as snow and dragged nearly to the ground, his hair following suit. Even in his old age, the bald spot at the top of his head was quite small and almost unnoticeable until the winds began to blow.

However, his eyes...

They were wall-to-wall red, his whites having been entirely swallowed up by what almost looked like the incarnation of madness itself.

When he stepped outside, he was the last of the Ancestral Apes to do so. Yet, every one of them split open a path for him, allowing him a free lane to walk forward.

At first, the old man didnʼt seem to react much. Many thought that the shaking would topple him over. And yet, it became quite clear that his steps were only so stable because he was shaking no less than the mountain itself.

Every step he took, his back became straighter, his legs longer. By the time he walked to the end of the path his descendants had opened for him, his head was pointed toward the skies, a manic grin of rotted, crooked teeth opening to the world.

”Who is challenging my Ape Lineage?”

BOOM.

The Ape Lineage Mountain cracked down to the very foundations, the four mountains not just shaking any longer, but beginning to move. They shifted, making space for a new and fifth mountain.

The internal system of the Emperor Sanctum acted all on its own. There was already nothing that the Ancestors themselves could do to stop it.

For a power like the Emperor Sanctum to have such a system to begin with, it had to be built with years of effort and the contribution of trillions-without exaggeration.

All of that effort had been tweaked and reworked, and then reconfigured over generations. It had the Will of countless Rune Masters fortifying and refortifying it.

To make matters worse, there was truly no such thing as an independent system. And when you were talking about a system of the Emperor Sanctum, this was doubly so.

When it decided to do something on a scale this large, the true system had already been alerted to the happenings... this momentum wasnʼt something that they could stop even if they desired to.

In the crowd of Ancestral Apes, one of them would have been familiar to Amende. It was none other than the Ancestral Ape that had taken a liking to him, though this like was worthless now that Amende was long dead.

But he was currently frowning, his crimson eyes flickering with something unreadable.

Something about this aura was familiar to him... but he just didnʼt know what it was.

By the time he had snapped out of those thoughts, a fifth peak had fully formed, a temple forming right atop it with

a gem of red and gold... a color so eerily reminiscent of the Apes, and yet somehow elevated.

High in the skies, the spirits of the beasts swam and roared. But this time, the form of a beast wasnʼt created.

The shimmering form of a human took shape, its face blank and its hair wild.

The aura of a Monkey King radiated from it as the first humanoid spirit was formed.

But it was only then the true chaos began.