Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2161: Balcony

Sylas got faster and faster, cutting down one enemy after another. Having to only focus on one enemy at a time made it impossibly easy. Let alone burning through his reserves any more, his stamina was actually quickly rising once again.

His claws dug through the eyes of a golden monkey, lightning shooting out of them and ripping its brain to pieces. He tossed its corpse to the side, stepping through the threshold of the next challenge.

He kicked out before the monk even fully formed, smashing their nose in.

His senses were heightened to an excess degree. He felt them even before they arrived, every little detail down to the smallest of timings clicking on a high-octane cadence.

BANG.

The monk stumbled back and Sylas shot forward, sliding to a stop by its side and punching out like lightning.

His fist came down onto its nose. The monk never got a chance to bend back forward, its brain matter splattering across the ground.

Sylas continued to the next, and then the next after that, and then the next after that.

He perfectly balanced conserving his energy and destroying his enemies as quickly as possible. Every action he took was reflected in the Duchessʼ body, the heat her skin was radiating growing with every passing second as though she was undergoing an intense training process herself.

The directness of Sylasʼ combat style felt almost like it was cheating. He didnʼt seem to use the same pattern twice at all. He didnʼt have a style in the first place. It was like he was only using his body like he would a tool, executing based on both what it could accomplish and what corners he could force his enemies into.

Sylas had only been poor in combat for a short time when the Summoning began back on Earth, and even back then he was only poor by his own standard.

The sharper his Will and senses became, the less his original skill level mattered. Slowly afterward, the skill he had lacked began to increase.

He learned more from a single battle than others could fathom. When he fought a person, he wasnʼt just learning from how that battle went, but he was also learning from every way it could have gone but didnʼt.

When he dodged a punch to the left, he had already played out what would have happened had he gone right, had he taken a step back and slipped it, or even had he countered with a parry, or simply a straight counter.

Everyone saw one exchange, but his mind was playing out dozens in real time. And every move that was made, he played out a dozen more. By the time he struck down an enemy, he would have already played out a dozen raised to a dozen more, continuously, for every exchange there had been.

Sylas had already fought more battles than he cared to count now. Experience that would have taken others thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even more millennia than that to build, he had built up in just under two years.

And he was passing on all of that to the Duchess in real time.

BANG.

Sylas jabbed out quickly, clipping the golden monkey monkʼs nose. He pulled his fists back, tucking his chin behind his shoulder as he chose to take a swing of the staff head on this time.

His shoulders rolled and the staff glanced off of him, tilting up and parrying itself well over his head.

He took a sharp step forward, his pivot foot twisting as his fist corked through the air. The winds whipped around his knuckles, churning like blades.

His fist buried so deep into the monkʼs chest it left an indent in its ribs, shattering all of the inner organs behind it, including its heart.

BANG.

The monk shattered against the wall.

This time, Sylas didnʼt rush forward. He cast a glance back at the Duchess and nodded. About enough time had passed.

Sylas swiped his hands at the air and a pair of daggers formed. He flipped them in his palms, spinning them through his fingers until he got used to them. Then, they snapped their grips into his palm.

His mind was calculating something, then he began to pull on the Will of the weapons themselves through the air.

Ever since the Champion Dungeon, Sylas had been able to summon the Will of weapons and form them, he just never used the ability. Instead, he had allowed Nosphaleen to gain from his understanding, which in turn allowed her to manage and benefit from a comprehension of the trident much faster than before.

It seemed that he was about to do the same for another woman now.

He had laid the foundation for the Duchess properly. Now it was time to kick it up a notch and show her how blades should be used.

Sylas shot forward, this time even faster than before.

Enemies fell to one strike without fail.

There was no doubt that a weapon simply made so many things far easier.

A slice across the neck, a stab at the heart, a thrust through the eye. His eyes darted back and forth, seeking out weaknesses and crushing them.

Every time he acted, he purposely lowered his speed so that the Duchess could understand that his physical prowess wasnʼt what allowed him such an advantage.

And then, as she began to understand, he kicked it up a notch, and then another.

Eventually, Sylas was blazing through them so fast he looked like little more than a blur. He hardly paused, racing down the hallways so fast it looked like he was quite literally racing rather than fighting one battle after another.

And then there were suddenly no battles left.

Sylasʼ gaze flickered as he ran to the end of a hallway, his eyes opening to a huge atrium with a dome so high it reached past the skies and into the stars.

There was a railing before him, a small circular protrusion that blocked him from a fall that seemed to also go to infinity. But all around him were more balconies just like his own, all of which were empty.

In the center of everything, hovering in the abyssal darkness…

Was a stone.