Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2172: Violet

ʼCharisma…ʼ

The word echoed through Sylasʼ mind.

He had known for a long time that his Charisma was no less important than his Will. In fact, he had a feeling that his Charisma had levels to it just like Will did.

He could feel his Charisma advancing as well, he just never really understood where its dividing lines lay. It was almost like his Charisma was hiding from him.

But after experiencing that just now, Sylas felt he had just gained an epiphany that was roaring its way through his body.

Space and Time.

Will and Charisma.

The two felt like such a perfect mirror of one another, both interlaced in so many fantastical ways, the lines between them so blurry it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended especially as you began to approach the limits of power itself.

If he wanted to draw parallels between them, he could. He could draw so many heʼd grow both tired and dizzy before he reached the end of it.

But that wasnʼt enough.

It was a thought, a hypothesis, but it was no conclusion.

What did it mean to be a Charysm, exactly?

No, more importantly than that, why was it that the particularly first person to ever accuse him of being such just so happened to be a member of the Gold Race?

And then why was it that directly after that, it was precisely an identity as a Charysm that allowed him to integrate into the Demon World and bend the whims of the Duchess to his pleasing?

Was it correlation? Or was it causation?

The definitions of Will and Charisma were both simple and impossibly complex.

Will was oneʼs intent. Charisma was oneʼs ability to apply oneʼs intent to the outside world.

Everyone had Will, everyone had intent, everyone had what they wanted to do, to accomplish, to earn, to gain, to receive, to be awarded and rewarded.

But not everyone had the capability to see it through, to earn or to force, to gain or to take what their deepest hearts desired.

It was a simple definition, and yet the more you thought about it, the more complicated it became.

It was the same with Time and Space alike.

Space was a point in three dimensions, described by how far left or right and up and down.

Time was linear starting from one point and ending at another.

Simple in practice, more complex, looping, and endlessly fascinating the more one thought about it.

All of them came in pairs, all were interconnected. But there was one thought that linked all four of them together.

You could not describe a personʼs location without three points of space and a point in time.

You could not describe a personʼs presence without an understanding of their Will and how much of it their Charisma allowed them to imprint onto the world.

The largest historical figure would not be as such without a strong enough Will and a great enough Charisma to force their name to be known.

The smallest historical figure would not be as such without a weak enough Will and a weak enough Charisma such that they would blend into the infinite tapestry of the annals of time itself.

Split Realms.

Were they not precisely the most clear representation of this? Were they not points in history where something of such great importance occurred that it left its lingering Charisma and Will spilling out beyond its timeline, bleeding out until the reach of its own time relativity no longer seemed to matter.

That was when it clicked.

Imposing oneʼs Will wasnʼt about seeking to understand or comprehend. He didnʼt need to waste his time understanding every variable and every shift, calculating every outcome and every possibility.

The reason why the fusion of Space and Time was seen as impossible was because of that red ceiling of lightning and crimson that suppressed them all beneath it.

It was the reason they were all weak, the reason they could not exert as much influence over the universe as their power dictated that they should, that they hoped they should.

Charisma did, indeed, have levels to it. But Sylas had made a mistake.

He had a Path for Will, a way that he controlled and dictated how it should move, should breathe, should exert its influence.

He had never quite named it, but it followed in his Pride wherever he should stand and exist. Its presence, by its very Virtue itself, manifested in a way so very true and real.

He never bestowed it a name, but he never really had to. That was because the only name it needed was the one he already carried around himself.

His Will was the representation of his intent, of his life, of his Pride. His Will was Sylas Grimblade.

That conclusion was so clear and obvious to him. But he could not make the same conclusion for his Charisma. In fact, until now, he had never even thought of giving it the same treatment.

While he had never actively done anything for his Will, he innately understood it. What it was went without saying, so he didnʼt need to name or even think about it. It had naturally bloomed into his Pride Seed and it had only grown from there.

His Will continued to skyrocket forward without even his input.

But he never thought about his Charisma in the same way. It was an afterthought, a distant memory, something that felt foreign to him because it required something he never did.

Compare himself to others.

That was ultimately what Charisma was. It was a comparison of others, it was the bridge through which Will exerted its influence through everything else.

But he was Sylas Grimblade. The only measuring stick he used was that of his own, so he never naturally considered about Charisma the way he so naturally comprehended Will.

Until now.

All it took was the slightest shift in thought, just the slightest tweak in how he viewed the world.

He still had no interest in comparing himself to others. He was too much better than them. Who celebrated stomping ants by the road side? Not even the smallest child did so.

And that was how Sylas too often viewed the world.

But now he viewed it just a little bit differently.

What he had wanted most from the very beginning was simply control, control to exert the most influence he could over his own life and nothing else.

But now that he understood his reference frame was constantly being influenced by others, he finally came to understand what it meant and what it would take to actually accomplish this.

Reaching the point of being in unbridled control over his own life meant just one simple thing…

Being in control of everything else as well.

Sparking lines of lightning appeared around Sylas, first emerald, and then gold, and then black, but then a fourth color appeared.

Violet.

It overwhelmed the black as though swallowing chaos itself and then the world trembled as a Charisma the likes of which the world had rarely ever seen bloomed into existence.

A pair of magnificent horns grew from Sylasʼ forehead as his body expanded to be more than a foot taller.

He exhaled a breath that sparked with the flame of chaos.