Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2195: Why?

A complex formation lay above.

”Doesnʼt look like your dick was that great.” Cassarae whispered.

”Yeah?” Sylas asked, still focused on the formation. ”Seemed to work just fine on you.”

”Well Iʼm not an S-tier.”

”Does that mean you donʼt want to be the only wife anymore?”

”Donʼt try me, Sylas Brown.”

Sylas smiled, but didnʼt say too much. Finally, he looked down and met the Duchessʼ gaze.

Between now and the last time Sylas had seen the Duchess, she had probably gone through quite a lot. Not to mention the fact she was surely no longer as naive as she was as her younger self, she was an S-tier.

If not for the chains binding her now, her gaze and presence alone would have been enough to crush them.

Sylas was pretty sure that he had set everything up properly. However… the knight.

They had only experienced what happened after the Monkey King summoned it, but given the kind of characters Sylas was dealing with, it wasnʼt impossible for them to have deduced things on their own.

That was to say that if someone was paying close enough attention… they could have ruined Sylasʼ plans.

The question was, of course, why? For what purpose?

Sylasʼ gaze flickered as he thought of Nosphaleen.

Of all the people to target, why choose Nosphaleen? The purpose of that was obviously to target Sylas in specific. If they just needed a vessel for Envy, and the definition of the Will was already becoming twisted, there were plenty of other people to choose.

But they hadnʼt chosen just anyone. They chose Nosphaleen.

Would the same person be targeting yet another of his women? Had he really rattled them that much?

Sylas placed Cassarae down. ”Stay here for now.”

Cassarae nodded slowly as Sylas walked forward, closing in the distance on the Duchess until he was basically a single step away from her seated form.

”What happened?” he asked.

The Duchess had gone back to her unprecedented calm. Even when she had lashed out just now, her expression hadnʼt shifted or changed at all.

However, when Sylas asked that question, her breathing hitched and hurried.

”… You do not know?”

”No. I do not.”

”What happened during your battle with my brother?” the words tumbled out of her mouth as though she had been waiting to ask this question for epochs.

Sylasʼ eyes narrowed. ”What do you think happened?”

The Duchessʼ jaw clenched.

A silence fell in the air between them, but Sylas didnʼt move, nor did he blink. He just continued to stare.

It was very hard for someone to remain so enraged for such a long time. It was unknown how long the Duchess had spent sitting in this very same throne, but what was clear enough to Sylas was that no matter what, enough time should have passed for this fire to have grown lesser to some extent.

But he was correct, a lot of the Duchessʼ memories had only just gotten upgraded.

Going back in time seemed like it should be an exact science, but from what Sylas had experienced in the last several hours, it was anything but. It was more like an arts and crafts project and he was using scissors to cut at and fix the edges as best as he could, but lingering attachments and leftover pieces were bound to cause a few snags.

He had accounted for as much as he could, then used the Paradoxical energy to clear the rest of the path. Those were his ”scissors.” But clearly, not everything had worked out so perfectly.

”Dead.” The Duchess finally said. ”My brother is dead.”

Sylas didnʼt need to be a genius to think of what the Duchess mused happened. She thought he killed her brother.

Honestly, it wasnʼt too ridiculous a conclusion. That was something that Sylas would have probably done had she not been carrying his baby.

That right there was something that the current Duchess couldnʼt erase. After fusing with her clones once more, the baby was now in her womb as well.

Again… Sylas still needed some time to understand just how going back in time worked in this world. But the normal laws of causality seemed to need to be overhauled.

As far as he could tell, the universe simply didnʼt care about the difference between past, present, and future. To it, linear timelines were just something that common men needed in order to understand what was happening around them.

Sylas was trying very hard not to be that common man, but he was still far from being able to truly grasp it all.

The short of what needed to be understood here was twofold.

First, the Duchess was, indeed, still pregnant, and she had only just realized that she was in this timeline on top of gaining a flood of memories of the time she had spent with Sylas through her clones.

And second… her brother was dead, and likely had been dead for a very long time.

However, whoever had chosen to target Sylas through the Duchess had underestimated just what sort of impact Sylas had had on her.

”I did not kill your brother. I gave him the same opportunity you had.” Sylas explained calmly.

Once again, this was a benefit that the Duchess had purely because of the baby in her belly. Normally, he wouldnʼt even bother. He didnʼt have the time to fight it out for his innocence, especially when the matter was something he wouldnʼt even usually do in the first place.

All of his instincts were to kill the Prince. He had let him live for the sake of the Duchess.

Sylas touched forward and touched the chains that bound her. The Duchess twitched.

Sylas was far too close. These chains didnʼt allow her to move much, but directly touching them like this… she could definitely kill Sylas with a single movement. What was he doing?

He didnʼt say much of anything, though. Just staring at the chains for a long while as though he wasnʼt worried about being attacked in the first place.

”I see.”

Sylas was worried about the Monkey King having a 1% chance of surviving, or maybe one of the Wills in the knight deciding to target him for whatever reason. But he had missed an answer.

It was a Thryskai that had targeted Nosphaleen, was it not?

It seemed that it was actually Thessa who found a way to survive, and she was holding onto quite the grudge.

The question was… why let the Duchess live, then?