Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1244: Not in this Life [Bonus]

Sylas tried to ask the Madness Key about what the hell had just happened, only for him to get a response he should have expected.

He couldn’t afford it.

Of course not. The secrets of the Sanguara Race were tied to a super S-Grade Race. There was no way that he could possibly easily get information about them.

His best chance was information that he had gotten from questioning the Duchess. But these weren’t things he had asked questions about.

Hindsight was 20-20; maybe he should have asked about the weaknesses of their Demon Races. But this wasn’t normally a way that Sylas approached battle to begin with.

He had had no reason to think that a fist through the heart wouldn’t kill them, as he hadn’t put together just how closely tied these Demons were to the legends of Earth until recently.

Now, it was truly coming back to bite him.

’This is what happens when you get arrogant. Now look at you.’

Sylas didn’t respond. If he had gotten arrogant, then he wouldn’t have bothered to keep the Duchess around and continue to play a waiting game in the first place. He would have just killed her and then dealt with the fallout of her father’s anger personally.

He hadn’t thought he was being arrogant, but reality bore out a different result.

The difference between Sylas and someone who was truly arrogant, though, was that he was willing to acknowledge his mistakes, as rare as they were.

And he never made the same mistake twice.

He had to work under the assumption that all the Sanguara had the power to just ignore their stats like that. It felt like every time the Duchess attacked, she was pulling from a wellspring much larger than what her body alone could hold, like it was coming from an external source.

’Blood.’

Sylas reached the conclusion quite quickly.

It must be a special ability of the Sanguara. They had an ability like Aetherborne Will—his new Elevated Gene Talent. The difference was that theirs was far better.

Sylas had wanted to use Aetherborne Will to use his 100 Foundation Aether freely. If he could have managed that, he would have almost instantly become one of the most powerful beings in the F-Grade.

A 100 Foundation Aether represented the absolute pinnacle of F-Grade Aethers. But right now, he still couldn’t do that.

The Duchess, however, didn’t seem to have the same limitations. Her Strength and Speed almost felt invincible, as though so long as she had that vast well to pull from, she could continuously output greater amounts of it.

Her Strength was one thing, but her Speed… it was what really killed. Sylas could hardly react to it at all.

The only saving grace was that she didn’t seem capable of boosting them all at the same time, but instead only one at a time. If not for this, Sylas highly doubted that he would have been able to get out of that.

But therein lay the question… was it really the case that all the Sanguara had it? Were they just so arrogant that they didn’t feel the need to act?

Sylas exhaled another breath and then pulled out a vial. This was another Healing Elixir, courtesy of the Duchess. Their original plan was for him to take the rewards of killing the Golden Champion all to himself, so she had, of course, given him resources to help that along.

A good thing too; otherwise he wouldn’t have the strength to do much of anything.

That fall had been no joke.

He chugged the bottle and then exhaled, feeling his body begin to repair itself—but slower than before. It seemed that even Healing Elixirs were weaker for him now, but it should be enough to get him back to 100%, albeit only after a few hours.

That was fine. He needed time to regroup.

It seemed that if the Duchess had this much strength, he was going to need to regroup and maybe think of a weakness.

He couldn’t get an answer from the Madness Key—it was far too expensive. The Sanguara were too high-level a Race.

That said, he already had a few ideas. If the Duchess’ power really came from her well of blood and the blood she had consumed, then the obvious counter was to find a way to drain her of that first.

In fact, there was definitely a price to pay for their regeneration, then. Maybe every injury used up large sums of that blood and thus shrunk the pool they had to pull from, weakening them.

But given how large that pool was, and how powerful they were, just injuring them continuously wasn’t a viable strategy.

There was another way, though. Those Demonic Serpentes had given him an idea… The trouble was that he could only fully control F-Grade Serpentes, not E-Grade ones like these. For now, he could still only suppress E-Grade Serpentes.

Still, an idea was churning in his head until—.

Sylas’ eyes opened wide. ’Could it be?’

A realization hit him like a truck. It felt so obvious now that he was shocked he had overlooked it.

If his body could evolve based on the pressure of Demonic Genes, then why wouldn’t the vice versa be possible?

’No. I couldn’t have predicted this. The healing factor of the Sanguara is just beyond my understanding. But even so…’

Sylas realized that he would have to be more careful in the future. But first, he was going to have to find where those Demonic Serpentes were.

Luckily, his Profession had evolved in many ways after becoming “Common.” One of which was the ability to use his individual talents more flexibly… like Beacon.

Beacon was an ability that allowed him to call all Serpentes beneath a certain Grade to him within a certain radius. But now Sylas felt he could use it in reverse.

This time, he would use Beacon to find the Serpentes instead.

He had some rapid leveling he needed to do.

Using [Earth Escape] again, he shot out of the Earth, his Beast Totem flickering behind him as he oriented himself and then rushed away.

He had no plans on losing this. Originally, he had come here for Megean. But now the Duchess had stoked his Pride.

A woman he had had pinned beneath him wasn’t going to be his superior—not in this life, and not in the next.

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