Genetic Ascension novel Chapter 2344

Sylas walked across the starry skies until the unfinished bridge between Heavens stretched clearly across his vision, then came to a stop without so much as glancing behind him.

Dry Mouth, Iskaleth, and Sarethvane finally caught up several breaths later, each of them breathing hard from the effort it had taken to follow, though exhaustion hadn't dulled the sharpness in their gazes.

Sylas barely paid them any attention because his focus had already settled on the distant chaos, particularly the gaps still forming throughout the bridge.

From what he understood of the Heaven System, something like this should have been completed almost instantly. It wasn't so impotent that constructing a stable pathway between two Heavens should require this much time, especially when it had already decided to trigger the event in the first place.

That meant someone was either deliberately slowing the process, or the system itself had decided to drag things out.

The second possibility was more interesting.

Perhaps the system wanted to declare a winner without allowing the conflict to bloom into a true war. That would be unusual because the system typically encouraged conflict rather than stability, especially when clashes created opportunities for growth, but this time its behavior didn't align with that tendency. Sylas' gaze narrowed as the answer became clear enough.

The system was afraid the Skai Heaven would be destroyed.

If that happened, then all the effort it had spent nurturing the Path of Will would crumble with it, and Will remained the only path the system had yet to fully complete. That made this situation fundamentally different from the clash between the Weaver Guild and the Seeing Eye Guild, where the system had wanted the confrontation because it had little reason to protect either side from the consequences.

Here, it was encouraging battle while also trying to keep the Skai Heaven alive. But that hesitation made it vulnerable.

A system with one foot in and one foot out would be much easier to manipulate than one committed to a single outcome, and that likely meant there would be more room for exceptions than the event description implied.

The odds that individuals above C-tier would find ways to participate were probably much higher than they should have been, especially on the side of the Skai Heaven, where the system had the greatest incentive to bend its own rules.

Sylas finally looked down at his Contracts.

"This will be your battlefield."

Dry Mouth's breathing steadied, while Sarethvane's expression darkened almost immediately. Iskaleth lifted her blind eyes toward Sylas, listening as he continued.

"You'll be fighting Serpentes with stronger bloodlines than yours, better foundations, and more advantages than you've had access to." Sylas' gaze moved across the three of them without softening. "Survive, and you may have the chance to truly change your lives."

Sarethvane looked anything but pleased, though he didn't argue. Dry Mouth's eyes sharpened instead, almost excited despite the exhaustion dragging at his body, but Iskaleth remained still as something else seemed to occupy her thoughts. Her gaze shifted toward Sylas' ear.

"Then what about that one?"

Sylas followed the direction of her attention.

The small earring hanging from his ear looked harmless enough, but Iskaleth had long realized that it was another Contract, even if Sylas never treated it the same way he treated the three of them. She hesitated for only a moment before gritting her teeth and continuing.

"Why doesn't it have to work as hard as we do?"

She expected the question to anger him, but Sylas' expression barely changed.

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