Genetic Ascension

[Thanks to GaryDaSnail... you were my childhood once, now you are my tormentor. I do not blame you, I blame chrono and eviiil's terrible influence...]

After speaking, Alex fell into silence. As for Sylas, he hadn't said a word from start to finish. He hardly looked at Jala either, who still stood in the very same spot, unmoving.

Jala hadn't expected to come face to face with Sylas again so soon, while Alex clearly hadn't expected it either. However, there was one thing they both knew for sure:

Their lives were in Sylas' hands.

That said, their reactions to this information were very much different.

Jala felt a cold sweat on his back, and he grit his teeth hard. All of his thoughts swirled around methods of making his own death as much of a living hell for Sylas as possible if it came down to such a thing.

The pressure of the last month had truly weighed on him heavily. He had given it everything he had, just to come up short—and not just by a little bit, either.

From afar, he had always admired Sylas, constantly arguing with his uncle and father about wanting a chance to prove that he could be like that too, if only they stopped coddling him.

But now he didn't even have the chance to be coddled by them any longer, and all he seemed to do on his own was make one mistake after another.

And then there was Alex.

Sylas wasn't fooled. He had seen the real Alex before, and someone who was willing to take such risks wasn't a coward.

When he went on the Mountain of Giza trip with Alex, the latter had never said a single word from start to finish. He was so focused, and almost dark in a way Sylas had never seen before.

Maybe if Sylas was the sort to meet everything with a veneer of indifference, Alex was the exact opposite—but on the inside, they were a lot more alike than it seemed.

While Alex looked as though he was crying about the unfairness of it all and cracking one joke after another, he had never actually once begged for his life. And Sylas could see something deeper in his Will.

He was waiting, analyzing, trying to decide if he really did have to fight it out with Sylas right here and now.

And then Sylas suddenly released him.

The green palm that had held onto Alex's throat vanished, and Alex landed on the ground.

"See? I knew we could come to some sort of amicable resoluti—."

Alex stopped talking as he saw Sylas wring his wrists.

"Show me what you can do. If you can last twenty exchanges, we can talk," Sylas said calmly.

"Syl, buddy, cuzzo… this isn't necessary, righ—?!"

Sylas suddenly punched. There was no telekinesis, no Aetherflow, just a pulse of Runic intent.

The Mesh of Reality bent and the Runes of the world listened. Then it was as though Sylas' fist, which was at least a dozen meters from Alex's face, was actually right in front of him.

BANG!

Alex's head snapped to the side and nearly flew from his neck on impact. The whiplash was so strong he practically heard the sound of his brain sloshing around in his skull, teeth and blood flying.

His body twisted and he was sent back faster than he had originally escaped. But halfway through the air, he vanished in a puff of smoke.

Sylas vanished as well, the world warping around him as he took a single step. Runes flew around him at mach speeds, making it look as though he was some sort of wizard constantly casting spells that pulled on the laws of the world.

One magic circle after another spontaneously formed, and Sylas appeared in the same location Alex vanished to.

This time, Alex didn't curse. He didn't blurt out words filled with complete and utter nonsense. His face had just become deadpan in a way that exuded a certain hollowness Sylas found familiar.

Maybe when he looked in the mirror, this was often the same look staring back at him.

A dagger appeared in Alex's palm, a curved saber taking shape in the other. But the latter weapon seemed to constantly change form, turning to a sword, and then a polearm with a blade of jagged edges.

Even as it changed, Alex's dagger seemed to pass through space and time, tearing into Sylas' control as though it was swallowing it whole.

In a blink, it had appeared by Sylas' throat.

A lethal intent bore down on Sylas, and his Luck actually flashed to warn him of an impending doom. This attack actually carried quite some threat to him.

A threat was one thing. The ability to execute on it, though, was another.

[Chaotic Menace] activated, a deathly blackened green glow exuding from Sylas' body and wrapping around him. His mane-like hair shifted and protected his neck with just the slightest pull of his telekinesis.

Chi.

Sparks flew past Sylas' eyes, but he hardly flinched as he drove a fist toward Alex's gut.

The weapon in Alex's other hand changed again, shifting to a shield that blocked and then dispersed the blow. What should have been a booming cascade of pulsing might whimpered out, and Sylas almost felt like he was stepping forward and through a cloud.

The instant his momentum stopped, Alex's shield changed and he pulled back, expanding a gap of tens of meters in an instant—so fast that Sylas didn't get a chance to take a step to bridge the distance.

All of a sudden, the once-shield solidified into a whip, streaks of black left in Alex's wake forming its body to make it seem as though it had always been there, right by Sylas' side.

It lashed out, cutting through the air with a biting wind and a clap of shattering sound that rolled like thunder.

Sylas almost casually activated [Primal Step], his body swaying and his feet almost seeming to multiply in a peculiar dance.

The whip missed, swiping through one of Sylas' afterimages with such speed that a cut of crimson appeared in the air.

[Chaotic Menace] flared again, Sylas' claws lengthening. And then streaks of emerald lightning dancing at the tips of Sylas' fingers as he slashed down.

It was so fast that Alex couldn't react—the distance between the two seemingly not mattering in the slightest when the space and time of Runes in the air were under Sylas' control.

Alex was nearly sliced into six pieces. Coughing up a mouthful of blood, he slammed into what remained of a mountain below.