Genetic Ascension

Dry Mouth choked on his own saliva.

Consume it? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

The golden line stretched through the void with a presence far beyond anything Dry Mouth could casually interfere with. It wasn't just some random bit of energy stretched out into a line. It was carving out space in the void for itself, filling nothingness with enough substance that the void had no choice but to acknowledge its existence.

Even Dry Mouth couldn't do that. He could borrow from the void, twist it around himself, sever things from the structures that supported them, and with enough preparation he could even manipulate a World Spirit into serving his purposes like he had done before his battle with Sylas, but that was preparation, time, layers of effort and work.

He didn't even know how to start "working" on this. And Sylas somehow wanted him to swallow it.

Dry Mouth's thoughts immediately spiraled toward something worse.

Iskaleth and Sarethvane.

He had been pulled out of the Hibernation Realm at almost exactly the same time they disappeared back into it. From his perspective, the two of them had simply vanished after being gone for a suspiciously long time, and now Sylas had dragged him out here and given him this ridiculous order.

Had they failed too? Did that mean they were dead now?

Dry Mouth's usual playfulness vanished. If Sylas killed him, what would happen to his family?

He had offended too many people, fought too many things, and made far too many enemies to pretend that his death would end with him. His family had always been the reason he moved forward in the first place. If he disappeared now, who would make sure all of those old grudges stayed buried?

His jaw tightened.

Invisible fangs formed along the edges of his mouth and scraped against one another, sparks bursting where they met. Strange flames followed, embers dropping from the void and falling toward the world far below.

Dry Mouth took another breath.

Fine. Consume it.

But how?

His first thought was simple: sever it.

That was what he did best.

The poison sacks he had never possessed had long since been replaced by something much more useful. His fangs didn't need venom when they could cut through connections themselves, and when he fought Sylas in the past, that principle had become the foundation of his greatest preparation.

Dry Mouth had severed a world's connection to everything around it, cutting it away from the system's influence and turning the region into something approaching a quasi void of his own making.

The principle here wasn't completely different. If he couldn't swallow this enormous presence directly, he could separate pieces from the whole.

The problem was scale. That old world had possessed an ordinary World Spirit, and the planet itself hadn't even reached Silver Grade. This, though...?

Dry Mouth stared at the golden line and felt his stomach twist.

"What the hell does 'consume it' even mean..." he muttered.

What he didn't realize was that Sylas had never given him a deadline.

Iskaleth and Sarethvane had been told three hours because they needed pressure. Dry Mouth needed something else entirely.

When his family was involved, there wasn't much Dry Mouth wouldn't do. Pride didn't matter. Humiliation didn't matter. Even bowing his head to Sylas and serving Yamero had been acceptable if that was what kept him alive long enough to protect the people waiting behind him.

He would figure this out even if it killed him.

Dry Mouth's attention narrowed until the golden line and the void surrounding it became the only things left in his world.

He didn't notice when Sylas vanished.

Of the three new Contracts, Dry Mouth was actually the one Sylas worried about least. Not because he understood the void, but because he understood himself.

Dry Mouth knew what he cared about, knew what he would sacrifice for it, and had no confusion about the kind of person he was. His Will lacked refinement, but that was something time could solve. Opportunity could solve it too.

Iskaleth and Sarethvane still needed to learn who they were beneath everything else but Dry Mouth already knew. Maybe that was the difference a loving family made.

Sylas walked along the golden path, his thoughts drifting somewhere he hadn't expected. His parents, his grandfather, his sister, his wife, and now his children, lives that had yet to properly enter the world.

How much of the man he had become existed because of them?

Sylas had always been cold and practical. Willing to do things most people would hesitate over for far too long. But would there have been a bottom at all without his family?

Would anything have stopped him from becoming something truly callous if there had never been anyone whose opinion mattered, no one whose safety could anger him, no one capable of reminding him that there was more to life than just winning. Or maybe just that winning itself came in forms that weren't always so tangible.

Maybe not.

Sylas' steps slowed. The golden path finally ended.

Below him, a nebula stretched across the void in breathtaking silence. Royal blue clouds spiraled around enormous rivers of gold, the two colors folding into one another like currents of light suspended in a black ocean. The golden portions glowed from within, thin veins breaking through the blue before disappearing again, while distant stars shone through translucent layers and gave the entire structure the illusion of impossible depth.

Sylas looked down. The Fate Dragon's lingering attachments were here.

Dry Mouth couldn't consume all of this. Maybe after more time he could, more refinement, more chances to grow into the Void Path that already sat inside him.

But Sylas hadn't brought him here expecting him to do everything alone. It was about time he upgraded his eyes anyway.

Sylas had no interest in seeing Fate. Why would he need to see the outcome of something he already knew?

No one would defeat him. His rise was inevitable.

But Iskaleth had revealed something much more interesting than simple foresight.

There was a connection between the eyes and Fate...

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