Genetic Ascension

When Sylas learned of the story, he knew that he was right to press the issue. There were too many odd coincidences to it.

According to the brown leather-skinned pig Demon, over a week ago there was an odd phenomenon that was marked out in the ocean somewhere. A pillar of light descended, connecting the skies and the waters in ways they had never seen before.

Unfortunately, the period was too brief, and it was impossible to lock on to the exact location, especially since it was a great distance away.

Because of the distance, the curve of their world played a factor, so they couldn't pinpoint the place the pillar met the surface of the ocean. This was because the curve obscured the landing place.

Many left in that direction, but quickly found that even approaching the region was a problem. They knew they were still quite a distance away, but the volatility of the waters was beyond their imaginations. It killed many Demons before they stopped approaching altogether.

Since then, the headquarters had sent down the Young Miss. Well, at least that was the story on the surface.

From what Sylas picked up from the brown pig Demon's words, he didn't seem to believe this. The Young Miss was the wild and willful type—not too unexpected from someone born into privilege, capped off by a world of such savagery.

Regardless, she forced the hand of the head of their fishery, taking their best vessel out in hopes of sailing through the carnage that was currently the middle of the ocean.

When Sylas had been there, he had noticed that the currents were particularly violent. In fact, he had used a tsunami-like current to hide himself when he initially shot out of the ocean to catch the blue Demon off guard.

But it seemed that that wasn't the natural state of the ocean.

There was one thing that caught Sylas' attention about all of this. Well, really, two things.

First, the time. Just over a week ago was when Megean had entered.

No, more accurately, Megean had entered a little over two weeks ago. But if she was stuck battling through the Linked Dungeons, and took a slower approach, or maybe ran into some more difficult challenges, taking a week after that to get here wasn't a huge deal.

However, Sylas himself didn't seem to have caused a pillar. So that theory felt inadequate.

The pig Demon didn't mention a second pillar of light coming. So why would one appear for Megean and not them?

But then there was a second thing…

The color of the pillar.

Gold.

For some reason, Sylas found himself attached to this tidbit.

The Golden Lineage.

Was it just an insignificant detail? Or was it related?

Sylas' mind was connecting one thing after another.

The interest of the Thryskai. The gold. The fact they had a Demon World in a hidden secret realm of their world. And the most interesting tidbit…?

Why would Old Brama so randomly accuse Sylas of being a Charysm?

After some limited research—as the topic really didn't have much depth of information available—Sylas was able to learn at least a little about Charysms… at least enough to know that they were an obscure Race. Powerful, sure. But so faint in the public consciousness that absolutely no one would just randomly draw a connection to them for no reason…

Unless it was something that happened to be at the forefront of your mind for various reasons.

Then there was the Gold Lineage. It seemed to be something that the Golden Grove was very proud of. It was mentioned many times in their archives, though once again, without much information attached to it. But the Gold Lineage was something that ran through their veins.

It was a bit of a leap, but what if this Gold Lineage was related to the Demon Race in some way?

Sylas didn't believe they were Demons—he would have sensed that. But maybe… a Lineage with a long, storied history of fighting them.

That would perfectly explain why Old Brama would immediately connect Sylas to Charysms.

If all of these speculations were true on Sylas' part, then what would that mean for this Demon World's existence?

Well, if he was of a Lineage proud of their Demon slaying, wouldn't he create a realm designed to test his descendants' abilities to do the same?

The Linked Dungeon would be nothing more than a method of testing their baseline of strength. Or maybe it even doubled as a way to produce and keep the Demons in this little sandbox trapped so that they could continue to pose a challenge for his next generations.

Then, when a descendant was brave enough to enter, he would give the Demons a chance to hunt them down—a method of knowing that his descendant was here and prepared to fight them, but also bake into the method a chance for his descendant to get a bit of a head start… a chance that might manifest itself like churning ocean waves.

The deductions seemed to stream into Sylas' mind one after another. A part of him was almost dissatisfied, as though he hadn't grasped enough of the truth yet. But that was only part of it.

He felt that the Title the Leava Clan was probably searching for everywhere right about now was something he felt was almost lackluster.

He felt that he could think for longer, and his mind had more energy. But in terms of nimbleness and ingenuity… this Contested Title of his did neither.

If one got this Title thinking it would make you smarter, they were sorely mistaken. Sylas had been looking forward to seeing if maybe there was a horizon beyond a horizon for his mind. But it seemed there wasn't one.

That much was fine, though… with this sort of stamina, and the mind his parents seemed to have luckily granted him.

He was unstoppable.

The question was, what to do from here.

Check for the pillar of light? Or assume himself to be correct and look for Megean elsewhere?