Genetic Ascension

Sylas tried to breathe evenly, but his breath approached out in hurricane force gusts. His body was too tired, and he couldn't allow himself to relax. A single slip up and his body would be ripped apart from the inside out by the Monkey King.

Air wheezed through a small gap between the rows of his teeth, his eyes still staring at the knight whose head seemed to encompass the entire universe.

Pressure weighed down on his shoulders, partially from the Monkey King's Will, and partially from his own. To think that he would be faced with such a dilemma.

This knight… it existed outside the bounds of spacetime, a state that Sylas wanted most of all, but couldn't yet achieve. And because of that, it was in the best position possible to do this.

Did Sylas find it pathetic that the Monkey King was relying on such an external item to make things work for him? Yes. But it didn't really matter now, did it. The results spoke for themselves, and the weight on his shoulders was only growing heavier because of it.

The Monkey King's laughter boomed. He seemed in no particular rush to deal a killing blow, allowing the Will in the air to hang heavier and heavier, chipping away at what stamina Sylas had left.

And there truly wasn't much of it at all.

This demonic form burned Sylas from the inside out, and it chewed up his Will in ways he thought shouldn't have been possible for True Infinite Will.

When the Monkey King asked him just how long he could keep that up for, he wasn't wrong to do so. However…

Sylas took one final breath, forcing the cadence of them to become calm even at the expense of his body. And then, for the first time since this began, he slowly looked toward the Monkey King.

The look he held immediately infuriated the latter.

Sylas shifted to the side, but a hole was ripped out of his chest as something grabbed hold of his lung from the inside and pulled. A bursting spray of blood flew into the surroundings, falling down in a torrent as though every drop of Sylas was worth a tsunami.

"Lower your gaze." The Monkey King growled.

Sylas, of course, did no such thing.

The Monkey King vanished. Sylas suddenly punched out.

BANG.

Sylas took a heavy step back, and in that moment, something grabbed at his body again. This time it didn't take the shape of a hand, but instead simply a hook. It latched onto his Aether Pathway and pulled, tearing the organ out of his body through his shoulder and snapping it.

Sylas' arm proceeded limp as he skated back, but the Monkey King dropped into a low stance, closing in the distance swiftly, then slamming a palm to the ground and swinging his heel up toward Sylas' temple. freewёbnoνel.com

Sylas blocked with his scythe and forearm, only for another hook to appear in his hip and yank out his Aether Pathway once again. ƒreewebɳovel.com

A grunt left Sylas' lips as he twisted away, failing to stop the initial damage.

His feet stumbled, his leg not quite working like it once did before. He had grown too used to using Aether to supplement his movements. Outside of his telekinesis, it was probably his greatest reliance in keeping up with those who had raw strength far beyond his own.

And now with every cut and sever, he was losing control of that.

It was like there was nothing inside of his body that the Monkey King couldn't target.

BANG.

Sylas' twist away was met with a fist to the face. His body was forced to swing the other way, only to be met by a staff, and then a kick from the opposite direction.

It was like he was being ping ponged around, the flames bursting from the corners of his lips sparking out as though even they were losing momentum.

His body seemed on the verge of shrinking once more, his Will waning as one savage attack after another ripped into him.

His organs hung out from tears and rips in his flesh and skin, his body twisting and deforming beneath every impact.

"WHERE IS YOUR LAUGHTER, SYLAS GRIMBLADE?! WHERE IS YOUR GRIN!? SHOW IT TO ME!"

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Sylas coughed up a mouthful of blood, his body shrinking down. His horns vanished from his head.

BOOM.

He crashed through a moon. The surface collapsed as though an enormous sinkhole had swallowed it whole. In what felt like a single instant of time, Sylas went from just crossing its crust to lying near its core, crumbling rock and broken mountains swimming into an asteroid field that filled the skies.

Sylas tried to breathe, but came out with more blood instead.

BOOM.

The Monkey King appeared high above him, the asteroid field in his immediate vicinity tearing apart to make space for him as though his presence was far larger than even a celestial body could fathom.

He looked down from above.

"Well, well, well. I guess the answer was not very long at all. Without your little form, how many strikes do you think you could survive? One?"

The Monkey King raised his staff, a swirling burst of energy flooding out of it.

Down below, Sylas found that his body was too broken to move. He felt a connection between his telekinetic martial arts and his broken Aether Pathways now that he had never felt explicitly before, but it was far too late to take advantage of it. And it was hard to say if it would make any difference at all.

The Monkey King stared down upon the world.

"Goodbye, you arrogant ant. I have slain many Gods before with my tricks and wit. What makes you think you would be any different?"

Sylas' gaze had never left the Monkey King ever since he looked away from the knight looming high in the skies.

But now, the gaze no longer bothered the Monkey King nearly as much as his staff reached its apex.

"Die."

The Monkey King swung down, his staff expanding rapidly.