Genetic Ascension

Sylas stood across from Plinli, his gaze calm and his breathing unhurried. The latter was livid, his hair and own breathing tainted by a haggard cadence.

They stood in the very same arena General Aleen had lost his life in. The scent of blood filled the air.

If one looked at the stage beneath their feet, the tiles were filled with grout lines of flesh.

It was hard to tell just how many life and death battles had been fought here, but one largely loomed over all the others, and it just so happened to be the only other one that Sylas had been a part of.

Plinli flipped over a palm and a spear appeared. Sparks of lightning coursed through his veins until suddenly...

Sylas tapped a foot.

A large amount of Aether rushed out from Sylas and in the blink of an eye, he had used up over 80% of his reserves. But in return, the entire arena was coated in a thin sheet of Glass.

The lightning that sparked and crackled around Plinli shattered the sheet that tried to form around him, but to his surprise, he also found himself feeling constrained and limited, suffocated by the continuous grounding of his lightning. Then...

Sylas stepped into the air.

The skies above rumbled, and just then, a bolt of lightning cut toward Sylas, only to have its path diverted.

It hit the large arena below, and Sylas' hair barely ruffled in response.

During his battle with Lucirius, Sylas had learned a great deal about the man and his habits. Most notably, the lightning generated by the Sylphs used up too much Aether too quickly, and it was especially volatile and difficult to control.

The real reason they couldn't use their Lightning Aether abilities beforehand was because they would probably spark for just a few seconds before their bodies gave up, wrung dry by their own methods.

In order to counter this, they had their Unique Gene which allowed them to borrow power from the skies, but triggering this took time.

Obviously, though... Plinli was far more skilled than Lucirius was.

This sort of large-scale method relying on the environment was part of what made the Lightning Sylphs so shockingly powerful. Lucirius had had pitiful stats compared to what were now over 6000 Defense on Sylas' part.

His Constitution alone was almost 3000 just with his Scorpion Warlord Armor and base stats taken into account. With his Glass Aether and Scorned Wraps added on top of that, he could brush off the bullets of a handgun without the slightest care.

And yet, Lucirius had been a great danger to him nonetheless.

But likewise...

This was also their greatest weakness.

The lightning was too difficult to control. Wielding it to strike what was a relatively small target like Sylas was nearly impossible. If there was an added interference... like say an entire arena that had suddenly become the perfect insulated region...

Plinli found his lightning constrained, and as a result, he couldn't communicate with the clouds above as well as he might normally be able to.

It was a simple concept learned in grade school...

There were few things that were a better insulator than glass itself.

However, Sylas' Aether was normal glass, it was Glass Aether, capitalized to denote its difference. It carried not just aspects of Earth, but also aspects of poison and ice, the latter of which was far more susceptible to being used as a passageway by lightning.

It was because of this mixture that Sylas had suffered at the hands of Lucirius at first. It wasn't until he adjusted the consistency of his Aether and tweaked the Runes to rely more heavily on the Earth Aether aspects that he was able to force a result that was much more like real glass.

Like this, he was able to form the perfect domain for this battle, using a combination of heavily ice-leaning Glass Aether for good conductivity to act as a lightning rod and divert lightning away from himself, as well as heavily earth-leaning Glass Aether to tighten his hold on the surroundings.

It could be said... that Sylas was the perfect counter to the Lightning Sylphs.

All of this was bad enough without Sylas having stepped foot into the skies.

With a flare out of his hands, six stones appeared. They were neither perfectly smooth nor round. They looked like normal rocks one could easily find lying around in a forest somewhere, jagged, imperfect, and natural.

However, each and every single one of them was 500 pounds heavy.

Plinli's pupils trembled fiercely. He could already see exactly how this matter would go.

He had come here for a battle, a world toppling event where he could get revenge for his fallen brethren. But instead...

The stones fell through the skies like shooting stars, streaking with a green Will that matched the glowing indifference in Sylas' eyes.

Plinli leapt to the side in an attempt to dodge, then quickly changed direction.

He slipped.

BANG!

A stone slammed into his head with more than 2000 Physical of power, nearly snapping his neck in two.

He slid across the surface of the iced arena. He should have been able to use his Aether to maintain his footing, but how could a platform formed by Sylas' own Aether be so simple to counter?

BANG!

He barely stabilized himself when a second stone fell, and then a third.

Plinli's head spun in a daze, despair taking root deep within his heart. He caught glimpses of Sylas' cold gaze from time to time and for a moment... he felt that it was laughable he had looked down on this tiny planet so much.

The young man he thought would only take a matter of patience to crush, was toying with him, humiliating him, crushing his soul and his spirit.

BANG!

Plinli's skull fractured and blood spilled out from his shattered jaw. He fell to the ground, the world dark around him.

All six stones fell from the skies in a straight line, splattering his brain across the arena.