Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1279: Choked

The bubble burst and Sylas calmly walked forward toward the next group, leaving the Skarzok lookalike and his handler in a bit of a daze. Even now, they weren’t 100% certain of what had happened. It felt like they had just been trapped, only to be released moments later.

The perception of the D-tier was odd and twisted, like he couldn’t grasp exactly what had happened. But even now, he didn’t want to believe it.

No. It was impossible for an F-tier to do something like that to him. The only explanation was that someone was helping him, but that only made the D-tier all the more apprehensive.

If Sylas was getting that kind of help, then it wasn’t up to him to interfere. He made his charge sit down in silence. And just like that, everyone else fell in line.

Sylas hid his fatigue behind his stoic face, satisfied with the outcome. He understood people. It didn’t matter if they were alien Races or not. They were all the same at the end of the day.

The only way to hold power was to exert yourself once—only then could you relax and use an easier, more manageable approach. It didn’t have to necessarily be fear, but you needed respect and deterrence. Where that came from didn’t matter for the time being.

The D-tier might think that Sylas had gotten outside help, but this wasn’t the case at all. Instead, Sylas relied on the Hibernation Realm.

Hibernation Halo was an interesting ability. Originally, its purpose was to extend the recovery abilities of the Hibernation Realm into an external form. Thanks to the synergy between his three Legendary Paths, Sylas was able to take advantage of this even to heal himself so long as he was in a state of full Fusion.

Obviously, he wasn’t in such a state now, and he also didn’t need any healing, so that wasn’t what he had used it for.

What made the ability so interesting was the fact that it was projecting an ability. It wasn’t the ability in itself.

After Sylas’ Vipermancy had progressed to Bronze, this ability, too, had undergone a change, and it allowed him to use the Hibernation Halo as a projection of his world, imposing it onto the outside.

Due to his control over his own world being far beyond his control of any other, Sylas made use of his Time Runes to change the speed with which time flowed by for the D-tier, making him experience what should have been entire minutes in the outside world as split moments instead.

Due to this, the D-tier couldn’t react because his mind physically wasn’t fast enough to even realize that there was something wrong to react against in the first place.

Sylas had no ability to fight a D-tier head-on, and certainly not one who could openly go about their business in this Sector. Though he was a mere handler, it definitely took some doing and status to take charge of such an important resource of a family or organization.

But he didn’t have to fight them head-on if he could make them think they weren’t fighting.

During that period, Sylas took his time to interrogate the Skarzok lookalike, gaining all the information he wanted before releasing the both of them.

Then, he went to the next group, and then the next.

This time, everyone was silent and obedient, and Sylas only had to use his Hibernation Halo to put up a spatial barrier others couldn’t see through, something that was orders of magnitude easier than manipulating time. It hardly took any effort at all.

Still, as Sylas continued his interrogation, he couldn’t help but feel that he needed better recovery methods.

Unfortunately, [Maddened Enlightenment] had fallen far behind [Madness Control]. Since he evolved it from [Maddened Meditation], he hadn’t progressed it at all, and it was still the same FF+ Skill—and it was next to useless to him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had even bothered to use it actively. Maybe he would have to look into that.

It was just unfortunate he felt like he had a million things to do but not nearly enough time to do it.

Eventually, Sylas went to the end of it all, finishing off his interrogation.

“Thank you all for your cooperation.”

After saying this, Sylas turned and left, not saying another word.

The murmurs in the hangar returned and a few sinister gazes flashed. But, they didn’t seem to deem it worthwhile to do much of anything right now.

**

Sylas returned to his room to find that Old Brama was still lounging while Alex and Jala were playing some sort of odd tabletop game that utilized Runes.

It only took Sylas a glance to see through it. He was partially curious about what people in the wider universe did for entertainment. It wasn’t as though he had had all the time in the world to check on that while he was running for his life everywhere. But that game would certainly not be any fun for him.

Not unless he was playing against a decent E-tier Rune Master at the very least.

He cast a glance toward Old Brama, who more than fit the description. Unfortunately, he was still not in a place where fun could be had. It seemed that he was in another ridiculous situation.

Old Brama peeked up from his hat, eyeing Sylas as though waiting for him to say something.

“The numbers aren’t bad. There are 27 D-tier and 13 E- and F-tiers for a total of 53.”

Old Brama’s lip twitched. Aren’t bad? That was almost 20% of the people that had boarded this time. If that number of traitors was onboard and timed the period of descent just right, they’d all be finished.

If it was anyone else who said something so ridiculous, Old Brama would have called them out for being a lying bastard.

“Well, at least there aren’t any C-tiers.”

“There were never C-tiers amongst them to begin with. Why would they need them when the captain is in on it?”

Old Brama almost choked on air.

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