Genetic Ascension

Chapter 519: The...

 n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Sylas hung from the last vestiges of the web of tree roots, his gaze flickering. There was nothing but a fall to darkness beneath him, but his visualization was also not obstructed by the dense web system either.

Thanks to that, he could see a full 100 meters below. Or, rather, what was effectively 15 meters

or so.

And that was enough to notice that there was an abandoned city beneath him, just as expected.

Of course, Sylas couldn't have been certain of this. He wasn't an oracle who could see the future. But he had had his guesses.

The first oddity was the fact he had almost fallen into this abyss before. The spider queen had tried to drop him down here, and if not for the barrier of the Field Dungeon keeping him in, the plan just might have succeeded.

But that was only one part. It truly was odd that there was a root system like this built so high above the true ground, but that could easily be explained away by the existence of the spider queen.

What couldn't be explained away so easily were Ragnar's odd decisions.

Why was he so willing to give up his city for the sake of taking him down?

It made sense for Lucius to make such a sacrifice, but had he really been such a thorn to Ragnar? He shouldn't even really know who he was. Even if he had figured it out, their interactions were too few and he shouldn't have built up such a hatred for him.

There was a chance that it was related to his partnership with the Sylphs, but that would only make sense if Ragnar was stupid.

After all, Sylas had already killed the best trump card the Sylphs had in the Evergreen Territory. And he had yet to confirm if the other two System Cities were under their control or not.

There was a very real possibility that the only foundation the Sylphs and Ragnar both had left in the Evergreen Territory was Ragnar's city.

So why abandon it?

Even more shocking than that, they should know that Sylas had failed the Evergreen Multi Quest. That meant that they should have a wide open door to take advantage of. So why were they eager to kill him to the point of allowing the portal to Evergreen to close on them?

Was his life really that important to them?

There were only two possible explanations.

Either the relationship between Ragnar and the Sylphs was built on more than just mutual benefits...

Highly unlikely.

Or... the group had found something else to rely on.

And clearly, the answer to that was two.

'A fifteen-meter fall. We can manage.'

Sylas rocked his body and then, with a sway, he let himself fall down after signaling to Nosphaleen to be as quiet as possible.

Nosphaleen obliged, and realizing this wasn't the right time to use Aether, she allowed herself to drop down in the direction of Sylas.

Sylas realized that Nosphaleen was going to land awkwardly, so he caught her before she slipped off the building they landed on. It made him realize his visualization wasn't nearly as large as his own.

He had already guessed as much, but it was only 15 meters. Could her visualization really be weaker than that?

There wasn't much time to mind it all, so he began to scan the region.

The first thing he realized was that this place had an extreme fascination with scorpions. The artifacts left behind by whoever once lived here, whether that be the Gods they worshipped or the bowls they ate from, all seemed to incorporate scorpions in one way or another.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Sylas would think of Ragnar and his tattoos when he saw all of this.

Could this be where Ragnar had gotten his Class from?

Sylas didn't really have much of a luxury to consider what his second Class would be, especially with the time crunch of his first still looming over his head.

He was closing in on just about seven months left to complete all the legs of his Chain Quest, or else there would be hell to pay.

Plus, he had gained so many benefits from the Dual Class Constitution even without a second Class to pair it with, so he wasn't all that obsessed.

But now that he had run into such a situation, he couldn't help but be curious.

His visualization flared outward and he began to check things over one by one. But he didn't find Ragnar immediately like he expected. It seemed that this underground village was far larger than he knew. It was more like a true city.

He hopped down from the building quietly, and Nosphaleen followed much more nimbly this time.

'Judging by the general flow of the city, if there are important regions, it'll probably be in that direction.'

He set off, still remaining cautious.

If Ragnar had great gains from this place, this would obviously be his home turf.

Sylas might be eager to kill him to be rid of one more annoyance in his life, but he couldn't be too careless or else he might end up being counter-killed.

It wasn't long before Sylas and Nosphaleen reached the core of this forgotten city. Though, that was mostly because of their stats.

They must have had to travel what was easily tens of kilometers. It was no wonder they had managed to benefit from this place without being worried about the influence of the spider

queen.

However, this made things tricky.

There was no guarantee that Ragnar could come to the center of the city like this. He could be hiding anywhere, and it would be practically impossible to find him.

All of their sneaking around was meaningless at this point, but it was still best to conserve their Aether since there was no longer a portal in the region. Given enough time, this piece of Earth would become Aether-barren again.

As Sylas was trying to understand what it was he was looking at in the darkness, Nosphaleen

suddenly spoke through gritted teeth.

"The Dogons."