Chapter 2386 Sword Will

Sylas placed a hand against Yamero's scaled body, and the serpent released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. The spatial Runes making up his form loosened from the rigid state they had fallen into, though the strange certainty that had just passed through him didn't disappear with it.

Yamero remained quiet for several steps before the Runes around his eyes tightened into a frown.

"He's dangerous."

Sylas seemed indifferent to the assessment, though he had already reached much the same conclusion. The old man had heavily implied, if not outright stated, that his disciples had all reached something close to S-tier by now, yet he had never mentioned Januar at all, which made the fact that Januar stood firmly at C-tier rather interesting.

Even more interesting was the ease with which he spoke about matters that sounded suspiciously close to rewriting reality, treating the concept like an ordinary Sunday stroll, which was fitting considering it really was Sunday according to Earth's old calendar.

Januar clearly hadn't left due to a lack of confidence, and Sylas doubted the young man was frightened of him either. If a battle started now, too many people would be allowed to take advantage of the result, and Januar's earlier words had made his preferences obvious enough that Sylas could follow the logic.

He wanted a true free-for-all where no one could comfortably sit at the edge and reap the benefits after everyone else exhausted themselves. Otherwise, the people most likely to profit were Rhykan and the sword maniac Januar had mentioned.

There was also the fifth Will Sylas had sensed outside the Sanctum, one that didn't quite feel singular in the same way the others did. His current guess was some combination of Gentrixaul and another existence, though there wasn't enough information to narrow it down further yet. Whatever Januar knew about all of this, he had chosen to wait until the board was properly set before showing his hand.

Sylas had let him leave for an entirely different reason, though. Januar was his grand disciple.

That connection bought him exactly one chance for the sake of the old man whose name Sylas still didn't know and had never cared enough to ask. The next time Januar decided to test him with some thinly veiled threat, Sylas would simply deal with him directly.

As for Januar's warning itself, Sylas gave it about as much weight as a little boy announcing that today would finally be the day he beat his father in an arm-wrestling match.

Yamero seemed to notice the direction of Sylas' thoughts and released a quiet chuckle through the shifting spaces around his body. Neither of them bothered returning to the subject as the forest opened ahead, the strange rainbow colors thinning until an enormous lake appeared in the middle of the World of Spirits. Its surface looked less like water and more like liquid glass, reflecting colors that didn't exist anywhere in the visible sky.

A small boat floated at the center.

A woman lay inside it with her hair spread across the sides, dark strands spilling over the edges until they seemed to blend into the lake itself. Her white gown followed the shape of her body without revealing anything outright, while a sword rested against her chest, its hilt nestled perfectly between her breasts as though it had been placed there by design.

Sylas barely noticed any of that. His eyes went straight to the sword.

'So that's what I sensed.'

The Executioner's Blade. There was no mistaking it.

The weapon looked identical to Cassarae's, yet appearance alone wasn't what held Sylas' attention. Its Will was the same, carrying the exact same sharpened presence he had felt countless times before, not similar enough to come from the same lineage or forged from the same technique, but close enough that calling them separate weapons felt increasingly inaccurate.

Only after recognizing the blade did Sylas properly look at the woman holding it.

There was no Aether inside her. There wasn't even the faint scent of the system.

Sylas narrowed his eyes. This wasn't some expert hiding her cultivation or an existence whose strength had become too great for him to read, since there was simply nothing there to sense in the first place. She felt like someone who had never participated in a Summoning at all.

Yet every instinct Sylas possessed told him she was dangerous.

His thoughts immediately moved toward the hatred between the Heaven System and the Madness System, though he refused to settle on a conclusion from that alone. The complete absence of system influence was too specific to ignore, especially now, but what interested him more was how someone with no functional Aether, no visible Stat amplification, and perhaps no remarkable Genes at all could radiate this kind of pressure.

The woman's eyes opened. She turned her head toward Sylas, and something faintly familiar appeared in her gaze.

As she shifted, the sword moved slightly across her chest, allowing a necklace hidden beneath it to slip free and fall against the side of her neck. Sylas hadn't sensed the necklace at all until that moment, almost as though the Executioner's Blade had swallowed its presence entirely, but once it appeared, his eyes narrowed again.

Cassarae had the same necklace. It wasn't merely similar in design either.

This was the necklace that had given Cassarae such an enormous increase to her Luck, protecting her from the endless misfortune that would otherwise have followed her wherever she went. Sylas had seen enough of its effects to understand just how important it was to her, and now another version of it rested against the neck of this strange woman.

"You are connected to another."

Her voice carried calmly across the lake.

Sylas didn't answer.

The woman tilted her head slightly while studying him, and the faint familiarity in her eyes deepened without becoming warmth. "She is very weak."

She slowly sat upright.

The boat didn't rock beneath her weight, and when she rose to her feet, it was difficult to tell just how she had pushed herself upward. Her hair drew itself out of the lake behind her in long dark streams, not a single drop of moisture clinging to it once it cleared the surface.

The sword lifted from her chest.

It hovered before her for several seconds before settling gently into her palm. Then the world changed.

An endless echo of blades filled the forest, as though every leaf, every drop of water, and every invisible current of air had suddenly transformed into a sharpened edge. Sylas finally understood where the sense of danger surrounding her came from.

Sword Will.

It was the same Will Cassarae carried, only stripped of everything else.

This woman had abandoned Aether, Stats, Genes, and whatever other paths might have existed before her until only the sword remained. In that sense, she might very well stand to Cassarae in the same relationship that the Madness Disciples stood to the Covenant and Sylas.

Her gaze settled fully on him.

"I thought I had already killed all the others. How is it that one survived? Was it because of you?"

The sword in her hand hummed softly. The lake beneath her split into thousands of perfectly straight lines.

"Did you shroud her?"