Sylas looked down at his hands, feeling that a great deal had changed about him—and yet, nothing at all.
The concept of a higher Race Grade just felt so… odd to him. After progressing to E-Grade, the change had been quite substantial, but it wasn’t easily reflected in any way one might expect. Now, it was more of the same.
His stats felt like they hadn’t changed at all, but his power…
He flicked a finger, and there seemed to be a snap in the air. His body thrummed like a well-oiled engine, everything about him working in unison to grant him power he couldn’t have imagined before.
—
[Name: Sylas Grimblade]
[Species: Human Simioid (D)]
—
It was truly an intoxicating power, but along with it…
Runes began to swirl around Sylas en masse, forming meshes of energy around him—layering in such deep and complex forms that it almost didn’t feel like he was summoning Runes at all, but instead a different sort of armor.
The world was just so… obedient.
Sylas realized then, more than ever, just how much your starting position mattered. He was a Rune Spark Master—he had been for a while now—and yet it had never felt more substantial than it did now. That was both exhilarating and frustrating in its own way.
Because he was a D-Grade Race with the favor of this world, the Runes were more pliable and receptive to him, almost as though acknowledging that he was someone to be obeyed and respected.
It didn’t care that his original merit was worthy enough. Unless he had noble enough status for it, it would never care.
Sylas took a breath and then slowly exhaled.
There was no use in growing frustrated by this. He had now squeezed all the potential out of the obelisks that he could, and they were now useless to him—at least on a personal level.
There was, of course, nothing stopping him from allowing others to use them if they could take the constant refinement.
Near the end, he had to really push to get the sort of change he wanted. Unless one was willing to suffer, reaching D-Grade was impossible.
“Is the vessel ready?” Sylas asked Nosphaleen.
“It is. I managed to find one, and it’s in decent shape. But…”
“It’s not as good as the Thryskai Vessel? That’s fine. I expected as much already.”
When Sylas destroyed the vessel to lure them in, he knew this was likely to happen. But he had his own thoughts and methods on this.
…
Sylas stepped into the vessel. It was much larger than the one-man pod he had stolen from the Thryskai. It was meant to be manned by a crew of probably half a dozen, with one of them designated to steer.
To make matters worse, this region didn’t have many hyperlanes to make use of. The Sylphs were one of the weaker Races of the region, so their infrastructure was likewise not among the best.
Sylas would have to return the way he came before looping to his true destination, but that much was fine.
He was ready for this. There weren’t many days left, but this time…
He would be killing two birds with a single stone.
**
Planet Florineth.
In the chaos, the Florineth Race had ended up in an oddly no-man’s-land position. Their best genius, Soryntha Valeria, had been fourth on the rankings even before Sylas appeared. Now, she was fifth—having fallen behind two Thryskai and a Trakar, not to mention Sylas himself.
It could be said that even if Sylas had never appeared, Soryntha would have still been the odd one out, as the All-Seeing Eye had only chosen three.
This placed the Florineth in an awkward position. This battle was clearly one that would decide the fate of the galaxy’s future as a whole, and as one of the most powerful Races—holding top-three influence in the entire galaxy—they should certainly have been in the mix.
But rather than being in the “mix,” they were instead being courted by two separate sides, each one trying to use different tactics.
The Trakar were a true war machine, a four-armed Race of behemoths that had once been the strongest in the galaxy before the appearance of the Thryskai.
The Florineth were likewise original residents of the galaxy, and the Trakar tried to appeal to this. If the Florineth put their hands on the scale and helped the Trakar, they could work together to push the Thryskai out and reclaim the territory that had once been their own.
However, that came with its own clear problems. This would give the Trakar all the power in the situation. At the very least, when there was a balance of the three like this, the Trakar and the Thryskai could serve as restraining forces on one another, allowing the Florineth some room to breathe and grow themselves.
If the Thryskai were suddenly gone, would it still be so easy?
And then there was the appeal of the Thryskai themselves.
Petals of the Seeing Thorn was the true reason the Florineth could stand with the Trakar and Thryskai. The scope of understanding about the wider universe that the Thryskai had was truly intriguing, and they claimed to be able to help the Florineth ascend the ranks of the female-only organization.
All things considered, the main Petals of the Seeing Thorn organization had ignored this branch for a very long time. Often, it was easy to forget they had a parent organization to begin with.
This wasn’t common knowledge throughout the galaxy either, but the Thryskai had revealed that they were well aware of this.
The trouble was that the Petals of the Seeing Thorn wasn’t a normal organization. It dealt in information and information lending. It built structured relationships and often used its women to court powerful men, only to use these relationships to gather even more pertinent information.
Women without real influence were useless to the main organization, and as such, many branches that showed little promise were often forgotten.
But the Thryskai promised a chance.