Sylas should have felt overwheld, he should have felt the need to pause, to take a rest. The amount of fluctuations his emotions were going under the influence of these walls should have ripped him completely apart. Even soone who had great emotional regulation would find themselves going insane.
But he was entirely unmoved.
Sylas' sense of self had always been extrely strong. What he wanted to do, his center of being, his own goals and aspirations had never been anything but the center of his universe.
The only thing that could shake him was when that purpose itself was shaken, when he felt like he was facing fragility of his own creation. This text is hosted at novelꜰire
To this point in his life, there were probably only three such points, of which he felt like he had only truly felt the full brunt of two.
The first was his near-first-ti with Cassarae. They had still been in high school back then, and those events had practically been erased from his mind.
However, he had co to terms with what truly happened back then.
He had felt such a strong possession, a powerful sense of ownership over Cassarae and her body, that the part of him that followed the rules and stayed within the painted lines of society found himself disgusted.
He had been unable to regulate which of these parts were his true self, and as such, he completely shut down. Unable to understand that aspect of himself, he decided to cut it away entirely, even to the point he suppressed those mories entirely.
The next two monts, though... they weren't nearly as easy to resolve.
The first was that day in the volcano, the greatest stain in his life until the second that felt nearly as humiliating to him... His reliance on Nyssa to save him.
He still rembered that latter day like a searing brand on his skin, as though he was so weak that he had to rely on pimping himself out just to breathe another day.
And then there was that day he faced death for the first ti. Not the potential of death, but true death. In that mont, he had thought that he would certainly die.
it was only because he barely managed to snap out of it enough to find a way out that he was able to bring himself out of that despair. But that day really made Sylas think... How did he want to die?
Maybe there would co a day where there was no convenient way out. Would he be like all the other so-called geniuses in the world? His eyes flickering with fear and unwillingness at the end?
How many of such experts had he killed by now? How many tis had he watched that very sa light flash in their eyes?
From Earth, to the Milky Way Galaxy, Sect, to Horizon... and now across Horizons...
That look was always the very sa.
Was he really no different from any of them?
Would he show that face of cowardice when his intelligence no longer had any roads left for him to take?
Was that the man he wanted to be?
Was his Pride only worth as much as his wins?
The questions Sylas was asking himself sounded like a man who was descending into a spiral, but Sylas had never felt more stable in his life.
To resolve those monts. That was what he wanted.
His Madness Comprehension had been stagnant for far too long, and that was because he had been chasing his personal strength for so long that he hadn't spent any ti reflecting on himself.
His realization about the hidden dangers in the Madness Key had awakened him to the fact that he had this chain following him everywhere he went, hanging around his neck and preparing itself to choke him to death.
Pride, Gluttony, Lust... it was all lagging behind, and the center of Madness that controlled them all had beco stagnant.
'It doesn't matter...
Facing one emotion after another, Sylas' perception of the world was being colored in.
“I understand now.
Sylas pressed his palm against another wall, his aura becoming sharper and more polished as the True Pride Seed in his body thrumd with life.
it shimred in gold, its branches growing into his body as though a vein system of its own.
Images of Cassarae's younger self wrapped in red ribbons as she presented herself for his birthday flashed in his mind one after another.
And then ca those mories in the volcano.
From images, they beca so very real.
From the first, he could feel that roaring lust boiling through his veins and the struggle he had in suppressing it.
From the second, he could feel those beads of sweat coating his body, the agitation in his heart, and the hurried cadence of his breath.
Those two monts... they had always been two sides of the very sa coin.
In the first, he was restrained by the world, unwilling to allow himself to grasp at the part of himself longing for a world where he was no longer so bored, so restricted by mundane rules that made him unwilling to apply himself.
In the second, he was restrained by the world he had left behind. He didn't understand the new world he was in yet, he had too little information. Because of that, because he couldn't grasp every variable, he put himself in a situation he didn't understand, one he couldn't find a way out of because he had too few tools in his toolbox.
He hadn't been raised in the Grimblade family, his grasp over the Summoning World was too limited. That piece of himself, that version that was hyperventilating in the face of death, was the version of Sylas Grimblade who was unprepared, unqualified, not ready. Did that an he had outgrown this forever?
No.
He could very well end up in such a situation again. Unless he had the background of an S-Grade Race, there would always be so existence that was his superior.
But... he now understood this world he was in.
If death wanted to co, let it co. It would only an that no one in existence could accomplish his goals.
Because there was no one better suited to doing so than he, Sylas Grimblade.
BOOM.
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