Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

The Well loomed before us—which, I must tell you, is something of an achievement for what is effectively a small hole in the ground with delusions of grandeur.

It sat there like it knew something we didn't. Maybe a lot of somethings. A ring of ancient black stone, cracked but solid, as though age had pressed on it for a millennium and failed to leave more than a scratch. There were no offerings, no rope, no bucket. Just moss-covered lips and stones worn smooth by something older than weather.

I looked at it and felt very, very unsure.

Because let's not forget where we are. Middle of a cursed wood. Veil-thinned territory. Allegedly approaching a rogue alchemist who's been stirring the magical soup a little too close to the boundary between realms. Which, I have to tell you, is giving off all the bad signs.

But also, am I absolutely, unequivocally sure this guy's the villain in the piece?

No. Not even a little bit.

Maybe he's the problem. Or maybe he's just the local weirdo with a talent for chemistry and a bad sense of timing. Maybe this is a Sablewyn purge, and maybe I've been press-ganged into playing executioner for a state more interested in control than truth. Wouldn't be the first time history put a boot on someone's neck and called it peace.

That job in Tirana still stuck to my ribs like cold grease. Griff had said we were there to extract a hostile asset—someone allegedly selling names to foreign agencies. Turned out he was a journalist. One with an awkward talent for digging too deep. By the time I realised the truth, it was too late to rewrite the ending. He died in a staged riot, and we got paid in full. I didn't sleep right for months after.

So, no. I didn't trust missions that came with patriotic packaging and vague threats. Not then. Not now.And Lia—gods bless her steely resolve—didn't appear exactly keen on nuance this morning.

Except I couldn't forget what I'd seen on the way here. The shadows flickering just out of sync. The half-seen figures dragged themselves through the underbrush. The air was like cut silk, thin and trembling. Something was definitely wrong in this place.

And that something was very much connected to that Well.

Margaret's voice echoed in the back of my mind, soft and clear—too clear, even now. From the old gramophone, back in her attic room. Right before I was shot.

"If you are hearing this, it means I have failed, and everything I have worked to prevent will be coming to pass. They are not to be trusted, Elijah, you hear me? They are not. They will be seeking to push through, and the Warden must bar their way."

I used to think she was mad. All that obsessive rereading of Pilgrim's Progress, the cryptic turns of phrase, the way she could make a cup of tea feel like a Gestapo interrogation, I'd rolled my eyes more times than I could count in Halfway Hold, whispered jokes behind her back and told myself I was just biding my time until I could escape the village and her gentle tyranny.

But when things went sideways with my parents—when the lines were drawn, and I found myself on the wrong side of the family hearth—she was the one who opened her door. No questions. No judgement. Just a bed, a roof, and that same steaming mug of over-stewed tea placed in my hands like it was a shield.

And now, looking back through the cracked lens of everything that's happened, I see her differently. She wasn't mad. She was ready. She'd seen it coming—this world, this Veil, this fight—and she'd done what she could to prepare me. Not with lectures or warnings but with stories. With riddles. With love disguised as ritual.

She wasn't just trying to keep me safe.

She was trying to keep something terrible at bay.

And now I was standing at the edge of the thing she'd feared most.

Which meant, regardless of who this alchemist was—or what side he claimed to be on—if he was twisting the Veil to suit his ends, then this stopped being about anything else the moment I stepped into this clearing.

This wasn't about Sablewyn.

Or rebels.

Or territory.

Or even Lia and her father's debt.

It was about the crack in the skin of the world. And whatever was trying to crawl through it. And Aunt M had asked me to stop it.

"Any final thoughts before we poke the bear?" I asked.

She didn't look at me. "Just stay close. Don't touch anything unless I say so."

"Sound advice," I said. "I'll try not to die heroically."

"Try harder than that," she said and stepped forward.

We stepped into the clearing at almost the exact moment he did—though from opposite sides. No slow reveal. No ominous rising mist. Just one beat, we were alone, and the next, we weren't. And then the man standing by the Well was looking at us both and not saying anything. Not at first. He just stared, and somehow, that silence said more than a monologue ever could.

The Alchemist was tall. Not the kind of tall that came from good posture or heels, but the kind that had grown like a tree in defiance of better judgment. He was all long-limbed and slightly stooped as if gravity had spent the last few years trying to pull him into the soil and failed. His robes were patchworked, stitched from fabrics that glowed oddly where the light caught them, not so much colourful as uncooperative. They very much didn't match the forest. Or the Veil-tainted air. Or anything around us. They were off. I suspected intentionally so.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And then there was his gear. Vials and bottles tucked into bandoliers that crisscrossed his chest like he thought himself a gunslinger in a chemist's apothecary. Each container held something that I thought would most likely be unnameable: liquids that moved a little too slow and powders that shimmered like ground stars. His staff was plain, mostly, until you looked closer and realised it wasn't wood at all. Bone. Polished, lacquered. Human, I presumed – as that would be very 'on brand' for this whole encounter - although I was in no rush to confirm that theory.

He didn't look surprised to see us. Just… faintly amused. Like we'd finally shown up to a dinner we hadn't RSVP'd to, and he'd already eaten.

And, all right—there was a moustache. But it wasn't comedic. It was representative of grooming that spoke of ritual, not vanity. It curved at the corners just enough to make you question whether he might be smiling. But the eyes? The eyes were dead calm. A scientist's eyes. Cold, focused, and quietly fascinated by how things fall apart.

"Right," I said to Lia, "that him?"

She didn't answer. Just stepped forward slowly, sword loose in her grip.

And me? I stayed where I was, heart clattering around inside my ribs because every inch of me was screaming wrong. Because I'd met people like that before.

The job that had turned sidewise in Belgrade had a player who looked exactly like this. By the end of my week in beautiful Serbia, eight people were dead, and I had a scar I told people had come from an especially nasty cycling accident.

So yes, moral ambiguity was still very much on the table. Maybe this Alchemist was a rebel. Maybe he was the last sane man in a kingdom that had lost the plot. But the way he looked sent a cold line of sweat running down my spine.

"Be careful," I said under my breath. "I think he was expecting us."

Lia didn't blink.

And across from us, the Alchemist smiled. "What is this? Why, I do declare, have the Elders of Sablewyn sent Lia Jorgensdottir to put an end to me? I feel positively honoured. Your father's debts must be nearing termination point for you to have been persuaded to make an appearance!"

I glanced at Lia, who was spinning her sword in between her hands, eyes fixed on the alchemist with a venom that made me very glad I wasn't on her hit list.

"You dare to challenge me? Balethor Voidwalker?" His voice rang through the clearing. "You've stumbled into my dominion like insects crawling toward a flame. And now—by your deaths—the Well of Ascension shall be unbound, the Threshold shall be no more, and the Veil will kneel to me. All worlds shall be mine to command. And you? You'll be remembered only as the final stones I stepped over to reach it."

Ding.

[System Quest Update: The Well at the Edge]

New Objective Added:

→ Survive the encounter with Balethor Voidwalker

Reward: ???

Failure: Death

[System Warning: Veil Containment Integrity Critically Compromised]

[Stability Rating: 29% — Threshold Breach Imminent]

[ERROR: Warden Protocol Tier – Not Fully Verified]

[ERROR: Containment Subroutine 'Sable-Fence' Has Failed to Initialise]

[Warning: Entity 'Balethor' identified as Veil-Adjacent Aberration – Hostile – Unanchored]

[Advisory: Immediate action required to prevent escalation to Tier 5 Anomaly]

Lia didn't wait for a signal. She charged. Head up, blade forward, murder in her stride. No war cry, no clever quip—just pure, distilled intention. It was impressive. Terrifying, sure. But also deeply impressive. As she did so, she fired up the Ability she had that made her move twice as fast as normal. Which left me, stick in hand, feeling like I'd brought a rolled-up newspaper to a bomb disposal seminar.

Still, I wasn't just here to spectate. I had a role. A Class. And while I might not know how to swing a sword as well as her, I knew how to get hit on someone else's behalf. That was something.

I moved forward to ensure Balethor was within the range of Aggro Magnetism. As I did so, a subtle tug rolled out around me. It was a low, nasty heat in the centre of my chest. A hum that wasn't sound but . . . sensation as I saw the edges of my aura flare briefly—five metres in all directions—and then my power fade all around me.

[System Error]

Target Level Exceeds Aura Classification

Subject Immune to Current Aggro Effects

[Warning: Warden-Class Authority Not Yet Verified]

[Threshold Interference Detected – Aura Flux Unstable]

[Recalibrating…]

Excellent. That all sounded like things were going very well.

Balethor raised his staff as Lia charged towards him, unaware that I was suddenly a tank without any pull. And then the Veil—whatever and wherever it technically was—started to move. Not open, exactly. Just… buckle. Like something huge was pressing against it from the other side, impatient to be let in. Colours bled in ways that colours weren't meant to bleed. The trees bent away. Shadows curled toward the Alchemist and the Well at his back groaned.

Which is when he attacked.

A ribbon of black energy snapped toward Lia—no wind-up, no warning. It struck her mid-swing, lifted her bodily, and flung her across the clearing. She hit a tree hard enough that bark exploded outward, and then the Shadow-light followed, cocooning her in a rolling sheath of oily dark.

I ran forward to put myself between the Alchemist and her. Lia was down. Maybe not out, but definitely not answering right now. Which meant it was tank time until she was back in the game.

Balethor turned his head.

"Ah," he said. "The new Warden. So you are real. Curious. But poorly levelled and woefully underpowered for the occasion." The man's attention had shifted now—fully and completely—away from Lia and onto me. Which, on paper, was kind of my point.

Then, I heard Lia freeing herself and dragging herself back upright again behind me. Balethor heard it too, raised his staff, and dark power coiled along its length.

I saw the attack coming. The arc. The aim. It was for her. No. Not her. Me.

[Ability Triggered: Unwelcome Mat – Level 1]

[Redirecting Lethal Damage from Ally]

[Warning: Incoming impact exceeds survivable threshold]

Funnily enough, pain doesn't come with a warning. But the System, ever-helpful, tried to explain just how badly I'd messed up before the blast even hit.

Then, my world exploded.

The energy smashed into my chest like a hammer made of screaming stars. It lifted me clean off the ground, all breath torn from my lungs before I could even scream. The ground didn't catch me so much as I stopped on it. Something cracked in my side. Possibly multiple somethings.

[Health: 40 → 3]

[Status: Critical]

[Passive: Survived. Health Recovery Triggered]

[+10% Health Restored]

[Health: 3 → 7]

I didn't black out. Which, honestly, felt like an oversight.

"Eli!"

I was still on my back. Still breathing. Just about.

"Well," Balethor said, looking mildly surprised. "It appears even tools can learn sacrifice."

I raised one trembling hand and gave him a very rude gesture. His lips curled into something that wanted to be a smile but didn't quite make it. "Brave, for certain. But this changes nothing."

"It bought me time," Lia said. "And you don't have enough of that left to waste."

I couldn't stand. Not yet. But I could watch.

Which was nice. Because I suspected the gloves were now off.