Damon's Ascension

Everything that occurred next all happened within that span of a single instant, a single moment.

The spectators bated their breath, the Pre-Chaos beings chose to vote, and Damon… Damon, chose to act.

Increase chances of success +60%!

All four bodies he possessed—main body, first avatar, second avatar, and third avatar—stacked their 15% modification rate on top of each other, which demanded four times the consumption at once.

If Damon failed to adjust the chances, it would be fine, the ability would not activate and he would witness himself being enslaved the next moment. However, if it did pick, all the 'costs' would be extracted at once, so fast that neither he nor the casino could react in time.

A gamble of epic proportions!

He was putting everything on the line!

One thing the Vanguard Team got wrong was assuming that he had some amazing plan for all of this, or that he foresaw things.

From the very beginning, whether it was dealing with the voting on Ambrose's ship, the meeting with the Seven Lords of Business, the transfer of power from the Behemoths, and all such tumultuous events, he never really had a concrete plan.

He just fully applied all he had been taught by his father, especially the virtue of patience and calmness, to seek a beneficial way out. This was the sole reason he had come out on top each time.

At the end of the day, he was just a 21-year-old young man, no reincarnation or regression to give him hundreds of years of experience against tough opponents.

All of it culminated into this moment, where even he did not know how things would end, but decided that he would rather gamble on his chance of success in escaping rather than stay and work for this casino and hope for rescue one day.

Damon closed his eyes and felt it; that very instant he activated the probability shift. The 60% chance had succeeded and the action had been altered, with the Pre-Chaos beings having their votes switch from red to green, but only if he could provide enough 'energy' to power the shift.

The drain began.

Damon had spread his stat allocation across the board, mostly because of his skills and abilities, but he had always given special focus to Fortitude since this was where energy for all abilities was drained from first and foremost.

With each body possessing a full stock of energy, it should be far more manageable compared to a person like Marshal who only had one body to drain energy from, right?

Wrong.

BANG!

Damon's first avatar, the one in the Planetary Human Embassy on Earth, exploded into bloodmist, a vortex appearing in the air as all of its essence was sucked away on the spot.

Despite this, Damon felt that only 1.5% of the required cost had been paid, leaving him feeling a surge of wry despair.

BANG!

His third avatar in the human race's 5th Relay exploded into bloodmist, also being swallowed by a vortex that appeared out of nowhere.

BANG!

His main body, previously hidden somewhere out in the universe to prevent himself from ever being cornered, exploded as well, being sucked away by a vortex the next moment.

Now, the avatar of Damon in the Chaos Casino was his main body and the suction fell on him.

Currently, three full avatars' energy only amounted to about 5% of the cost. It seemed his gamble had failed; he would not be able to escape the fate of death. As for whether he could be resurrected, like Xela, Damon doubted it.

The way his ability devoured everything left behind meant that Xela couldn't do anything, as she largely needed a corpse or remains of some sort for her ability to work.

When the drain began on him, Damon knew it was over because he was instantly bottomed out with nothing left, his entire stores of energy drained out at once. He couldn't even muster the power to open his closed eyes and give one final look to his 'team'.

In truth… he never really regarded them as such. He was extremely clear that the first hundred were only special because they were the first hundred, but once the awakening agent was spread around and more humans awakened, many more talented people would appear and outclass these fellows.

Apart from Xela and Felicia, who would be forever useful with their EX abilities, Damon had not really shown any of the others any indication of true friendship, nor had he closed that gap between them. This was to prevent any fallouts when he eventually replaced them with someone better in the future.

But now, in what he considered to be his final moments, his life flashed before his eyes.

Did he have regrets?

Quite a few, but surprisingly not that many. He only regretted that he couldn't express to his father how great a role model he had been for him, and he was somewhat sad he could never see the heights the human race would achieve.

He was also sad that the connection he had felt with Felicia would never expand further, stifled in the cradle.

But he had achieved his life goal. From the beginning, his goal was to attain immortality through fame or infamy, making his name resound forever throughout the annals of history so that no one would forget him.

Given what he had achieved as Prime Representative of the Human Race, he knew that this wish was fulfilled.

Right after this thought passed through his mind, which he expected to be his last, Damon was suddenly shocked as he felt a strange power coursing through his body, surging towards his core.

This energy was not pleasant at all, very rapacious and rampaging, with no regard for his body or his fortitude and Damon's Internal Force had been completely drained to nothing, making it useless in defending his internals.

Damon's eyes shot open as he saw that a familiar orange light was passing through his right hand into his body, surging with electricity that sparked around him crazily. The 'paused' instant had passed and time had 'resumed' so everyone in the casino was witnessing this anomaly occur in real time.

Nyros stood up with shock, not understanding what was going on. However, he felt in his gut that he was witnessing something that could forever change the foundation of the Bright Realm forever!

The Vanguard Team were even more shocked.

"What the hell?! Did the boss unlock his inner Nine-tailed Fox?! Did he make a pact with Truth?! What's going on?!" Henry exclaimed with shock, covering his face in light of the crazy energy coming off Damon.

"This is not good! Can his body even withstand such energy? Wouldn't he be turned into ash right away?!" Kyle shouted with worry, using his vibration abilities to prevent the shockwave from affecting the team.

Connor turned to Felicia. "What the hell is that? Can you make sense of it?"

Felicia was fully focused on using her Quantum Analysis to the limit, her blue eyes full of vectors and equations as they shone like torches while staring at Damon.

"I…I can't believe it." She muttered with pure shock, her pink lips drooping slightly.

"Big Sis Felicia!" Xela called out with worry, snapping Felicia out of her stupor.

Seeing that the Vanguard Team were fine but worried about what was happening, she forcibly calmed herself down and shared what she deduced.

"Damon is… he was running out of energy to supply his ability and from what I can tell, his physical body has been almost completely drained of stamina, life force, his internal force, and mental energy."

Felicia glanced over at Damon with sweat forming on her brow. "Just when he was about to be drained dry, his ability seemed to find an alternative energy source and is currently draining that, causing this crazy reaction."

Marshal frowned. "What? That's impossible, I also have a Reality Manipulation ability and it's a fact that we cannot use any external energy sources to power our abilities, otherwise we would be unstoppable gods."

"Yes… that is the case for normal energy sources. Do you see where the energy is originating from on Damon?" Felicia answered with a subdued tone.

The Vanguard Team glanced over and saw that the source was within Damon's right hand, something that he was gripping very tightly.

Connor was startled. "Huh? His hand… wait a minute, wasn't he holding…"

Felicia nodded heavily. "That's right, according to my calculations, Damon should be somehow—by some miraculous means—drawing energy from the Chaos Essence that Nyros handed to him after our victory last round!"

What!

Damon himself felt his body lighten significantly as the energy drain slowed down, allowing him to lift his palm and open it, displaying the orb of Chaos Essence floating there which was being actively drained into his body.

He did not even have time to see if the Probability shift had succeeded when he felt the Chaos Essence was completely consumed and exploded with a small bang, like a low-level firecracker, spreading orange motes all over Damon's body.