Scorching Ascension - [Progression Litrpg Apocalypse]

With a frown on his face, Ethan let out a slow breath and brought his attention away from the notifications and back to the three he was facing right this second.

He hoped Amanda could handle whatever was happening back there for at least a short bit. Enough for him to take care of the situation out here. Plus, if it got bad enough, he was pretty sure he'd be getting a notification about the pylon's takeover, so until that happened, he had to hope things were under control.

Maybe Ember and the others finished the rift. Mine took only a few hours, and there were six of them. If they cleared it fast and made it back to the city, they'd be a lot more equipped to take care of whatever crisis was going on.

Well, Ethan did say they'd have to handle themselves sooner or later. He'd have to get used to it as well. He couldn't drop everything whenever a notification showed up, so he could only hope for the best.

Looking up at the pale and nervous teenager in front of him, Ethan spoke. "I really don't have time to deal with this, so I'm going to ask you two to not speak for a minute," he said, giving both adults a quick look before he focused back on the kid. "Are you being forced to fight? Are they threatening you?"

The teenager's mouth hung open for a second before she blinked and swallowed. She neither nodded nor shook her head, but Ethan recognized the tension that entered her features. The mix of fear and indecision. Of being forced into a decision and not being able to even object to it.

Her response should have been an easy yes or no. But the fact that it wasn't meant that she'd been pressured. That her situation was complex enough to require her to think before she could answer, and that indecision was very familiar to Ethan. Unfortunately, before she could speak, the man holding the spear gripped his weapon tighter, and frowning, he spoke over the girl before she could even voice the first letter. "I don't appreciate this t—"

Ethan blurred forward and sank his scaled fist into the man's guts. The man had barely noticed him move, but the woman did, and by the time Ethan sensed a few ribs crack before the man shot away, rolling and skidding before he landed in a heap, a sword flashed at his back, only for the blade to skid-off his metallic scales with muted cling while the panicked teenager disappeared back into the suit of blocky-ice.

Ethan straightened back up, looked away from the groaning man as he tried to get up, then focused on the winged woman and ignored the sword she was pointing at him, which was now burning with an intense red flame.

Had that been on when it had hit him? He couldn't tell. He'd barely felt it.

"I said I'm out of time, and I'm running out of patience. You came here to strong-arm the city into giving up the pylon, but I took it over already. Now, I've got business with the literal teenager you've brought here to fight for you. Interrupt once more and both of you are taking a nap. Understood?"

The woman looked back in time to see her companion coughing and retching out blood. She tightened her grip on her sword, and her eyes flicked toward the teenager encased in ice as the flames around the sword flared. An order was clearly on her lips, and she was inhaling to shout when he cut her off.

"Before you make that mistake," Ethan interrupted as flames began licking up his scales. "You'll notice your companion is still alive. That was just a punch. So unless you want me to escalate, throw your weapon down and go pick up that mess. You got three seconds."

The words got stuck in her throat, and the woman swallowed, sweat beading down her brow from the heat of her sword while the giant golem squirmed around, unsure of how to proceed.

"Two"

The woman breathed faster, eyes flicking about in a panic, her gaze stilling behind him as she remembered that Ethan wasn't the only threat around. There were still three more high-level warriors right behind him.

"One…"

The sword clanged on the ground, and she leapt in the air, flapping her wing to catch up with her companion. Ethan looked away and back at the teenager as the blocky head swivelled away from her escort, who'd just abandoned her to him.

"Sorry about that. And look, I'm taking a few steps back. I just wanna make sure no funny business is taking place here. Have those two been forcing you to fight? Is it the Union? It didn't look like you're getting much of a choice, and while I'd love to give you time to decide, do you want to stay with them? You can join these guys out here. You'll be safe, and you don't have to fight if you don't need to."

Ethan really wanted to get moving, but so far, no new notification came through, so things might be just fine.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"They promised they'd help me find my family," echoed the girl's voice from behind the thick blue ice. It was muffling her voice a little, but not enough for him to not be able to hear her.

Something tightened in his chest, and Ethan nodded as he glanced back at Gavin and the others before he turned toward her again. "You don't need to be risking your life for that. We plan on offering that for everyone."

The golem stood still in front of him for a few seconds, but Ethan didn't move. And after nearly a full minute, the golem's facade cracked once more, and the pale teen stepped out, wringing her hands as she looked back toward her escort.

"We were separated when… when it all happened. I… I stayed home. I didn't go out with them, so—" she swallowed, eyes glistening, "so when it happened I couldn't make it to them before I got teleported into the frozen forest."

The poor girl was shaking now, and Ethan was strongly, strongly, tempted to lob a fireball at the two fucks staring at them from afar. If the teenager was in such an awful headspace now, how bad had it been in the tutorial? How distraught had she been when she'd come out of her own tutorial before they'd pressured her into fighting for them?

"I have something that can help."

The girl jumped and Ethan glanced behind to see Gavin stepping toward them, his vine-wrapped staff in hand, and the large beaded-necklace glowing with soothing light. "If you'd allow me," he added.

The girl was frozen for a second, then her eyes swivelled to Ethan, who just gave him a tight nod. He'd just met Gavin, but the man's whole path seemed to revolve around life-force and healing. If anyone could help her relax, it was him.

Gavin nodded back, and let out a slow breath. Then there was a pulse in the air. A green-hued wave spread out from the man and when it reached his scales, the magic was strongly weakened, though Ethan could still feel a minute sense of peace seeping into him. For the teen, it was much more pronounced, and almost immediately, the shaking seemed to abate. Another pulse made her feature and shoulder relax, at which point one of the beads of the necklace went dark, and Gavin re-opened his eyes, smiling.

Ethan gave him an appreciative nod, then turned to the girl. While she was still stressed and anxious, she looked much more in control.

"I'm Ethan, by the way. What's your name?"

"Isabelle."

"Well. Nice to meet you, Isabelle, and welcome to Wyldrock. You don't have to do anything right now, but Gavin will take you inside where you can eat something and relax. If you want to join us… I bet you'd be able to do something with the pylon? Like a transfer or something? We'll see. Go with Gavin and Sophia for now, and I'll see you later. I got one last thing to settle with those two. Okay?"

The young girl nodded, then went along with Gavin and Sophia. Both were smiling at her, chatting away as they approached the walls, and Ethan looked back toward the duo who'd been escorting her.

Seeing the look he gave them, the woman spread her wings and hurriedly went to pick her still dazed companion, but before they could lift off, a clawed hand surged out of the ground and gripped her by the ankle before it dragged her back down. The woman tried to fight it off, but the grip was unbreakable and within seconds, the stone rippled up and swallowed the woman up to her chest. As for her companion, he was buried all the way down to his neck.

"Boss wants to talk to ya. Sit tight," Marcello said as he popped out of the ground and fashioned himself a tree-stump-like creation of hardened stone as Ethan approached.

"Thanks, Marcello," said Ethan, and the mole-clawed man gave him a mock-salute and flinched back as the long claws nearly gouged one of his eyes. Ethan wanted to shake his head at the mole-man's shenanigans, but he kept his features even as he glared down at the two prisoners. "I'm going to visit your camp, and you're going to take me there. I want to meet the people who think using a child to muscle people out of their pylon is acceptable. Understood?"

Ethan didn't wait for an answer and turned to Marcello. "Can you keep these two here for a couple of hours? I got some business to deal with first, then I'll swing back."

"Easy enough," said Marcello as he cracked his neck. The stump he was sitting on disappeared, and a thin, short copper-looking wand appeared in his grip. He pointed at the duo, and Ethan watched as the stone encasing them grew darker. Denser. Then began to slide through the earth and grass, as if the latter had been water, and the earth closed back behind them as if it had never been disturbed as the two were carried toward Wyldrock.

"I'll keep an eye on them. Though I'll be needing some help just in case, they got little tricks up their sleeves. We got this. You go deal with your stuff," said Marcello as he sunk into the soil with them.

Ethan was impressed, but he couldn't dawdle for long. Next, he pulled up the pylon's interface and looked for the ability he'd gained earlier and without wasting any more time, he activated the pylon function.

Administrative Recall activating…

Administrator has two possible destinations:

- New Dawn

- Wyldrock

Ethan selected New Dawn, and when he sensed the powerful draw of the world on his body, he let it pull him.

Time to see what was going on back home.