Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

Clap, clap.

The man with the monkey mask slowly clapped while casting a gaze on the destruction Glenn had caused.

"I have known a fair share of Archmagi, and I'm almost certain none of them could achieve such destruction," he remarked. "Maybe that decrepit blind guy at the Cleaner's Workshop? Hmm. Anyway, that's very impressive."

Glenn felt the blood beat at his temples. The man's mask was designed similarly to the ones worn by the Occult Wanderers they met in the Beyond some time ago. And like them, Monkey-Man here was a Newborn Ruler.

And Glenn was alone, facing him this time. No, relying on his friends.

'Hey, what about me?' Diamanes interrupted his thoughts, dismayed. 'Don't you count me as your friend? No, more than a friend even?'

'...Okay, yes, I'm not alone.' And just as if he had listened to Glenn's thoughts, suddenly popped back onto his master's shoulder, adopting his compact, cute form.

Monkey-man scoffed, a little surprised. "That's the dragon they spoke of? Ridiculous. I'll have to punish whoever spread these baseless... rumors." He stammered, watching as Pebble suddenly turned into a massive dragon, easily house-sized, his only eye gleaming with hunger for violence.

"Oh. That's more in line with what I heard," nodded Monkey-man. "What species even is this? That's not a dragon, they're all dead, so what is it...?"

Glenn stood upon Pebble's back, his teeth clenched. "You're one of those Celestial Gods, right?"

Monkey-man nodded. "And you're the Devil's Hand, the Duke of the Stars. I've heard of you from a few friends of mine." He suddenly phased out of existence and reappeared right before Glenn. The latter only had the time to widen his eyes when Monkey-man's palm smashed him in the chest. His entire body rang as he was sent flying away into the sky, with no obstacles to stop his ascension.

'That isn't great, arguably,' Diamanes commented. 'If I were you, I'd use Regeneration right away. These shattered ribs don't look too good piercing your lungs.'

"Cough, damn it!" Glenn used Gravity Manipulation despite the pain to stabilize himself in the air, before immediately healing himself. His Saturn Rings, which he kept around passively most of the time, had been destroyed like they were made of paper.

'Wow, that attack was bizarre.'

Before Glenn could ask Diamanes what he meant by that, he coughed up blood uncontrollably. Blood filled his eyes, and the world's sounds dampened.

'I'm not sure how it works, but he contained most of the blow to the inside of your body, destroying your organs. Your brain took a hit, too, but thankfully, your survival instinct forced you to focus on that part first. Try and not die, alright? It is not pleasant to take over your body.'

"Guhh?" Glenn could barely utter a syllable, his tongue hanging out. His Regeneration promptly treated his condition, yet he still felt like a mangled mess.

"Incredible." The sound of clapping startled Glenn from behind him. Monkey-man whistled in awe, impressed. "You're not dead. I've blown through a mountain using this spell, yet you still stand. Somewhat whole."

Glenn's eyes searched for Pebble, but he couldn't find the dragon anywhere.

"For that fake dragon to tolerate the attack, I can understand, but you?" Monkey-man shook his head. "Your body must be particularly weird. Which isn't that uncommon, believe it or not."

'Glenn, look below at the ground,' Diamanes exclaimed. Glenn quickly complied and found a crater cradling a dragon with shattered scales and mangled wings. It wasn't moving.

Thump.

His heart missed a beat.

"Oh, don't worry, he's not dead yet. I want to bring him back to study him, so I can't kill him." Monkey-man's voice was distorted when it reached his ears, like a broken record. Glenn slowly looked back at Monkey-Man, his pain suddenly disappearing like it never existed. Purple mist seeped out of his left hand as a black flame surged from within his palm. Monkey-man rolled his eyes under his mask, sighing.

"What are you even going to do with this? My friends told me you could barely defend against their attacks, and I'm stronger than they are."

Strangely, Glenn could recall many times in which he was forced into a similar position, forced to use everything he had with no guarantee that he'd win. The logical thought would be to flee, to escape from the Newborn Ruler. He knew that. But he could also see the mangled body of Pebble lying below, barely breathing.

Since waking up in Limbo, Glenn had only ever walked in one direction. Forward. And never did he abandon anyone close to him, always pulling them with him.

Today wasn't the day that would change.

"Final Light - Black Flame." Glenn combined both spells, his Mana immediately bottoming out. Monkey-Man stumbled back in disbelief, his Mana surging out rapidly to form defensive measures.

"Wave Lock!" Monkey-Man ordered, the air vibrating to form an invisible yet trembling shield.

'Ridiculous,' Diamanes scoffed, reflecting his host's thoughts. Glenn's spell split the Horizon apart, burning all light in a black, world-devouring flames. Monkey-Man's mask burned away, revealing a scarred, dark-green skin beneath. Not an Orc's skin, no, it was something different. But it didn't matter anyway.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The black flame-enhanced Final Light consumed it all the same.

Glenn failed to maintain his Gravity Manipulation and dove straight for the ground. He braced himself for the fall, but a large shadow suddenly rose from the ground and caught him on his way down. Pebble grunted as blood-like mud seeped out of his scales, his broken wings struggling to keep him flying.

"Pebble..." Glenn weakly gave a pat to the loyal beast, exhausted. 'I really am a glass cannon, shooting my strongest spell and collapsing afterward.'

'Hey, at least you didn't lose consciousness! That's better than most of the time!'

Diamanes' wicked laughter pulled a smirk from Glenn's lips. 'Indeed, that's some progress. Imagine, the great Duke of the Stars, the one who goes to sleep whenever he uses his spells.'

"Phew... First, you kill Laurance, then you force me to reveal my Corrupted form." A twisted, creaking voice came from the dark flames burning off in the sky. Glenn and Pebble both froze, a sudden pressure befalling them. With a struggling flap of its wings, the dragon turned to allow its rider to see.

In the sky, floating on a cloud-like formation of green gas was a massive beast, covered in dark-green fur and with disturbingly large limbs. His legs were as thick as tree trunks, and numbered up to six, while some sort of pale tentacles had replaced his arms.

"I'll at least greet you with my name before killing you, Glenn." The Gorilla stood upon its cloud, brushing off the black flames of Final Light with the back of its hand, its skin scorched and burned. "I'm Marcus Chevalier, Twelfth-Seat of the Occult Wanderers."

With one hand, he grabbed at the air and pulled, ripping reality open. Glenn's eyes widened.

"A- A Rift?" He stammered, struggling to believe what he was seeing. Marcus Chevalier smirked and reached into the Rift, pulling a long staff purely made out of bone, tainted with glowing dark green spots.

"Did you ever hear the legend of the Monkey King? Wukong?" Marcus closed the Rift by simply pinching the sides together. "It's a well-known legend back where I come from. A monkey born from a stone, who rose to fight Buddha himself. Not that you would know who Buddha is, right?"

Glenn gulped heavily. 'No fucking way.'

'Another Earthling?' Diamanes cackled in disbelief. 'These fuckers are more common than rats! No offense to you or your family, Glenn.'

'None taken. Shit, are all of the Occult Wanderers Earthling? And does it mean that every Celestial God is an Occult Wanderer?' The young man struggled with the implications of these revelations. Why would his fellow Earthlings direct a war against Munirp? For what reason? And why did all of them seem like such fucked-up individuals?

"Be proud to die from my staff, Glenn of Munirp." Marcus raised his staff above his head, the world shaking at the movement. "Not many can say they've resisted a Newborn Ruler after all."

"Wukong?" Glenn suddenly asked, pushing himself up on wobbly knees. Pebble's back was slippery from all of the blood-like mud seeping out of the dragon's wounds. "You are nothing like him. You're just a badly thought-out version of Goku who can't even do Kamehamehas."

Marcus Chevalier's staff froze above his head, his tentacles trembling in shock. Glenn took a short breath, every inspiration filling his Mana reservoir back up. It would take a long time to return to maximum capacity, but he would take any chance he could get for them to survive, Pebble and he.

'I need to buy time!' Glenn racked his brains for a solution, his eyes darting around his surroundings. The Orc islands were closer than they were before, somehow, but his salvation would probably not lie there. The rest of the horizon was covered in black dunes as far as the eye could see.

'The Corpse's Flames worked pretty well, but they're too expensive. Damn, if Nelg was here, we'd be able fight him in melee instead of just trembling in our boots.'

'I'm not sure that would have changed anything. No, I need something to distract him—'

"Y—You! How do you know San Goku? And Wukong? How? Are you..." Marcus the Gorilla retracted his weapon, laughing to himself. "Are you from Earth, too? I never thought our protocol would actually bear fruit one day. The only other known Earthling is Exan, and he's not keen on our cause."

Glenn saw the occasion and jumped on it. "What do you mean? What cause are you fighting for?"

Marcus grinned. "What, you're interested in joining? Too bad, there's no spot for someone who killed our comrade. Even though I despised Laurance, he was still my brother-in-arms."

'You're on the right path, Glenn! Keep on garnering his attention!' Diamanes encouraged him. Glenn's chest swelled up, and he pointed a defiant finger at the Gorilla monstrosity.

"That bastard sacrificed children and tortured them for power! And he tried to kill me!" He shook his head, bemused. "What was I supposed to do, let him kill me?"

Marcus opened his mouth to retort, only to frown. "That... That does make sense. Hmm. Man, we must really seem like the bad guys to you."

Glenn scoffed, his Mana returning to basic levels. He could use Gravity Manipulation to some extent, but it wouldn't be enough. If Final Light boosted with the Corpse's black flames wasn't enough to destroy Marcus, nothing else would. No, he needed to find a way to escape with Pebble!

"How could you be anything else than evil? The war is because of you, the Black Heirs were chased away from their lands because of you, and you cooperate with the Thorn's Church!"

Marcus clicked his tongue. "I can understand why you would think that way, but really, it's not that deep. Listen, there's something much more powerful than the so-called Gods, and we learned to control it." He patted his furry, dark green chest. "Corruption."

The Gorilla pointed his bone-white staff at Glenn. "I like you. You're that strong, even though you're just an Archmagi, and I can smell some hints of Corruption from you. And you already staved it off! You'd be a prime candidate for a position at our organization."

He reached with his tentacle, extending it toward Glenn. "Succumb to the temptation, let the Corruption devour you. We will bring you back and teach you how to control it!"

Glenn hesitantly extended his hand at the tentacle, the purple of his skin glowing ominously. Without any warning, he suddenly grabbed the tentacle.

'Diamanes, now!'

'Don't mind if I do!'

The power surged through Glenn's arm and into his Mana Heart, a filthy, corrupted power that tasted like ashes and bones in his mouth. Marcus screamed painfully and retracted his tentacle, stumbling back. "W—What the hell was that?! How did you... This is impossible!"

His tentacles trembled, exploding and turning back into pink, fleshy arms. "The Corruption! You took my Corruption away!"

Glenn cursed and unleashed the power straight back out into a wave of Nitrogen. "You can keep your Corruption," he hissed through his teeth. "I'll burn it all, just like the filth it is!"

"You bastard!" The Gorilla roared, his voice exploding across the black dunes. A whistle suddenly interrupted the roar, cutting through the desert like a hot blade into butter.

Fwip!

A ray of moonlight fell from the sky, inevitable. Marcus only had the time to look up when the ray of moonlight hit him.

His head popped like a melon.

In the black sand below, planted like a flag, was a single arrow.