Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

Three Newborn Rulers on one side.

An Expert Magi, Three Archmagi, a living weapon, and a griffin on the other.

An Orc out of commission. A dragon and a katana-wielding bastard missing.

The inverted pyramid had long stopped defending against the waves of monsters rising from the Ink Dunes. The black pearl was still sucking in all the region's Mana, the disturbance in reality it created growing hungrily.

It took a few seconds for Glenn to realize that he was holding his breath in awed expectation. Three Newborn Rulers. Three individuals who could effortlessly level unprotected cities. To add to the injury, he was almost certain they came from Earth, just like him.

'That is one huge bag of dicks to choke on,' Diamanes commented.

"Somehow, I hadn't missed watching you risking your life fighting monstrous bastards like these guys. I think I'll get back to working on my secret project, yes?"

'You're unbreakable. What are you even scared of, you coward?!'

"I don't take criticism from dependent people."

Strangely, the bicker between Nelg and Diamanes perfectly represented what was going on in his mind. The duo of fools were joking, trying to alleviate the tension without success. They didn't need to. Glenn felt confident. Confident that he and his teammates could defeat these three insane bastards.

'I fought worse odds,' he thought, his grip on his double-handed hammer tightening. 'Or did I? Doesn't matter, anyway. We need to win.'

Glenn glanced at Milena, who was flying nearby, her eyes stuck on the three Newborn Rulers. More precisely, he looked at the additional pair of robotic arms grafted onto her back. A gift from her grandfather, Exan the Omniscient, one of the rare Newborn Rulers of Munirp.

"They are dangerous," warned Owl-Mask as he dusted the sand off his feathers. The damage Glenn had caused to his chest with his hammer was hidden beneath a thick cover of gray and brown feathers, but Glenn had no doubt it had hurt the bastard. He had felt the ribs breaking and the magic shattering under his Dark Fracture. Combining the black flames with his soul weapon was a great idea; one he was going to abuse if it worked as well as he thought.

"Of course they are! They already killed two of our friends!" Snake-Mask shrieked.

Rabbit-Mask crossed his arms behind his back, staring down at Glenn and his friends coldly. "This is such a waste. Four more days, and we would have gotten even more sacrifices while keeping the attention of that King bastard away." He shook his head and threw a look back at the black pearl embedded on the inverted pyramid's tip. "The Second Seat is right. We'll work with what we have, like we've always done. Remember, capture the Devil's Hand and kill the rest."

Owl and Snake both nodded, their respective powers flaring up. One by raising an army of skeletal monsters empowered by a dark, sickly green energy. The other turned into a cloud of the same color, clearly poisonous. Glenn grimaced, feeling a similarity between the summons and the Corrupted he had fought in the past.

"How the hell are they playing with Corruption and staying sane...?" He muttered under his breath, his Mana running down Nelg. The latter cleared his throat conspicuously, almost mockingly.

"Are you really calling 'them' sane?"

Glenn scoffed. So far, the Occult Wanderers had shown themselves as a secret organisation greedy for power, and which would sacrifice anything to grow even more. They also doubled as the Celestial Gods, the bastards who chased away the Black Heirs out of their territory and led a war against Munirp.

'Yeah, they're definitely insane bastards.'

'Just like every Earthling, really.' Diamanes cackled.

Their bickering couldn't continue as the battle finally resumed, with Lucian taking the first step. Twilight covered everything in the Ink Dunes, giving a soft magenta light to the clouded night. The magical twilight spread like wildfire, covering the army of Corruption empowered skeletons and swallowing them like a wave of seawater.

Liara shot forward, her white armor shining brightly with the light of hope and creation, holy and purifying. Snake-Mask's cloud of Corrupted poison exploded, revealing a slithering mass of dark green scales, two sharp yellow predatory eyes glaring viciously at the Black Heiress. She pushed Liara back by hissing a powerful acid that melted off a good chunk of the desert, sizzling like oil on fire. Thankfully, Liara avoided as if she had seen it coming eons ago, rushing at the giant snake with a sword and spear wrapped in black flames. Milena was right behind her, the moonlight hidden behind the dark clouds, somehow touching her.

"I remember she was weak to illusion!" She shouted to Liara. "I'll slow her down, do the rest!"

Lucian grinned at that, his crown shining brighter than ever. "Filthy Celestial Buffons, why don't you bow before the next king? Or will you dare resist Munirp again?"

"We dare," Owl-Mask spoke dully, raising his head and Conjuring thousands of sharp bone spears to send at the cocky Prince. Lucian stammered on his words, gulping. The loss of focus happened for half a second, and yet it was enough. Rabbit-Mask suddenly appeared before him, swinging a plain longsword at his throat.

A loud clang rang through the battlefield as Glenn parried the blow, a grin on his face. His longsword shone with a dark glint, Mana running through it to prepare for the next attack. "You'll be playing with me, rabbit. Tell me, you prefer roasted on the pit or with carrots and a side of your failure?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Rabbit grinned back, his mouth visible under his half-mask. "I've always fashioned myself a legend on a stick. Don't think I won't get to hurt you once the First Seat is done with you!"

The clash sent them flying through the air. Glenn was overpowered by a landslide, but he hadn't given everything he had in store for the damned Newborn Ruler. He exhaled heavily, drawing all of his senses to keep watch on Rabbit. The latter gave his sword an artistic flourish before suddenly hopping out of view, reappearing right before Glenn. The latter only had the time to barely defend himself, the Rabbit's sword ripping against the blade and cutting into his shoulder.

"They said to bring you alive, not in one piece!" The rabbit laughed before suddenly interrupting himself. "Wait, no, that's too overused of a line. Hmm, let me think of a better one."

Glenn groaned. "Why don't you go back to nibbling on salad and fucking miss rabbit, you fuck!" He winced as he exerted his Mana, raising a domain of Gravity Manipulation, pushing down on everything that wasn't friendly or himself. Rabbit stumbled through the air, surprised, giving Glenn the opportunity Glenn was looking for.

He pulled himself forward brusquely with more Gravity Manipulation and smacked his palm against Rabbit's chest. The Absolute Zero froze the Newborn Ruler from head to toe and chilled the air all around them, time itself slowing to a still. Owl and Snake turned at the same time in his direction, feeling the odd disturbance, but their opponents didn't leave them a chance to help their colleague.

Instead of foolishly believing this was enough to take down a motherflipping Newborn Ruler, Glenn insisted by turning Nelg into a spear and empowering him with his black flames. The blade didn't make a sound as it pierced through Rabbit's heart, carving a burning, fiery hole.

"Good..." The ice shattered, and Rabbit breathed in deeply. "...Try." Rabbit ears sprouted out of his head, and his mask fell off, revealing a half-human and half-rabbit face, with white fur and red eyes. His front teeth turned long and sharp, and a puffy tail popped out of his back. His legs grew larger and denser, wisps of Corruption swirling around them.

***

Lucian cursed, barely blocking another volley of sharp bones. It was getting quite tough to take down the damned nightbird, if he was being honest with himself. Not that it was expected of him; he was an Archmagi, and Owl a Newborn Ruler. What he was doing—pushing back against Owl-Mask—was already unthinkable. And yet it somehow worked.

"That's enough playing around." Owl-Mask's voice boomed. He threw all of his bone spears at Lucian and grunted painfully. "Fourth Seat, Fifth Seat, can't you remember why we fight?"

Snake-Mask, who was busy getting her ass beaten by Liara and Milena suddenly froze. Rabbit stumbled out of the ice, the wound in his chest healing up.

"Did you forget what we lost? Why have we gone to such lengths? Damn the limiters. For freedom!" Owl roared.

"For freedom!" echoed Snake and Rabbit. The Corruption surrounding them exploded. If before they already looked like a powerful beast barely human, now that has changed. Snake's skin bulged out with countless eyes, all wide open, her tail growing and growing until its tip couldn't be seen. She was as thick as a house, her scales dirty and cracked. As for Rabbit, his muscles grew exponentially, and he fell on all four, the sheer power of his Aura enough to push Glenn back.

But of them, Owl's transformation was the most remarkable. His feathers fell, his clothes rotting away and falling alongside his flesh. Organs turned to dust and blood into steam, leaving behind only the raw bones, yellowish yet with a dark-green tint to them. His bone wings appeared even more threatening, his talons shining with a deathly glint.

"For freedom," Owl repeated one last time, before shrieking to the clouded sky violently like a maddened beast. And a maddened beast he was. Lucian only had the time to blink before Owl's attack reached him. He barely dodged it on instinct, failing to even notice the projectile.

Behind him, a building-sized blade of bone parted the black dunes, advancing relentlessly. It was so tall in size that Lucian could easily picture it cutting through King's Rise's ramparts like they were made of paper.

"Thank Onnea," he muttered in awe before countering with his spell—or at least trying to. He barely drew on his Mana that the world seemed to close upon him, the dunes turning into plains of death and ashes. There was only he and Owl-Mask, staring down at each other in a scenery of devastation. Ashes fell slowly, Lucian's heart feeling like it was trapped in a vice.

Owl slowly raised his hand, his Corrupted Mana swirling around his skeletal fingers. "By His will, I command you, Die."

Lucian felt the world slow around him as death came for him once more. It felt like the world itself was obeying the command, complying dutifully. His heartbeats turned softer, almost as if his heart couldn't endure beating anymore. But he had already gone through this once. His Heart had already been ripped from his chest, yet he had returned from it.

Returned.

Something clicked in Lucian's mind. The crown on his head turned dim and shattered, and his heart stopped. Lucian fell to one knee, a hand clasped over his chest. The plains of ashes disappeared, replaced by infinite stretches of black sand.

With a smile on his face, Lucian died again.

***

Owl turned away from Lucian, his Mana expended. The Crown Prince was dead. His Heart had stopped, and his soul had been reaped. It had been more of an effort than he had thought, the Prince using spells strangely tailored against his kind, against the undead and Corruption.

But in the end, it hasn't been enough.

Tic. Toc.

He turned to the rest of the fight, intending to assist his colleagues and turn the balance completely in their favor, but something was strange. Their fight had halted entirely. He could see the sweat on the Devil's Hand and his friend's faces, frozen. Lora was about to spit a boatload of acid on Liara, who was struggling after being poisoned by her venom. Milena was kneeling in the sand, blood flowing out of her nostrils, and her eyes were bloodshot from the mental expenditure of trying to control a Newborn Ruler. The Devil's Hand himself was the only one with the upper hand on his opponent, that strange blade of his half-embedded in Rabbit's own sword, about to destroy it.

Time had stopped entirely. It hadn't frozen, like that trick the Devil's Hand used; it had stopped, come to a complete halt.

Tic. Toc.

Owl paused and turned back to stare at Lucian. The Prince had died kneeling on one knee, grinning like a happy man. An envious end, when Owl thought back to it. Many weren't so accepting of their end.

Tic. Toc.

"What is this... noise? A clock?" Owl muttered.

"Like the sun that rises in the west, and the moons that precede it, I return." Lucian's ethereal voice echoed all around him, with that constant, mind-numbing tic, toc.

"Return."

The world warped and turned over itself. The heart in Lucian's chest began beating again. Liara returned to an advantageous position, Milena didn't suffer from the drawback of using her mind control spells, while Glenn still conserved his advantage, untouched. Time turned on itself only at Lucian's advantage, the flesh and skin returning to Owl's bones.

Lucian rose like the sun in the west, his crown shining with gold and twilight. His Mana exploded outwardly, a phenomenon that made even time itself tremble.

For today was the birth of a Newborn Ruler, the Crown Prince of Munirp, the Dawn and the Twilight, the shadows and the light.

Seven Circles spun around his chest, shining brightly.

Just as expected of Munirp's Sun.