The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Light streamed into the hallway as Aodhán slowly pushed Professor Jorendil's office door open, ready to duck in case of another explosion. However, after a second passed without any accident, Aodhán stepped in tentatively and called out, "Hey, Professor. I'm here."

"Come—cough—in, Aodhán. I've been waiting for you."

Aodhán walked through the office and into the makeshift laboratory, which was even more cluttered than the last time he was here. Papers littered every surface, alchemical instruments were strewn about haphazardly, and on the far side of the lab, a pile of broken vials lay in a glittering heap, each one weeping colorful alchemical liquids onto the floor in a manner that seemed to suggest that they had been thrown in a tantrum.

The air itself was thick with the sharp bite of ozone, undercut by the acrid tang of burnt resin and charred wood. Despite the overwhelming cocktail of scents, Aodhán could still pick out the bitter reek of chaos—a strange cold-iron tang like rusted blood—and the sour funk of fermented plant matter.

Professor Jorendil stood at the center of the mess, swirling a beaker of viscous pink liquid over a blue flame. He smiled at Aodhán and waved him forward. "Come in, you're just in time to see me perfect this core flux diluent. I've been working on it for weeks now, and I think I've finally cracked it."

Aodhán hesitated for a moment before moving closer, his curiosity overshadowing his disgust. He stared at the swirling liquid, watching as it slowly shifted from pink to a silvery blue, like liquid starlight.

"What does it do?" he asked after a moment.

Professor Jorendil's grin widened. "It's supposed to stabilize the two essences before they fuse. Liquid chaos is so volatile that without a proper diluent, it'll implode the moment I try to introduce it into the layered core." He chuckled and gestured vaguely to a blackened scorch mark near the ceiling. "Just last week, I tried it with entropy, which is supposed to be less chaotic than actual chaos, but I almost singed my eyebrows off. Again."

Aodhán chuckled. "How close are you to completing it? Your project, I mean."

Professor Jorendil paused, his smile faltering slightly as he shook his head. "I don't know. I don't want to rush into it. It's a very delicate and expensive project. I want to make sure I get it right the first time."

Aodhán frowned, voicing a question that had been bothering him for a while now. "Why do you insist on doing this all by yourself? The alchemy part... couldn't you just collaborate with Professor Vastermoff, or any other alchemy professor in the academy, rather than blowing things up as you fumble your way through?"

Professor Jorendil chuckled, but his smile dimmed. "That's a fair question, and I suppose I could hand it off to them, but..." He paused, staring into the swirling diluent. "I want to be able to say I did it all by myself. If I eventually succeed, that is."

"You will succeed," Aodhán replied without hesitation, because why the hell not? This world was so brimming with potential that something as fundamental as a dual affinity core surely couldn't represent its limit. Aodhán was certain of it.

Professor Jorendil studied him for a long moment, then smiled—a genuine expression that reached his eyes. "You know, this is why I like you, Aodhán. Your unwavering belief that this project is possible... it motivates me."

His smile faltered slightly as he turned his gaze back to the swirling diluent. "Sometimes I forget what I'm fighting for. Why I'm fighting..." He trailed off before brightening again. "I'm fighting for freedom. The ability to transcend boundaries. Two origin planes, not just interacting, but resonating in perfect harmony. Fire and water. Light and shadow. Creation and entropy. If I can stabilize the energies, then I can create cores that rewrite what's possible."

Professor Jorendil's smile widened, and his eyes gleamed with renewed passion. "That's actually why I wanted you to come, not because of your infused rain or anything. I just needed someone to remind me that I could do it, especially since my alchemical efforts aren't progressing quite as smoothly as I implied earlier."

Aodhán smiled. "I know nothing about alchemy, Professor. But I'm willing to help wherever I can."

Professor Jorendil nodded appreciatively. "Then you can help me think. The last time we spoke, we discussed the concept of overlapping origin planes. I've done extensive research into the topic since then, and I've even written a paper..."

For the next two hours, Aodhán read through Professor Jorendil's meticulous research and simply listened. He might not be able to assist the professor with the technical aspects of the project, but he could listen and encourage the man.

He was rising when he could.

***

Deep within the fortified belly of the Awakened Council Headquarters in Sector 5, Jeffery the cultist hung from a reinforced glass ceiling, spread-eagled and bound with null chains.

The chamber he was in was crafted entirely of reinforced glass—walls, floor, and even the ceiling from which he dangled. No matter where he turned his aching head, there was nothing to see but his own haggard reflection and the oathbreaker working methodically below him.

With steady hands, she reached toward him once again, and Jeffery bucked wildly, his voice cracking as he pleaded. "Please, please... enough. I can't—please—"

A howl tore itself from his throat as agony engulfed him. An invisible hand seized the oath-chains wound around his core and pulled, causing his very essence to shudder violently as the bindings fought desperately to maintain their hold.

He screamed until his voice went hoarse, the sound echoing off the glass walls in a symphony of suffering, but there was no one to hear him or offer mercy. He was alone with this monster of a girl, whose emotions seemed to be entirely nonexistent.

However, he wasn't quite as alone with the oathbreaker as he'd assumed.

Above the glass chamber, staring down like vultures, stood two robed figures. Their faces remained hidden, their silence tense, and their stances emanating a strong sense of dissatisfaction. Judges. They carried themselves with the familiar authority of those who didn't merely enforce the law but possessed such intimate knowledge of it that they could bend and twist it to their will.

The first judge, completely decked in crimson robes, shifted slightly, her voice low and cold. "Vile thing. How much longer before he breaks?"

The other judge grunted, his blue robes faintly swishing as he adjusted his stance. "A few more days. Perhaps a week. We'll have to exercise more… patience." The last word was spat out like something distasteful he'd been forced to swallow.

The crimson judge let out a soft hiss. "He's been here a week already. If he doesn't start talking soon, we'll begin to look incompetent."

"The art of oath-breaking cannot be rushed," the blue judge replied, folding his arms with deliberate calm. "This is the first devotee we've ever captured alive. We cannot afford to kill him before extracting the information we require. Regrettably."

The crimson judge turned her gaze to the side. "And what of the Oathbreaker herself? How can we be certain she isn't one of them?"

"We cannot," came the dry reply. "But I prefer not to indulge in excessive pessimism. You should consider adopting the same approach, Crimson." His tone grew sardonic. "I'm told pessimism accelerates aging."

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The crimson judge snorted with disdain. "How remarkably noble of you, Blue. But I suppose you're correct. If we cannot trust a Lys, then whom can we trust?"

Silence settled between them like a shroud, broken intermittently by the muffled, agonized screams of the cultist as the oathbreaker methodically worked to tear his binding oaths asunder. The cultist writhed helplessly against his restraints, desperate to escape the girl's probing touch, but there was nowhere for him to run.

The girl's slender fingers pressed deeper into the cultist's abdomen, and another tortured cry echoed through the chamber as thick, purple veins bulged across his body like twisted roots. Tiny black wisps evaporated from his body, fragments of the oaths binding his core, but the painstaking process remained far from complete.

The judges watched impassively, neither particularly invested in the oath-breaking procedure itself, but unwilling to leave the girl unsupervised with their valuable prisoner.

The Lys's were a powerful family with a wide array of bizarre affinities and even weirder personalities, but this particular girl stood apart even from that peculiar lineage. Avara Lys, second daughter of Duchess Erythea Lys—head of the First Sector—possessed the extraordinarily rare affinity for karma itself.

This power allowed her to perceive, manipulate, and sever the invisible karmic threads that bound individuals to their promises, actions, and consequences.

Including her own.

She was also a third-year student at the First Academy, though her academic pursuits seemed secondary to her current... specialized work. Even for someone of her unique capabilities, the unraveling of oath chains required delicate precision, particularly when one wished the subject to survive the process.

After another moment of watching the girl work, the crimson judge muttered, "A week will pass quickly enough. We had better possess the answers we require by then."

The blue judge inclined his head with grim certainty. "We will."

***

Aldric leaned against the cool stone wall of Fort Dominion's watch room, arms loosely crossed, the emotions of four champions flowing through and around him like a churning river of worry, exhaustion, feigned nonchalance, and curiosity.

After seven days of living, training, and dining together, their emotional signatures had become as familiar as faces. So familiar, in fact, that he could identify each person without even looking up.

He subtly manipulated the emotions to flow around rather than into him, then turned his attention to the only man whose emotions he couldn't sense.

General Lucas Deaton stood before them like a pillar of stone. He knew the man had emotions, but like any other mythic being he had encountered, the man's emotions were sealed tight against his empathic senses.

Still, his time with the Ravens had taught him more than just how to fine-tune his abilities. He'd learned to read faces, too, and the barely perceptible twitch in the general's left cheek betrayed a concern his stoic mask couldn't quite conceal.

Aldric felt his own emotions ripple at the observation, but he crushed the disturbance before it could spread and slowly turned his gaze to the object of the general's worry. He already knew what he'd see before his eyes found the massive screen, but he looked anyway, taking in the bizarre arrangement of mirrors positioned in perfect misalignment. They covered every surface of the meditation chamber, flickering and fracturing with cascading light.

Matharantha sat at the center, eyes closed and legs folded in the traditional meditative pose. Her mind was anything but settled. Aldric could feel her emotions all over the place, far more powerful than all the others combined.

She claimed she was finally ready to evolve to the Mythic class, but Aldric severely doubted her words.

It was no secret that she was doing this under duress—or at the very least, not entirely by choice. Aldric would know; he'd spoken with the feared and misunderstood woman many times over the past week, trying to offer support and encouragement. They were alike in many ways, more so now in this new realm he had broken into.

Turning his gaze away from the screen, Aldric took stock of the emotions swirling around him. By his left, Artemis and Zero stood together, the former twirling a weird rock between his fingers, while the latter stared at the screen with laser focus. Geneva and Ali Hassani stood to his right, heads bent in a heated, whispered conversation he couldn't quite hear.

But Aldric didn't need to hear their words to know their intents.

The tension in the room was suffocating. Everyone's emotions ran sharp and tight, and despite his best efforts to maintain distance, Aldric found himself caught in the collective anxiety. The feeling rose within him, potent and cutting. Yet even his discomfort paled next to the roiling cloud of fear and determination emanating from Matharantha, her eyes squeezed shut and fingers twitching as she fought to find the serenity that meditation required.

It was deeply unsettling to witness a champion so terrified of her own abilities, and Aldric couldn't help but wonder if he would ever experience such a thing.

Half an hour crawled by as they waited for Matharantha to settle and begin. However, when another thirty minutes passed with no change in her agitated state, Artemis finally broke the silence.

"Perhaps she's not ready," he said quietly. "We should give her more time."

"We don't have more time." General Lucas sighed. "I have a meeting with the Supreme tomorrow, and I have to give an update on the situation. I cannot do that if there's no situation. The two extra days I gave her are all I can afford."

His gaze shifted to Aldric, sky blue eyes piercing. "What do you sense from her, kid?"

Aldric hesitated, his mouth going dry as every person in the room turned to stare at him. He licked his lips and glanced back at the screen before answering.

"Fear," he whispered. "Crippling fear, so deeply rooted that I doubt she can do this alone."

General Lucas's expression darkened; his concern now impossible to hide. "She'll manage it. I know she can." He looked back at the screen with renewed determination. "I have nothing else scheduled today, so I'll wait. Whenever she's ready, I'll be here."

The atmosphere grew heavier at his words, and Artemis let out a deep exhale. He eyed Zero for a moment, then cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, General, but we can't all make the same commitment. I've got plans—"

"You will stay." General Deaton cut him off without a glance. "We function as a team. When one of us struggles, we do not abandon them."

Artemis exhaled again and settled down to wait, closing his eyes to do whatever he did whenever he closed his eyes. Cultivate his time aspect, perhaps? That was just one of the many pieces of information he shouldn't have, but his new abilities had provided.

Exhaling, Aldric turned his gaze to Matharantha, mentally wishing her strength to overcome her fear.

The tension in the room grew thicker, and before Aldric knew it, an hour crawled by. And then another.

Within the watch room, emotions shifted, growing more agitated with each second that passed without change. Aldric didn't blame them. They couldn't feel what he could. The overwhelming fear was so deeply rooted within Matharantha that it seemingly held her core in a chokehold of trauma and pain. She couldn't evolve until she overcame it. In her way, it was her own limit enforced solely by her subconscious.

Another ten minutes passed without change, and finally, General Deaton sighed, his voice cutting through the tension like a feather. "How can we help her?"

The question dropped like a stone into the quiet room, and the eyes of all four champions turned to Aldric.

Aldric noticed the change in emotion immediately, their intent coming through like maddened whispers, and his eyes widened. "Oh no. Surely you can't mean—"

"We do, Aldric." Geneva cut him off with a serious expression, her eyes relaying much more than her words. "You cannot help her as you currently are, but with a grand enhancement item, you can do something."

"I don't know exactly what I can do even with the item." Aldric shook his head. "I've never used it before, and on the precipice of evolution, I have no idea what my meddling will achieve."

"Far more than she's achieved on her own in the last three hours," Zero muttered, and his gaze sharpened. "Whatever little you can do, I'm certain she will appreciate it."

Aldric hesitated, unable to deny that he was intrigued by the prospect. With the grand enhancement item, he could most likely help. And if he couldn't, then at the very least, it would be a valuable experience."

He turned his gaze to the struggling woman, sensing the haphazard sequence of her emotions, and after a moment, he nodded. "I'm willing to try."

Artemis's smile widened. "That's all we need."

Geneva stepped forward and pulled out an emerald rock from her spatial space. The emerald was the size of his thumb but was completely etched with golden runes. She handed the rock to him, and Aldric stretched his hand to accept it.

The moment his fingers brushed the item, it pulsed, sending a sharp tingle of electricity running down his spine. A sudden heat erupted within him, and as he clenched the rock in his fist, the heat spread through his body and spirit like wildfire, sinking deep into his core.

Aldric's breath hitched, not from pain, but from awe as every nerve in his body opened up, and his senses expanded with pinpoint precision.

The overwhelming flood of emotions from everyone around him was now razor-focused. The usual chaos of emotions—guilt, fear, anger, hope—was now sharpened into clear, distinct lines. Each thread, each tangle of thought and emotion, was laid out in front of him, no longer blending into a mess.

He could feel their emotions far more intimately, but more than that, he could see emotions—their structure, their weight, and their origins. The fear that gripped Matharantha was no longer a bundle of negative emotions he couldn't quite decipher. Now, it was laid bare, dissected. He could sense it all: her self-doubt, her paralysis, and the moments that led her to this point.

Her mind wasn't a storm anymore—it was a series of broken pieces, and Aldric could now pick them apart or put them back together with surgical precision. He wasn't just sensing her fear. He could reach it, touch it, and reshape it as he needed. He could help her.

Exhaling deeply, he met Geneva's gaze. "I'm ready."

She nodded and gestured to the screen. "Then go help her. If this works, your debt is paid in full."

Aldric nodded, and with one final exhale, he walked toward the chamber of mirrors, ready to help a champion overcome her subconscious in a battle of trauma and fear.