The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Aodhán stumbled through the ash-covered streets of the order, bruised and battered as Isobá dragged him toward the Watchtower, a dark, looming building in the distance that seemed to add more weight to the cuffs on his wrists and ankles the closer they got to it.

Every time he stumbled on the ash-covered ground, she yanked him up with the chain attached to his neck, bruising him with the force of her actions, but Aodhán refused to cry out.

The metal links bit into his skin, a constant reminder of how thoroughly she had overpowered him back in that cell. He could still see Daruk and Cyrus's shocked faces as Isobá grabbed them by the neck and threw them into a swirling portal of liquid flames, teleporting them away before any of them could react.

He stumbled again, eliciting another uproar of laughter and jeers from the cultists, but Aodhán simply picked himself up and continued moving, rage simmering within him like a volcano at the precipice of eruption.

He hadn't tried to run or fight her after Isobá's display of power in the cell. It would have been futile. Instead, he had pushed himself to his feet, expression hard as he asked what she wanted with him.

"To pay for all the people you killed," she had replied immediately, clenching a clawed fist around his neck and hooking him with the chain. "Your hands are stained with the blood of my brothers and sisters." A bloodthirsty smile appeared on her face. "But it doesn't matter what I want. What matters is what the Watchers want, and they want to speak with you."

"I don't want to speak to anyone." Aodhán had replied. "I will never join your bloody cult. If you want to kill me, better to do it now."

But Isobá had only chuckled, "Let's see how long that determination will last you."

She yanked him to his feet after that and dragged him out of the cell, into the open air, forcing him to walk the distance in nothing but rags and chains.

Cultists leered and sneered at him from both sides of the ashen road, raining curses on him for all their members he had killed. They didn't throw anything at him, but the hatred in their gazes was searing enough. Aodhán was certain that if they had their way, they would tear him to pieces the same way he had killed all those cultists during his mission with Geneva.

But they kept their cool. Barely. Taking joy in his pain as Isobá yanked him forward once more.

Aodhán kept his head high, glaring back at them with simmering hatred. One of his worst fears had come to pass, but he would be damned if he met it sniveling and panting like a coward.

He had seen all the atrocities these people had committed, all the people they had killed and sacrificed for their rituals. They were evil fanatics so consumed by their faith they couldn't care less how many died for their cause.

But Aodhán had killed hundreds of their members before, and the moment he was set free, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them all. They deserved no forgiveness, nor would any prayers for their redemption be heard. They needed to be purged.

Aodhán's anger rose in this manner until, even without access to his core, he began to release faint wisps of bloodlust.

Isobá yanked his chain forcefully when she noticed this, and Aodhán stumbled from the force, scraping his knee against the ashen ground. Flesh tore, blood pooled, and laughter rose from the gathered cultists like an orchestra—loud and full.

Aodhán gritted his teeth against the pain and pushed himself back up, unwilling to let his pain show. That was what they wanted. To see him beg. To see his tears. But Aodhán refused to give them that satisfaction.

Instead, he hardened his gaze and continued walking, whispering to himself, "Don't give them what they want. Don't give them what they want."

His gaze scanned the cultists around him, and his lips curled in disgust. There was not a single unawakened person in sight, but it was of little importance, because half the number of cultists around him were of the mundane class, many of them so obviously limited both in tier and spirit.

The other half consisted mainly of evolved awakeneds, most likely between the 20th and 24th tiers, with only a few advanced awakeneds scattered among them.

They were all weak, easily defeatable if he put his mind to it. With Varéc by his side, it wouldn't even be much of a battle.

However, the closer they got to the watchtower, the more advanced the cultists became, and by the time they reached the base of the tower, Aodhán's confidence had drastically subsided.

Rather than vagrants and weaklings, he was now surrounded by powerful advanced-class individuals, their iris rings and bloodline manifestations betraying their power. Even without core sense, Aodhán could tell none of them came close to Isobá in strength; however, every one of them was powerful in their own right, able to deal with him completely without aid.

But their power only served to disgust Aodhán further. What were people of such power doing here, working and living as cultists? What could they possibly have been promised to decide to follow the vision and ambition of a man who had died nearly a millennium ago?

His gaze still hard, Aodhán took a mental head count, taking stock of the threat. However, before he could finish, Isobá yanked his chains again, causing him to stumble on the stairs leading to the entrance of the watchtower.

Laughter erupted around him once more, and Aodhán's anger surged with it. Pain lanced through him as he pushed himself back to his feet, only to come face-to-face with Isobá's smiling face.

"You poor child," she whispered, her expression feigning concern. "How was your walk of shame?"

Aodhán swallowed the curses that threatened to erupt from his lips, forcing himself to remain silent. Isobá scowled when he didn't respond and then yanked him once again.

This time, Aodhán managed to brace himself against the stairs and was surprised when he heard the clatter of chains an instant later as his cuffs were removed, freeing him slightly from the dampening effects of the null metal.

His skills and core were still inaccessible, but core sense erupted out of him, spreading out to half its maximum range. Despite himself, Aodhán shuddered in relief as cores blazed into existence like stars around him.

They filled his senses completely until the entrance to the tower opened, and a thin man peered out, decked completely in a floor-length black and crimson robe, carefully adorned with gold to differentiate him from the other cultists.

Aodhán couldn't sense the man's core, but he didn't need to in order to recognize the man as a mythic. The man smiled at Isobá, but when his gaze landed on Aodhán, Aodhán was surprised to see curiosity and fascination rather than the hate and cruelty he had experienced on his way here.

"This must be the transmigrant?" the mythic asked, his voice laced with silk.

"Yes, Elder Voss." Isobá bowed. "He's been a little rough-handled, but I had to get my frustrations out somehow before taking him to the watchers."

Elder Voss chuckled. "As long as you do not take him to the watchers looking like that. They can be very protective of their new… pets."

The word 'pet' was like fuel to the rage surging within him, and Aodhán's scowl deepened into a look of outright hatred.

His fists clenched in anger, but Elder Voss only laughed, pushing the entrance open further so Isobá could enter. Isobá yanked him once more, pulling him into the watchtower itself, where Aodhán was met with dozens of mythics, all dressed in the same gold-embroidered robes as the first.

They watched him with curiosity and eerie fascination as Isobá led him through them toward a side room where a young woman waited, a gracious smile on her face as she stretched a hand toward him and healed him. Aodhán tried to resist the healing, but without access to his willpower, his efforts were futile.

Isobá watched him with cruel amusement, as if the very sight of his resistance brought her immense pleasure. When their gazes locked, she smiled widely. "Oh, the watchers will enjoy breaking you if you refuse their offer."

This time, Aodhán couldn't hold back, and he scowled. "I'd rather die than join this circus of fanatics and evildoers."

Isobá's smile vanished, and she sneered at him. "You will eat those words; I swear to you."

She yanked his chains as she turned toward a set of stairs, but Aodhán managed to keep himself on his feet this time, his eyes scanning his surroundings as he forced himself to think logically.

He had a few options. The first was to go along with whatever the cultists wanted of him—they obviously didn't want to kill him. The second was to stall for time. And the third was to blow everything to pieces.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The entire kingdom would be searching for him by now, not only for his sake but for Cyrus's. Agents would be swarming, and champions would be mobilizing in search of them.

Already, he was certain, Zatya was doing everything in her power to find him. When they'd first met, she had put a tracker in his head. Aodhán wasn't sure if the tracker would still work here because his chip had been completely fried, but he had hope that something would happen as long as he waited.

With this in mind, Aodhán chose the second option. He had to look at this as an adventure, as a recon mission, not a trip to the gallows.

For the next few minutes, Aodhán tried to perceive the whole situation differently, and after a while, it actually seemed to be working. However, that fragile sense of control only lasted until they arrived in a hallway covered in murals of a brutal war. The painting was so vivid, so lifelike, that Aodhán could almost hear the roar of chaos and the cries of soldiers, could almost smell the underlying scent of blood, and could almost feel the overarching presence of death.

Despite the brutality of the painting, it was beautiful—beautifully tragic—and though Aodhán couldn't exactly sense anything that spoke to him, he suspected the mural had been imbued with the essence of conflict—insights woven into every brushstroke and buried within every detail.

Isobá dragged him past the mural without stopping, and a few minutes later, they reached the watch room itself.

Aodhán's steps slowed, and he swallowed nervously, steeling himself to face the ones the cultists revered as gods. He expected them to be powerful. Beings overflowing with the ancient, incomprehensible power usually associated with calamities.

However, when Isobá pushed the huge doors open, the first thing that hit him was the smell.

Aodhán recoiled, bile rising in his throat as a dense cloud of karma, fate, and time essence—all tainted with the cruel, oppressive stench of decay—rolled over him like a tide. Power flowed within the room, so much that it was visible to the naked eye, spreading out to engulf him in raw, chaotic energy. But beneath it all, that inexplicable scent of rot.

The decay didn't just fill the air—it pervaded every corner, clung to every wall, and hung over them like a storm cloud. With Core Sense, it was unbearable. Death and decay flooded his senses until Aodhán had to fight not to retch as Isobá yanked him forward.

He stumbled into the watch chamber, and without hesitation, his gaze went to three individuals producing such dense waves of death and rot. His breath hitched as his gaze fell on them, and this time Aodhán felt the bile in his throat.

The watchers weren't gods. They were glorified mummies, clinging to life by a thread. Their skins were sallow, hanging off their bones like rotting fabric. They had no hair on their head nor teeth in their mouth. They weren't just old. They were breathing corpses. Abominations, and Aodhán couldn't even imagine how it was possible that they were still alive.

Isobá fell to her knees in reverence beside him, but Aodhán was too stunned to move. A part of him had been looking forward to this, despite the nature of the situation. Calamities were mighty beings—gods in their own right.

He had heard and read so much about them and had even seen the scale of their power in his vision of Az'marthon. But in that moment, standing before not one but three calamities, Aodhán couldn't have been more disappointed.

Isobá yanked on his chain when she saw him standing, and Aodhán staggered, but he refused to bow. He wouldn't have bowed to a healthy cultist, much less these husks from an era that should have been completely eradicated.

But then a fiery presence slammed down on him like a boulder, so strong that Aodhán collapsed to the floor immediately, gritting his teeth in pain as his knees slammed into the concrete with a crack.

Pushing past the pain, Aodhán raised his gaze to whoever had unleashed that crushing presence, and his breath hitched in surprise as his gaze landed on three people.

He had been too preoccupied with the watchers to notice them before, but now they commanded his attention entirely. At the center of the group stood the one whose aura had just slammed down on him, a boy Aodhán suspected to be the legacy of Sárán Béithir.

He had reddish-brown skin and crimson hair, his bare chest rippling with dozens of seals, all of different colors and affinities. He stood nearly 7 feet in height and was dangerously handsome to boot, but it was his core that truly caught Aodhán's attention.

A tsunami of blazing energy merged seamlessly with a vast river of willpower, blazing so bright it overshadowed the cores of those behind him, not in raw power, but in sheer intensity and potential. Power radiated from him in waves, causing the air around him to ripple and warp like a mirage.

When their eyes met, he scowled in righteous fury. "You stand before me and the watchers of the Order. You will show some respect!"

Aodhán scowled, feeling his anger resurface, but before he could say anything, a weak voice rasped out. "Leave him be, Jethro. He knows nothing of our ways. Until he comes to see reason, there's no need to force him."

Aodhán turned his gaze to the watcher who had spoken, and his lips curled in disgust as another wave of decay washed over him. It was the time watcher, and when they locked eyes, the watcher gestured as if to say, "Take it all in; there's no need to rush."

Aodhán grimaced but obeyed, turning his attention to the two people who stood directly behind the Fated. His expression tightened at the sight of their blank expressions, and his gaze narrowed as a faint sense of familiarity tingled between them, very similar to the familiarity that came from shared affinities. Only deeper. More intimate.

They were both girls, and as Aodhán studied them, he saw a flicker in their gazes, a moment of lucidity as they focused on him, but it was gone before he could even process it.

He frowned in confusion as he analyzed the link, and just as he came to an eerie conclusion, the Fated spoke again. "Do you not speak?"

Aodhán answered his question with a question of his own. "Are they transmigrants?"

This time, the Fated smiled, like a proud child showing off his toys. "Yes." He placed a hand on the head of the first girl, stroking her silver hair that seemed to move with a life of its own. "This is Jian, a tier 31 wind transmigrant I got from the plains of Calodan. And this—" he placed another hand on the other girl's head, "this is Kira, a tier 34 death transmigrant with a penchant for battle. I got her from Ragnarok."

Aodhán felt a sudden weight on his heart as he stared at the two girls, who couldn't have been much older than he was, marked with the unmistakable bearing of those who had lived a hard life. He looked back at the Fated, his jaw working overtime to contain his anger.

"Why won't they speak for themselves?"

The Fated scowled at that. "Because they are in the presence of the watchers, and unlike you, they have manners."

"That's enough, Jethro," Another watcher rasped out, a cloud of karmic essence billowing into the atmosphere as they continued. "Aodhán here is our guest, and we are to treat him as such." The watcher's gaze turned to Aodhán, and he gave a toothless smile. "Don't mind the Fated. He's a little inexperienced in the art of dealing with people."

Aodhán scowled at the karmic watcher, bile rising in his throat as his gaze landed on the rotting figure. He pushed his nausea down and gritted out, "What do you all want from me?"

Isobá clenched her fist in anger, and the Fated twitched at the irreverence in his tone, but no one said anything until the karmic watcher replied, karmic essence rippling as his words carried effortlessly to the base of the chamber. "You've heard much about us, and yet, you know so little. You judge us even though half of what you presume to know are lies fed to you by the very kingdom you claim to serve."

Dark, hollow eyes fixed on him with unsettling intensity, and Aodhán felt a shiver run down his spine in disgust as the watcher began unveiling the shroud of secrets that had hung over Lutia for centuries.

"When Sárán Béithir created the Order nearly a millennium ago, it wasn't for wanton violence or the prejudiced creation of armies, but because he had a vision and desperately needed an army to fulfill it for the good of the common people. He'd shared his vision with the leaders of this continent, and just as you might imagine, they kicked against it."

The watcher chuckled, a sad sound as he heaved, a cloud of decay and death erupting from him at the effort of talking for so long. Waving his hand tiredly, he gestured for another watcher to take up the story, and the only woman among them continued, fate essence swirling densely as she rasped.

"Your leaders tell you we're evil." Her golden eyes fixed on Aodhán. "Fanatics. Murderers. Tell me, child, what do you see when you look at us?"

Aodhán's jaw tightened. "I see exactly what they said I would."

"Do you?" The watcher's voice carried a note of genuine curiosity. "Because this story I'm about to tell you will reveal the real truth, that your so-called kings and queens are the real monsters—people who will do just about anything to hold on to the bit of power they have without consideration for the destruction they will inevitably cause."

Aodhán scoffed, but the watcher pressed on as if he hadn't spoken.

"Long ago, before Sárán was even born, the Lutian continent was an empire so large it surpassed Attilan and Gordon in sheer mass. But usurpers—your current leaders—killed the emperor and divided the kingdom amongst themselves."

"When Sárán awakened his exceptional affinity and bloodline, he made it his sole purpose to reunite the kingdoms not for selfish reasons, but because he had the gift of prophecy, and he knew that if the empire wasn't reunited before the Attilan incursion, it would fall."

"He warned the usurpers, but they refused to heed his warning, and that was when Sárán formed the order of the watch. We were a part of that order, mere evolved class soldiers at that time, but despite Sárán's power, the usurpers were greater, and we lost time and time again until Sárán ascended, unable to remain in this world any longer."

"Three hundred years later, just as he had predicted, the Attilans came, turned the kingdoms against each other, and plunged our vast resources into chaos, nipping at our heels until we fell completely. They destroyed our lands, rewrote our history, and placed a savage curse upon our people. For centuries, the people of Lutia lived in suffering, dying prematurely from the limit, yet their supposed kings were too greedy to seize the solution staring them in the face."

She shook her head and coughed wetly before proceeding. "Fate being a benevolent entity, it sent them Raol, but rather than heed his preachings, they kept the knowledge he brought to themselves, limiting it to the nobles alone. Tell me—have you ever wondered why, after so many centuries, the curse of the limit and the artifact anchoring it still stand to this day?"

Aodhán frowned, having always asked himself that question. He didn't respond, though, not wanting to give the watchers the impression that he was invested in their story. But could he hide it? It was obvious in his expression how much he craved answers to the questions that plagued him all these months.

The watcher simply smiled and answered the question herself. "The answer to that question is because the only way to break the curse of the limit and the artifact anchoring it is to band together as one and break the curse as an empire. That is the truth your kingdom hides from you, that in fact, they aren't the true monarchs of the kingdom they rule."

"There is a cure for the limit. It's just not one they particularly like, and as if that isn't bad enough, they hunt transmigrants for their selfish reasons, harvesting your heritage for their selfish gain."

With shaky hands, the watcher pointed to the two girls standing behind the Fated. "You will not be the first transmigrant the order will save, nor will you be the last. These two are proof that we mean you no harm when we ask you to join the order and bring Sárán's vision to eliminate the limit and remove usurpers from their stolen thrones to fruition."

Her voice strengthened, and she gave a wizened, toothless smile. "What do you say, Aodhán Brystion? Would you like to join the Order of the Watch and save the world?"

There was only a beat of silence before Aodhán scowled. "No, I most certainly would not."