The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Cyrus stared wide-eyed at the gruesome transformation taking place in front of him—the sheer insanity it took for Aodhán to subject himself to a tribulation this size—and shook his head.

It was the height of foolishness to put oneself in a situation where the chances of survival were less than ten percent. But then again, that was exactly the kind of situation Artemis always advocated for. Sought after in fact.

Could it be that he was the foolish one? That to stand beside champions and geniuses, he had to do stupid stuff like this all the time?

The response his subconscious provided wasn't one Cyrus liked and he grimaced, teeth barred as he struggled back to his feet in defiance of the aura pressing down on him.

Daruk stood to the side of his brother, a look of pride on his face as he watched Aodhán absorb more and more cores to fuel his advancement and regeneration. Already, Aodhán had experienced two surges of energy and power, placing him at the 26th tier, yet he didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Daruk kept handing him more cores, and he kept absorbing them.

With each core he absorbed, his regeneration quickened. And when the bag of cores became empty, Daruk smashed a host of gargoyle to harvest their earth cores, bringing them to Aodhán before he could even need them.

Cyrus felt jealousy creep into his heart as he watched them, wishing he had his own personal cheerleader who would treat him with the same love and dedication that Aodhán and Daruk had for each other.

Aodhán's body was healing at an accelerated pace, growing even more toned and muscular as he regenerated almost every part of his body from scratch. Despite his bruised and battered body, Cyrus could already feel how powerful Aodhán had become and it was scary.

His bloodline, icon and seals let out a latent aura of power that even Daruk hadn't been able to match. Oh, Daruk's power was pretty scary, but there was something primal about Aodhán's—the brutality of it and the situation surrounding it seeming to add an undeniable weight to his power. Just standing close to him was like having a dragon breath down his neck. The threat of death wasn't hidden at all.

Cyrus felt a pang of unease at the realization, and he wondered what would happen to their rivalry when he finally evolved into the advanced class. He couldn't rush through the early tiers as Aodhán was currently doing, nor could he match the primal power he was currently feeling.

Without any shadow of doubt, Cyrus already knew he would fall short. What would happen to him then? What would happen to his ideal?

As much as Cyrus detested the commoner, he had subconsciously begun depending on their rivalry to push himself. It was the basis of his whole ideal. This competition. The need to prove the world wrong and leave their jaws hanging in the dust. To come out of Artemis's shadow and become a champion in his own right. To prove his father wrong and force him to finally say his name, rather than a number.

That was why he advanced. So, he could one day stand at the top and smirk down on all those who had ever said he would never be as powerful as Artemis.

And his rivalry with Aodhán had been his ticket to achieving those goals. But at the rate with which Aodhán was growing stronger, it was only a matter of time before the entire world was proven right and he was left in the dust to rot, overseeing the 5th sector beneath the smirking portrait of his promiscuous father.

"I need to do something insane too," He whispered to himself, eyes narrowing in determination. "I need to force fate to notice me, too. I need to—"

His words were cut off by a loud boom of thunder, and his head snapped up immediately, expecting to see a new tribulation storm forming in vengeance, streaks of divine lightning threading through the clouds. But the skies were crystal clear—eerily so.

Then he felt it.

The ice trembled beneath his feet, subtle at first, then violently insistent, like a heartbeat gone mad. He turned his gaze to the horizon… and froze.

A wall of dust was rising—no, erupting—from the far plains, a roiling cloud of ochre and ash that climbed halfway to the sky. And within that choking haze, Cyrus saw movement. Thousands of shapes, shifting and snarling, surging forward in a tide of nightmare.

"What the hell is that?" Daruk cursed in annoyance as he came to stand beside Cyrus, a chill mist curling around his clenched fist in anger.

Cyrus didn't respond, but it didn't take Daruk long to receive an answer to his question as an instant later, an overwhelming horde of creatures revealed themselves, so many that their numbers alone caused Cyrus to shudder in terror.

There were thousands of creatures in the horde, each more powerful than the last. Their roars and shrieks filled the air with such intensity that even Varéc took a fearful step backward. Winged creatures filled the air, blackening the sun in their advance and closing in fast.

Fear gripped Cyrus by the neck and he forced himself to swallow, realizing that this was exactly the kind of battle Artemis would have run toward. With glee even. But as the horde drew closer, Cyrus realized the truth in his father's words.

He was no Artemis. Neither was he foolish enough to think this was a fight they could win. This wasn't a tribulation he could handle, and with a look back at Aodhán, he whispered. "I'm sorry."

"What!? No, Cyrus—" Daruk began, eyes widening even further when he realized what Cyrus was about to do, but it was already too late. Cyrus vanished, teleporting himself away from danger, leaving Daruk and Varéc alone to protect Aodhán from the rampaging horde.

Back in the frozen oasis, Daruk stared at the empty space Cyrus had just been standing in, mouth open in shock and betrayal. Cyrus was never their friend, but to betray them this way?

Anger rose within him, chilling rather than burning, and he turned his gaze back to the horde his entire body shuddering both from fear and anger as the gap between them narrowed quickly.

His heart banged loudly against his ribcage as his mind raced, struggling to think of a way out of this mess.

Aodhán was still too injured to be carried about, and even if he wasn't, Daruk didn't see them outrunning this horde for long. Aodhán was healing fast, though, but Daruk estimated it would still be another ten minutes or so before he would be able to walk or move on his own. More than enough time for the horde to have torn them to pieces.

Daruk only had two options. Stay, fight and die, or stay, fight, and potentially survive.

He couldn't leave Aodhán here to die, neither could he move him in current state lest he bleed to death.

Daruk went with option two.

Looking to Varéc, he shouted over the roar of the rampaging horde. "It's just me and you, Varéc. We need to give this our all."

Varéc roared in response, lightning crackling densely around him in aggression. He had grown even larger with Aodhán's evolution though it was subtle. His slitted irises had taken on a more crimson sheen tinged with gold. His horns had elongated, curving inward into what seemed to be the beginning of a crown.

He looked sufficiently menacing for the task at hand, but Daruk knew it didn't matter how ferocious Varéc looked. The two of them alone couldn't hold back the horde for long.

It was in times like this that Daruk missed Andrew and his wide area attacks the most. A cloud of hallucinogenic or poisonous spores would be very effective in a situation like this or a forest of metallic vines acting with a mind of their own.

Andrew would have been brutally effective against a horde this size, but they didn't have Andrew with them now. They only had each other, and… and—

A thought occurred to him in that moment and Daruk snapped his gaze back to Varéc. "You can do everything Aodhán can, right?"

Varéc growled in response, nodding his large head in assent.

Daruk smiled. "Does that include Aodhán's seals and willpower?"

This time Varéc hesitated, head cocked as if thinking about his words for the first time. The horde of monsters were quickly closing the gap, but Daruk kept his gaze on the hulking Fury, who nodded after a few seconds of thought, slitted eyes narrowed and fangs barred in agitation.

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Daruk's smile widened into a grin and he turned his gaze back to the rampaging horde. "Then give me rain, Varéc. Give me rain and a river of lightning so large that it drowns the earth and wipes out this horde with explosions."

Varéc cocked his head in surprise, before letting out a growl of excitement as he hastily took to the sky to carry out Daruk's request. The sky darkened almost instantly, and, impossibly, Dark's smile widened even further as his gaze roamed the horde.

They were closer now, and Daruk could finally see the texts floating above their heads. They were all strong, ranging from the 25th to the 35th tier, putting the strongest of them a total of ten tiers above him.

That was a lot and with their numbers, Daruk couldn't see himself winning at all, but that didn't mean he couldn't put up a decent fight. Heart thumping, he grabbed the bag of gargoyle cores he'd gathered for himself and began absorbing.

Energy surged into his core in a deluge, and a few seconds later, his core surged with energy, but Daruk wasn't done yet. Hastily grabbing the cores from the bag, he absorbed more and more until his core surged again, placing him at the 27th tier.

Thunder boomed above him as storm clouds gathered, growing and merging together into a colossal vortex of roiling storms. And in his veins, power hummed, frigid and deadly, filling him with more power than he could have ever imagined himself capable.

Still riding the ecstasy of advancement, Daruk fixed his gaze on the horde and let his willpower explode out of him. Thunder boomed as every restriction on his core was lifted in an instant. Reality warped around him. The temperature plummeted. Frost formed in the air, and a dense aura of bloodlust began radiating off him.

Almost too casually, Daruk raised a hand. Energy and chaos surged through his pathways to activate one of his most basic skills: [Forge Constructs]. But with so much power surging through his spirit, the basic skill had been transformed into something extraordinary.

Daruk didn't create swords or any other sort of weapons this time. Instead, he raised a wall of ice. A huge, circular wall of crystal clear ice, imbued with durability and hardness that rose nearly fifteen meters in the air, and was several meters wide—a veritable fortress at this point.

But Daruk was far from done. His aim wasn't to kill every creature within the horde, even though that would bring him a great amount of pleasure. No, his aim was to buy time. Ten minutes to be exact, and for that, he needed defenses.

Willpower drained from his core like water through a sieve, as wall after wall rose around the first, each larger and thicker than the last. A total of twelve walls appeared almost immediately, until they stood between Aodhán and the horde.

It wasn't enough, but it would just have to do. A dome covered the twelve walls to shield Aodhán from flying creatures, and a thick wall of ice covered the earth to shield Aodhán from burrowing creatures.

It was the best defense Daruk could create in such little time, and with a muttered prayer to Raol for safety, Daruk activated [Embody Ice—PhantomIce] and phased to the top of the dome just as the horde clashed with the twelfth wall.

The force of their attack was so much that the wall cracked, but it mended itself an instant later as willpower drained from his core.

Daruk barely noticed the draw as a dozen large, serrated ice chakras manifested around him at once and shot into the horde. Only a few hours ago, Daruk had struggled to control three of these things, now he had no trouble at all wielding a dozen, and in less than ten seconds, the scent of blood filled the air as the chakras began revolving around the walls at high speeds, tearing through tissue and bone with barely any resistance.

The early wave of the horde died to his chakras like sheep, unable to even activate their abilities before they were cut down. Daruk fought like a machine. No emotions. No hesitation. Just cold, methodological killing.

Cries and screams filled the air as the creatures died in the hundreds every second, and it wasn't until thunder boomed once more that Daruk looked up. What he saw shocked him.

The storm Varéc had conjured was far, far larger than Daruk could have imagined, and when it exploded with a torrent of rain, Daruk didn't hesitate to hijack it.

The conversion of water to ice was seamless, and the conversion of ice to spears even more so.

Spears struck the earth in their hundreds. Combined with the serrated chakras, Daruk's killing efficiency quadrupled.

But that was only the first wave of the horde. The cannon fodder. The weaklings.

The moment the tier 29 creatures reached the walls, Daruk saw a drastic decrease in efficiency. His chakras cut slower, and it began taking more than a single spear to take a creature out.

Before long, the horde slammed into the twelfth wall once again, and this time, Daruk felt the drain of willpower required to fix it. He grimaced as the creatures slammed against the wall again, and decided it was time to change tactics.

Letting go of the falling rain, Daruk activated [Glacial Paradox—LiquidIce] and smashed his hands against the dome, gasping as a huge amount of willpower and chaos surged through his spirit in that instant.

The twelfth wall dissolved from solid to liquid, like a wall of water, and hundreds of ice spikes began jutting out of it from every angle. They stabbed the creatures head on, slithering and moving like liquid rather than ice, and Daruk's killing spree resumed.

The horde screeched as they slammed themselves against the wall, but the liquid wall simply bounced back, seemingly unaffected, until the next wave came, and this time Daruk barely managed to stay upright from the backlash as the twelfth wall burst.

Tier 30 creatures.

A sharp glance at his timer revealed that only three minutes had passed since the battle began. He still had seven minutes left, but at this rate, the horde would get to Aodhán in seconds.

Thunder boomed loudly, but this time it wasn't rain that came down. It was lightning.

It descended from every corner of the storm, a descent of destruction and insanity that defied imagination. But what really made this descent so terrifying was its color: green.

A river of Sylvael lightning.

Daruk briefly considered looking away from the horror that was about to befall this horde. He didn't.

Unlike Aodhán's red and black lightning, the green lightning didn't simply kill—it transformed.

The river struck down like divine judgment, and Daruk shuddered in repulsion as it surged into open wounds and injuries like a living entity.

Wherever it touched the creatures, their wounds began to heal with that deceptive glow Daruk recognized, and for a brief moment, the horde paused, confusion flickering in their bestial eyes as pain receded, ice spikes fell away, and torn flesh knitted itself back together.

For that brief moment, the horde felt healed, revitalized, roaring with renewed vigor.

But then the corruption began, and true horror revealed itself.

Knitted flesh burst open with pus as sickly green veins began spreading outward like poisonous roots. It arced out quickly, moving through tissues and muscle until it reached their hearts.

The snap of bone was the next thing Daruk heard as a creature arched violently, spine snapping to pieces as the lightning drained it of life completely. The creature collapsed to the ground immediately, its body already beginning to blacken and decay as vitality drained from its body like water from a broken vessel.

It was the first creature to fall, but it wasn't the last.

The moment it died, another snap echoed, and then another until it was a whole chorus of snapping spines. The sound filled the air like a symphony of horror. Winged creatures who had been caught in the river fell from the sky, necks twisted and spines snapped brutally.

All over the battlefield, creatures screeched as ribcages caved and bodies contorted violently as their life force was drained away. Blood sprayed in crimson arcs, drenching the ground and filling the air with the scent of ozone, blood and decay.

But even this brutal attack wasn't enough to do the horde in completely.

It had wiped out nearly all the tier 30 and 31 creatures, but about half the horde was still alive, and they were pissed.

They smashed through the eleventh and tenth walls before Daruk could stop them, smashing their skills against the fortifications in fury. Daruk managed to reinforce the ninth wall on time, but even it fell after a moment as the tier 32 and tier 33 creatures slammed themselves against it.

Against a single tier 32 creature, only five tiers above him, Daruk would have been confident of victory, but against this wave of powerful beasts, Daruk was severely outmatched, double inheritor or not.

Yet he put in his best, activating his most offensive skills just to buy more time. Willpower filled the air as Daruk pushed himself to the absolute limit, utilizing both new and old skills just to do some damage.

But it wasn't enough.

The eighth wall fell a moment later, and a minute after that, the seventh wall did the same.

Only four minutes were left.

The sixth wall fell.

The fifth fell.

Daruk became desperate, and without hesitation he pulled on the quintessence of a whole seal. Heat erupted within him in response, and Daruk gasped uncomfortably as he pulled an enormous amount of willpower from his core in an instant, melding it with the quintessence and chaos swirling around his spirit.

The power was too much.

Daruk felt pain stab through his mind like a dagger as he channeled all that power. His pathways groaned, not advanced enough to carry the power he was about to unleash.

Daruk channeled it regardless to that special place he had found in his spirit, and with a loud voice, he shouted [MY DOMAIN, MY RULE; FREEZ—]

The words cut off before he could complete them, his body still too weak to bring a rule to manifestation, but the little he got out was enough.

Reality rippled like water, and an instant later, the air detonated in a shockwave of bitter cold, the ground flash-freezing in a ring around Daruk. Ice burst upward like jagged spears, ripping through stone and soil. The horde screamed in confusion and horror as their clawed limbs slowed mid-run, frost racing up their legs like a living thing.

Some tried to run, and nearly half the remaining horde did. Half, however, failed, their bodies caught within the range of Daruk's incomplete rule. Frost climbed up their body in an instant, and a moment later, they were statues.

Every drop of moisture within them converted completely to ice. Blood hardened in their veins, and their hearts froze between beats.

Then came the sound of cracking, low at first, then spreading as bodies began to split under the strain, frozen solid from the inside out. Cracks ran through limbs, torsos, and skulls.

Frost spread, his rule still working, but Daruk didn't wait to see its full effect. He couldn't.

Hundreds of creatures remained within the horde, and with his pathways so strained, he couldn't afford to fight any longer. He needed to run now while they were scattered. It didn't matter whether Aodhán was fully healed or not. They couldn't afford to wait any longer.

Activating [Embody Ice—PhantomIce], he phased back into the dome, expecting to see Aodhán still regenerating and absorbing cores. Instead, he found the dome empty.

His heart thundered in his chest, and for a brief moment, Daruk feared the worst. His ears rang as thoughts churned loudly in his mind, but all that came to a sudden halt that moment a roar of fury tore through the sky, as loud as thunder and as sharp as lightning.

Daruk looked up, and high in the sky, he found his brother cloaked in stormlight, and burning with a fury that rivaled that of a god of judgment.

He raised a hand to the storm Varéc had created.

Thunder boomed.

And the world exploded.