The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Cyrus Valerion stood at the base of a mountain, eyes shadowed with guilt and wonder as he stared at the bounty screen flickering before him.

He had gotten the first bounty notification just after completing a perfectly normal evolution into the advanced class. To anyone else, it would have been hailed as a genius breakthrough, but after witnessing Daruk's chilling advancement and Aodhán's tribulation, his own advancement felt woefully inadequate.

Yes, power coursed through him—his pathways burning with the exquisite rush of energy—but it was nothing compared to the absolute intensity of Daruk's advancement or the primal power Aodhán must have achieved after somehow surviving both a tribulation and a horde of monsters at the same time.

It should have been impossible. Neither of them should have survived. Daruk should have fallen to the horde, Aodhán to the tribulation. That was precisely why he had left. Their chances had been far too slim.

Yet somehow, they'd pulled through.

And to think Daruk had held back the horde on his own while Aodhán battled the tribulation?

It was madness. A complete subversion of everything that should have been possible.

And yet they'd done it.

The cultists had slapped them with a bounty soon after, and they had somehow overcome that too. And now, here was another bounty, this one threatening every single captive to participate in the hunt.

How would they survive it this time? Could they even survive it?

Cyrus doubted it... but after everything he had seen so far, he wasn't so sure.

That uncertainty gnawed at him, deepening the sense of inadequacy that already weighed on him. The possibility that even when faced against hundreds of fellow captives, Aodhán and Daruk could still survive caused his insides to churn with envy.

He knew he could not. He would never have survived Aodhán's tribulation, much less this.

Scowling at the crimson screen, Cyrus pushed a strand of hair from his face, unable to deny the truth any longer. He had fallen behind. There was no keeping up with Aodhán anymore.

Aodhán and Daruk had grown too strong for him to stand proud as their rival. He was beaten.

Yet even in defeat, Cyrus had learned something—something simple but undeniable. He wasn't running his own race. He had been running Aodhán's, chasing after a path that was never meant for him, measuring himself against a commoner wielding tools and gifts he could never hope to possess.

No. He needed to run his own race. Forge his own path.

And from what he had learned from Aodhán and Daruk, he had realized that the best way to do that was to go completely against the tide of fate. To do the opposite of what instinct demanded.

Grimacing with determination, he glanced at his newest skill and clenched his fist.

{Spatial Excision}

It was a powerful skill, perfectly complementing his impressive control and precision. But more than that, it was a skill formidable enough to serve as a foundation for his new path. A skill with the potential to place him at the very top if he trained and timed it well.

There was just one hurdle: it was willpower intensive, requiring nearly fifteen percent of his willpower pool for a single activation. That was a steep price for someone like him who didn't possess the willpower reserves of an ascendant like Aodhán.

But Cyrus wasn't about to let that stop him. His frown returned as his eyes lifted back to the crimson bounty screen. His rivalry with the commoner wasn't over—it had simply changed shape. They were playing different games now.

And he was ready. Ready to push past his limits. Ready to attempt the impossible, just as Aodhán always had. Ready to seize fate by the horns and bend it to his will.

A smile crept across his lips—predatory and determined. He stared at the glowing screen, and the smile spread into a grin.

"Let's play a new game, Aodhán Brystion," he whispered. "And this time, I will win."

***

Aodhán, Daruk, and Baxter stood at the edge of the glade, gazing out at the captives rushing toward them from below. Aodhán couldn't see them yet, but he could feel them getting closer—over thirty of them so far, all with one intent: to kill them.

"How close are they?" Daruk asked for the umpteenth time in the last minute.

"Very close," Aodhán whispered, swallowing nervously. "We should see them any moment now."

"How strong are they?" Baxter asked, his eyes narrowed with determination.

Aodhán grimaced. "They are mostly between the 27th and 35th tiers, but I can sense a few people approaching the 40th tier."

"Well, that makes things easier." Baxter rolled back his shoulders and wiggled his fingers in anticipation. "This should be over in no time."

As if his words had jinxed them, another core entered Aodhán's range, and he winced.

"What now?" Daruk asked worriedly.

"A man, tier 44," Aodhán replied worriedly, realizing just how screwed they were if this kept up. Baxter was at the 46th tier, which meant he still had an edge over them all. But one thing Aodhán had learned over the years was that advancement tier didn't always equal power, and if this tier 44 awakened was anything formidable, he would most likely occupy Baxter, leaving them to deal with the other captives on their own.

Some of whom were more than eight tiers above them.

"Crap," Aodhán muttered, contemplating the idea of running before discarding it.

No, running would do them no good. They couldn't afford to run forever. They would have to face this eventually. Better now than later, while they were still fresh from their advancement.

Incapacitating rather than outright killing would be harder since they would have to restrict themselves, but Aodhán was determined not to give the Fated even more power than he currently wielded.

The first set of hunters appeared on the horizon—five of them, all between tier 36 and 38.

Aodhán inhaled deeply. "Let's do this."

He levitated slightly into the air and summoned Varéc from his spirit, eyes hard with determination.

Varéc burst forth with a thunderous roar, black scales rippling with dense layers of lightning and chaos. He wasn't back to his normal size yet, but he had benefited immensely from the abundance of chaos swirling in Aodhán's spirit. His scales had grown even darker, his horns had elongated into a crown curling around his head, and his sinuous body now crackled with six different lightning colors rather than three.

A single thought would set Varéc on a path of carnage, but Aodhán restrained him. Instead, he locked eyes with Varéc—his intent was clear without words.

No kills. Not if you can avoid it.

Varéc growled in agreement and surged down the mountainside, black wings rippling with electricity. Daruk followed, sliding down on a cascade of jagged ice. Baxter teleported forward, taking the apex position and painting the largest target on his back, an aura of deep violet and silvery white cosmic energy gathering around him.

And Aodhán... Aodhán remained on the mountaintop, floating inches above the ground, his eyes hard with determination and focus. He raised a hand to the sky and summoned a storm into existence—so vast it covered the entire sky, blotting out the sun and casting the mountain range in darkness.

Eyes of the Storm engaged actively, plunging his emotions into absolute calm. His gaze turned serene like the surface of a still lake. His mind quieted. His heartbeat slowed further, and when he raised a hand to the storm above, he suddenly felt as unmovable as a boulder.

Chaos surged into his spirit unbidden, yet wanted. Willpower spilled out of his core. And lightning crackled in his veins.

Aodhán let himself savor the pleasure of power for a moment before channeling it all into the roiling storm above. Thunder boomed. Lightning arced. And with an expressionless face, he attacked.

The roiling storm exploded with torrential rain so heavy it slammed into the earth with the sound of thunder—a resource Daruk didn't hesitate to utilize as he seized control of the falling water, transforming it into ice needles, then spears, all aimed at the five hunters.

Three of them faltered, grinding to an immediate halt as they beheld the scale of power Aodhán and Daruk had just unleashed. But two more pushed forward, zipping on constructs of wind and energy, respectively.

They lasted only a few seconds against Daruk's spears before they were immediately skewered to pieces.

Daruk glanced back at him unapologetically and shrugged. "I'm still getting the hang of their strength."

Aodhán sighed as their bodies disappeared immediately, turning into food for their real enemy.

For a moment, everyone stilled, and then the three that had faltered earlier charged.

This time, Daruk managed not to kill them outright.

Instead, he cut off their legs with a cascade of revolving ice chakras, leaving them to bleed out on the rocky floor, crying and moaning in pain.

Baxter glared at them for a moment before teleporting them away with a casual wave of his hands.

The next wave of hunters arrived an instant later, these ones stronger. There were four of them, three of them at the 39th tier, and from the way they moved, it was obvious they had trained together, each person's affinity complementing the other.

They countered Daruk's attack with a wall of fire but couldn't escape Varéc's fury as he unleashed a river of red electricity on them from above.

The group scattered immediately, and Aodhán immediately locked onto two of them. He activated {Lightning Beam—Violet} from the churning storm, and two beams of spatial lightning struck down, smiting their targets instantly.

Both men froze, their muscles locking up as lightning tore through them. Two more beams struck them before they could recover, and then another until their muscles were nearly completely atrophied.

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An explosion of cosmic energy caused Aodhán to turn, and his grimace deepened when he saw a cosmic beam smash through a woman's construct and eviscerate her immediately. What was left of her body vanished immediately, becoming food for the Fated.

Two more beams of spatial lightning struck his targets, far more powerful than he had intended, and both men simply exploded from the force of the lightning.

Aodhán gritted his teeth in annoyance as their bodies also vanished, becoming more food for the Fated.

"Fuck!" he cursed himself for letting himself get riled up by Baxter's mistake.

"Look who's killing now." Baxter laughed from his position in the air, and Aodhán scowled.

"This is not a game, Baxter! We're feeding the Fated even more power with each person we kill."

Baxter scowled at him, but before he could speak, another wave of hunters appeared on the horizon. There were seven of them this time, and at their forefront raced Monica, a wave of entropy essence surging around her.

She barely faltered at the sight of the storm as she rushed toward the one she considered weakest—Daruk.

Baxter, however, wasn't about to let that happen. With cosmic manipulation, he warped space, redirecting her trajectory so she faced him instead. Monica roared in betrayal, a concentrated beam of entropy erupting from her hands with the fury of a woman scorned.

Cosmic and entropy essence exploded in the air as the two friends clashed, but Aodhán and Daruk barely had the chance to watch the fight as the six remaining hunters rushed toward them.

Varéc engaged the first—a glass awakened at the 35th tier. Daruk engaged the next two—a tier 39 wind awakened and a tier 37 plant awakened, leaving Aodhán to handle the three remaining hunters on his own.

But he was unfazed.

{Lightning Beam} activated again, but this time there were a dozen of them—red, black, and violet. They struck down like judgment itself, the violets so fast that the hunters couldn't escape them.

One of them raised a shield that held up against the violet lightning but crumbled like paper against the red. Explosions rang out as the beams struck their targets without mercy. The weakest among them, a shadow awakened, teleported herself out of the fight before she lost her life.

Smart.

The men, however, kept fighting—meeting his attacks with beams of void and fire. But even without using his full power, Aodhán could see them struggling. Despite being higher-tiered than he was, they were weak.

With a simple thought, Aodhán gathered the scattered arcs of lightning around them into dozens of blade constructs that stabbed down on both men at once.

Only the void awakened survived unscathed, and that was because he had used his comrade as a shield.

Aodhán grimaced angrily as the body of the fire awakened and vanished, becoming food for the Fated.

"You!" he said through gritted teeth, wanting to blast the void awakened to oblivion. But doing so would only empower the Fated further. Instead, he decided to leave the man at the brink of death.

Seven beams of violet lightning descended from the storm at once, but rather than smite the void awakened, he merged them into a single ball of violet lightning and detonated it.

The void awakened tried to teleport away from the attack, but violet lightning was brutal and instant, and there was no escaping it.

The lightning engulfed him, but where red lightning would have torn the man apart, violet lightning simply teleported strips of flesh away.

Every part of the man the lightning touched was teleported away. One eye vanished. A part of his nose vanished. Both ears vanished. Several strips of flesh vanished from his chest, revealing a bloody heart beating within the man's ribcage.

The man screamed in agony as the air blew against his injuries, blood pooling out of the holes in his body. Without hesitation, he teleported away, giving Aodhán a chance to focus on the battle raging around him.

Without hesitation, he turned his gaze to Baxter, who was still locked in intense combat with Monica—both having obliterated an entire hill with their clash. Daruk and Varéc seemed to be holding their own, leaving Aodhán momentarily without an opponent.

Eyes narrowing, Aodhán sent dozens of lightning spears toward Monica to aid Baxter. But he might as well have been pouring water into a basket, as the spears simply merged with her aura of disintegration, causing the space around her to fracture and crack like glass.

Monica whirled toward him, arms sweeping out in fury, and despite Baxter's efforts at redirection, Aodhán still had to dodge a crescent blade of deterioration as it swept past, missing him by a hair's breadth.

"Get out of here!" Baxter shouted at him, and Aodhán obeyed. His body transformed into purple lightning as he teleported away to assist Varéc instead, a hammer of red lightning manifesting in his hands as he materialized before the glass awakened.

Surging Momentum activated instantly, filling him with explosive force that he drove against the woman's hips, shattering bone and dislocating an entire limb.

Varéc unleashed a beam of red electricity at the woman, nearly vaporizing her completely until Aodhán shouted, "Don't kill her, dammit!"

The woman spasmed from the lightning surging through her, and with shaky fingers, she transformed the sand beneath her to glass and simply disappeared through it. The glass shattered an instant later, disintegrating to sand.

Aodhán glanced at Daruk next, confirming that his brother was alright before turning his gaze back to the horizon, just as another set of pursuers made their appearance. A dozen of them—all between the 39th and 42nd tiers.

Aodhán's heart sank at the sight, and he cursed. It had been going so well, but a dozen powerful pursuers all at once? How could they handle this without Baxter's help?

His gaze darted to Baxter in panic, and when their gazes locked, he pointed to the horizon where the pursuers were coming from.

Baxter's eyes widened at the sight, and with a guttural growl, he warped space, teleporting Monica to the Ascendants knew where.

"We can't afford to fight separately any longer," he shouted, and Aodhán nodded in agreement. Against this wave of hunters, they wouldn't survive alone.

Raising a hand to the storm above, he called down a host of red lightning spears and directed them all at Daruk's opponents to help him out.

The wind awakened dodged sharply to the left, but the plant awakened was unable to react in time. Three crackling spears struck her with a boom of thunder, nailing her into the rocky earth and skewering her nearly to pieces before she could move.

The slight moment of distraction gave Daruk the chance he needed to land a finishing blow on the wind awakened—slashing his legs in two with a rippling ice blade. Blood spurted as both limbs flew into the air, and a guttural scream joined that of the plant mage.

Their screams were cut off a moment later as Baxter teleported them out of the area, grimacing as he came to stand beside Aodhán. "We can't afford to fight this group while holding back."

"We can't afford—" Aodhán began protesting, but his words were cut off when the hunters came to a sudden halt. Their leader, a burly Calodan man at the 44th tier, stepped forward confidently and bowed.

"Do not hold our actions against us, dear friends. We understand the position we are in, but we need you to understand ours too."

"Nope, not happening." Baxter scowled at the man. "If you truly understood our position, you would turn back right now and leave us be."

The man nodded and slowly spread his arms out. "Unfortunately, I can't do that. We must do this the hard way then?"

"It seems we must," Baxter replied and promptly attacked, teleporting the leader and two of his nearest comrades into the air. He didn't seem like he would be holding back anymore.

Daruk glanced at Aodhán with a look that said he would keep restricting himself even though he thought Aodhán was being foolish.

Aodhán glanced back at the nine hunters now rushing toward them and cursed. "Fuck it! Let's go all out."

Varéc roared, punctuating his words with a thick beam of black electricity that shot toward the hunters like a bullet. They scattered, and Varéc immediately picked his targets, alienating two of the hunters from their group.

Daruk picked his targets next, a cascade of jagged ice erupting beneath him as he rushed toward the nearest three hunters, his aura erupting out of him in a single, overwhelming wave of frost.

It would be a tough battle, but Aodhán was convinced Daruk would survive it.

And with that confidence, Aodhán turned his gaze to the remaining hunters—five of them, charging straight at him. Three men and two women, their cores practically screaming with bloodlust.

He recognized all of them from the chamber, but it was the man at the forefront who made bile rise in his throat. It was the same bastard he had seen feasting on the corpse of his clone while the specter led him to his cell.

The man was life awakened, and when their eyes met, he grinned, revealing teeth filed to razors, stained with old blood and flecks of meat.

Despite the calming effect of Eye of the Storm, Aodhán felt hatred bubble in his heart—not only for what the man had done, but for the foul intent radiating from his core.

This one didn't just want to kill him. He wanted to devour him.

And the others were no better. They weren't cannibals, but their auras reeked of bloodlust, the eager violence of people who had long since crossed every moral line and reveled in the crossing. They were more than ready to lay his head on a spike for a freedom they would never gain.

Any hesitation Aodhán had toward killing them died screaming in that instant, and with a guttural roar, he attacked, levitating into the air and pulling the full wrath of the storm down.

Thunder cracked as a vortex of swirling electricity slammed into the group with a deafening explosion. But only one of them was thrown back, flesh charred and smoking.

The others plowed through behind shimmering shields of wind. Aodhán spotted the wind awakened immediately, and his lips curled into a bloodthirsty smile.

He teleported. His form flickered, violet shifting to silver like liquid mercury.

An earthen spike tore through him, and a bundle of shimmering threads lashed toward him, trying to capture him, but the attacks simply passed harmlessly through his phasing body as he appeared directly in front of the wind awakened with a snarl.

She raised a barrier of wind against him, but Aodhán refused to be hindered. His hand slashed down in a brutal arc, his palm morphing into a jagged blade of silver electricity that phased through the wind barrier without resistance.

Before the wind awakened could react, the blade bit deep into her sternum. Silver transformed to black in an instant as the blade swept forward, splitting her from breastbone to pelvis, organs spilling out in a steaming cascade of red and pink.

A scream echoed behind him, and Aodhán turned just in time to avoid a beam of corrupted life essence as the cannibal lunged at him. {Lightning Surge—red} exploded from him to create some breathing room, but it only bought him a second before the four remaining hunters descended upon him once again.

The thread awakened shrieked in fury at her comrade's death, and this time, when she launched a barrage of threads, Aodhán failed to dodge on time. The threads hooked into his lightning form like fishhooks, both ethereal and tangible at the same time.

The threads ripped his skill apart, sinking deep as they tore through muscle and scraped against bone, dragging him mercilessly back to the earth.

His face cratered into the rocky ground, teeth clicking against stone as his nose flattened with a wet crunch. Pain lanced through him like a knife until it twisted, and Aodhán realized it was a dagger instead.

He tried to jump to his feet, but a fiery fist slammed into his cheek like a sledgehammer, breaking his cheekbones to pieces. Aodhán saw stars as gold lightning surged into the wound to heal him.

His attackers didn't give him a chance to regenerate, however, as another fist slammed his face back into the ground. Jagged threads hooked through his muscles, tearing them apart and preventing him from phasing.

Lightning exploded around him in a wave, but his attackers barely flinched even as their clothes burned and decayed. A fiery hand pressed against his throat, ready to burn it to cinders, and Aodhán realized that if he didn't do something now, this would be his end.

He would die here on the rocky floor of Abyssos, his body taken by cultists to be harvested. He would never see Varéc or Daruk again. He would never see his parents…

Quintessence burst out of him in desperation as Aodhán burned a full seal at once and tapped into the force of his spirit. Chaos rushed into him like a tsunami of raw power, and with a burst of willpower, he activated {Absorb Energy}.

The effect was immediate and devastating.

Energy ripped from his attackers like blood from opened veins, rushing into his body like a flood. The fiery grip on his throat went slack in an instant as all the energy in the attacker's core hemorrhaged into Aodhán's core, surging through his pathways like molten lava.

The thread-awakened stumbled backward, threads dissolving as her core emptied like a punctured waterskin. Life essence poured into his pathways in molten lightning, and earth crashed into his core like an avalanche of stone.

Screams echoed all around him—screams of terror as his attackers felt themselves being hollowed out—but Aodhán could barely hear them, so drunk on the amount of energy rushing into his core. His broken bones snapped back into place, his split flesh sealed itself, and energy crackled between his fingers in arcs of pure potential.

It was much more than Aodhán could have ever imagined the skill to be capable of. But it was glorious, and for this set of individuals, it was the perfect payback.

The four attackers lay sprawled on the ground, chests heaving in fear and panic as their cores were drained completely, leaving them husks of their former selves.

"What have you done to us?" The life awakened wheezed, spasming as he tried to force his body forward, but Aodhán only smiled, energy writhing around him like a living thing.

Red lightning sparked from his left hand, and black from his right. Silver coursed in between, violet danced up his arms, and green crackled across his shoulders, forming a cyclone of destructive lightning, roaring in elemental harmony.

He pointed a hand at the life awakened, blood caking nearly half of his face, and activated {Lightning Beam}.

He didn't even need to enhance the skill with willpower or with quintessence.

The beam burst out of his palm like plasma, so thick and condensed that it was unlike anything Aodhán had ever unleashed before. It struck the life awakened square in the chest and simply obliterated it—flesh, bone, heart, tissue—all gone to reveal a burnt patch of rocky earth beneath.

Sobs echoed from the other attackers as Aodhán shifted his hand to the next person.

"Please," the thread awakened pleaded, tears streaming down her face. "Please, don't kill me."

Aodhán hesitated, but it wasn't out of sympathy. It was because, in that moment, he realized he didn't want to waste this energy he'd gotten on killing these imbeciles. There were other things he could spend it on.

With a smile, Aodhán directed all that energy to his class, feeling a sudden wave of dizziness as all that power drained from his spirit and into his class.

Class: Advanced Storm Awakened: 5% (Pending)

The tab had only moved 2%, showing Aodhán just how much energy he needed to acquire to fulfill the requirements needed for his next evolution. But with {Absorb Energy}, he now had more ways to gain energy.

His gaze strayed back to the whimpering attackers sprawled before him, and he smiled. "Thank you all for your energy. I'll make sure to use it wisely."

They whimpered helplessly, but Aodhán ignored them, a smile of determination blooming on his face as he turned his gaze back to the horizon. However, that smile died as he spotted a lone human moving toward him, spatial essence rippling around him in waves.

Cyrus Valerion had arrived.