The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Daruk's heart hammered in his chest as he stared at the infinity awakened, wondering just how many mental hoops he had jumped through to reach this precise conclusion. He kept his expression carefully blank—an easy default to slide into during times of stress or fear—his stance portraying an eerie sense of calm and composure.

But inside, Daruk didn't feel very calm.

His emotions churned turbulently as the weight of the last few seconds pressed down on him like a mountain, urging him to surrender a secret he had held dear for nearly a year.

His status as a double inheritor was no longer a secret to the cultists, but to those within Abyssos, it still was. And his reasons for wanting to keep it that way hadn't diminished.

If anything, they had only intensified.

Yet, more than ever before, Daruk was tempted to spill it.

Not because he was tired of keeping it, but because he was tired of knowing nothing of his patron save for her name, what she looked like, and the simple fact that she was the 27th ascendant to ascend from Unoros in the last eight hundred years—placing her suspiciously close to the time frame this Sebastian Rune was suggesting.

Unlike Aodhán who had a love-hate relationship with his patron, all Daruk had received since his first conversation with Nzinga Al'Arish was silence. He knew next to nothing personal about her.

But now, after nearly a year, he was being offered a chance—a glimpse—into her personal life, by a direct descendant no less.

The infinity awakened had been too specific with his words to be lying. He was also the first person to recognize his bloodline manifestation and call it out by name since he'd acquired it.

He had information, Daruk wanted. Answers to questions that had plagued him, and all he requested in return was a simple acknowledgement of a secret he had kept for so long.

A small breath escaped his lips as the stares on him intensified.

Daruk could feel them like a tangible weight. Aodhán was understandably worried for him, eyes darting between him and Sebastian awkwardly. Baxter was simply confused.

Cyrus, however, had gone as white as a sheet, as if Daruk's next words could either break or make him. Daruk had no idea what thoughts were running through his mind, but he could imagine, and suspected it would give him great joy to break his fragile ego.

Still, Daruk considered his options thoroughly. Logically. What would he lose if he confessed his status right here and now?

Half a dozen responses popped into his mind at once, and Daruk barely suppressed a grimace. There were many things he could lose, with the safety of his family at the fore front. Revealing his status right here would mean revealing it to the whole world.

But as valid as that fear was, his need for information was just as potent.

The cultists already knew of him and Aodhán. They knew they were brothers, and so, more likely than not, they were already investigating his family, bringing to pass the same fear he was nursing.

And if that was the case, then the worst that could happen from revealing his status was already happening. His family was already been investigated by cultists.

The thought saddened him greatly, but it also begged the question. What else did he stand to lose?

The answer was nothing.

Unlike transmigrants, double inheritors were celebrated and loved. He would be celebrated and loved, even though none of that appealed to him. But at least, it opened a door of honesty. One Daruk intended to use to his advantage.

Raising himself to his full height, he glared at the infinity awakened, and asked, "What is the name of your bloodline?"

The question caught everyone off guard, and the infinity awakened blinked, his lilac hair stilling for a moment before he composed himself, clearly surprised by the complete shift in conversation.

"What do you mean my… ah!" he smiled. "I see. You want an exchange of information."

"What I want is for me to know," Daruk replied vaguely. "You are a stranger to me. I do not know you and I have never heard of you. I don't have to tell you anything about myself… or my patron."

Cyrus choked, his body contorting a she fell into a coughing fit. Daruk ignored him, his gaze fixed on Sebastian. "So, can you tell me the name of your bloodline?"

Sebastian hesitated, his smile tight. "My bloodline is a family secret."

"So, is mine," Daruk's gaze hardened. "But I must admit that I am curious to know more about the woman whose legacy I bear. However, I will not give that information up if you cannot extend me the same courtesy of which you require."

Sebastian's smile widened and he shook his head in amazement. "You're so much like my grandmother described her. It's almost as if you become her when you speak like that?"

Daruk frowned, sensing an insight in Sebastian's words. Whenever he spoke like this, he'd always thought of it as his alter ago—him putting on the character of Arnold Frostbourne—but what if that wasn't the case?

The insight simply reinforced the idea that there was so much to gain from a conversation with the infinity awakened. Daruk raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to speak?"

Sebastian watched him for a moment, his lilac gaze piercing before he finally responded. "My bloodline is the Line of Endless Return. Its gift is simple: no matter how much energy I expend, it always comes back to me."

The words sent a ripple of shock across the group, and Daruk's eyes widened slightly. He hadn't expected that, but now that Sebastian had given up that information, Daruk decided to do the same.

"Are you sure of this?" Aodhán asked him the moment he opened his mouth to speak.

"I am," Daruk nodded, his emotions freezing over as he turned his gaze to Sebastian Rune. "You are right. I am a double inheritor—"

"What?!" Cyrus interrupted him sharply, his eyes wide with disbelief. "No, this cannot be right." He turned to Aodhán, jabbing a finger at him. "You are the double inheritor. Principal Zatya said that."

Aodhán kept quiet, and Cyrus's voice cracked. "Talk to me! Tell me this is not true."

"Leave it, Cyrus." Aodhán gritted out, turning his gaze to Sebastian and Arkhan who were watching curiously. "There are more important things at stake."

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"Yes, there are," Daruk replied, drawing Sebastian's attention. He stretched out his hand to Sebastian. "I would be honored to learn more about the woman whose legacy I bear."

Cyrus shook his head, his face flushing red as his gaze darted between Aodhán and Daruk. "This cannot be possible. Both of you?" His voice rose to a near shriek. "How is this fair? Why you? Why not me?!"

The raw desperation in his voice made everyone pause. Cyrus stood there, trembling, his spatial essence flickering around him like a dying flame.

"I agree it's a little strange," Sebastian said carefully, clasping Daruk's hand. "It is with great honor that I welcome you to the Rune family. I would be delighted to tell you all about my great-great-grandmother."

Daruk's gaze swept over the group, lingering on Cyrus's increasingly unstable expression. "Perhaps we should speak somewhere more private. Away from prying ears."

Cyrus's expression darkened further, but Sebastian was already moving. Reality bent around him, and both boys vanished in an instant, reappearing several meters away—far enough to be out of earshot, but close enough that it would only take a few seconds to reach them.

Aodhán stared at them for a moment before turning his gaze back to his remaining companions, not quite sure how to feel about the whole situation. He was, of course, happy for Daruk—that he would finally be getting answers to questions that had plagued him—but entangling with a family as powerful as the Runes would no doubt come with its own complications.

Those complications, however, could wait.

Pushing down his worry, he looked at his comrades. Arkhan watched him carefully, sizing him up in a different light, as if his status as a double inheritor somehow changed everything about him.

Baxter was no different, but Cyrus glared at him with a fury that transformed his face into something from a horror movie.

"Both of you," he snarled. "You must feel so smug. Fooling the entire kingdom for so long."

He laughed—a broken sound born of anger rather than mirth. "From the first day I saw you both, I knew something was off. He was too liberal with his willpower, and you were just too powerful. This explains it all, even though I can't quite figure out how it's possible that two double inheritors come out of the same family."

"Cyrus—" Aodhán began.

"No!" Cyrus cut him off sharply, his voice cracking. "You're both cheating. Why you? Why the both of you? Why not me?!"

Aodhán sighed. "I'm sorry you feel this way, Cyrus."

"I don't want your apologies." Cyrus shouted. "I want what is fair!"

"I'm not in charge of Fate's workings, Cyrus." Aodhán responded, his patience reaching its limit. "I didn't choose this, nor did I steal it from you. Everything I have, everything Daruk has, we have earned ourselves. None of it belongs to you. This is my path. Run your own!"

Cyrus glared back at him for a long moment before promptly vanishing, leaving behind only a cloud of bloodlust and spatial essence in his wake.

Aodhán watched the cloud dissipate, his emotions surging within him as he turned back to Daruk and Sebastian in the distance.

Baxter and Arkhan said nothing, but they didn't need to. Two double inheritors from one family was unprecedented—either the workings of fate or the manipulation of a higher power.

Throwing their lot in with them would either end in disaster or fortune, as was usually the case with most fated individuals. But how could they resist when the fates of these two had already turned the whole realm on its head?

***

On a faraway black mountain, surrounded by a series of ice caps, a woman sat in perfect stillness, her raven-dark hair flowing around her like a halo. Water dripped into a puddle behind her, the rhythmic tap, tap, tap adding to the serenity of the cave she had converted into a makeshift cultivation chamber.

The opening of the cave shimmered with a barrier of azure telepathic energy, while the opposite wall was carved with a single LUMUS rune that pulsed with silver light, casting a dim glow within the chamber.

At tier 50, Mirith's consciousness was so vast that it covered nearly a dozen miles in diameter, her awareness stretching out like an ocean, drinking in the thoughts of thousands like rainfall absorbed by thirsty earth.

But here, in the isolated pocket realm of this faux reality, there were only a hundred minds or so—less now that so many had been killed—and her mind felt like a blessed whisper compared to the roaring cacophony she had endured for the last dozen years.

The mental chorus that had once threatened to drown her in its overwhelming symphony now felt like gentle rainfall after a turbulent storm, giving her a much-needed respite from the hustle and bustle of her daily life. In a twisted sort of way, this whole ordeal was a vacation, and Mirith couldn't have been more grateful for the quiet.

For the first time in a long while, she could finally hear herself think. But more than that, she could hear all 98 captives clearly, their desperate thoughts focused on killing a boy whose evolution fascinated her so thoroughly. Such beautiful thought processes, and the will imprint idea? Absolutely genius.

How she hadn't come across such insight before, Mirith couldn't understand, but she had implemented the idea immediately, shooting several will imprints into the origin plane of telepathy. Now, all she had to do was wait for one of her sisters to find them.

After that, she had unsurprisingly set her sights on him, picking at his surface thoughts without delving too deeply—and she was glad she had exercised such restraint. In only a few hours, she had learned so much about the cultists, the watchers, and the fated himself.

However, what had drawn her attention most to the boy was his status as a transmigrant, not the lie he paraded as truth. She hadn't gotten that information from him, though—no, the veil of shrouded mind had taken care of that. She had gleaned it from his brother, the actual double inheritor who wasn't really his blood brother, but adopted.

She had learned so much, and to be honest, she had been shocked—which was the reason she had ignored the first bounty in favor of watching the brothers more carefully. It had brought Mirith tremendous entertainment to see their pursuers fail so easily, and when the second bounty came, she had settled in to watch the events unfold with anticipation.

She could have joined the action, but after all she had learned from the boy, she realized it was a fool's errand. She didn't want the freedom the cultists offered.

The bounty screen before her beeped loudly, calling for her attention for the umpteenth time, but Mirith ignored it in favor of her continuous brooding, absorbing the thoughts of her fellow captives as they rushed toward the boy for the second time.

And failed once again. The boy had grown stronger.

Her interest peaked when an infinity awakened arrived and a familial tie was revealed. Such complex weavings of fate, so intricate that it was obvious to anyone sensitive to such threads.

Mirith shook her head in wonder, absorbing their thoughts as secret after secret was revealed. Everyone had the expected reaction to the brother's confession of being a double inheritor.

All except one, whose thoughts burned with such bitter intensity that they cut through the mental noise like a blade through silk: Cyrus Valerion.

His mind was a tempest of rage, emotions so raw and powerful that they created ripples in the telepathic field around him. Subconsciously, Mirith found herself drawn into the maelstrom of his consciousness, her awareness sinking into the depths of his psychological anguish with the inexorable pull of gravity.

It's not fair, his thoughts screamed into the void, each word edged with crystalline pain. I train harder than they do. I have sacrificed far more than they have. I've pushed myself beyond every limit, and for what? First it was Aodhán, and now Daruk? How can they both be double inheritors? What sort of cruel fate is this?

Burning with rage, Cyrus teleported to a rocky outcropping a mile away from the group, but distance meant nothing to Mirith's reach. She observed as he collapsed to his knees on the stone, his body shaking with suppressed fury, spatial essence flickering chaotically around him, tearing small rifts that sealed themselves immediately.

He held the rage for a moment before releasing it in a cry whose echo only reinforced his sense of loneliness.

Mirith felt something she hadn't experienced in a long time in that moment: genuine sympathy. She had seen countless minds consumed by envy, but rarely one that burned with such pure, articulate anguish. This was not the petty jealousy of a weak man coveting strength. This was the rage of someone with a world to prove wrong and a desire to claw his way to the top despite not being as blessed by fate. This was a man faced with the terrible unfairness of destiny itself—a man realizing for the first time that, despite his noble status, there was nothing he could do to stop fate from elevating commoners above him.

Mirith understood him perfectly.

Only a few years ago, she had been in this exact position, struggling to find her path and purpose in life. She was still finding it, but she had received help before the rage consumed her from within. That was what this boy needed—help, before his envy and wounded pride destroyed him.

Such exquisite pain, Mirith mused, brooding over his thoughts for a moment before wrapping her consciousness around his mind like silk around a struggling moth. She was no saint, but she couldn't let this boy spiral without intervening.

Weaving her influence into his thoughts, Mirith placed an impulse and pulled back. She had set the stage. It was up to Cyrus now to take the bait.

The impulse took root in Cyrus's mind, and with anger still boiling within him, he turned to glare at a series of ice-capped mountains in the east. He raised himself back to his feet and teleported, following what seemed to him a natural impulse to seek solitude among the peaks.