The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Lightning flashed across the roiling clouds in a cascade of energy, colors rippling like serpents as Aodhán activated Lightning Descent, unleashing a river of destruction upon the roaring horde. Lightning smashed into the earth and exploded, throwing limbs and hides apart, with blood and viscera exploding from the horde in a cloud of chaos and death.

To his right, Arkhan fought, fingers dancing through the air as if he were playing a lullaby only the creatures could hear. One by one, they fell, staggering to the ground as their consciousness was forced to sleep.

Daruk fought by Aodhán's left, a wave of frost erupting out from his outstretched palms to engulf the attacking creatures in frost and ice. Behind Aodhán, Varéc roared, unleashing torrents after torrents of lightning to protect their backside.

And somehow, conveniently in their center, Sebastian Rune stood, his lips pressed into a line of annoyance.

No one else had noticed—too panicked to actually think about it, but the reality was that Sebastian was handicapped. Funnily enough, the conditions the cultists had placed to handicap Aodhán worked even more against Sebastian.

Without access to spatial and reality manipulations, he had lost ten out of his thirteen combat-applicable skills, reducing him to what could be termed an extremely well-informed support character.

This was the major reason he'd wanted to split up the group, taking Daruk and Arkhan for himself. Without Aodhán, this whole expedition would have been a hundred times easier. In all the threads of possibility where they'd gone as a group—with Aodhán and Varéc, it had been one problem, delay after another.

Sebastian hated it. But mostly, he hated seeming weak to the others. He was a Rune, for heaven's sake!

But with {Infinite Possibility Access} and {Parallel Perception}—his only useful skills for the moment—all he could do was see the threads of possibilities. He couldn't act. He couldn't even protect himself from danger, let alone protect the others.

"To your left!" He shouted to Aodhán, panting as if he were fighting a terrible battle. "Daruk, duck!"

Both boys obeyed immediately—Daruk dodging a spike to the throat, and Aodhán spearing a reawakened Nightmaw reaver.

"Thanks!" Aodhán gritted out as he shot out a condensed beam of electricity, and Sebastian grimaced, muttering to himself.

We wouldn't be in this mess if Daruk had just let you go with Baxter.

Arkhan met his gaze, seeing through his pretense, and simply smiled. Sebastian grimaced.

Scowling, he dodged to the side, placing himself at a point where he was less likely to sustain any injury from the battle. But least likely wasn't unlikely, and the moment he dodged, Varéc's tail smacked him in the head with so much force his jaw nearly dislocated.

"Fuck," Sebastian cursed in frustration as he massaged his jaw.

Out of a hundred possible futures he could perceive, Varéc had only swished his tail right in two of them—a mere 2% probability. The odds were overwhelmingly in his favor. Yet, the moment he dodged based on those calculations, reality had chosen the most improbable path.

He had seen dozens of possibilities and predicted dozens of outcomes, but without reality manipulation, he was powerless to ensure that the favorable ones actually occurred.

It was the curse of seeing without being able to influence the outcome, and Sebastian was sick of it. Raising his hand to a pack of Fire-rexes, he overwhelmed their minds with visions of alternate possibilities, but in their agitated state, his contribution was barely effective.

The pack staggered forward, veering towards Daruk from his blind spot. Without thinking, Sebastian raised his hand, already drawing power to manipulate reality before remembering the cost. He let the energy go instantly, gritting his teeth in annoyance, before shouting, "Daruk, a wave of frost to your left!"

A wave of frost erupted from Daruk's outstretched palms instantly, coating the rexes in a thick casing of ice. Lightning spears smashed into the frozen creatures an instant later, skewering them to pieces before exploding in a crimson wave of ice, torn tissues, and viscera.

Without hesitation, Aodhán unleashed another descent of lightning—a truly marvelous skill—and Sebastian's grimace tightened in grudging respect as the earth thundered beneath his feet.

The storm awakened wasn't bad at all. His presence right here, right now, was the problem.

"Dodge to the left, Arkhan," Sebastian gritted out, and Arkhan did, avoiding permanent blindness as jagged bone stabbed through the point he had just been standing in like a projectile.

Arkhan called out his thanks, but Sebastian had already turned away, calculating probabilities like his life depended on it. And in a way they did. He couldn't let the boys realize he was near completely helpless without them.

This way, he could at least trick them into thinking he held their lives in his hands. He just needed to save them a dozen more times. After all, he couldn't let any one of them die just yet.

And so, for the next few minutes, Sebastian called out probability after probability, influencing the battle with his knowledge as much as he could. His contributions weren't much, but the boys appreciated them nonetheless.

And then an amazing opportunity presented itself.

A way opened—or would open within the horde within the next few minutes if certain probabilities lined up right. Sebastian seized it without hesitation, shouting, "Daruk, a wall to the right. Arkhan, a sleep plague to your left. Aodhán, a searing beam of lightning directly in front. Make it as powerful as possible."

The boys acted without hesitation, a wall of ice springing up before them. To Arkhan's right, another slew of creatures collapsed to the ground in a sleep-induced dream, creating a narrow passage of weak creatures, packed so tightly together it could only have been fate.

Lightning surged out of Aodhán's open palms an instant later, tearing through the creatures like a knife through butter. Bodies exploded. Bones shattered. Blood sprayed.

And a path was created. A bloody, ozone-scented path.

They all raced through it without prompting, squashing torn tissues and shattered bones underfoot.

The ice wall to the left cracked as creatures slammed against it, but a careless wave of willpower sealed the crack in an instant. Sebastian shook his head in amazement.

He might have infinite energy regeneration, but these two brothers—what they could do with their willpower was simply amazing.

Halfway through their created path, the wall cracked again, fissures expanding upward from its base. This time, Daruk didn't repair it.

It wouldn't hold long. But they didn't need long. They only needed a minute.

The wall collapsed a minute later, missing Varéc's tail by mere inches as they all stumbled out of the narrow path to hide behind a huge rock outcropping.

"Boy, that was close," Aodhán whispered, still panting as he glanced at the crimson screen still floating beside them. "But we're not out of the woods yet. We only have two hours left."

They all turned to glance at the beam of light in the distance, and their faces hardened in determination. They still had miles to cover, but if they got going now, they would make it.

"Come on," Aodhán ordered instinctively, earning him a subtle glare from Sebastian. "We don't have time to waste."

Sebastian pulled himself to his feet and reached out a hand to Daruk to help him up. Aodhán did the same for Arkhan.

However, the moment he pulled Arkhan to his feet, Aodhán felt a subtle tremor run through the earth, like a seismic pulse. He glanced up sharply, his gaze locking with the others to see if he was imagining things.

He wasn't.

"Is that what I think it is?" Daruk asked in a slightly panicked tone.

Sebastian nodded. "The realm's core is destabilizing. It's going to be the least of our worries very soon."

Everyone exchanged a glance, and without hesitation, they all broke into a run, their bodies blurring past as they raced against time.

Arkhan grimaced as the heat swelled around him, not particularly concerned by the development. He was, however, unimpressed.

"So, the earth is going to erupt from within." He panted, his voice barely audible at the speed at which they were running. "Bummer. I thought the sun was going to crash into us."

"Do you have a death wish?" Daruk scowled at him.

"Just wondering which would make the better death," Arkhan smirked. "Death by fire or being buried alive?"

"I'd rather neither," Aodhán muttered grimly, sweat beading on his brow.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd sweated since arriving at the academy.

But now that Aodhán knew where the heat was rising from, the signs began to reveal themselves.

The earth was parched, tiny fissures running across it as the heat intensified. The air above the ground wavered in distorted ripples, carrying a faint scent of sulfur and burning stone. Trees shuddered, their leaves blackening at the edges as sap bubbled from their trunks, hissing as it boiled away.

The signs were everywhere, and in that moment, Aodhán realized he didn't quite need the shade of the storm cloud any longer. He didn't dismiss it, though; the drizzle of rain it provided was going a long way in helping them keep their sanity.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

One thing was made clear, though. Abyssos was a construct—a created item, rather than a real realm.

No true realm could be dismantled so casually. Besides, when did realms start having cores? Or was he simply uninformed?

Aodhán doubted it. The control the cultists had exercised over Abyssos so far hinted at something built to obey them. His mind cycled through possibilities: no illusion could fool core sense nor last this long; no element alone could form an ecosystem this vast.

That left the concepts.

A dimensional construct, perhaps. His leading theory was that it was created by a planar, spatial, or cosmic awakened, most likely at the Mythic or Calamitic class. That would explain how the realm could hold powerful advanced-class awakeneds and even early-stage Mythics so easily.

It didn't, however, provide Aodhán any answers as to why they were cut off from the normal stream of reality, but it certainly narrowed down the possibilities to a handful.

Aodhán ruminated on the thought while he ran, sweat pouring down his face in steady streams as the fissures in the earth slowly expanded to reveal veins of molten energy.

"It's like being cooked alive," Sebastian complained, tearing off his shirt to cool himself further.

No one responded, but they didn't need to. Their grim expressions were answer enough.

With each second that passed, the realm destabilized further, spilling waves of blistering heat into the air. The tremors intensified, coming almost every ten minutes even as the veins of molten lava within the fissures began to rise and bubble.

With each tremor that ran through the realm, Aodhán's speed increased. Of the four of them, he was unsurprisingly the fastest, and though he occasionally had to slow down not to leave anyone behind, Daruk and the others managed to keep up.

Varéc had vanished into his spirit after the battle with the horde, and even now, Aodhán could feel him working, strengthening his muscles and lending him even more speed.

However, as the seconds ticked, moving faster was becoming increasingly difficult. The heat sapped their strength with every kilometer they covered, and a quarter-hour later, Arkhan staggered.

'I can't… I can't keep this pace," he panted, his usual nonchalance fadinginto sharp-edged frustration. "My affinity wasn't built for this kind of madness."

"None of our affinities were." Aodhán gritted out, his white hair matted to his forehead with sweat. "But since you want to die so much, you're welcome to take a rest."

Arkhan coughed, his body shuddering as he stumbled to a halt. "I need water. I cannot go on without it."

"You're wasting our time, Arkhan." Sebastian scolded as he also staggered to a halt, forcing Aodhán and Daruk to do the same. "Every second you stop makes us weaker. Do you want to drag us all down with you?"

Aodhán intensified the rain without comment, transforming the drizzle into a torrent of rainfall that caused the parched ground to hiss with steam, the vapor curling around their legs. The coolness on their skin was almost painful in its relief, raising goosebumps where moments ago there had only been burning heat.

It was refreshing, but they didn't get to enjoy it for more than a few seconds before they began running again. Resting would only serve to make them more exhausted.

Another quarter-hour passed with them having crossed a distance of several miles before another tremor hit.

But this time, it was much louder.

The earth groaned, a low, unsettling rumble that seemed to shake through their bones before falling into an eerie, suffocating silence.

"That can't be good," Daruk whispered.

As if his words were a trigger, the ground behind them split open with a deep, guttural roar. Barely a dozen meters away, a geyser of superheated energy burst skyward, vomiting a wave of blistering heat and ash into the air.

That single eruption sparked dozens more. All across the realm, geysers tore through the surface, hurling chunks of molten rock and bedrock into the sky. Steam and debris surged upward in towering plumes as fissures ripped across the landscape like fresh wounds.

Aodhán found himself moving faster before he even realized it, his core sense focused keenly on the earth beneath him as if he could somehow determine where a geyser would erupt next and avoid it.

Somehow, it worked.

A sudden flare of lava essence seared through his senses, and only seconds later the ground in front of him split wide. A geyser erupted, vomiting a column of molten rock into the air.

He began to summon a storm cloud—but Sebastian reacted before he could, a river of lilac energy shimmering into existence around them to catch the molten spray before it could sear flesh or bone.

It was almost as if Sebastian had been expecting it, and with his affinity, he probably had.

The look he shot Aodhán, however, wasn't relief—it was irritation. And in that moment, Aodhán knew the erupting geysers had something to do with him.

"Follow my lead," Sebastian barked as he took point, energy pouring out of him into the shimmering shield above them. Aodhán followed with a grimace. Of course. Even in a situation like this, the cultists were still trying to kill him.

For the next few minutes, Sebastian led them through the chaos like a man following a map that only he could see. Geysers erupted around them, always a hairsbreadth too close.

Aodhán, Daruk, and Arkhan followed Sebastian's steps to a tee. Not a step was out of order. Each sidestep, each sharp turn, pulled them just clear of a geyser seconds before it ruptured, or around fissures that hadn't yet split open.

The earth bucked and heaved beneath them, explosions thundering almost as loud as their heartbeats in their ears. Steam roared up in scalding jets, drowning the air in sulfur and ash.

But that wasn't enough for the cultists.

Because, a few seconds later, the earth shook—a guttural groan ripping out from behind them as several hundred meters of ground suddenly caved in, sinking as if the bottom of the world had fallen into a void.

A column of lava shot skyward as the caved-in ground smashed against what seemed to be a river of lava. Scorching smoke rose into the sky, blotting out the sun with smoke as the air filled up with dust and the scent of sulfur.

Aodhán didn't look back, his heart hammering in his chest as he followed behind Sebastian, praying to all the gods who would hear that Sebastian made no mistake. If the earth caved in beneath them right now, no amount of willpower would save him.

He would have to teleport or use his constructs—inevitably binding himself to the cultists by oath. Jethro would bind him instantly, and he would become just another drone—a power source for the Fated, like the two transmigrant girls he had seen in the watchroom.

Aodhán couldn't let that happen.

He ground his teeth in determination, his gaze locked on the light of the exit portal in the distance—a distance that had been cut in half already.

They were drawing close. Only a few more miles left. They could make it. They could—

A flickering signature skittered into his range, and Aodhán staggered to an abrupt halt, his head snapping sharply to the left where the core pulsed from, barely two hundred meters away.

The core was dim, flickering like embers of a dying fire. Somebody was there, and judging by their core signature, they were barely alive.

Instinctively, he turned to help—

"Don't even think about it." Sebastian shouted, his tone edged with more frustration than surprise. "We are running on very little time here!"

"What is going on?" Daruk asked from behind them, his voice nearly drowned out by an erupting geyser.

"There's someone there," Aodhán said, his expression twisted into a grimace. "They are dying. Helpless. We can't just leave them. They'll die if we do."

Sebastian gritted his teeth in annoyance. He had known this would happen. This was the exact delay he had wanted to avoid by splitting up. But Daruk's damned loyalty had made that impossible.

"We don't have time for this," he snapped, voice low with irritation. "The earth is destabilizing fast. We need to move. Daruk—make him see reason."

But Aodhán wasn't listening. Against every instinct screaming in his veins, he veered off Sebastian's path and sprinted toward the flickering core. What difference would there be between him and the cultists if he let someone die just to save himself?

"Fuck!" Aodhan heard Sebastian curse loudly behind him as Daruk immediately followed, ignoring him completely.

"Leave him, Daruk!" Sebastian roared. But his words fell on deaf ears. Daruk didn't turn back.

Sebastian ground his teeth together in frustration. He had known this would happen, and still it burned to watch the inevitable play out.

Behind him, Arkhan lifted an amused eyebrow. "Do we go on without them, Lord Rune?"

"We will not survive without them!" Sebastian ground out the words, as bitter as sludge on his tongue. Without his combat abilities, he would have to rely on Arkhan alone to deal with all the obstacles still on the way. But as strong as Arkhan was, he wasn't nearly strong enough to carry them both safely to the exit portal.

They needed Daruk. With Arkhan and Daruk working together, their safety was guaranteed. But to get Daruk, they needed Aodhán too.

Fuming silently, Sebastian spat a curse and pivoted after the brothers, new threads of probabilities twisting in his mind as he raced to keep up, seeking a way to make the best of the current situation.

Aodhán, however, wasn't thinking in threads or outcomes as he raced toward the sputtering core, already knowing who it was even before his gaze landed on his bloodied and dirty form, delicate features pressed against the blistering earth.

It was the Sunstonian boy.

He was barely clinging to life—severely dehydrated, eyes hollow, and skin blistering from the heat. Bleeding sores covered the side of his face and back as the earth cracked and hissed steam with every tremor, geysers of molten rock erupting sporadically around them.

Aodhán felt rage flare in his chest at the sight, and without hesitation, he lifted the boy from the smoldering earth, blood staining his hands. The boy groaned in pain as his hands pressed into the open sores on his back, and Aodhán felt tears sting his eyes.

Instinctively, he began shaping a storm platform to lay the boy on, but he froze mid-gesture. The cultists had banned constructs. Making one now would most likely be used against him even though it wasn't for movement.

So instead, he propped the boy gently against his knee, conjured a bubble of crystal-clear water, and pressed it against his cracked lips. The boy hesitated, barely conscious, until the water touched his tongue, and then he groaned hoarsely, water spilling onto his face and the ground as he latched onto Aodhán with desperate strength, gulping like a man long deprived of water.

Daruk arrived a moment later, muttering as he took in the scene. "You will be the death of me, Aodhán Brystion. We are putting our lives on the line for a Sunstonian of all people?"

"He's human, is he not?" Aodhán replied hoarsely.

Daruk replied with a flicker of his fingers, coating the smoldering earth in a thick layer of ice. The moment Aodhán lowered the boy onto it, a hiss of steam rose into the air, curling around them.

The sudden coolness jolted the boy's battered body, and he jerked weakly, a faint groan escaping his parched throat. A geyser erupted nearby, splashing molten rock, and Aodhán instinctively shifted the boy just in time.

While he and Daruk worked to coax the boy back to life, Sebastian arrived alongside Arkhan, a furious glare on his face as his gaze landed on the Sunstonian. His next words were spat out like venom.

"You brought us all this way for a Sunstonian?!"

Aodhán glared up at Sebastian, but before he could respond, another geyser erupted nearby, spraying molten rocks and debris. Aodhán hefted the sunstonian to his shoulders immediately, careful to keep him as steady as possible, and began running the way they'd come.

Sebastian cursed once again as they all raced back the same way they'd come, Aodhán in the lead, eerily dodging erupting geysers and widening fissures with unnatural precision.

They had about an hour left, and if they kept running like this, they would certainly make it on time. But Sebastian had seen the likelihood of that happening, and he couldn't help but grimace.

Aodhán's head snapped to the right a moment later as he sensed another dying person, and Sebastian groaned as Aodhán raced toward them, cutting deep into their time and putting their own survival in jeopardy.

After saving the fourth person, however, a young Calodan boy with the change affinity, all their hands were full—even Sebastian, who held tightly onto a Unorian light awakened with a deep grimace on his face.

And then they came across another dying captive, and for the fifth time, Aodhán stopped.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Sebastian roared. "Are you insane? We cannot save everyone!"

"No, we cannot." Aodhán glared at him. "But leaving them here to die is tantamount to giving the Fated even more power. And that won't happen, not if I can help it."

"You can't, Aodhán." Daruk spoke, face hard as sweat poured down his face. "I didn't want to agree with Sebastian, but it has gotten to the point that I have to. We are running out of time, Aodhán."

"Finally!" Sebastian scowled at Aodhán. "We only have forty-two minutes left. With the people we're carrying, we'll be lucky to make it to the exit portal on time. We cannot afford to save any more people."

Aodhán grimaced. They were right. Their time was running out. But they were wrong about something else.

Aodhán could help it.

With a tight smile, he drew the quintessence of a full seal into his spirit. Heat engulfed his spirit, and his lips pressed into a thin line of discomfort, but he didn't stop. A river of willpower joined the swirling ball of quintessence next, and with the slightest push, chaos poured into his spirit—all three energies merging seamlessly together to form something far greater—a viscous golden energy that surged through his pathways like lava itself.

The storm cloud above him darkened noticeably, thunder boomed, lightning arced, and with a single thought, the cloud broke out in a deluge of rain, drenching the earth and sending plumes of steam twisting skyward.

Sebastian paused, his expression cracking as a cascade of new possibilities appeared in his mind, completely reshaping and heightening their chances of survival.

"W… what are you doing?" He gasped, brows furrowed in shock.

Aodhán smiled widely, energy humming powerfully through his pathways as he raised a hand to the sky.

It was time to activate his miracle rain.

Not for the first time, he wondered—just how powerful would it be now that he'd stepped into the advanced class?