The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Duration: 60 Hours

Resource Gathering mission: 48 hours

Time left till deadline: 37 hours 47 minutes.

Daruk took in a deep, blissful breath, savoring the frigid bite of winter as cold air surged into his lungs. Unlike the last level with its obsidian skies and rocky grounds, this level was paradise, and he had barely resisted the urge to take a nap right where he'd spawned, afraid that there would be monsters crawling everywhere.

However, it had been ten hours since he'd arrived in the shivering plains and he was yet to see a single creature or another human for that matter, despite crossing several miles of ice and snow.

The fact that there were over ninety people within the realm—many of whom had mysteriously appeared only a few seconds after the first level had been destroyed—only proved how large the shivering plains was.

As for the mysterious additions to their number, Daruk had no idea if they were new individuals or the resurrected versions of those who had died in the previous level.

He wasn't quite sure which was worse.

Shaking his head, he levitated down from his vantage point on a frozen hill, ice crunching underfoot as his feet came to rest on the ground. The last ten hours had been a hectic game of resource gathering, and though Daruk had taken it seriously before, the online market had taken his zeal to a whole new level.

After nearly fifteen hours without anything to eat, Daruk had jumped at the chance to buy food from the online market. He had dropped out of the leaderboard after spending nearly 150 points on food, but he didn't mind at all.

With food now in his belly, his search—both for pins, humans, or any other sort of companionship—had only intensified. In the last two hours alone, he had gained over half the points he had spent on food and was closing in fast on the leaderboard, which had changed drastically as more people intensified their search for pins.

Chuckling to himself, Daruk pulled out a banana from his bag construct, peeled it, and shoved it into his mouth. While he chewed the delicious fruit, he wondered what he would have to do just to find someone else in this frigid realm.

Despite his cold disposition, ten hours without any form of companionship was driving him insane, and he wondered if, perhaps, another explosion of willpower into the air was that terrible an idea.

Of course, it would not only draw unwanted attention to him. It was also a waste of precious willpower. But it was a guaranteed way to get some company. It would also blast his location to the entire realm, revealing his position to Aodhán and several others.

It was a win-lose situation, but after a moment of serious thought, Daruk decided to tough it out for a while longer, reasoning that if he didn't find any suitable company in the next two to five hours, he would use it.

With that decided, Daruk continued his journey across the shivering plains, accumulating points, and training his control along the way. Half an hour passed in this manner. The ice mountains melted into large hills of snow and earth, their numerous numbers enough to make the shivering plain seem less isolated.

Daruk scanned the hills as he floated past them, eyes searching for a glimpse of gleaming runes or black spikes. Fortunately for him, luck was on his side, and in that area alone, he found nearly half a dozen pins scattered around the hills, some half buried beneath glistening snow.

Grinning, he gathered the shimmering pins, feeling a little unease as he eyed the cloud of null essence that rose into the air with each harvested pin. But the thrill of finding so many pins at once squashed his budding unease before it could take root.

Smirking, Daruk placed the five pins into the snow bag on his back and continued his journey, icy blue eyes sharp as he searched the remaining hills for more pins.

But none revealed themselves, until, nearly an hour later, his gaze landed on a small mound of snow, barely a foot in height. And rising from within its center was an abyssal pin, much larger than any of the others, its surface gleaming with a dense number of green runes as opposed to the silver of regular abyssal pins.

Frowning in curiosity, Daruk eyed the gleaming spike, the runes on its surface pulsing to a rhythm only it could hear. He cleared off the snow with a wave of his right hand, revealing the actual size of the spike, which was roughly three times that of normal pins.

Another spark of unease rose within him, less subtle this time, but before he could even decipher what was going on, he heard a voice call out, "Yuna, get the spike."

Daruk moved before that could happen.

With {Embody Ice—PhantomIce}, he phased toward the pin immediately, emerging out of the frozen ground like an ice statue, hands already reaching forward to grab the spike, only to be assaulted by a fierce gale of wind and a condensed beam of solar energy.

The wind blew his hair back, scattering frost into his face, while the solar beam exploded against his chest like a cannon of confetti, doing absolutely no damage at all.

His attackers stumbled to a halt the moment they saw him and immediately turned tail, racing across the snow-covered ground with as much speed as they could garner. But Daruk wasn't about to let the first humans he had seen in almost eleven hours get away from him, Sunstonian or not.

With a single thought, he created an ice wall to block their path. They turned, but the wall turned with them, flowing like water to box them in until there was only one exit. The girls raced for the exit, but they weren't fast enough.

Just as they reached the exit, Daruk emerged from the snow in front of them and smiled. "You must be Seojun's sisters. Yuna and Mira."

"Please don't kill us," the elder sister shouted, pushing the younger behind her with trembling arms. "We didn't know you were a human. We thought you were a monster."

"That makes absolutely no sense," Daruk muttered. "You've spent over ten hours in this realm; surely by now, you've realized that there are no monsters here."

"I—we…" The elder girl stuttered and then promptly fell to her knees, dragging her sister along with her. "Please don't kill us. We attacked on instinct."

"Now, that I can believe." Daruk nodded as he dusted off the lingering heat from his chest where the solar beam had struck. A flare of his aura mended the hairline cracks on his cloth construct while he scanned the girls for any signs of injury.

The younger one had a scar on her forehead and several on her arms—claw marks that hadn't fully regenerated yet. While the elder had three large scars on her back and another on her legs.

The scars were recent, meaning they'd most likely had to fight their way to the exit portal through the clamoring horde back in the first level.

Daruk grimaced at the thought and quickly dispensed with the wall, shattering it to pieces. The girls had suffered enough already. No need to make things any more difficult for them.

"I have no intentions to kill you." Daruk replied quietly. "Please get up. You're the first humans I've seen in over ten hours. The last thing I want to do is to get rid of you."

The girls didn't seem to believe him though, their eyes wide with panic as they slowly rose to their feet, their bodies tense and prepared for flight. The elder gripped the younger tightly with one hand and gestured quickly with the other.

Daruk smiled. Perhaps to their evolved senses, their movements were subtle and quick, but to him, they were as plain as day.

"I will chase you down if you run."

The girls fell back down to the ground, heads buried in the snow.

"Please, spare us." The elder one cried. "You can take our pins. Just spare us, please. We want to live."

Daruk sighed. "I don't want your pins, and I have absolutely no intention to hurt you. I spent the last hour of the last level in the company of your brother. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do."

The mere mention of their brother seemed to earn him trust points, and both girls paused.

"You… you know our brother?" the younger asked, stepping out from behind the elder, but before Daruk could respond, the elder shoved her back and hissed.

"Get back behind me, Mira. Ragnarians are not to be trusted."

"And so are Sunstonians." Daruk replied with a scowl, offended. Like most other citizens of Ragnarok, he had developed his own fair share of hatred for Sunstone, especially after their last attack, but that hatred wasn't directed at innocent citizens like himself who were simply pawns in the hands of their leaders, as anyone in Ragnarok was.

Eyes narrowing, he glared at the elder girl. "If I wanted to harm you both, I would have done so by now, but as I said earlier, hurting you both is not my intention. And yes—" he glanced at the younger girl, "I know your brother. My brother and I saved him from certain death a few miles away from the exit portal in the last level. When we eventually got to the portal, though, he refused to come in with us, determined to wait for you. I take it you came in together?"

The girls exchanged a quick glance, pain and longing obvious in their expressions before the elder spoke, her voice trembling. "Our… our brother waited for us?"

Daruk frowned. "I see you didn't meet him then, but—" his frown deepened as suspicion began to rise within him. There was only about a minute or two left on the destruction timer when he and Aodhán had entered the exit portal. Most likely, Seojun must have waited till the last minute before using the portal. And if that was the case, then it meant the girls had made it into the exit portal before they arrived.

Almost as if she'd read his mind, the elder sister spoke. "I really hope Seojun is alright. We entered the exit portal before things got bad at all. We were lucky to be so close to the portal when it spawned."

"Is that so?" Daruk whispered, his suspicions solidifying into something concrete. He couldn't prove it yet, but he was certain the girls were lying.

If they had left the first level before things got bad at all, then where had they gotten all these fresh scars from?

Daruk grimaced, not liking the conclusions his mind was drawing. If the girls were lying, then there was only one answer.

They hadn't made it to the portal in time.

One of them must have taken the oath-debt, meaning one of them had most likely become an agent of the cultists.

Daruk's first instincts were to drag the truth out of them, but he squashed it. He had no proof and could very well be wrong.

Nevertheless, Daruk knew something was wrong.

Rather than question it further, though, Daruk simply began walking back to the pulsing abyssal pin. When he heard no running footsteps behind him, he glanced back at the girls and called out. "Come on, you're not safe on your own. We can travel together."

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The girls hesitated for a moment before reluctantly following behind him.

How they had made it this far into this cursed realm, Daruk couldn't understand. But regardless of their situation—agent or not—he couldn't leave them here to survive on their own. Aodhán would never forgive him for it if he heard he'd done something so selfish.

When Daruk reached the large abyssal pin, he yanked it out of the ground with a grunt and nearly stumbled as the earth beneath his feet shuddered violently, a tremor like an earthquake running beneath his feet even as a thick cloud of null essence rose into the air.

The unease blooming within him surged fiercely, and Daruk just knew he had set the first ball of destruction rolling. A strong urge to bury the spike back into the ground rose within him, but before he could act on it, a notification pinged in his mind.

Congratulations! You have found a Grand Abyssal Pin. 50 points gained.

There are 15 more Grand Abyssal Pins scattered across the realm. Gather all sixteen pins to gain immunity from the looming calamity.

Daruk's grimace deepened as he read the message, now certain that he shouldn't have touched the pin at all. Something very bad was looming, and these grand abyssal pins were the key to unlocking it.

It made sense now why everything so far had been driving them to uproot more pins. The cultists were herding them toward their own downfall and masking it with games and competition. First the leaderboard to stoke their competitive spirit, and then the online shop to appeal to their need for basic necessities.

But then he remembered the first message they'd received upon entry into the shivering plains, and he realized there was no turning back now.

MISSION: Gather as many abyssal pins as you can from all over the realm. Each pin is worth ten points. The more pins you gather, the more likely it is that you survive what is to come.

The cultists might be evil and a stain on mankind, but there was no denying that they were smart. The abyssal pins were the key to their calamity but were also a possible key to overcoming said calamity.

The more pins a person gathered, the higher their chances of survival.

Daruk wasn't too sure what it meant—what they were going to use the pins for—but it was obvious now that stopping would mean doing himself a great disservice.

There was no way he could convince the entire realm to stop harvesting the pins. But even if he somehow found a way to do that, he was certain the cultists would simply come up with something more nefarious.

His next line of action was simple then. If he couldn't stop the entire realm from harvesting the abyssal pins, then he needed to make sure he had more than enough to secure himself and Aodhán a very high chance of survival.

With that realization, he turned only to stumble again as another tremor raced through the earth, far more violent than the last. Someone had found the second Grand Abyssal pin.

"What's going on?" the younger girl asked, eyes wide, but Daruk barely heard her, his mind racing as he wondered just what would happen when all sixteen abyssal pins were gathered.

His mind provided no shortage of possibilities, each more calamitous than the last, and Daruk's grimace deepened. Whatever would happen when all sixteen grand abyssal pins were gathered would certainly not be in their favor.

Better to start preparing now, Daruk thought to himself, and then he realized that the best way to do that was to try and find all sixteen grand abyssal pins.

The reward was clear. Immunity.

But Daruk doubted he could sit this war out, not without Aodhán. If it was a horde, then he certainly couldn't just fold his arms and watch. And if the realm would be destabilizing like the previous one, then he'd rather run side by side with Aodhán than be tucked away in a safe corner, not knowing what was going on and completely unable to help.

No, he couldn't use it for himself. But if his suspicions were right, there was someone who could. Turning, he handed the grand abyssal pin to the elder of the two girls. "I think you should have this."

"Why?" she asked, frowning up at him with a look of suspicion. "You found it. You should keep it."

"I have more than enough pins," Daruk countered easily, his expression a neutral mask. "You, on the other hand, could benefit more from having it."

The girl watched him warily for a moment before stretching a hand forward to receive the pin.

"Thank you—" she began, her voice a whisper, but the words were cut short as the notification screen most likely appeared before her. Her gaze grew unfocused for a moment, and then she scowled. "This… this is not a gift. It is a target on my back."

"A target that could be very beneficial to you or your sister." Daruk replied calmly. "The earthquakes we felt earlier suggest that a second of these grand abyssal pins has been found. Now you have one. We have only felt two tremors, meaning there are fourteen more grand pins scattered around the realm, unclaimed."

The girl's eyes widened, and she whispered. "If I find them all, I stand a chance to gain immunity from whatever calamity is about to befall us."

Daruk nodded. "And if you don't need it, you can always give it to your sister."

"No," the girl responded immediately, and then she glanced up at Daruk suspiciously. "What about you? Don't you want the immunity?"

"I do," Daruk shrugged. "But I don't need it. Or at least, I don't think I do. I will never be comfortable on the sidelines while everyone else is fighting for their lives."

The girl grimaced, turning over his words in her mind before her expression suddenly firmed into one of determination. She exchanged a glance with her sister and then glanced back at Daruk. "I don't know why you're helping us, or if you even are, but I'm grateful for this."

Daruk nodded, not bothering to explain his actions. "You can thank me by telling me your name."

The girl shoved the abyssal pin into her solar bag construct before responding. "My name is Yuna Sōsei. My sister is—"

"My name is Mira." The younger girl stepped out from behind her sister to speak for herself and stretched a hand to Daruk. "What is your name?"

Daruk shook her hand, amused by her sudden burst of confidence. "My name is Daruk Brystion."

The moment the words left his lips, though, that confidence drained from her expression like water through a sieve. Both girls went pale, and Mira's palm in his grip suddenly went slack.

"You…" Yuna stuttered in fear as she took a panicked step backward. "You… you had a bounty on your head."

"I did," Daruk replied cautiously, confused by their horrified expressions. "Do I have to explain that I did not commit any crime?"

"No, no." Mira shook her head, yanking her hand back as she moved to stand slightly behind Yuna, who seemed even paler than Mira.

"Are you still carrying the bounty?" Mira asked.

"No," Daruk shook his head. "So, you can both relax. Now come on, let's see if we can find your brother and some more pins."

He turned around without waiting for them, and after a moment of hesitance, Yuna and Mira followed him, walking a few feet behind him as they continued their search for pins.

Silence reigned for a few minutes until Mira broke it, asking Daruk about his experience in the previous level. Yuna stayed silent all through their entire conversation, her gaze fixed squarely on the road before them, until Daruk began sharing his theory on the abyssal pins and what their purpose may be.

"I think they are anchors to keep the realm from falling apart," he explained uncertainly. "By uprooting the pins, we're destabilizing the realm. But we can't afford to not uproot the pins because other people are, and the number of pins we manage to gather could be the difference between life and death when the time comes."

Mira frowned. "We're being herded left and right. What if we all decide to stop uprooting the pins?"

"Then, they'd probably come up with an idea to force us to." Daruk shook his head as he found another pin in the distance. "We can only hope the exit portal spawns very close to us this time, like it did for you guys in the last level."

Yuna staggered, and Mira's smile froze on her face. "Right. We can only hope."

Daruk uprooted the abyssal pin a moment later. And with uneasy reluctance, they continued their search, working together to cover more ground.

An hour passed in relative peace until, inevitably, their luck ran out, and they finally came across someone else. Someone unfriendly.

Daruk recoiled instinctively the moment his gaze landed on the woman, horrified at the extent of her injuries. The woman was covered in scars from head to toe, fresh, pink scars that suggested that she had sustained these injuries very recently.

But there were no monsters in the shivering plain, nor anything that could have caused such extreme injuries—meaning the woman had sustained these injuries from the last level.

That made it even worse.

Twelve hours had passed since the chaos of the last level. Any injuries sustained during that time should have been completely healed by now—or at the very least scabbed over so that they were barely visible.

Mira's and Yuna's cases were different. They were still in the evolved class and were still working with the basic regeneration. But this woman was in the advanced class. Her injuries should have healed faster.

The fact that they hadn't spoke greatly of the severity of the injuries she had sustained. Daruk couldn't even imagine it.

Even now, twelve hours later, the woman's hair was a mess—some areas sparse, others completely burnt off. Faint burn scars traced across her arms and neck like cracks in dried clay. Several parts of her body were pink, new skin only just forming from where the former had burnt off.

She glared at the girls with haunted eyes—eyes clouded and scarred from what seemed to be intense heat, but when her gaze fell on Daruk, she went utterly still. And then she snarled, a bundle of ethereal threads surging out of her palms to snap at her immediate area like Slytherins.

"You," she rasped, her voice carrying the telltale rasp of a damaged throat. "You are the brother of the man who did this to me. You are the brother of the one who caused all my suffering!"

Her aura surged, and the threads multiplied instantly, gleaming gold with the promise of violence.

Daruk took a cautious step back as the threads began lashing out erratically, mirroring the woman's emotional state. And it was in that moment that Daruk recognized her as a member of the group that had attacked Aodhán during their battle in the valley.

Daruk had been too busy fighting his own battles at the time, but the thread affinity had stood out just enough for him to remember it—to remember how this woman had come with her friends to kill them and take their bounty.

She wasn't the victim here.

Nevertheless, Daruk doubted Aodhán could ever do something like this to a person. He was too kind for that.

With almost twelve hours to regenerate, this woman must have been doused in lava to be this injured.

Grimacing, Daruk spoke, his voice calm despite his disgust. "Aodhán would never do this to a person. He's not unhinged—"

"He left me to die!" the woman spat furiously, the gleam of her threads intensifying. "He drained my core dry and left me to burn alive while the realm collapsed around me. He killed my friends."

"You attacked him," Daruk replied coldly, stretching a hand out to shield Yuna and Mira from the lashing threads. "What did you expect? That he would simply lay down his life without defending himself?"

"Shut up!" the woman shouted, taking several erratic steps forward. "Your brother took everything from me. I made a deal with devils because of what he did. My soul is forfeit. Tihamun will never draw me into his embrace, and it's all because of your brother. I shall capture you and do the same to you. I will make sure you suffer the same way I did."

Almost too fast for him to react, the gleaming threads lashed out, forming a web in the air as they rushed toward him. But Daruk was ready.

He dodged the web easily, sliding sharply to the right to unleash a cascade of jagged ice daggers at the woman. Explosions rang out as the woman blocked the daggers with her gleaming threads, but Daruk didn't let up.

He didn't know what tier of advancement the woman was, but if Aodhán had beaten her so thoroughly in the last realm, Daruk was confident he could do the same.

Ice shattered beneath the woman's feet, and the ground caved in, causing her to stagger, but a bundle of threads pulled her out of the hole before it could snap shut and cut her in two. Blitzing through the air like a spider, the woman attacked again—not with a weapon construct or any offensive skill for that matter, but a web.

Her intent was obvious. She didn't want to fight him. She wanted to capture him and force him to endure the same agony she had.

But in the shivering plains where there was no fire, Daruk realized that her intent was even darker.

She wanted to cook him alive.

Anger surged through him in that instant, hot and scalding. Willpower surged out of his core, merging seamlessly with a river of chaos as it poured into his spirit.

And without hesitation, Daruk attacked again. Only this time he was attacking to kill.

He raised a hand to the descending web, and all the ice around him gathered into a swirling array of jagged chakrams—hundreds of them.

In a blink, the chakrams shot forward, tearing through the web like butter to attack the woman herself. She blocked the constructs with a host of gleaming threads, nearly a thousand of them revolving around her in a beautiful display of gold and ice blue.

But with each attack she blocked, her strength waned. Her still-healing body protested in pain, and the meager amount of willpower she had managed to regenerate so far began to drain once more.

The fear of hitting zero again caused her to falter, and Daruk capitalized on the opening without mercy.

Infused with intent and willpower, a chakram passed through the woman's defenses and slashed her thigh, cutting into bone and new tissue like a knife through butter. The woman screamed, but the malice in her eyes didn't wane. If anything, it grew stronger, and she screamed. "I will capture you! I must—"

Another chakram got through and sliced into her neck.

Blood spurted.

The woman's eyes widened in shock and fear as she collapsed to the ground, gurgling. Her body spasmed as she struggled to get back up and struggled to move.

But once again, her body failed her.

"No," she cried out, the agony in her tone visceral. "I cannot die here. I made an oath with devils to survive. I cannot die here."

Her panicked gaze soon found Daruk, and her voice cracked, tears falling down her face. "I will never forgive you and your brother. Tihamun curse you."

She gurgled, blood pooling beneath her as she tried to form more words. But her body was too weak, and as her consciousness faded, Zareen Tahrizaar wished she had let herself die the first time.

"Tihamun…" she pleaded with her god just as death took her and her consciousness went black.

Daruk watched the woman die, a neutral expression on his face as he processed the battle. He stayed that way for nearly a minute before turning to search for Mira and Yuna, only to find them standing nearly two dozen meters away, having fled the moment the battle began.

They began walking forward the moment their gazes locked, and when they finally reached Daruk, Yuna whispered. "It is custom in Sunstone never to interfere in the dissolution of a vendetta."

Daruk nodded slowly and turned to glance at the horizon, wondering how Aodhán was doing.

"Can we raid the body?" Mira asked, cutting into his thoughts, and Daruk shrugged.

"You guys can split the pins among yourselves."

"We'll take half and give you the rest." Yuna refused. "You are the one who killed her after all."

Daruk nodded and then frowned as Mira began searching the woman's body for pins. It had been several minutes since the woman died. Why had the cultists not taken her body to harvest yet?