The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

There are dreams, and there are living dreams—constructs anchored in reality yet shaped by the mind's essence, existing halfway between thought and matter. Where ordinary dreams were born of imagination, a living dream drew from the real—feeding on the pulse of what was.

Duration: 60 Hours

Resource Gathering mission: 48 hours

Time left until deadline: 37 hours 47 minutes.

An hour and a half before Seojun's battle

While the other captives walked around the shivering plains, battling their growing unease that something about the realm was wrong, two people had figured out exactly what was wrong, and their reactions couldn't have been more dissimilar.

The first was Arkhan Veldr, bastard son of Eirik Veldr, and a powerful dream awakened.

Arkhan had never cared much about others or about death. Growing up a bastard in Unoros would do that to anyone—with the cold terrain on one end and an even colder people on the other. His nonchalant, almost dismissive attitude toward danger and death was the reason Aodhán himself had been so wary of him.

And the violence of the last realm hadn't changed him one bit.

Arkhan had felt the wrongness in the air the moment he arrived in the shivering plain, spawning only a few meters away from his first pin. That instinctive sense of danger had intensified into a blare in his mind the moment he had pulled out his first pin.

But with no idea what monsters awaited within the realm, or what surprises the cultists would reveal, Arkhan had brushed aside the sense of wrongness in favor of immediate action.

Just like everyone else, he began hunting for the pins, grimacing each time he pulled one out, yet not stopping. His actions were rewarded when the online market appeared, and with a wide smile, Arkhan finally decided it was time to rest.

Using the points he had gathered so far, he bought himself a basket of food, a glass of wine, and a single snow-resistant bed. The bed wasn't anything special, seemingly made of rubber, but it would do for what Arkhan had in mind.

It had been seventeen hours since his last nap, and Arkhan was more than ready to rest his mind a bit.

He spent the next few minutes searching for the perfect clearing, and after he found it, he began setting up.

A quick activation of [Dream Veil] wrapped the clearing in a layer of prismatic mist and shimmering dreams. The air grew thick and drowsy, like the moment between sleeping and waking when nothing felt solid. Sound plunged into silence, and very subtly, the temperature subsided.

To a casual observer, the clearing would appear completely empty, just another patch of slightly overgrown weeds beneath the towering trees.

The skill provided almost no security against a determined observer, though, but Arkhan wasn't too concerned about that. He would know the instant anyone breached the veil.

Certain that he was well hidden for what he was about to do, Arkhan placed the rubber bed at the center of the clearing, downed his wine, and proceeded to lie down on it, eyes closed and breathing slowed in sleep.

But it wasn't true sleep. It was simply a transition.

As a dream awakened, Arkhan never truly slept. His consciousness simply slid into the dream plane—a vast space reminiscent of space itself, the dreams of those around him appearing like stars to his consciousness.

That transition was what Arkhan undertook a moment later, and his mind's eye widened in surprise when his consciousness arrived within the plane to find over a dozen minds twinkling and gleaming.

It was beautiful.

But Arkhan remembered a time when it was much more.

Before his kidnap, this plane had been his personal galaxy—a gathering of thousands of twinkling dreams. Now, however, he was limited to only a few—an upgrade from the last realm, which had been nearly void of dreams with all the monsters and excitement.

But with so much time at their disposal and no monsters to torment them, it seemed many were trying to get that beauty sleep in before disaster inevitably struck. Who could blame them? After all the excitement of the last level, most people hadn't had the time to close their eyes at all, not to mention sleep.

Resource gathering, however, was a boring task, and despite hinging it on life and death, it was clear that hardly any people were taking it seriously. Arkhan was glad for it.

Curiously, he perused each dream as was his usual manner, just watching. It was his favorite way to pass the time, and though he helped sometimes, spicing things up for the dreamer, Arkhan was usually content to just watch.

This time, however, none of the dreams interested him. Most of them were nightmares—malformed dreams with black cores. A few had red cores, showing how they centered around trauma and pain, most likely from the last level.

The others that remained, though, were bland—boring snapshots of people missing their families and other loved ones. For a moment, Arkhan contemplated doing more than watching.

His gaze landed on the pulsing blue dream of a Calodan woman and her sand rabbits. He could certainly spice it up—twisting the rabbits into malformed amalgamations the woman would have to fight to save her daughter.

Where had the daughter come from? Well, that didn't matter. This was a dream after all.

But Arkhan held himself back—not because he cared about causing lasting harm, but because it was always a shame to transform a dream into a nightmare. The world was sordid enough already. Besides, this woman had already been through more than enough if she was chasing rabbits in her dreams.

Sighing, he glanced at the other dreams, noting with disappointment that none of the dreamers were people he knew, which meant his friends had either slept before now or hadn't slept yet.

Arkhan would bet it was the latter.

Eying the uninteresting dreamscape, Arkhan decided to forge himself a perfectly intriguing dream. He turned his attention to a seemingly empty expanse of the dream plane and began weaving himself an interesting dream.

He was halfway through when his gaze caught a phenomenon he had never seen before, and he paused. Frowning, he dispersed the half-formed dream to inspect it, dream weaves dissolving into mist behind him as his consciousness floated downward towards a pulsing—no, four pulsing dreams, seemingly made of darkness.

They had no cores to identify them like other dreams did, and upon closer inspection, didn't even resemble any kind of dream Arkhan had come across in his lifetime. Still, there was no denying that they were the creations of a mind—all four, variations of the exact same dream.

Arkhan's consciousness stared at the pulsing dreams curiously, frowning as he tried to identify what kind of dream this was. It was like staring at the space between stars. A void.

Danger hummed slightly from the cores, projecting an intent to push people away. But that only made Arkhan more curious.

This wasn't the first dangerous dream he had entered before. Realistically, it was impossible to die within a dream, except, well, he had a hand in it. Or another dream awakened did. But Arkhan knew there were no other dream awakeneds in Abyssos.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

That meant this was something else. Perhaps something planted by the cultists themselves.

But that was not enough to stop Arkhan, and after a moment of hesitation, he stretched his consciousness into the dream, brushing its surface like testing the skin of a pond—and then he pushed through.

What followed was the most unnatural entry into a dream he'd ever experienced.

The world lurched the instant his mind crossed the boundary—thoughts spinning, space twisting around him in a whirl of color and emotion. And then, just as suddenly as it began, it stilled.

He was no longer in the dream plane but soaring through open skies, clouds rolling beneath him as a cry of unrestrained bliss tore from his throat.

It was then he realized that he had somehow fallen into the mind of the dreamer rather than the dream itself. Alarmed, he forced a surge of willpower and pulled himself out. The world spun again—another unnatural event—and this time, when Arkhan finally regained his bearing, a gasp of fear escaped him before he could stop it.

Flying above him was a gigantic Blood Phoenix, its massive wings blotting out the sun as they beat with deliberate, hypnotic rhythm. The creature had to be twenty feet from wingtip to wingtip, each feather a deep crimson that pulsed with inner light, trailing scarlet mist through the air like ribbons of liquid silk.

The creature was absolutely magnificent, and Arkhan watched it fly with his mouth agape, having only read of these mythical creatures whose rarity rivaled that of dragons and unicorns. The Phoenix commanded the skies like it owned them and all beneath, so majestic that Arkhan couldn't imagine anything capable of defeating it.

Then the dream rippled—and the humans came. Over a dozen of them.

Dressed in the telltale black and red robes of cultists, they launched their attack on the Phoenix—not to kill it, but to capture it. Most were advanced-class awakened, but several elders accompanied them, the golden embellishments on their robes unmistakable.

With practiced precision—almost too easily—they brought down the once-majestic creature, dragging it from the skies to the earth below. Blood rose around the Phoenix as it struggled to retaliate, but one of the elders hijacked control of the crimson torrent, twisting it against the beast. Before it could even scream, null chains coiled around its neck, beak, and talons.

The once majestic sovereign of the skies, reduced to a flailing bird, still proud, but now utterly helpless.

The dream rippled again. Arkhan blinked, and suddenly he was in a laboratory. A massive vat dominated the space, and within it, the Phoenix floated in suspension—still bound, still bleeding—as quintessence coursed into its body, amplification runes gleaming all around the vat, pulsing in rhythm with the creature's ragged breathing.

Time seemed to pass in silence, marked only by the steady thrum of the runes.

The dream rippled again. And this time, Arkhan found himself within a vast cavern, its walls covered in null and blood runes that writhed like living things in the dim light. Three massive chains hung from the ceiling like the ribs of some ancient beast, descending to suspend the Phoenix in the center of the chamber—wings spread wide, feathers wet and dripping.

It had grown even larger than before, but its beauty had been perverted. Crimson feathers, tarnished by the corrupted quintessence, now shone a black-gold color that seemed to absorb the very light around them.

But it wasn't the Phoenix that caught Arkhan's attention this time. It was the dozens of spawns that filled the cavern, squawking and shrieking in unison, a maddening chorus that clawed at his sanity.

And when he followed their gazes, Arkhan saw hairline cracks spiderwebbing across the ceiling and restraining chains, one of which was already missing, the hole through which it had dug into the Phoenix's ribs still bleeding. Null runes flickered and vanished one by one, and with each disappearance, the blood runes blazed brighter—feeding power to the Phoenix and its growing brood.

Then, the Phoenix opened its eyes—twin irises of burning red that glared down at him full of wrath and hatred. A suffocating aura of blood burst out of it in that moment, and before Arkhan could even blink, the entire cavern erupted in crimson—a tidal wave that sharpened into jagged edges, gleaming with the promise of death.

The massive scythe slammed down before Arkhan could even think of escaping the dream, slicing through his consciousness like paper, shredding his dream-form with merciless precision.

Arkhan jerked awake with a scream that tore through the clearing, his body convulsing as if the dream-wound were real. Instinctively, he grabbed his neck to make sure it was still intact, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Sweat soaked through his clothes despite the frigid air, and his heart hammered against his ribs like a caged animal.

Arkhan took a moment to catch his breath and then looked at the ground beneath his bed, realizing that somewhere, deep within the earth, the Blood Phoenix waited in its weakening prison. It had been sealed away with the abyssal pins, but with each one they uprooted, they were simply accelerating its freedom.

And when that happened, there was no mistaking the calamity that would befall them. The Phoenix wanted revenge against the humans who had enslaved it, who had corrupted its very essence for their twisted purposes. But in its fury, it failed to realize that they too, just like it, were also prisoners of the cultists.

And all this while, the cultists had been leading them to their own doom, urging them to gather more pins and free the monster that sought to kill them. A monster of such power that it could not have been anything below the 75th tier.

And to make things worse, this was only one of four!

Still reeling from the Blood Phoenix's attack, Arkhan swallowed his fear and closed his eyes, slipping once more into the dream plane. He had to know what the other three dreams contained. He had to know just what level of catastrophe was looming over them.

Breath hitching, Arkhan glanced at the pulsing dream beside that of the Blood Phoenix and stretched his consciousness inside it. The world spun once more, and this time, Arkhan found himself in another cavern filled with null runes.

The suspended creature wasn't a bird this time, but a colossal serpent whose body seemed to stretch for miles, coiled in vast spirals that defied comprehension. Its scales were living stone—obsidian black with veins of toxic green that pulsed like infected blood vessels.

Hesitantly, Arkhan turned his gaze to its head. His gaze locked with a pair of yellow-green serpentine irises, and almost immediately, he felt his thoughts begin to crystallize, congealing into cold, unyielding stone before he could even form them.

This time, he didn't wait to die before wrenching himself out of the dream. He surfaced in the dream plane with a gasp, feeling the lingering sensation of his mind turning to granite slowly fade.

A basilisk. A fucking basilisk, no doubt with underlings of its own.

"By all the winter gods, we are fucked," Arkhan muttered under his breath as his gaze drifted to the third dream—almost too frightened to enter it. His earlier nonchalance toward danger had vanished entirely, replaced by a cold dread that tingled in his bones.

He inhaled sharply, steeling himself, then stretched his consciousness toward the dream and entered. He didn't want to spend even a minute here. He simply wanted to find out about the creature and get himself out.

And so, when the world settled, Arkhan turned around immediately, wanting to take in the creature and leave before it could open its eyes or even notice him.

But the cavern was empty.

He blinked, his consciousness floating through the space as he searched for the suspended creature. Null runes lined the walls again, their silver glow casting long, restless silhouettes across jagged rock. Yet there was no massive form, no restrained beast.

And then he heard it, a chorus of growls. Dozens of them coming from behind him.

Arkhan's blood turned to ice as he slowly turned around.

Where an empty cavern had stood moments before, an army of shadow wolves now filled the space, their forms rippling like living smoke. Death energy rolled off them in suffocating waves, withering the very air between them and him.

Arkhan took an instinctive step back, and that was when he felt a thread of death essence curl around his consciousness. He spun around once more, and where there had been only emptiness before, a hulking wolf now hung from the chains—its midnight fur devouring the rune-light around it.

It opened its eyes—twin voids of darkness that promised nothing but the cold embrace of death—and Arkhan realized with crystalline clarity that he had made a fatal mistake.

He tried to flee, but the shadows moved faster.

They lunged at him, and only a quick activation of {Dream Shatter} saved his consciousness from being completely brutalized again. He surfaced in the dream plane panting once again and gave himself a moment to catch his breath before stretching his consciousness to the last dream, which at this point wasn't a dream at all but some sort of psychic imprints or astral projections created by the cultists for the creatures to feed their hatred.

The fact that these creatures could somehow control what was happening within the 'dreams' was something Arkhan didn't understand. But now that he knew just how dangerous entering these dreams was, he was more cautious.

The world spun for the fourth time, and this time, Arkhan didn't even wait to see the creature itself. He saw the scales. The sinuous neck. The black flames that burned reality itself.

And jumped out.

A Blackfyre Dragon.

Now they were truly doomed.

How the cultists expected them to defeat these creatures at all was beyond him. This was a death sentence.

Shaken to his core, Arkhan turned his attention back to the regular dreams scattered across the plane, hoping to find some anchor of normalcy in this nightmare. To his surprise, the number of sleeping minds had increased significantly—more people had apparently decided to rest while they could.

His consciousness drifted away from the pulsing orbs of darkness to the glowing orbs of normal dreams, searching for anything familiar. Anyone familiar he could share all these with.

Surprisingly, he found two people he was familiar with. First, the Sunstonian boy, Aodhán, had saved them on their way to the exit portal. And surprisingly, Sebastian Rune.

Not even bothering to enter the Sunstonian's dreams, Arkhan dumped all the information he had just gathered into it. It would either completely ruin sleep for the Sunstonian, or it would save his life.

After that, his consciousness zoomed toward Sebastian's dream, hoping beyond anything that Sebastian had some kind of plan. He was a Rune after all, and an infinity awakened to boot.

Surely, he had some kind of plan.

And unsurprisingly, Sebastian did.