Ascension of Chaos

Ashley

Okay. This… is anticlimactic.

The loud sounds of thunder and some sort of bird cawing sound. Angry bird cawing at that. All as lightning strikes me nonstop without actually hurting me. Like, at all.

I tilt my head while looking down at my body that is literally glowing from the electrical charges running through it. Not to mention the glowing crimson cracks.

At this point I'm largely immune to electricity. I understand that perfectly from this little showing.

My body just absorbs it for me to blast at other things. And any damage it may do to me that isn't absorbed isn't enough to make it past my destruction resistance.

So I'm left here floating in the sky while shining like a light bulb. Meanwhile the boss just continues sending bolts of lightning at me in the hopes that it'll do something.

I can't even hurt it with its own lightning because when I tried it just sent the lightning back at me. Recharging my body again.

Which has made this battle a complete stalemate in that regard.

I purse my lips before glancing at the other islands. Then an idea comes to mind, and I feel the corners of my lips rising.

My attention turns towards the other islands of this Official System Event. And when the other hunters begin to realize what I'm about to do, they all start surrendering one after another. Quickly making the islands barren of other hunters.

But that doesn't stop me as I activate several lightning related skills to blast all of the lightning I have built up all around the entire map. Shocking everything within it. After making sure to renew Assimilate, of course.

And just like that, the entire map turns into a damned lightning-based light show.

Within a Tower located in a place lost to time

Chronos watches silently from atop his throne, with his clock tower standing behind him and the livestream showing the Successor of Chaos as she turns the entire map of her event into a lightning filled hell. All while at only Class D in power.

The primordial himself has long silver hair that flows all the way down to his lower legs, with golden clocks in the place of his eyes and a clean white suit topped off with a golden tie. His true appearance that he can only maintain while being within his own Tower of Time due to his body being merged with the very concept of time and always changing outside of the tower. And all around the tower, clockwork constructs wander around cleaning and organizing the place.

But they all stop simultaneously when the corner of Chronos's lips twitch. With each and every one of them catching the tiniest of movements from their master.

And all of the clockwork golems express shock at the sight of their master showing any sort of emotion towards the System Events.

Throughout their entire lives, the clockworks have never once seen their master show any emotion towards a hunter in the events. Not even once.

He always watches the most talked about and high profile events going on at any time, and he never steps away from his throne. But he has never shown any emotion towards what he is watching.

Chronos raises his gaze to look at the clockworks who all realize by now that they stopped moving. So they continue moving around, doing their work. So he lowers his gaze back at the screen again as hundreds of thoughts fill his mind about just how powerful the Successor of Chaos may become one day.

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The day she claims her position as one of the Primordials of the universe.

And more importantly, he thinks about whether or not she will be able to pull it off.

What he's been wanting for all these years.

He watches for several more seconds from within his tower, where time is separated from the outside world. As the Successor of Chaos quickly kills off every single monster within the entire System Event one by one, only to be interrupted by the event coming to an end before she can even finish killing them. And before she can fight against the boss, which disappoints the fans in the audience watching. Then he finally snaps his finger the moment she leaves the stadium while ignoring her fans' cheers, sending a small vial through a System screen.

Time to see how the clocks turn.

Ashley

I can't stop the grin on my face as I look at the massive gains I obtained through this slaughter fest. Even if I didn't manage to kill any other hunters.

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 207. Your PHY and MEN have increased by 1 point, and your MAG by 2 points. Please choose where you wish your 1 Free Point to be allocated.}

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 208. Your PHY and MEN have increased by 1 point, and your MAG by 2 points. Please choose where you wish your 1 Free Point to be allocated.}

…

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 221. Your PHY and MEN have increased by 1 point, and your MAG by 2 points. Please choose where you wish your 1 Free Point to be allocated.}

It's only too bad that there are diminishing returns to this. Since most of the monsters there were far below level 200 in level. Meaning they didn't give me all that much EXP.

I go ahead and allocate the free points I got from all of this before glancing at the incredibly long list of System Messages. Most of which are just detailing repeats of previous skills I've already gotten from the first island I slaughtered.

Guess most of those islands had the same monsters on them.

A pity.

But on the bright side, I still got some more new skills. And I'm sure some of the ones I got that weren't exact copies of other Skill Trees have higher level versions of the skills I already have. Which is good.

Before I can turn my attention to my Skill Trees though, I hear Chaos muttering, "Why… did he do that?"

Then a System Notification appears in my vision.

Congratulations! You have been granted gifts by the Primordial of Time!

Open your Successor Menu to receive them!

I blink at the sight of the notification. And more specifically, at the fact that I just got a gift from a different primordial this time around.

That can happen?

"Any primordial can give a gift to any Successor, regardless of if they are their own or not," Chaos answers while sounding a little stumped himself. Like he has no idea why this is happening. "But Chronos never involves himself with the affairs of other Primordials, of the System Events, or of the universe as a whole. Unless it directly involves one of his Successors, he simply acts as an impartial bystander. A spectator of the universe and of time."

Huh.

Which begs the question of why he would send me a gift. And of if this gift is good or not.

"I have no bad blood with Chronos, and from what I've always figured, he doesn't have it out for anyone," Chaos says with the feeling of a shrug to his words. "Except maybe himself."

My eyes narrow a little at that last part, but I don't say anything on it.

Mostly because I know what being fused with the concept of time would mean for his body. It would most likely mean that he will never really be able to die.

Now there could be other ways it could affect his body, but from what I've been told, Chronos' appearance always changes at all times and never really stays the same.

And that can't be an enjoyable existence.

But as for what he may have sent me…

"You should just check and see," Chaos says, once again sounding like he's shrugging as he does so. Only for him to appear right in front of me and then lie down on a couch within my living room with his head hanging over the armrest of it and looking up at me. "It can't hurt."

True.

So I go ahead and open my Successor Menu before navigating to the gifts portion.

Then an orange orb appears from where the menu was, following which a single tiny vial with what looks like a single drop of orange liquid in it appears. Liquid that seems to have little clocks running through it despite the liquid looking almost as if it's frozen in time or something.

It looks very strange.

My eyes narrow a little bit, only to widen in shock at the sight of the item's description.

Holy fucking shit on a skeletal horse.