Ashley

After allocating my free points, I go ahead and open the win streak rewards.

Congratulations! You have won first place for ten games in a row while at Class E!

You will now be given two hundred Skill Points!

Nice! More Skill Points are always nice.

I go ahead and claim my reward for that Official System Event as well, giving me a couple extra potions along with another one hundred Skill Points for having won the event.

Then I open my Skill Trees to look at the new one from that prince.

And just the first skill in it makes the corner of my lips quirk ever so slightly upwards.

{Silver Strike – Allows the user to summon forth powerful silver spikes that are immune to acids and flames.}

Oh, wow. Didn’t use acid or fire against them, but wow.

I look at the six different skills branching from the root and find each one to be interesting. To the point that I actually buy one of them right away with one hundred Skill Points.

{Silver Barrier – Allows the user to summon forth powerful silver barriers that are immune to acids and flames.}

Good.

Now I have a physical barrier as well as a lightning one.

I go ahead and check the number of Skill Points I have remaining.

{You currently have 321 Skill Points.}

Right as I’m about to go unlock another skill, though, a surprising message appears in my vision. One that gives me pause.

{NOTICE --- SUCCESSOR HAS ACHIEVED THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS TO UNLOCK A NEW SUCCESSOR SKILL --- NOTICE}

Nice. Not sure what I did to meet the requirements, but cool.

Let’s check that now.

{Unchained – As the Successor to Chaos, you may not be bound by anyone or anything. Not even Chaos himself.}

{Torrents of Chaos – Once a week you can draw chaos energy directly from nature itself, refilling your chaos energy reserves to full.}

{Chaotic Surge – Allows the user to send chaos energy through their body in a rampant surge, increasing their physical capabilities and granting random effects to all of their attacks. Both magical and physical.}

{Chaotic Source – Locked – All True Damage that would harm the user will be reflected at a random being the user views as an enemy. However, this skill only works against thirty instances of damage a day and must be recharged either by waiting until the next day or through using one unit of Chaos Energy to refill ten charges.} – [Spend 300 Skill Points to unlock this skill.]

Oh. That’s… I don’t know what that is.

What’s True Damage?

“True Damage is damage that ignores all defenses, immunities, and resistances to directly harm the target,” Chaos answers right away. “You should get the skill. It’s incredibly rare for someone to get a True Damage defensive skill.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Hmm.

I stare at it for a few seconds before eventually going ahead and unlocking the skill. Then I close out of my Successor Skills and open the System Forums to research True Damage. And it’s just as Chaos said.

True Damage ignores any and all defenses, resistances, and immunities except for a very rare few powers meant to directly defend against True Damage. Most of which are all Successor Skills given by Primordials to their Successors. Like this one.

As for attacks that actually cause True Damage? There are very few of those. And generally the only things that have attacks like that are Successors, people who usually end up reaching Class S in the future if they aren’t already, with Skill Trees that have thousands of skills in them including a True Damage skill near the end of it, and one more.

Unique Monsters.

I frown at that before returning to Val as I continue reading the Forums about the True Damage. But I can’t help but feel curious about the Unique Monsters thing.

“Don’t worry about them for now,” Chaos says, making me glance away from the forums for a moment. Then I just shrug and decide to listen to him.

Mostly because he sounded a little stressed and worried when he said that.

I can always just research them later on anyways. They sound special so I doubt I’ll be seeing any soon.

For now I keep reading about True Damage as I lie down on my bed in my room.

Overall, True Damage is a rather frightening thing. Although it does often have at least some form of limitation.

Like a Class S hunter known around the universe as the Plague Doctor. He can directly cause a form of necrosis to anyone touching something physical he is touching. So he can directly kill off cells in their body, albeit at a slow pace. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it so long as he’s touching something they’re touching.

It has to be a physical object, though. It can’t be a gas or a liquid. It has to be solid.

So like the two of them touching the same tile of a floor. Or touching the same single layer wall.

Even just touching a barrier over someone’s skin works.

He can just skip past the barrier to kill off cells inside of their body.

Other True Damage skill users have similar restrictions on their skill, so it’s not omnipotent.

But I am quite glad to have a skill to defend against them now at the very least.

Well, now’s as good a time as any to take a nap.

So I close my eyes and fall asleep.

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Somewhere in the Universe

Chaos smiles as he sees Ashley falling asleep.

For a moment he was terrified, thinking she would figure out what he had warned her about earlier. Since if someone is warned about a Unique Monster spawning and they realize what they’re being warned about, it has been known to summon the UM nearby if the approaching UM hasn’t already spawned yet.

At the same time, he couldn’t help but give her a warning. Because she will die if she enters the Gate of a Unique Monster’s Domain.

Chaos has even started making preparations to bring her with the Tower of Chaos off of the planet in case the UM spawns on Val. Whether she wants to or not.

Because he will not lose her.

When he first met the girl, she was nothing more than a curiosity to him. But as time went on, and he watched her more and more, he’s grown to care for her whether he wished to or not.

For the first time in his entire life.

He’s cared for another person.

How this came about, he isn’t sure. He’s never cared about anyone else other than himself and his own amusement for the billions of years he’s been alive.

All the way back till the dawn of the universe itself.

But now he truly sees her as his daughter, and he won’t let her die even if it means having the Tower of Chaos personally drag her out of that world against her will if the UM spawns there.

The UM can destroy the entire world and everyone else on it for all he cares.

He teleports right next to her bed before kneeling down by it, reaching over to brush some of her hair out of her sleeping face. And after several seconds of watching her sleep, he teleports away, into the void.

Where he finds Nyx floating in her true form right near where he appears.

Chaos averts his eyes from her form. One that is capable of twisting someone’s mind just from a glance. Even if he, as Chaos, is immune to it.

After all, just because he’s immune to the mind-twisting effect of her abomination of a true form – one covered in nothing but faces, tentacles, scales, and any other sort of twisted thing someone can imagine – it doesn’t mean he wants to look.

“Your words, they mean there’s an item attracting the UM’s spark to this solar system?” Chaos asks for clarification with his eyes narrowed.

“Yeeeeeeeesssssssss,” Nyx hisses, her voice echoing throughout the void in a much more twisted voice than the one she has in her humanoid form.

“Then help me find it,” Chaos states, feeling more and more in a rush with every passing second.

But to his surprise, Nyx says, “Noooooooooooooo.”

He turns his gaze onto her, a scowl appearing on his face as he asks, “Why not?”

“Ruuuuuuuuulllllleeeeeeessssssss,” Nyx replies before her form gradually fades away like a ghost. Until there’s nothing left of her here.

Damned abomination.

He grits his teeth, holding back his anger as he closes his eyes and begins to sense around for the item in question.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t find it.

So he glances at Ashley with a sad expression on his face.

“I may not be able to talk to you for a bit, so stay safe while I’m gone,” he says to her despite her not being awake to hear him.

Then he gets to work trying to find the item.

Before it’s too late.