Chapter 16
Makings of a Storm
“Ah, fuck me,” Asher cursed.
This entire ordeal reminded him of how a crippling headache happens--he'd wake up in the morning and immediately feel 'off', but nothing would hurt or feel terribly wrong. However, as the day progressed, things would change; he'd find it harder to concentrate, his eyesight would dim, and before he knew it, he'd be reaching for pills to dull the pain. This was sort of similar--he was tempted by a tiny 'dip' into Chaos, the fulcrum of the entire conundrum, and now... now he was being told to leap into the pot of boiling oil.
But if he turned his back now, he’d have wasted it all.
“Fuckin’ devils,” he groaned, scratching his head in frustration. “Is this ‘cause I put one point into Luck? Or are they just fucking with me? There’s no way this is the right choice... right? I mean, I’d practically be handing over my life to some random-ass algorithm. May as well get on my knees and pray, then.”
“What’s got your tiny, sweaty, smelly balls twisted up into a knot?” Qyne appeared suddenly near him. He looked at her, anger still burning within his heart, but repressed it.
“You railed me so hard yesterday,” he said. “Can’t you help me with this shit so we balance the scales?”
“... oh? You think scales need to be balanced?” she grinned.
“Fine. Take pity on the pathetic little me.”
“~~I don’t want to, though?” gnashing his teeth silently, Asher ignored her and picked the Chaosmonger. “He he, you’re quite short-tempered, aren’t you?”
“You should pray I die, bitch,” he glanced at her. “’cause if I don’t, I will rip you into pieces one day.”
“Oh no, I’m so scared~~ ke ke ke,” she laughed, vanishing in the blast of light, her voice echoing. “That’s once, pathetic vermin. If you do it twice, I will end you.”
What was Chaos? An abstract concept that flew over Asher's head. All he knew, at the moment, was the enthralling energy burning through his entire body like a tidal wave, consuming him. His appearance changed, though as to how he didn't know beyond his arms--they'd gotten encased in a molten fire that burned crimson, consuming the Wooden Staff and transforming it into a swirling, scarlet cloud of the seeming nothing and everything.
Instead of fireballs, the cloud chocked arrays of red light in the shape of spears--and it rained.
The insane speed at which the chaotic spears flew left a blurry afterimage in their wake, almost like a rainbow trail. They were more like missiles rather than spears, flying in every which direction from him. The motes of chaos continued to spawn, suddenly at an accelerated rate, splaying out like rubble of ruin.
All he could do was move--even his Dash was converted to something else entirely.
Entropic Vanishment [Epic]
Level: 0
Effect: dissipate into a formless cacophony of entropy for between 2 and 4 seconds, gaining 99% damage reduction from all sources for the duration and increasing your movement speed by 30-150%. While the effect is active, your rate of fire across the board is lowered by 50%.
Cooldown: 30s (lowered by 0,5 seconds for every 10 monsters killed by a Chaos-school spell)
As it was written, he was unable to direct where to attack. Rather, the crimson colors blasted everywhere and nowhere, flying around madly. However, because of the insane fire rate and the projectile speed... it was working out. No, more than working out.
Even with the increased cooldown, he was beginning to far outpace the spawn rate--until he wasn’t. Suddenly, the four corners spawned 200 monsters each, swarming the horizon with the cloud of death. Furthermore, there were no longer just goblins--it was as though the army was composed of every which fantasy creature he could think of. There were goblins, lycans, trolls, orcs, ogres, massive serpents, walking trees...
The sky above and the ground below lit up with radial circles, all indicating the shower of spells heading his direction. He immediately activated the Vanishment, his vision blurring for a moment as he felt his flesh and bones and muscles melt into a singularity, becoming one, surrounded by the pure energy of chaos.
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Two things happened immediately after--the entire world around him was swarmed by the magical lights; roots as thick as trunks of trees ripped out of the ground and lashed at him at the same time as the rain of fire began to pour down above him. Furthermore, chunks of the earth shook and cracked, thrashing the world around them violently. It was not all, but because he rapidly moved out, he missed most of it. In the end, he only took one damage from everything.
Secondly, Soul of Chaos seemed to have rolled an insanely good ‘roll’--9 projectiles spawned for 13 seconds in the midst of three out of four groupings, each tick dealing 23 damage. The world seemed to pause for a moment before the bodies of monsters began to contort--explosions of blood and gore and raw chaotic energy followed, spawning further motes in their wake that ran rampant throughout the living things.
Asher coalesced into a person once again, his jaw dropping to the floor as he watched the Vanishment's cooldown rapidly descend from 30 seconds down to just a few. However, even through the explosions that burned through his eardrums, he could hear them--the screams, wails of anguish, and agony that knew no bounds. Just as he felt his heart beginning to wonder, the world paused; not for long, however. The three choices appeared and he could barely read through one before the selection was made:
Psalms of Ataxia [Rare]
Level: 0
Effect: Every time you slay a monster with a Chaos-school attack or spell, steal a portion of their Essence. At 100 stacks, begin Chanting. For 4 seconds, summon an array of chaotic disturbances around you in an 80-yard range. After the Chant is finished, gain 33% damage, 66% attack speed, and 99% Health Regeneration for 8 seconds. If you have killed more than 30 creatures during the Chant, also gain Immunity to Physical Damage and take 50% reduced Magical Damage for 4 seconds.
Cooldown: 45s
The ‘Essence’ in question looked like a tiny raisin that had been washed in a crimson dye. It began to gather around him, swirling around in the shape of a halo, growing thicker and thicker with each boom of a soul.
The more he killed, the more they spawned. There were no longer any rules, it seemed; they began to pour from the nothingness like a flood, all running toward him. And he continued to endure. Because of the sheer rate at which he killed them, Vanishment's 30-second cooldown was closer to 3-4, really. As such, he used it whenever it was ready, repositioning and avoiding an onslaught of magical spells that began to blow up the world. The terrain became beyond deformed, beyond misshapen, even to the point nobody could even call it a 'battlefield' any longer. It was a land of nothing, a land of rot and decay, a land where no living thing could endure.
Against his will, suddenly, his lips parted and his entire self hung upward, floating some foot and a half from the ground. The voice that came out was not his own--it was a choral chant, like a hymn, and it bellowed out across the entire field. At the same time, the sky above turned dark and red and began to bleed pillars of light that streamed out everywhere. Furthermore, spacetime itself began to crackle and crack above and around the monsters, misshapen arms reaching out and yanking them in. Here and there, a strange eye of an unthinkable thing peered from the beyond and froze all that gazed back, turning them to stone and then to ash.
All around the field, he saw the world crack and yield to a force that commanded it--it was a force that could not be understood, a force that could not be wielded, a force that could not be tamed... it was Chaos.
The chant ended and he suddenly felt drained, as though a part of him was sucked into oblivion as well. For 8 seconds after, he became even more of a machine gun--every blink, it seemed, spear-shaped arrays of crimson light flew out and toward the monsters, ripping through several of them before vanishing. Motes of chaos rapidly appeared and disappeared everywhere around him, disintegrating all that they touched.
He Leveled-up once more and, just as before, his choice was made for him.
Hand of Tumult [Uncommon--Chaos Evolved]
+0,33 Luck
Level: 1/3
He hardly felt the change, for he understood next to nothing about what was happening. He didn’t understand what ‘Favorable’ or ‘Unfavorable’ rolls were or how they were determined or even what they did, in actuality.
The screams returned, the cries of endless agony. All he could do was shut them off, moving around the ruined stage without a stop, using Vanishment whenever it was available, turning his back to the array of spells that should have rendered him stoically immovable.
Asher was not a brave or a courageous man--he never was, not since he could remember. If he were, after all, his life wouldn’t have been littered with regrets that could be stacked into the size of a skyscraper. He could not look at the barrel of a gun and never flinch, could not face a mugger without anxiety rushing through, and could not withstand judgment unperturbed. And yet, nothing seemed to faze him here. His mind seemed immune to the spectacle unfolding in front of him, to the pandemonium that a human mind was not sharpened to endure.
In fact, there was strange, apathetic numbness to everything. Even the very things he was doing, that were even more unnatural. It was as though all this had always been a part of his reality and was only now being realized into something tangible. He knew that it was not him--it was them. This was their doing. They made him into a stone, unaffected.
However, deep beneath the coat of magic that kept his mind together, he was still a human. And hearing the screams of creatures being ripped apart alive from within themselves over and over and over--hundreds of them forming a destructive symphony--it was taking its toll. He was beginning to waver. Beginning to wonder why he was even doing this. Why was he playing the role of a gladiator for some ethereal things? He didn’t belong here. He died. He should be among the other dead. Vanished into nothing. Not resurrected as a doll for entertainment.
He Leveled-up, again.
Anger.
Anger was the reason to live.
Resentment was the fuel.
For even if everything else within a man dies, anger remains. Eternal.