Chapter 17
The Onslaught
He'd entirely forgotten about the Blessing he received until a stray spell nicked him and did 9 damage, and yet his Health didn't drop at all. In the midst of all the other flashy magic, he hardly noticed the faint, crimson sheen that surrounded his body. Similarly to how the Vanishment's cooldown kept getting reduced, the shield, too, kept being recharged due to the sheer volume of monsters he was killing every passing second.
And yet, despite that, his leveling speed slowed down considerably due to the Calling’s debuff. He didn’t mind it too much, however; in part because he didn’t have the luxury to think about it. The constant onslaught of spells that blanketed the sky left him little room for spare thoughts since he had to dedicate every single moment to running around and dodging to the best of his abilities.
Additionally, no matter how many he seemed to kill... the visible number of monsters didn’t drop--if anything, the dark cloud on the horizon kept growing thicker and more varied.
At the next Level-up, Muscle Training was selected automatically. Perhaps it was for the best, he mused inwardly, as he seemed to have enough firepower to tear through the thickest of the walls. Every moment, chaotic energy swung out from him in a violent tear across the sky, ripping through monsters as though they were made from cloth.
It was strange; he was almost akin to an ethereal observer himself, like a puppeteer simply moving the marionette with invisible, heavenly strings. And yet, at the same time, he experienced it all--though he couldn’t command where the attacks went, he felt them, he felt the chaotic swirl of energy bundled within his fingertips and the subsequent drainage whenever it would leave him. It was akin to experiencing a temporary high only to be freed from it almost immediately.
Every time his lips would part and the unfamiliar voice would stream out, a plethora of strange phenomena would appear--occasionally it was just disturbances in the spacetime as the first time, where malformed arms would reach from the void and swallow the monsters, and occasionally it was almost rupture-tainted bolts of red lightning that would come crashing from the sky.
Suddenly, he felt the energy within him blur and skyrocket, as though he'd drank a nourishing tonic that invigorated him. Without having tracked it, the Chaotic Energy reached its first, and so far only, mark--1,000, unlocking Harbinger of Chaos. Nothing happened immediately as the effects were Level-up based, so he waited patiently to see.
Wooden Staff [UPG+3] [Chaos-evolved]
Level: 4
Effect: Shoot a chaotic spear in a random direction, dealing damage to a select number of targets it pierces. Has a 13% chance (impacted by your Calling & Luck) of imploding on impact, shredding through the defenses of all monsters within 20 yards for 4 seconds.
Damage: 1-25
Pierce: 0-8
Defense Shred: 33%-66%
Attack Speed: 1 attack per second
Upon the Level-up, a myriad of things happened--alongside chaotic spears, a flurry of earthly boulders the size of a child began to fly in random directions too, mostly one at a time, occasionally two. In addition, a thin ring of fire appeared beneath his feet and seemed to be rooted to him, for it moved when and where he moved. It was roughly 10 yards in radius and was likely an aura-like spell that dealt periodic damage to all enemies within its radius. Asher wasn't about to experiment, however, as it was unnecessary.
Lastly, the third spell that the Harbinger of Chaos seemed to give him was an ethereal sword that launched from him toward the nearest monster, regardless of distance. The sword was rather thick, transparent--almost ghostly--and it had no physical impact on the world. However, every monster it struck died and exploded in a flurry of divine energy, killing everything near it as well. He didn’t know the names of the spells, their damage, description, or anything of that nature; they were simply randomly selected from the ‘hat’ and given to him temporarily.
Despite it all seemingly going extremely well, Asher already swore inside he'd never choose this Calling again. Not only did he have virtually zero agency over his own life, but considering a scenario in which he didn’t get lucky with several dozen things relating to the Calling, especially in a stage of this nature where the difficulty is in trying to not be swarmed, it was not reliable--as simple as that, really.
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Though he felt truly like an unwieldy force of chaos at the moment, ripping through the battlefield like a conjuration of something eldritch and terrifying, he simply got... lucky. Watching the deluge of spells rip out of him and tear through the unsuspecting monsters, rendering them into piles of ash, blood, and gore was as beautiful as it was terrifying.
The feeling... it was there. The notion of becoming drunk with power. Usually, it was in relation to the abstract kind of power--political, monetary, and such--but this was actual power. He felt almost invincible, forcing himself back to reality. This was not his power--it was borrowed, temporary, and unruly.
Hundreds of corpses began to pile up in various shapes, forms, and states around the stage. Unlike in an actual game, they weren't just visual representations of his rampage--they were obstacles, both to the monsters and his spells. However, by now, he could scarcely see anything. The level of destruction was so immense that the dust never seemed to settle, and the debris never cleaned up.
He continued to move, using Vanishment on cooldown, effectively, while dodging the continued salvo of destruction headed his way. He wondered whether his Calling affected the scenario or whether everyone else was facing the exact same thing. He couldn’t figure out how they’d survive--the only reason he was able to, after all, was because of Vanishment’s rather quirky quality that allowed him to have near-perfect uptime. Without it... he’d have become a tiny little nothing, buried in the deluge of destruction.
Vassal of Infinity [Legendary]
Level: 0
Effect: Chaos beholds all and is beholden to none--use random active abilities that you have knowledge of at 50% of their efficiency, though with a chance of multicasting. Multicast abilities also retain the ability to multi-cast as well, though the chance is halved with each iteration.
Multicast Chance: 3%
Cooldown: Dependent on the fire ability (min 0,33 seconds; max 60 seconds)
Note: Those enraptured with chaos may glean the infinite horrors contained within, occasionally even drawing upon the well that contains all of the magic for their own use. Beware, however; what Chaos offers, Chaos retrieves.
It was a display of destruction beyond comprehension--at least Asher’s. Even in fantasy, Mages were often restricted in their ability to simply cast spells infinitely, whether that was through Mana or some other mental restriction. Allowing them to simply cast without forbearance would break everything--as everything was being broken right now.
He matched--matched--the raw output of spells when compared to all the monsters on the field. In fact, there were so many arrays of magic being spat across the world that it was difficult to discern which were exactly his outside the chaotic ones that stood out through their red-shifted sheen. The invocation of something primal within was tempting, the desire to become precisely this--an absolute shepherd of destruction, a force of nature itself, unmatched.
Fire, earth, lightning, water, ethereal weaponry, wind, shadows, holy, nature... he was a bespoke fiend, an array of magical schools taped into one, bound for the eventuality. At some point, the world paused; as he expected it to unpause shortly after since the chaos would select the ability for him, he didn't even look at the screen in the front. However, when several seconds passed, he was forced to--it wasn't a Level-up. Rather, he'd obtained an artifact without even realizing it, as it was virtually impossible to see anything in the wake of destruction.
Shard of Erusion [Uncommon Artifact]
Description: Before the Age of Man, the world was in a perpetual state of war between Giants and Dragons. The hatred between the two races went further back than the recorded history itself, and much of their culture and heritage had been completely obliterated in the Last War of Dragonkin which was the catalyst to the Age of Man. Of the few remnants that remain, the Shard of Erusion is the best-understood one, believed to have once been a part of a goblet that Giants would sip the Dragon's blood in and drink. Even though it is just a shard, it still possesses immense powers that stir the imagination of what it could do back when it was whole.
Effect: Gain 1% Max Health regeneration per second (min. 1 HP/s).
It was a rather long description for a rather underwhelming effect, Asher mused. However, he recognized almost immediately that he was simply too low-level to take advantage of it. If he had 10,000 Health, he'd regenerate 100 per second--an absolutely insane number. The artifact's value was, in some ways, even better than Erdar’s Boots, but only after a certain point.
Nonetheless, he gained a passive 1 HP/s. Though it was a bit wasteful on him, it was still better than nothing.
Despite obtaining the artifact, the way he ‘played’ didn’t change--he didn’t take damage and try to heal it up or anything of that nature. He continued to dodge and indulge in the fusillade of spells that were fired across the stage every single moment.
And yet, despite the general scale of destruction and the number of corpses that were large enough to form a hill, the quest tracker betrayed his excitement: 683/10,000. He wasn't even 10% done, and it had already been at least five minutes. For a moment, he pondered what the stage would eventually look like with 10,000 corpses strewn about, wondering whether he'd have to fight the boss on top of the monsters’ remains, but perished the thought just as fast since he couldn’t afford distractions.
Chaos continued to stir from within and without, and new types of monsters began appearing. By now, he concluded that this was not normal. There was no way either of his previous two builds could keep up with the current torrent of both magic and monsters--virtually every new monster that appeared had a spate of magical abilities, none of which Asher could even afford to identify since he simply had to move all the time, hardly paying attention to which monster cast which spell of obliteration.
The cause of the current circumstances was, without a doubt, his Calling. Others would likely face several monster types as well, but nowhere near this scale. He knew as much when he saw a wyvern suddenly appear in the sky toward the north, chilling the blood in his veins. The first one was just the signal of things to come, he knew. And if they could fly...
They can come from... anywhere? Even underground?