Ascension of Chaos - Book 3 - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

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Don't mind this. It's fluff so that free readers can't see the link when the chapter is not free.

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For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

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Table of Contents

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Click the following link for chapter 16! It is 1471 words long!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DMCJ-vknayoCt4cIpYo2Kfh8Gp73YgiYyptcwnpZdOE/edit?usp=sharing

Continue scrolling down for the unformatted version of the chapter.

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Somewhere near the battle between Ashley and Argos

Diana Reltfel, the Seventh Princess of Reltfel, feels smug as she kills another hunter in the event and steals their fish after covering their entire ship in a realm of shadows. Which makes for the twentieth time she’s done this so far in the event.

The princess personally believes that this event is pretty fun for her. Since she can vent out her frustrations from home on the regular people in the events. And there won’t be any consequences for it.

She’s been feeling more and more stressed out nowadays as the upper class nobility of Reltfel push more for her to get married to some random stranger. And participating in System Events regularly not only makes her stronger, but it also improves her standing in Reltfel and lets her vent.

There aren’t any downsides.

As long as she does well in the event, that is.

So, after she finishes snatching all of the fish in her most recent target’s ship, she reenters her own ship, cloaks it in shadows, and continues her trip. At least, until she notices a rather loud commotion from some distance away.

Diana feels rather stumped as she stops her ship and looks in the direction of the commotion, where she sees lightning cracking amidst a powerful blizzard. With electricity running through the water along with ice and snow.

Out of curiosity, she moves a bit closer while cloaking herself in shadows. But when she gets close enough to see who exactly is fighting, she immediately turns around and goes in the other direction.

Nope. I’ll just pretend like I didn’t see that.

Because what she saw was the Thunder Giant Prince of Thunder Mountain fighting a large tigress coated in snow and ice that is very obviously the Tigress of Eternal Snow.

And she’s not the only one acting like she didn’t see their fight as she sees several other players around them turning around and moving away. With some of them snatching up dead fish that are rising to the surface of the water.

Diana’s eyes widen with glee before she begins doing the same as she continues her own retreat. Then she moves in the direction of the other fleeing players.

Perfect opportunity to ‘borrow’ their fish!

And thus Diana sets off once more to make friendly ties with her fellow players and definitely not vent her frustrations.

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Ashley

I can’t help but notice some high level person off in the corner of my battlefield attacking the other people who were stealing fish, but no matter what they do, I’m unable to take my focus off of the prince. As I fight tooth and nail against his bolts and blades made out of lightning.

What surprises me the most about this prince is just how strong his attacks are. Since he is dealing an immense amount of damage despite my destruction resistance.

Of course, the significant number of healing and regeneration skills I have mixed with my defensive skills are all keeping me from keeping most of that damage in place. Since I heal a lot of it and defend against more of it.

But the biggest thing I have protecting me from the prince are my own lightning magic related skills and Skill Trees. Specifically Lightning Absorption that lets me absorb lightning and expel it.

Thanks to all of that, I’m probably only taking a small fraction of the damage a normal person would be taking from his lightning.

Which is why I’m so surprised by his damage. It makes me wonder just how powerful this prince is if I’m getting charred and slightly numbed from every strike of lightning that hits me even with all of my defensive measures.

As for his own True Damage defense? That’s not as surprising as I first thought. Nor is it as big of a problem.

My True Damage skills are powerful, but Gaze of Destruction is more of a passive damage dealing skill than anything else. And I’m still not used to ice magic as much as destruction magic, so Eternal Snow isn’t as good as it could be right now.

I continue trading attacks with the Thunder Mountain prince over and over again, with my ice and destruction magic clashing against his lightning. And the both of us slowly whittling the other down as I see parts of his skin covered in frostbite and other parts disintegrated from destruction magic.

But after trading blows for several minutes, I change my attack strategy and begin to use different skills from other Skill Trees. Significantly increasing the variety of my attacks and surprising the prince in the process. Enough that he lets a large shard of ice strike his giant body directly on the torso. Freezing some of it in the process and slowing him down.

I find myself surprised by the sight of him looking happy about the sudden twist. Not to mention confused.

Does this guy find this battle entertaining or something?

That thought briefly crosses my mind, but I quickly return my full focus to the battle when the giant jumps back and suddenly makes a massive hammer made purely out of lightning in his hand. Then he throws the hammer straight at me.

I set up numerous barriers from dozens of different skills, but the hammer of lightning crashes through each one of them without slowing down in the slightest. All the way until it directly strikes me, making me let out a roar of pain as lightning floods my entire body. Far more lightning than I can absorb. And thanks to that, I feel all sensation in my body disappearing as my nervous system is torn apart.

But I don’t just sit back and take the hit as I activate my own skills, which doesn’t require me to be able to move to do.

I activate Flames of the Queen, along with several other skills used to empower it amongst skills that build up mana and power stockpiles like Hunger Maw and Energy Absorption. All to create black-tinted crimson flames all over my body to erase lightning before flooding those flames straight at the thunder giant.

Instantly erasing the smile on his face as he lets out his own roar of pain.

And I don’t stop there either. I begin activating one skill after another. Each of which are powerful attack skills from different Skill Trees.

Destruction breath attacks, destruction lightning, blizzard empowered ice shards, and even a pure blast of chaos energy. All of which wreak havoc on the prince’s body as I feel completely unable to move and am stuck falling down towards my ship even as my nerves slowly begin to regenerate.

I wish I could grin as I see the thunder giant’s armor shattering and his flesh underneath being ripped to shreds in every way possible.

Ice, fire, disintegration, and even being mutated.

A thought occurs to me and I cancel my transformation. Returning to my humanoid form with my armor on.

And after returning to my humanoid form, I feel some sense of feel returning.

Specifically to my wings. Allowing me to flap my wings right before I crash into the water. Lifting myself back into the air without having to waste mana.

I briefly focus on my energy supply, which is a lot smaller than I would like. Then I turn my attention back to the thunder giant when my attacks begin to run their course. Leaving him kneeling on his ship in rather bad shape.

But unlike me, who is regenerating and won’t die so long as I don’t run out of energy, I can tell that he’s starting to slow down drastically. Implying that this battle is likely nearing its end.

Which makes me nervous. Because, if I’m anyone to judge by, people often have last resort attacks.

And as if to prove my point, the thunder giant lifts his head and lets out a thunderous laugh that echoes across the ocean.

Then dark clouds begin to expand all across the skies above us, completely blocking everything out until thunder begins to rumble within the clouds and lightning brightens the ocean.

“Let’s see how you handle this, Lady Ashley,” the prince says after he finishes laughing, his voice striking like thunder as he speaks.

When he finishes speaking, a thunder crash so loud that it makes my ears ring echoes out and lightning fills every last cloud to the point that it makes them look more like webs of lightning.

Then said lightning all crashes straight down at me simultaneously.

Well, this is going to hurt.

And less than a second after that thought runs through my mind, pain worse than anything I’ve ever felt before floods me despite my destroyed nerves.