Chaotic Escalation (Worm/Chaos Gacha): Chapter 28 (Patreon)

Francois Prelati was quite happy with his current incarnation.

Getting summoned by some otherworldly force to an entirely new universe? How utterly delightful.

So many fascinating new things to see.

This world was a never-ending buffet of delights, and he couldn’t help but want to devour it all. Humanity and that eldritch being’s ‘shards’ were a match made in heaven, a fount of endless inspiration wrapped in meat, terror, and wonderfully fragile little minds.

Oh, the ideas he had.

Hypnotizing the PRT and leading a legion of those silly little superheroes to cut loose on civilians. Bespelling a few biotinkers and setting them loose just to see what came crawling out the other side. Perhaps even that Panacea child, if the opportunity presented itself.

Alas.

It was a bit of a pity his Master was so dead set on following something as silly as morality.

Still, Francois couldn’t complain too much. Not when his Master gave him little gifts like this.

“How is the temperature?” Francois rested a finger against his cheek. “Just right, I hope?”

Terrified eyes stared back at him, puffy and red from tears.

Heartbreaker knelt on the floor, his body trembling from agony as his legs burned over a bed of glowing coals. Heat shimmered around him, filling his skin with the sensation of burning without ever granting the mercy of numbness. Sharpened icicles pierced his upper body, their needle-fine points digging into his flesh from every angle, cold enough to frost the air.

The human body had a rather nifty ability to adapt to almost any stimulus.

When pushed hard enough, pain dulled. Nerves burned out. The mind learned to survive almost anything, which was quite fascinating in its own little way.

Thankfully, Francois’s illusions went far beyond something as crude as nerves. Every prick of ice, every blistering wave of heat, every little twitch of torn muscle could be held at the exact height of agony for as long as he wished.

Heartbreaker wept openly now, sobbing between broken pleas for mercy.

“Please! I already—”

Just for the fun of it, Francois increased both the heat and the cold.

“AGHHHH!”

Heartbreaker seized and writhed, yet the coals and icicles pinned him in place, leaving him like some macabre doll that could barely move an inch.

Francois hummed, admiring his work with a fond smile.

It was good.

Very good.

But something was missing.

“What do you think?” Prelati turned with a bright smile toward the crowd.

The mismatched cluster of children and young women stared back at him in frozen silence, their faces pale with fear.

Honestly, he couldn’t understand why they were all so terrified. He hadn’t even used any of his more heavy-handed illusions. Conjure a few masses of bugs, limbs, and twitching little corpses, and suddenly everyone was shaking in their boots.

His wayward reptilian companion seemed to know what Francois was thinking, because Ridley snorted somewhere nearby, while his beautiful little Butcher puppet simply stood there in obedient silence.

No one had any respect for artists these days.

“Anyone?”

A girl, the one called Cherish, hesitantly raised her hand.

“Maybe… something in his midsection?”

“Hmmm.” Francois tapped a finger against his cheek. “You’re right!”

The middle. What could he do with the middle?

Ah.

Perfect.

He snapped his fingers, and a metal saw appeared in the air beside him. The blade whirred to life with a shrill mechanical scream, making everyone in the room flinch.

“You were right!” Francois smiled brightly. “It did need something.”

Heartbreaker’s eyes went wide.

“Wait! I did what you asked!” His voice cracked as the saw drifted closer. “I released everyone from my power! You promised!”

“Did I?” Francois giggled.

The saw flew toward his midsection.

Heartbreaker’s screams were enchanting.

Francois sighed in delight, savoring every note.

“So… what happens now?” Cherish asked stiffly.

“Oh, nothing, dearie!” He spun around and looked over the fearful little crowd. “You’ll be quite well taken care of.”

The beat of helicopters reached his ears.

The various children and young women broke into nervous mutters at the sound.

“I believe you’ve heard of her before?” Francois smiled. “Dragon will be handling your care from here.” 

A pity, really.

What a joy it would’ve been to make his own little parade of madness with these children.Ah, well, best to make the most of this while he could. No doubt that little Hero would not let him prolong his play.

Francois glanced back toward Heartbreaker and grinned. He would make sure to enjoy every second of this until the cavalry arrived.

—[Feat Achieved! Heartbreaker Slain & Heartbroken Freed]

[+1 Platinum Gacha Ticket]

[Rolling Platinum Gacha Ticket]

[Half Hot Half Cold]

|Epic Ability|

MHA - Allows the user to create and emit both ice and fire from either side of their body, while also providing elemental resistance to both fire and ice. In addition, with enough training, both aspects can be combined to unleash Frostflare.

I frowned at the roll.

It was a bit redundant with Frenzied Flame, but oh well.

With a quick thought, I slotted in Restraints and Amplifications and permanently restricted myself from using Half Hot Half Cold.

The clink of chains filled my ears as I felt Half Hot Half Cold disappear from my grasp almost as quickly as it had arrived.

But unlike last time, there was no small shift in the back of my mind.

Instead, a rush of power filled my soul.

Intuitively, I understood that any abilities I used now would be much, much stronger and easier to control.

I activated Devil Trigger, and the air screamed.

Before, it had been a mere crackle of lightning when I activated it.

Now, it was as if the wrath of a thunder god surrounded me.

I gripped my fist and couldn’t help but savor the sheer power. Feeling myself grow stronger was perhaps the most intoxicating feeling in the world.

And really, what better place was there to test it?

Explosions raged across the plains below, turning the world into a trail of ash and melted earth that looked like something straight out of an apocalypse. Heat and sound rolled outward in a massive sphere, each blast folding into the next until the entire land became one endless, roaring inferno.

At the center of it all, the faint, ever-shifting silhouette of Ash Beast continued to move forward.

I grinned as I rose into the sky.

Higher.

Then higher still.

High enough that the explosions below became little more than a distant mirage of light and fire.

Then I stored away the Cloak of Levitation.

The wind tore past me as I fell headfirst toward the earth, laughter ripping out of my throat while my fist drew back.

The first explosion hit me halfway down.

Heat seared across my skin. Fire crawled over my body. The shockwave slammed into my bones hard enough to rattle my teeth, and for half a second, the whole world became nothing but light, pressure, and burning air.

Then came another.

And another.

Each one was hotter than the last, a churning storm of flame and force that should have cooked me alive before I ever reached the ground. The air itself felt like it was trying to peel me apart, screaming against my skin as Ash Beast’s power turned the sky around me into a furnace.

The explosions roared.

The world tried to break me.

And it failed.

My fist smashed through Ash Beast’s ever-changing silhouette, punching deep into its strange flesh beneath the storm of explosions.

I felt something crack.

A bestial scream tore through the battlefield, overlaid by the endless thunder of closing explosions.

I cackled as Ash beast slammed into the ground.

Even buried beneath explosion after explosion, my body endured. Heat that would have melted human eyes in their sockets barely made mine itch as I followed the faint outline of Ash Beast through the roaring fire and smoke.

My fists lashed out in a flurry of strikes.

One punch drove him back.

Another sent a shockwave through the molten earth.

A third carved a crater beneath us as Ash Beast’s body buckled, the ground collapsing outward in a ring of melted dirt. The plains around us split apart under the force, every impact driving him deeper into the earth while his explosions answered in kind.

Something like a limb whipped from his shifting silhouette, long and strange and half-formed, striking my arm with enough force to send another crack through the burning ground beneath my feet.

I grinned wider.

Then I hit him again.

The limb snapped back into the smoke, only for another to lash out from a different angle. It struck my shoulder. Another wrapped around my side. A third cracked against my jaw like a living whip.

None of it mattered.

The explosions built higher around us, stacking over each other until the battlefield became a constant sphere of fire and pressure. 

I bore through it.

My fists kept moving.

Ash Beast struck me again and again, strange limbs hammering against my arms, chest, and face, each blow swallowed beneath the thunder of his own power. I answered with punches that split the earth and drove him back inch by inch, my knuckles sinking into whatever passed for flesh beneath the waves of explosions

It was almost funny.

Despite all our wondrous powers, we had returned to fighting each other like nothing more than rabid animals.

Another sinuous limb of Ash Beast’s strange flesh smashed into my chest, the blow dragging a laugh out of me as the ground cracked beneath my feet.

Still, as amusing as this was, I had seen enough.

I’d gotten a good grasp on my new strength.

A spark of glorious golden-orange flame filled my eyes, and even as I kept my mind steady, I couldn’t stop the glee that rose in my chest.

From my gaze, a searing line of pure destruction cut through the air, burning through fire, smoke, and whatever remained of Ash Beast’s strange form.

He had only a second to scream before the glorious flame swallowed him whole.

[Feat Achieved! Ash to Ash]

[+1 Diamond Ticket][Rolling Diamond Ticket][Hound of Tindalos]

|Legendary Familiar|

"It's a good boy!"A Hound of Tindalos is a beast that existed before the concepts of time and space, and will continue to exist long after both have ended. Its physical abilities are decent, but its true power lies in its ability to emerge from any sharp corner in existence, no matter where that corner is or what reality it belongs to. To the Hound, crossing from one universe to another is as simple as moving from one corner of a house to the next. The Hound cannot truly be killed. Even if its body is destroyed, it will simply reemerge from another sharp corner somewhere in existence.

Oh, that gave me some ideas.

Shardspace, or maybe even Scion’s true body. Would the Hound be able to get me there?

A portal snapped open in the distance before I could follow that thought any further, and a drone slipped through with a faint mechanical hum.

I shook myself out of my musings as Dragon’s voice came through.

“Ash Beast is gone?”

I glanced back at the scorched wasteland behind me, then nodded.

“Yeah. He’s gone.”

“I see…” Dragon said. “Then I may need your assistance. The Three Blasphemies have appeared in America. I’m not sure how they crossed over, but the last camera sighting caught them somewhere between New York and Rhode Island.”

“Clairvoyant can’t see them?”

“No,” Dragon replied. “Contessa tried to Path them, but she told me it would take too many steps to find them. She’s already busy enough handling preparations for the Final Battle.” A brief pause followed. “Did this happen in your version of the future?”

“No.” I shook my head. “The Three Blasphemies never acted like this, not to my knowledge.”

My frown deepened.

More likely than not, this had been caused by my own actions. Still, there was only one person who had diverged enough to make something like this happen.

“Eidolon…”

“Yes,” Dragon said, her voice tightening. “Unfortunately, he’s the only cape who might realistically have achieved this. Nothing has happened yet, though, so I may be able to handle it.”

There were still a few more tickets I could get in Africa.

But I had a bad feeling about this.

“No.” I nodded toward the drone. “I’ll help.”

Whatever Eidolon was doing, I had a feeling it wouldn't stay quiet for long.***Gah, this chapter was like pulling teeth. Sorry for the slight delay, folks.