Ascension of Chaos

"Hey! Ashley!" the dragonborn shouts at me with a growl to his voice. "Team up?"

I blink in surprise at that, but before I can give an answer, he adds, "Whoever gets the most contribution wins."

That has me pursing my lips for a second, only to eventually nod my head.

Better than killing another competitor. Even if he may be a source for another good Skill Tree.

I should keep an eye out for betrayal, though.

Wouldn\'t want to be blindsided by him and stabbed in the back.

The monster suddenly begins to charge in my direction, with that black liquid still dripping from its claws. A liquid I\'m pretty sure I don\'t want to touch.

But as it\'s approaching, the dragonborn – whose appearance is pretty much just a human with draconic wings, claws, and eyes – opens his mouth and sends a fireball flying straight at the creature\'s back. Blasting it in my direction.

And as it\'s soaring through the air, I finally remember something.

Something I somehow forgot despite how many times I\'ve used it now. Which, in hindsight, isn\'t as many as all that.

I use my gravity magic to decrease my weight before flying straight through the air towards the monster now that it\'s off balance. And when I reach it, I slash both of my blades at its neck, making contact with both.

Unfortunately, they don\'t deal as much damage as I\'d hoped. But they do cut in a bit and cause the monster to begin bleeding.

Also, a splash of purple liquid comes from the point of impact in the form of Chaotic Surge\'s effect.

The dragonborn begins to rush forwards with his own claws raised, ready to strike the monster down in its back.

But I don\'t let him, immediately using my once-a-livestream perk to pause the livestream before I use Dark Howl and Sonic Screech at the exact same time. Disorienting both the elite monster and the dragonborn, and making them stumble down to the ground.

And while no one is looking, I go ahead and activate another Assimilate to top it back off again along with my new Feather Blade skill. Sending several feathers flying out of my wings and straight into the elite monster\'s eyes and neck from multiple angles.

And just as I was expecting, the monster begins to mutate a little bit around those points. The effects of my wings clearly being more than just my blood.

A few seconds pass before the elite monster kicks the bucket, and the dragonborn regains his senses. Only for him to frown at the elite monster.

But it\'s fine. So long as no one saw my feathers flying out of my wings, there isn\'t anything to worry about.

After a few seconds, the dragonborn just sighs and smiles at me, surprising me for a second. Then the System Messages start to play out.

{You have been granted 10 Skill Points for killing the target of System Event #1,279,131.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Decayed Arxol}

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{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Basic Decay Mana Manipulation, is now unlocked for your usage.}

And right after the System Messages play out, another notification follows.

Then the dragonborn steps up to me with a smile on his face and his hand held out for a handshake as he says, "I\'m not sure what you did there, but good match all the same, Ashley."

I blink at him, not having expected such a polite response to my win. Then I awkwardly nod my head without accepting his handshake.

Not good with social situations or physical contact.

He smiles wryly and waves one hand while saying, "Don\'t worry. Would it be alright for me to contact you after this?"

I open my mouth to respond, only to close it again and shrug.

Take it as you will.

He just nods, following which the maze around us begins to fall apart to the sound of roaring applause. And when I look up, I quickly find the screen showing the spectating area rapidly approaching before the two of us, and all the other remaining competitors, pass through it into their side. With the screen we just passed through turning into regular flooring afterwards.

I look around for a second, finding a total of five of the ten people in the competition still here.

"And our winner is the braaaannnnddd neeeeewwwww Successor to Chaooooooosssss!!!!! Give her a hand everyone!!!" the MC starts shouting, being as loud as usual. And when I turn to look at him, he is currently flying around the large ring surrounding us with excitement easily equaling the audience. "The total number of casualties for this round is three! A rather large number for a competition, but perfectly reasonable when you consider Young Ashley\'s presence!"

I glance at the five remaining competitors before focusing on the MC again. Realizing that two of the competitors must have surrendered.

Well, whatever.

As the MC is blabbering away, I open my System Hub before returning to the Successor Hub. The last thing I hear from the MC being him shouting about me waiting.

But I already know from my research that the only point of the after-Event ceremony thing is to gain a following.

And I don\'t want one of those.

I glance at the corner of my interface as I reappear in the Successor Hub, finding the number of followers having shot up quite a bit from that System Event. But I don\'t pay much mind to that. Instead I focus on the Rewards tab.

As soon as I do, a flood of text flows across the screen in front of me. Under the Rewards tab.

I glance to the side of my interface before selecting the icon for Skill Points. Making my number of Skill Points appear on my interface and echo in my head.

{You currently have 141 Skill Points.}

Hmm. A good number of Skill Points from a single half an hour System Event.

I glance back at the Rewards tab again, only to find it listing the event I just won, along with the words \'Claim Rewards\' in bold text. Making me realize that what I just got wasn\'t the reward for this System Event. It was just the reward for winning an Event in the first place.

So I claim that one as well, making a System Message play out in my head again.

{You have been granted 25 Skill Points for winning the System Event: Elite Swamp Race}

Nice. Another twenty-five Skill Points.

And on top of that, I got quite the number of new skills. Not to mention the new magics that I got from that competitor and the elite monster.

I\'ll start messing around with those later.

For now…

I glance at the center, left side of my interface, where some sort of message icon is flashing. An icon I\'ve never seen before, with just an envelope in a circle, and a number five thousand three hundred and twenty-one on the corner of it.

A number that is growing by the second.

Uh… that\'s a lot of messages.