Chapter 1

The way the Raiser: Angel of the End Times kept spamming its Inevitability was aggravating beyond measure. Sure the initial 8 days of fighting was tiring at best, even with the break cycle we planned, but the essentially permanent stun was truly the greatest middle finger. The initial 10 quadrillion hp was just a question of how long can you keep the raid group actually committed even with breaks. The "this is not even my final form" was just the developer's last laugh. Thankfully our Sleepless Queen the CrimsonRaven had a high enough paralyzation resistance to deal with that disgusting 300% base chance to Paralyze and Doom.

My poor heart almost stopped when I saw her character's DPS, speed, and dodge chance drop. Thankfully DuffleMan 420 had the wondrous idea to trade her all of our consumables, so much so that I would have happily contributed my only tier 10 item the [Scroll of Divine Wind] a wondrous consumable that allowed whoever used it to become completely immune to all slow, rooting, paralyze, and sleep effects. It also had the bonus that whoever used it will, for the duration of activation, receive no negative effects, gain a speed bonus, a rate of attack bonus, and heal from any enemy attack that utilized the wind attribute. Of course most of those effects were useless to me, a druid, who specialized in water, earth, and life fusion magics to achieve complete mastery over plants. Even if I could contribute my best item, by tier if not for my build, it would be useless as while both the Beast of the Apocalypse and Raiser: Angel of the End Times used wind attacks you could also use three tier 9 scrolls for wind resist, move speed, and attack rate to achieve the same effect while avoiding the ridiculous only one tier 10 consumable can be used at a time limitation. This limitation was truly ridiculous as who could have more than one tier 10! Aside from CrimsonRaven of course who had a full set. Speaking of if I managed to pop a paralyze clear then the scroll I would be able to assist our Sleepless Queen.

Reordering my inventory mid battle was a hassle but still able to be done. What was truly aggravating was going through the twelve popups to say: yes I want to assign this item to my quickslot, yes I want to set the side button on my mouse to activate that button, yes game I allow the external hardware to access my NeuroLink "cough" TM "cough" interface (I get that it is less efficient! but I still like the feel of a mouse in my hands. I'm old school okay!) the stupid sticky keys popup was what truly made me scream. The popup that said:

[ a sound of distress has been detected in your area do you wish to log out? ] [Yes] [No]

almost made me pull my hair out. Thankfully I had no technical issues when I pressed the buttons to use the anti-paralyze and the tier 10 scroll though my fingers did cramp from pushing the buttons so hard. 

[ You have gained an achievement! ]

[ Was it REALLY worth it? ]

[ use a tier 10 consumable ]

What was very unfortunate was that it was not worth it. I barely got off two shots before our Sleepless Queen used her finisher move and I received the announcement

[ you have beaten Raiser: Angel of the End Times ]

The cheers were so loud that my heart stuttered. I heard DuffleMan and CrimsonRaven talking about cutting it closer and I almost fainted from the idea of another 8 day raid to get back to this point. When I received the server request:

[ Would you like to Ascend? Y/N? ]

I accepted so rapidly it felt like my heart stopped.

It felt like my heart stopped?

My heart stopped?

My heart stopped.

My heart stopped!

The resulting coldness that began to penetrate my body was unbearable. The coldness on its own wasn't too bad. I've been cold before. Sometimes when driving and the fan blows on your hand so much your bones throb that pain is worse, much worse.

And I was dragged from my introspection as I witnessed the glimmer of stars around me travelling at speeds infinitely faster than that of light but also without distorting their view for each was visible with perfect clarity. Despite the oddly muted feeling I observed I noticed some repeating patterns as the years past each star gleamed with power but there was a difference in amount. Stars which were like the stars of our universe glowed with electromagnetic light and nothing else. These were the weakest stars. The stars like our own were few and far between. Stars unlike ours had power that originated from some other energy that called out to my soul.  When the energy saw me it sorrowed for a soul existed without knowing their light. And when they tried to reach out to me I felt an intellectual sense of surprise because they could almost reach me despite the distances involved. Eventually I grew bored of looking at them as I passed and I adjusted my perspective from the stars fading from my view to those ahead where the direction of my travel lay. As I did so I saw tendrils flowing between the stars despite being completely identical in every aspect. Something about them let me see that they were different beings each.

I continued my observations in awe of what I could see and as I did so I saw a star that was on my path. This star was perfectly in line with my direction of travel. Around that star were many of those tendrilled beings but there was something different about one of them, a glowing spot that called out that this is the heart of this being. Then I realized that my paltry mortal understandings of the transpiring events were truly nothing. I knew in my soul that this was a being that had ascended beyond the paltry moniker of "god". Something that has achieved such resonance with that unknown energy that reality bore a permanent marker to its existence, one that would remain even if something managed to kill it. Despite our relative power differential being that of a single molecule of ATP to that of an entire multiverse of primordial stars so powerful each could become a universe on its own it could not be said that I was truly nothing before it. Because, when I witnessed its core I felt a resonance in my soul. A resonance that said that even if it took the rest of eternity by working for it, training for it, pouring my blood, sweat, tears, and soul into doing nothing but growing my own existence, the quality of my soul, I would eventually be able to reach that point and even greater! As I travelled to a world that glimmered with the unknown energy I had noticed surrounding the special stars. The energy which had one true purpose to give the ability to grow and ascend beyond our current state. Something that the resonance between it and my soul assured me was possible in my original world but was difficult beyond measure without its assistance.

As I approached what I believed to be a star I realized that my earlier assumption was false. The star was not a star but rather the representation of all the life and energy that whatever it truly is contained. And then my soul ignited as the star noticed my presence and extended its love to me. I felt the energy that had made what I had believed to be stars glow with that arcane otherworldly light as it suffused my soul. The resultant agony was unbearable; it felt as if my entire skin was bone that was shattering every moment. It felt as if every cell in my body was now a cell in my soul and they ITCHED! I am not ashamed to say that I blacked out.

Doglia5

Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! This one was originally supposed to be called plantastic rebirth but I got lost while I was doing the main character travelling between dimensions are realized that if I wanted to keep with my mental image the chapter would end with our main character blacking out.