Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner-Chapter 297: Most precious
"Enjoying the view?" The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Noah turned slowly. Twenty feet away stood Gigarose, but something was fundamentally wrong with her appearance. She stood taller now, her proportions subtly distorted. Her eyes had deepened from their usual pink tinge to a dark maroon that seemed to swallow light. Her smile stretched too wide, revealing teeth that appeared just slightly too sharp.
"What is this place?" Noah demanded, channeling void energy to his hands. "How did you bring me here?"
Gigarose tilted her head at an unnatural angle, her smile never faltering. "So many questions from a boy playing with powers he doesn't understand." She took a step forward, and the ground rippled beneath her feet. "I should be asking you questions. Like how a little nothing like you came to possess the essence of Abysoss."
Noah frowned. "Abysoss? What are you talking about?"
Her expression shifted to childlike wonder. "Oh! You don't know! How delightful!" She clapped her hands together, and the sound echoed like thunder across the landscape. "The primordial darkness, the void that precedes all things. Abysoss." Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "I know him all too well. Always so serious. Always maintaining balance."
Noah took a defensive stance. "I don't know what game you're playing—"
"GAME?" Gigarose's voice boomed suddenly, her face contorting with rage. The ground beneath them trembled. Then, just as suddenly, she was calm again, voice sweet as honey. "Yes, a game. Our little Elder Genes, where you thought you could challenge me. Remember how I crushed you? How you felt it in your real body?" She giggled. "Such a clever little hack you devised, using your real-life abilities in my game. But you never stopped to ask who created the system that allowed it."
Understanding dawned on Noah. "You founded Elder Genes and still you are this...young?"
"Among other things," she said with a dismissive wave. "But what I can't figure out is how he managed to bestow his powers on... this thing." She gestured at Noah with distaste. "A mortal vessel holding the essence of Abyz. Curious and curiouser."
Noah attempted to activate Void Blink, but nothing happened.
[Error: Skill Temporarily Unavailable]
[Foreign Domain Overriding User Privileges]
Gigarose laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "Oh, trying your little tricks? Not here, little void. Not in my playground."
The landscape around them shifted, mountains rising and falling like waves in an ocean. Noah struggled to maintain his balance as reality itself seemed to bend to her will.
"Let me tell you a story," Gigarose said, suddenly lounging on a throne that hadn't existed a moment before. "In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, there was something." Her eyes glowed brighter. "And I was among the first somethings to exist."
Noah watched her carefully, mind racing through escape scenarios.
"We came in two varieties, you see," she continued, leaning forward with conspiratorial glee. "Those who maintained order, and those who caused chaos. I am the latter—I am Entropy incarnate! I am Death! I am Chaos!" She threw her arms wide, and the sky darkened in response.
"There needs to be balance," she continued, suddenly serious. "Order without chaos is stagnation. Chaos without order is oblivion. We need each other, like dancers in a cosmic ballet." Her voice grew passionate, almost fevered. "The universe demands both! Creation and destruction in perfect harmony!"
She stood, pacing now, her movements jerky and unpredictable. "But I got bored. Can you imagine? Eons of the same dance, the same patterns." She stopped, grinning wickedly. "So I did something terrible."
Noah raised an eyebrow. "And what was that?"
"I EVOLVED!" she shrieked with delight. "I became more than just chaos—I became idea," she paused for a second pointing a finger at her self, "No you stole the idea!!" She yelled not at Noah but at herself.
"I became chaotic ingenuity!" She spun in place, arms outstretched. "Let me show you."
With a wave of her hand, the air before them rippled. Complex schematics materialized—impossibly intricate machines, theories written in equations that defied known mathematics, biological systems that merged organic and mechanical elements in ways Noah had never imagined.
Despite himself, Noah felt his analytical mind drawn to the designs. They were beautiful in their complexity, terrible in their implications. Solutions to problems humanity hadn't even formulated yet. Technology that would revolutionize—or destroy—civilizations.
"Impressive, isn't it?" she purred, watching his reaction. "This is what happens when chaos learns to think. When destruction becomes creation."
Noah tore his gaze away from the mesmerizing designs. "If you're so powerful, why didn't you help back there? You sat watching while the Purge attacked innocent students. If you're some kind of... divine being, why not stop it?"
Gigarose sighed dramatically, flopping back onto her throne. "Weren't you listening? I'm chaos!" She rolled her eyes. "Besides, I can't interfere directly with lesser beings. It's the one rule I can't break and it's so tedious," She examined her nails with disinterest. "And not very fun."
"Fun?" Noah's voice rose. "People are dying!"
"People are always dying," she said flatly, before her face brightened again. "But that's not important right now. What's important is that I need this to happen for my grand plan. I'm on a time constraint, amusingly enough." She leaned forward, her eyes intense. "I was going to ignore you, you know? Well, not completely anyways. Sooner or later you'd become very important to me. But not now, you are way to weak to be of interest to me. And I really thought you'd have learnt from our last meeting," she looked at Noah, blinking with childlike innocence.
"Yet, here we are. You are once again forcing yourself to be something you know inherently you aren't," she spun around like a little girl with so much composure she looked like she did this for yoga.
"You've forced yourself to be this ray of light when all you truly embody is impossible darkness and corruption. But hey, that's none of my business. However, you're in my way Eclipse and I can't have that again."
She snapped her fingers, and Noah felt a shift in the system he'd grown so dependent on.
[System Notice: Domain Travel Abilities Locked]
[System Notice: Domain Link Abilities Locked]
[System Notice: New Quest Received]
"Your system is back online," Gigarose announced cheerfully. "And you'll return to the arena... just... not yet." Her smile turned predatory. "The chaos must go on."
[New Quest: Survive the next 1 hour to return home]
[Reward: Return to Origin Point]
[Failure: Permanent Domain Imprisonment]
Noah stared at the system message in disbelief. "You said you couldn't interfere with human affairs. Why are you messing with me?"
Gigarose's laughter was like wind chimes in a hurricane. "What gave you the impression that you were merely human?" She stood, approaching him with inhuman grace. "I expect you to pull through this, Eclipse. And if you do, it doesn't matter—it will be for my good anyway." She reached out, her fingertips stopping just short of his face. "I'm rooting for you. Survive and get stronger. I'll be back to take what's most precious to you..."
With that, she simply... vanished. No flash of light, no dramatic exit. One moment she was there, the next she wasn't.
Noah stood alone in the alien landscape, the system message still hovering in his vision.
[Quest Active: Survive (59:58 remaining)]
He realized with growing dread that his domain functions were indeed locked. He couldn't travel or link with anyone. He was effectively stranded in this nightmare realm.
That's when he heard it—a low buzzing that grew louder by the second. Noah turned toward the sound, his enhanced senses zooming in on the horizon.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
A horde. No, not just a horde—an army. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of flying beasts heading straight for him. As they drew closer, he could make out their features: giant hornets with fiercely glowing red chest cavities, mandibles as large as cars. Their wings created the deafening buzz that now filled the air.
[System Alert: Category 4 Beasts Detected]
[Warning: Threat Level Extreme]
[Recommendation: Immediate Evasion]
The first wave of hornets dived, releasing what looked like molten wax from glands beneath their abdomens. The substance sizzled as it hit the red sand, melting it into glass.
Noah immediately bolted.
He ran so fast, pushing his enhanced agility to its limits. The hornets adjusted their flight path, closing in from multiple directions. Their overall size matched that of school buses, their movements coordinated like a well-trained military unit.
He could see a cliff edge ahead, but didn't slow his pace. The hornets were gaining ground, the molten wax falling closer with each passing second. One glob landed mere inches from his right foot, the heat intense enough to singe the edge of his boot.
As he reached the precipice, Noah realized there was no visible bottom to the chasm that yawned before him. Only darkness below, certain death behind.
He made his choice.
Without breaking stride, Noah hurled himself over the edge, plummeting into the abyss. As he fell, he spoke two words:
"Storm... Fall."
The strange yellow-orange sky cracked open. A blinding bolt of lightning split the air, striking the pursuing hornets with devastating precision. A dozen of the massive creatures exploded in bursts of chitin and black blood.
[Experience Gained: +1000]
[Experience Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
[Exp Gained: +1000]
The experience notifications cascaded through Noah's vision, but he barely registered them. He was still falling, the wind whipping past his face as the darkness below rushed up to meet him.
Then—impact. Not the bone-shattering collision with solid ground he'd expected, but a jarring thud as he landed on something solid yet yielding.
