Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

Chapter 701: Surprise Event

Julian felt it move through him and let out a startled laugh. He looked down at his own hands like they belonged to someone stronger. ”Tell me that wasn’t just me. Tell me everyone felt that.”

”Everyone felt it,” Almond said. ”It’s the quest. We cleared a Hell-Mode in the warfare event, and the reward raised the whole kingdom to Tier-20. The second you walked through that door, the system counted you as ours, and it caught you up to the rest of us.”

”Just like that.” Julian flexed his fingers, half disbelieving. ”I’ve been grinding toward this line for a long time, and you’re telling me I crossed it standing still, eating Ainen’s cooking.”

”Welcome home,” Lily said, and meant it.

Kexell threw his head back and laughed, a great rolling sound that shook the leaves overhead. ”At the DOOR. They hand it to you at the door!” He rounded on the rest of the new arrivals, delighted, like he wanted witnesses. ”Do you hear this? I clawed up two layers for strength like this. Bled for every inch of it, most of it alone, long before I ever fell in with this rabble. And these people give it away to whoever knocks.” He spread his arms wide. ”I should be offended. I am genuinely trying to be offended and I can’t manage it.”

”Then don’t,” Big D said, dry as old stone. ”You’re bad at it.”

”I’m bad at nothing.” Kexell jabbed a clawed finger at him, grinning. ”I’m selectively talented, you sour little fossil.”

”You’re loud is what you are.” But Big D’s whiskers twitched, and he didn’t really mean it, and everyone at the table could tell.

The dragon’s grin softened, just at the edges. ”Best racket I ever walked into, this kingdom. I’ll say that much.” It came out lighter than the thing under it, the way it always did with him, because Kexell had spent more years alone than most of them had been alive, and he handled anything close to his heart by laughing past it. ”Don’t any of you tell me twice or I’ll start believing it.”

”You already believe it,” Lily said gently.

”Damn right I do.” He pointed at her, then dropped his arm, gruff and pleased all at once. ”Smart woman. Always was.”

Viktor took his own ascension quietly, the way he took everything, weighing it in that careful head before he let it show on his face. When he did let it show, it was a small, real smile. ”Tier-20, the moment we walked in,” he murmured. ”The family looks after its own. Some things don’t change, no matter how high we climb.”

”Some things never will,” Almond said. ”That’s the whole point of us.”

Viktor met his eyes and nodded, slow and satisfied, a man confirming that the thing he had climbed two layers to get back to was still exactly what he remembered.

”Good,” Marcus said, clapping him on the shoulder. ”Because the climbing only gets uglier from here, and I’d rather do it with you lot than anyone else.”

Liang just rolled his shoulders, testing the new strength settling into him, and looked thoroughly pleased about it. ”Feels good,” he said simply. ”Feels earned, even though it wasn’t. Strange thing.” He glanced around the shade, at the faces and the food and the easy noise of it. ”I think I’m going to like it here.”

Noah and Kira felt it hit them at the same instant. They turned to each other, and whatever passed between them in that look made half the table go quiet to watch, the way people do around two people who fit together that completely.

Through all of it, John Wicked stood off to the side, unchanged, because he was not a Regalon and the quest had nothing to hand him. He watched the whole thing with the quiet pride of a man seeing a family he had carried into this world finally finding its feet in it.

He waited until the noise dipped before he spoke, and when he did, the joking was gone from his voice. ”You did well in there. All of you. Better than well.” That pulled eyes toward him. ”I keep my ear to the third layer, since I spend most of my time out at the front of it, and your warfare event is already a story moving up the chain. A family that started this layer scattered across an ocean as its weakest force, and walks out the other side having put down the event’s Doom Monarch and turned four native kingdoms to its side.” He let it sit a beat. ”Up here, that kind of thing sticks. People are going to say the name Ananta Regalon and mean something by it now.”

”That was always the plan,” Lily said.

”I know it was.” John’s eyes moved over the whole gathered family, the ones he had brought into the layers when they were nothing but kin and nerve, scattered to the winds of the first layer and clawing back to each other ever since. ”When I first walked you all into this world, you were a family and not much else. No power, no name, no idea what was coming. Look at you now.” He shook his head slowly. ”I’m not out at that frontline because I like the view. I’m there because somebody has to push the leading edge, and I would rather not keep doing it alone.”

The shade went a little quieter.

”So get strong,” John said simply. ”Faster than you think you can. Climb until you reach the front, and then we push it forward together, the way we should have from the start. That’s what I came here to tell you.” His easy smile came back. ”Killing a Doom Monarch is a good start. Don’t make me wait too long for the rest.”

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The evening settled into the long, easy rhythm of people with nowhere they needed to be.

And somewhere in the middle of it, with the food going around and lanterns warm in the branches overhead, Noah set down his cup and cleared his throat.

He didn’t do it loudly. He didn’t need to. Kira’s hand was already in his, and the two of them had a way of pulling a room toward them just by deciding, together, that they were ready.

”We’ve got something to say,” Noah started, then stopped and laughed at himself, because his voice had wobbled. ”Sorry. I practiced this. I had a whole speech.” Kira squeezed his hand and he steadied. ”We want to hold the wedding. Officially. The real one, with everyone here. We’ve been waiting for the right moment, and I don’t think a better one is ever coming along than this.”

Silvester’s hand came up to his mouth. Hiroshi had already gone still.

The table came apart cheering, warm and loud, and it took a while to settle. When it did, Kira leaned forward with a glint in her eye, because she had a second part, and she had been saving it.

”And we don’t want to do it alone,” she said. She looked, very deliberately, straight across the table at two specific people. ”Almond. Lily. You two have been together through three layers and a war and the whole impossible mess of building this place, and you have never once made it official.” She let it sit, smiling. ”Don’t even try to deny it. We’ve all noticed. We’ve been noticing for years.”

”She’s right, you know,” Marcus called, and got an elbow from Bianca for it.

Almond and Lily looked at each other.

It was a particular kind of look, the kind only the two of them really understood, the same one they had shared on a quiet terrace months ago over two cups of something hot, and across a war room, and over a kingdom they had built out of nothing but each other and the people at this table. Lily’s eyes went soft. She didn’t even have to speak. The answer was already there on her face.

”So,” Kira pressed gently, ”a joint wedding. The four of us. One day. Will you?”

”We’d be honored,” Almond said, and his voice wasn’t entirely steady either.

The whole gathering erupted, and this time it did not settle, because a wedding was a different animal than a victory. The kingdom had been at war so long that the plain, ordinary joy of two couples deciding to marry hit harder than any reward the event had ever given. Bianca was crying openly and not the least bit ashamed. Silvester gripped Hiroshi’s arm, both old swordmasters looking like the years had finally caught up with them in the best possible way. Kexell was bellowing his approval at the ceiling. Even Viktor had given up on quiet and was grinning like the rest of them.

And then, cutting clean over all of it, one voice rose, bright and absolutely certain.

”All right!” Natalia was on her feet, eyes lit with that dangerous spark she got when a real project landed in front of her. ”That’s it. That’s decided. It is officially wedding time.”

She pointed at Noah and Kira, swung the finger to Almond and Lily, then swept it across the whole table.

”And I’m running it. All of it. Venue, planning, every last piece. No arguments, I don’t want to hear them.” She grinned, fierce and delighted. ”I have organized fleets. I have run exploration teams. I built a deception that fooled four entire alliances. I think I can handle one wedding.”

”Two couples,” Maya pointed out, dry but smiling.

”Two couples, one day, and it is going to be the best thing this kingdom has ever done that did not involve killing something.” Natalia planted her hands on her hips, already somewhere far away in her own head, the plan building itself behind her eyes. ”Luck is a skill. And I am going to spend every last bit of mine on this.”

John laughed. ”If you are out of ideas and wants some exotic entertainment, do visit my PeakWicked Kingdom. I have plenty of monsters who will add more fun in the event.”

”That’s insane! I’ll start with that.” Natalia grinned. ”I can go right away and start scouting for monsters.”

”I’ll have someone guide you.” John smiled and gestured with his hand next to Natalia, causing a portal to open.

Beneath the Virion Iridant Tree, the kingdom that had climbed three layers, built itself from slaves and castoffs into the master of an ocean, and killed a Doom Monarch to win its freedom, turned all that hard-won attention onto something much smaller and much warmer.

Two weddings. One day.

And Natalia, already, was making her lists.

”Adios. I’ll be back soon.” Natalia vanished into the portal.