Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

Chapter 759: Ten Days Before Hell (1/2)

The Hub lit up over the gathering ground the moment the Chainbreaker crossed back into the pocket world.

[War Event Complete: Conquest of Thurmugin Ocean]

[1st Place Reward: All members of Ananta Regalon Kingdom elevated to Tier-35 lifeform.]

Four hundred people felt it at once.

It hit like a held breath finally let go. Power that had been sitting just out of reach for months settled into every soul on that ground, quiet and total, and for a moment nobody spoke at all.

Silvester flexed his hand and stared at it like it belonged to someone else. ”That’s new,” he said.

”That’s Tier-35,” Natalia said, grinning despite herself. ”Feels different than I expected.”

Big D stood at the center of it all, arms crossed, and let out a long breath through his nose. ”Feels earned,” he said. ”That’s what it feels like.”

---

It was worth remembering, in a moment like this, exactly who made up that four hundred.

Not every soul standing on that ground had been born the way Almond had. The kingdom’s decks held an exotic army summoned whenever a war needed hands, Dread-Reavers and Ember-born and spirit-constructs built to fight and asked for nothing more than that.

But a deck built by an X-ranker carried more than its creator ever fully understood. X-rank Potential ran through everything Almond, Lily, Rudra, and Ainen made. Buried inside that potential was the seed of something the four of them had never set out to grant on purpose.

Given enough survival and enough will to keep existing, a summoned thing could wake up. Not gain intelligence over time. Wake up, the way a person wakes up, already whole.

A portion of their own creations had done exactly that.

The rest were Asuras, men and women who had once been slaves in the bottom realm the same way the family itself had been. Whichever door a soul walked through, awakened construct or freed slave, the same rule decided what came after.

Survive, and adopt the Regalon Geneline, and the kingdom claimed you as its own.

Four hundred souls, then, all bound now to the same network Almond carried. All Regalon in every way that mattered, gathered together on that ground when Tier-35 finally hit.

---

The second notice came a minute later, quieter but no less enormous.

[Kingdom Leaderboard Update: Ananta Regalon now ranks 183rd.]

Marcus read it twice before he let himself believe it. ”Three hundred and forty-one to one hundred and eighty-three,” he said. ”In one event.”

”That’s not luck,” John said, stepping out from the tree line where he had clearly been waiting for exactly this moment. ”That’s the leaderboard working the way it’s supposed to.”

He settled onto a low root with the easy familiarity of a man who had made himself at home in this pocket world months ago.

”The board tracks two things,” he said. ”Overall combat power, and achievements. Winning an event outright, especially one that eliminated three hundred other kingdoms to do it, counts for a lot more than climbing slow and steady ever could.”

”And Hell Mode?” Almond asked.

”Hell Mode is the multiplier.” John’s smile turned a little sharper. ”Complete quests under it, and every gain you’d have earned anyway comes in faster and heavier. It’s why every kingdom near the top plays it, even though it’s the same mode that kills people who aren’t ready for it.”

”We noticed,” Ainen said dryly.

---

The third notice arrived that evening, and it did not feel like a reward at all.

[Hell-Mode Quest: Rumble in Resort]

[Participants: X-rank Potential bearers only, Tier-40 and below]

[Current Registrations: 47]

[Registration closes in: 10 days]

[Further details will be provided at the start of the quest.]

[1st Rank Reward: All members of Ananta Regalon Kingdom elevated to Tier-40 lifeform.]

[Warning: Death within this Quest is permanent. No revival of any kind will restore a participant who dies inside it.]

Almond, Lily, Rudra, and Ainen read it together, and the gathering ground went very quiet around them.

”Permanent,” Lily said, testing the word like she was checking it for cracks. ”Not the ordinary kind of death. The kind my own network can’t undo.”

”That’s the whole shape of it,” Almond said. ”No safety net. Not from me, not from anyone.”

Rudra’s jaw tightened. ”And only the four of us can even enter.”

”Only X-rank Potential bearers, Tier-40 and below,” John confirmed, and something in his voice had gone careful. ”Which leaves me out, for what it’s worth.”

Everyone looked at him.

”I crossed into Tier-45 last month,” he said, with a small, rueful shrug. ”A week earlier and I’d be standing right there with you. As it is, I get to watch this one from the outside, same as everyone else.”

”You don’t sound thrilled about that,” Ainen said.

”I’m not,” John said plainly. ”I’d rather be in the fire with you than watching it from a safe distance. But the rules don’t care what I’d rather.” He looked at the four of them, one at a time, and the easy humor fell away entirely. ”Forty-seven names registered already, and you’ve got ten days before that number stops moving. Whatever Rumble in Resort turns out to be, it already has the attention of every X-ranker in your bracket across every kingdom climbing this layer.”

”Then we register,” Rudra said. It was not a question.

Nobody argued. It had never really been a question at all, not for a family that had chosen the hardest road every single time it had been offered one.

---

Big D looked at the four of them for a long moment, then out at the rest of the family still buzzing with the fresh weight of Tier-35 running through their veins.

”Ten days,” he said. ”That’s not nothing. Use it.”

”Use it how?” Kayla asked.

It was Ainen who answered, and the grin that spread across his face was the first easy thing anyone had seen from him since the notice appeared.

”We rest,” he said. ”Properly. Somewhere with real food that isn’t rationed, real beds that don’t rock, and absolutely no oceans trying to kill anyone.” He looked around at the tired, victorious family surrounding him. ”We just won a war. I’d like ten days where nobody has to be brave about anything.”

Nobody argued with that either.

---

John, it turned out, already had an answer ready before anyone finished asking the question.

”There’s exactly one place I’d send you,” he said, ”if rest is genuinely what you’re after.”

”Somewhere close?” Marcus asked.

”Somewhere excellent,” John said. ”The Aurelian Empire holds the third rank among the Top Six. Old money, older manners, and the single best hospitality district on this entire layer.” He pulled a small marker from his coat and traced a line of light across the air, an address blooming gold where his finger passed. ”The Gilded Horizon. A resort built into a floating garden above the Empire’s capital. I’ve sent tired kings there myself, back when I still bothered being diplomatic.”

Ainen’s eyebrows rose. ”You’re sending us into Top Six territory.”

”I’m sending you somewhere they’ll treat a kingdom ranked one hundred and eighty-third with proper respect,” John said. ”Especially a kingdom that rose there this fast.”

Fraisea studied the glowing address with quiet interest. ”A floating garden.”

Big D grunted, already turning the idea over and clearly finding nothing wrong with it. ”Ten days of good food and soft beds before we walk into something that can kill us for good,” he said. ”I’ve heard worse plans.”

”Indeed, I’ve had worse plans.” Ainen agreed, ”Though I cooked most of them myself, so I can’t complain.”