Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

But he discarded the thought instantly.

This was a long-term trial, and he had zero intention of manufacturing a fake persona that went against his nature.

Maintaining an artificial character just for the broadcast would be tedious, energy-draining, and tactically stupid. Plus, it was way too early to draw the audience’s attention.

The first floor was nothing more than an initial filter. The real challenges would begin later.

Yeah... It’s better to play it safe and just reach the next floor.

Up above, Uhtred could already make out more details within the bright sky. From his current altitude, he could see that it wasn’t totally featureless.

There seemed to be a point above, like a concave ring of spatial distortion. That was likely the way up to the next floor.

We’re almost there, he thought, scanning his surroundings to check on his teammates. As long as the others maintain their pace—

Suddenly, a violent spike of lethal intent triggered his mental alarms.

Instinct took over before his conscious mind could even process the threat. He twisted his body mid-air, canceling his step and intentionally letting his right foot drop out of alignment with the air platform he had been about to form.

Out of nowhere, a razor-thin, transparent blade of energy cut through the exact spot where he would have landed. Had he been a second slower to react, his legs would have been severed cleanly.

Uhtred flipped backward through the air, deploying two rapid air platforms to catch his balance and stabilize his footing.

What the hell was that?!

Even with his high perception attribute, he had barely registered the attack before reacting.

”You dodged,” a flat, raspy voice spoke from twenty feet away.

Uhtred’s eyes locked onto the entity hovering in the open air before him, his gaze narrowing into a cold, dangerous slit.

Powerful...

The... thing, whatever it was, looked like an unstable, writhing mass of countless biological organisms fused together, radiating a power no less than Uhtred’s.

A pair of massive, translucent insect wings fluttered behind its back so fast they appeared as a blur. Its skin squirmed relentlessly, thousands of thick tendrils shifting beneath like worms.

A grotesque bulge stuck out from the creature’s stomach, shaped like the half-digested, skeletal outline of some unlucky alien.

It devours other ascenders?

Before Uhtred could fully process the sight, the creature’s body violently spasmed. The writhing tendrils collapsed inward, reconfiguring its cellular structure in a matter of seconds.

The moment its transformation finished, Uhtred frowned.

The creature had morphed into an exact replica of the four-armed insectoid ascender that had beheaded the pink alien on the ground earlier. It possessed the same dark violet carapace, the same scythe-like limbs, and the same aura.

The unlucky alien it devoured had been that insectoid. Now this... thing had absorbed its genetic structure, its physical traits, and very likely its abilities too.

Was it intending to do the same to him?

”Not sufficient enough,” the thing rasped, its newly formed insectoid jaw clicking weirdly as it spoke. ”Need more uniqueness. You... will suffice. You are strong—”

A loud boom cut off its words mid-sentence. Its dull eyes widened dramatically, showing a deep emotion of fear and shock for the first time.

While it was speaking, Uhtred hadn’t wasted a single second. He launched himself forward with an explosion of air and fire magic, his form blurring to near-imperceptible speeds.

With a single well-placed unified elemental strike, he deleted the entire midsection of the creature in an instant, leaving it completely bewildered as to what had happened.

Uhtred had been ruthlessly fast with his attack. The unified elemental spell was the only thing in his arsenal that could deal with a creature as powerful as this in one single hit.

He could have used several other spells, but he didn’t want a drawn-out fight.

The creature’s entire midsection, from its shoulders down to its waist, simply ceased to exist. The insectoid features it had just taken on melted away, and its body reverted back to a squirming mass of pale tendrils.

Unless all its vital organs were in its head or legs, this thing was surely dead.

As Uhtred watched to see if it would move again, preparing to fire another unified spell just to be safe, the host’s voice suddenly reverberated through the air, and he felt a heavy gaze descend on him.

Ohh??!! Did you see that, viewers?!! I can’t believe my eyes!! W—Was that a Unified Elemental Spell?!!

The host’s voice was filled with genuine, utter incredulity.

The last person to grace this Tower and wield such a spell was the Sovereign of Chaos, himself!!

Drakgon!!!

Without needing to be told, Uhtred immediately knew he had drawn unwarranted attention. In his bid to quickly dispatch the alien, he had used his unified elemental spell, something he had learned from the memory fragments of the Sovereign of Chaos.

Hearing how shaky the host’s voice became, he knew his spell was something very unnatural.

Fuck, did I just reveal something I’m not supposed to?!

He didn’t get to waste much time pondering. The host’s next words sent a shock through him immediately.

Viewers!!! Are we seeing the birth of a new sovereign?!!

The host’s voice reached a vibrating peak, filled with frenzy.

Will this cycle finally produce an ascender to finally reach ’there?!!!’

In an instant, Uhtred was flooded with a deluge of voices. His chat exploded in his vision. Handler Roy had said their streaming channels would become active again within the tower, but none of them had bothered to check it through the whole frenzy of all that had been happening.

But right now, even without Uhtred’s intervention, his chat had exploded into life, bursting with thousands of new viewers rushing to join his stream, firing off questions and trying to know who exactly he was.

Not just that alone. The host’s grand words had brought the attention of every ascender in Uhtred’s immediate vicinity and even beyond to focus directly on him.

Alien eyes filled with curiosity, intrigue, jealousy, surprise... all of it congregated on him all at once.