novelraw Chapter 426: Ascension Tower Awakening—2
Chapter 426: Ascension Tower Awakening—2
"NO! No, it absolutely can’t be possible!"
She spoke aloud to the empty room, her divine voice trembling slightly with unusual emotion.
For millions upon millions of years, I was not sitting idle in this cursed prison. This is not possible. While I still can’t break the seal myself through direct force, it’s been so incredibly long since I successfully severed all mystical connections with that bastard. He won’t be able to find me or track me even if the seal weakens significantly or breaks entirely.
But she felt even more intensely agitated and distressed knowing it was something completely unknown, causing this overwhelming sense of dread. There were not many beings in this entire universe who could make her feel genuinely threatened, even in her significantly weakened state after millions of years of imprisonment. She could escape from most conceivable dangers without serious worry.
So why is my heart filled with such profound dread right now?
There was no other choice available. The complex divination spell she’d been carefully trying to observe Leon’s future—which was already the absolute highest grade available in existence—she canceled immediately with a gesture.
It would take far too much time and divine energy to maintain properly. She’d been trying unsuccessfully for years to divine his future trajectory, which should have been trivially simple given how weak he currently was. That extraordinary difficulty had already made her realize he was someone extraordinarily special—protected by fate itself.
But now I need to divine my own immediate future. See what danger awaits me specifically.
However, when she attempted to cast the grand divination spell on herself to see her own fate, she couldn’t see anything at all. Complete blindness. The exact same phenomenon as when she’d tried repeatedly to divine Leon’s future—absolute inability to perceive anything.
This is fundamentally wrong. Very, very wrong.
Her brilliant mind reached an inevitable, terrifying conclusion: whatever was currently happening was directly and intimately connected to that same boy, Leon. The anomaly she’d been watching.
The divination arts—where she was acknowledged as second in absolute mastery to only one other being in the entire universe—completely not working at all was absolutely abnormal and unprecedented.
She suddenly sensed something approaching—something massive and inevitable.
BURST!
Her divine aura exploded forth violently with the full remaining amount of divine energy she had carefully conserved. The Wheel of Time manifested dramatically around her—a construct of pure, concentrated temporal law made visible.
STOP!
She had completely frozen time within her domain, stopping everything in perfect stasis within her sphere of influence.
She was fully prepared and ready to completely obliterate the existence of whatever mysterious force was making her feel this existential dread. She felt it was impossibly close now—right here in her sanctuary.
However, her ancient eyes suddenly locked onto something that made her divine blood run cold.
The massive golden circular chamber around which multiple concentric rings were constantly rotating in complex patterns—the prison that had successfully held her captive for countless eons.
The ancient divine language inscribed on every surface of the rings was actively changing right before her disbelieving eyes. Sacred symbols shifting position, rearranging themselves, transforming into entirely new configurations, she didn’t recognize.
Seeing that impossible sight, her eyes dilated massively with pure, primal terror. Her entire divine body shuddered involuntarily with genuine fear.
"NOOOO! WHAT IS HAPPENING?! WHO IS DOING THIS?!"
Her voice echoed through the frozen time with desperate panic.
She couldn’t tell what was actually occurring or who was behind it, but the more the ancient symbols changed and rearranged, the heavier and more oppressive her heart felt. She couldn’t even identify which source or unknown power was causing this fundamental transformation of her prison.
This shouldn’t be remotely possible! The seal was created by the Keeper!
She tried desperately to stop the changes, throwing her considerable remaining divine power directly against the alterations with everything she had.
But she couldn’t halt it even slightly. More importantly—horrifyingly—all her divine energy was being actively and forcefully sucked out of her against her will and used to fuel the changes to the prison in some twisted, incomprehensible way she couldn’t understand.
My own power is being turned against me! Used to strengthen my own prison!
BURST! CRACK! SNAP!
Massive chains suddenly exploded outward violently from all around the circular prison structure, emerging from impossible angles. Her carefully maintained time-stop domain shattered instantly like glass—she had absolutely no energy left to maintain it anymore.
Even as a weakened divine being, she was still ridiculously powerful with just her physical body alone. She could still manipulate time to some significant extent using the natural ambient mana flowing around her without needing to expend precious divine energy.
However, the massive chains latched around her limbs with impossible speed before she could properly react or defend herself.
The moment they made physical contact with her divine form, her soul shuddered violently and painfully.
"NOOOOOOO!"
The scream tore from her throat involuntarily.
In the next horrifying instant, she saw her own divine body dropping completely lifelessly to the cold marble floor as her soul was forcefully separated from her physical form by an irresistible force.
She felt utterly helpless—a sensation she genuinely hadn’t experienced in millions of years of existence.
She tried desperately to escape, to resist with every technique she knew, to fight back with everything she had remaining.
I can’t! The chains won’t release! They’re dragging me!
She felt herself being pulled somewhere unknown—dragged forcefully through space and dimensions against her will by chains she couldn’t break. Her consciousness began blurring rapidly, fading dangerously at the edges like dissipating smoke.
Her last coherent thought before complete darkness claimed her awareness: I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not after enduring and suffering for so impossibly long.
Divine tears formed in her fading eyes as her awareness finally scattered into nothing.
____
Leon stood firmly in front of the massive Tower, looking intently at the system screen, and watched with held breath as the progress bar suddenly jumped from 99% directly to 100% right before his eyes in a single instant.
DING!
He’d been mentally prepared and ready for something absolutely catastrophic to happen—the system had made it seem monumentally important and potentially dangerous by asking his permission in that unusual, formal way with unlimited time.
However, the actual result was rather anticlimactic and underwhelming.
The system simply displayed a straightforward, simple message without any fanfare:
[Awakening of the Ascension Tower Completed Successfully]
The previously sealed gate that Leon had tried unsuccessfully to enter before had transformed into a gently swirling portal of blue-white energy. Other than that single change, nothing particularly dramatic or destructive occurred around them.
The ground beneath their feet and the mana distribution throughout the space felt noticeably more stable than before. Everything around him felt subtly different despite appearing largely the same visually—a fundamental change in atmosphere and essence rather than visible physical structure.
That’s it? After all that ominous buildup and warnings?
Suddenly, without any warning, a massive barrage of system messages appeared in rapid succession, flooding his entire vision with notifications:
[You Have Earned the Title: World Keeper (Legendary)]
[A New Item with Potential Beyond Divine Rank Has Been Born Through Your Direct Influence]
[You Have Earned the Title: Creator (Mythic)]
[You Have Become One of the Few Ascension Tower Owners in the Solmyra Universe]
[You Have Earned the Title: Path Forger (Epic)]
[You have become a low-level administrator of the Tower and the Owner of Ascension Tower No. X3301]
Shit! Look at all these rewards!
Seeing the sheer overwhelming amount of notifications from the system appearing one after another, Leon immediately realized with growing excitement that this Tower was definitely not a bad deal at all, despite all the significant hiccups, painful sacrifices, and setbacks that had come during the entire activation process.
A genuine smile of satisfaction spread across his face as he eagerly started reading through the detailed information about each new title he’d just earned, examining their effects and benefits.
Seraphine, who was standing supportively next to him throughout everything, saw him smile with genuine satisfaction and relief. She immediately understood intuitively that something very good must have finally happened to him after all the stress.
That’s the expression of someone who just gained something tremendously valuable.
She felt genuinely happy seeing him like that—finally relieved and content after enduring so much stress and devastating setbacks during this entire ordeal.