Ascending With A Legendary Class

Chapter 53: The Sound Of Thunder

The hall stayed quiet after Richard spoke. Every seat held a demigod — some of the most powerful individuals in the western region, gathered from cities that each maintained between one and three of them.

Cities without their own demigods operated under the coverage of neighboring ones, the regional network keeping the power structure intact across the entire west.

All of them were present. The significance of the meeting had made attendance non-negotiable.

"One of our generals — Elizabeth Valeria, the Lightning General — acquired critical intelligence during an engagement in the Astral Heaven." Richard activated the footage. "I believe what she captured will shape how we approach the Supremacist threat moving forward."

The holographic recording played across the assembled hall. Every demigod watched in silence as the Supremacist agents drove collected monsters through artificially controlled Red Gates.

The expressions around the hall hardened in sequence.

"They’re planning to release those monsters during the Crucible." One of the demigods stated it flatly. Their collective Divine Instinct had drawn the same conclusion before anyone said it aloud, long lives and elevated perception made the pattern obvious within seconds.

Richard nodded.

"My proposal is to use the Crucible as the opportunity to dismantle the Supremacists entirely. Let them commit, then close the trap."

The logic landed well but the silence that followed wasn’t disagreement instead it was more of multiple calculations going through the minds of the demigods.

Then a female demigod spoke. Despite her appearance suggesting early thirties, she carried the particular ageless quality of someone who had glimpsed divinity.

"What about the candidates? A hundred thousand initiates will be present."

Other faces around the hall reflected the same concern. Richard had expected it.

"We have a solution." He changed the display.

Winston’s image appeared on the holographic screen.

Every demigod in the hall focused on it. A few seconds passed as they processed the face, the name, the associated reports.

"Isn’t that the youth reportedly responsible for clearing a Tier Three false gate?" one of them said. "I assumed that was fabricated. A promotional claim to build up Key City’s reputation for the season. What does he have to do with anything?"

The reasoning was sound, when the reports had come through, no demigod’s Divine Instinct had fired in confirmation. The claim hadn’t registered as truth.

Markus stepped forward.

"That’s because it wasn’t a regular Tier Three gate he faced."

Markus didn’t enjoy the implication that he would fabricate intelligence reports to secure resources for Key City.

He would absolutely do it if the opportunity presented itself cleanly, but that wasn’t what was happening here.

This was the truth, and being mistaken for someone running a promotional scheme with it was irritating. freewebnσvel.cѳm

The original plan had been to keep Winston’s details classified until after the Crucible.

So no leaks or advance attention from outside parties who might complicate things before he had a chance to establish himself.

Desperate circumstances had changed the calculus. Winston was the only viable solution to the candidate safety problem, and that meant the information had to come out now.

"Are you trying to build suspense or turn us on?" The voice came from one of the holographic seats, a man with the particular look of someone who had never once filtered a thought before speaking.

"You said it wasn’t a regular Tier Three gate. So what was it?"

Every demigod in the hall looked at the speaker. Nobody said anything about the phrasing.

The man represented the Abyssal Dragon guild — one of the top three guilds — and his reputation for a sharp, unrestrained mouth was well documented.

Commenting on it was a political calculation most people chose to skip.

’Why are Abyssal Dragon members always like this?’

Markus kept that entirely internal. Offending that particular affiliation wasn’t on his agenda today.

He exhaled once and delivered it cleanly.

"He faced a Tier Four guardian. As an initiate."

The hall went silent and then every Divine Instinct in the room fired simultaneously, the truth-sensing ability that no demigod could switch off registering the statement as completely, unambiguously accurate.

Every head turned toward Markus.

The Abyssal Dragon representative had gone rigid in his seat.

"A Tier Four guardian." The words came out slowly. "As an initiate."

Markus nodded once. No elaboration was needed. They had all felt it.

Celeste sat slightly at the side with a carefully neutral expression that was doing significant work to conceal how pleased she was.

Key City had produced this. Her city. Her jurisdiction.

’It’s a shame I couldn’t lock him into the Lunar Wolves before the Crucible rules kicked in.’

The thought stayed exactly where it was.

She noticed the Abyssal Dragon representative’s expression shift into something that looked uncomfortably close to excitement and filed that observation away under things to monitor.

Richard cleared his throat.

The sound was quiet but it pulled the room back immediately.

"Shall we proceed?"

The female demigod who had raised the candidate’s safety concern was the first to nod. The others followed. Richard surveyed the hall and nodded in return.

"Good. Let’s continue."

❖❖❖❖

Winston pushed back from the desk and stretched, the chair creaking as he stood.

’I wonder how far those two have gotten.’

He had left Zelda and Freya to work with the Trait Manifestation on their own after the transfer — getting comfortable with it, feeling out how it integrated with their existing Realizations and spells.

That kind of adjustment couldn’t be rushed, and hovering over them wouldn’t help. The research had given him something productive to do in the meantime.

He headed toward the training ground.

’This feels familiar.’

The last time he had walked through that door he had stepped into Zelda and Freya getting systematically dismantled by Elizabeth.

He shook the memory off and pushed the door open.

A shockwave hit him the moment he crossed the threshold. His black hair flipped back from the force of it.

He planted his feet and looked.

Zelda’s bracer-covered fist had collided with Freya’s katana — both of them holding the contact point for a fraction of a second before the force between them became too much and they separated.

Then they reset and came at each other again.

Every exchange generated enough pressure to disturb the air across the entire room.

Winston stood in the doorway and watched without moving.

’They adjusted to it quickly.’

Both of them had Trait Manifestation active — he could feel the difference in their output.

The twenty percent boost from Intermediate value was doing visible work. They moved like entirely different fighters compared to the morning.

Not just faster but more certain in how they committed to each strike.

Then Winston heard thunder directly behind him.