NOVEL NEXT B1 | Intermission 1
Somewhere in the Universe
“Another Successor,” Sariel mutters with her face held in one hand as her other hand taps a finger against her desk while she stares at the screen floating in front of her. One from a different Tutorial from Chaos’s Successor that has a man with medium length black hair and eyes that appear to have magical circles occasionally appearing and disappearing within them. “I’m starting to wonder if I should just give up this world…”
“It’s too late for that,” her father says, the man having decided to spend the entire tutorial phase for the new world at Sariel’s current guild so that he can see her off when she leaves.
“I don’t actually plan to leave a world like this one in someone else’s hands,” Sariel states without looking at her father, not having really meant what she said before. She then opens the livestream for Chaos’s Successor right next to the livestream for Etheria’s Successor as her eyes narrow a little.
“Say, is it just me, or do they look alike?” Sariel asks after several seconds of looking back and forth between the two livestreams.
In one is a girl whose appearance looks to be about seventeen human pre-System years old, with black hair streaked with both crimson and purple highlights, two crimson and black raven wings sticking out of her back, and eyes akin to pools of blood and magma. Meanwhile in the other livestream is a man whose appearance appears to be around the same age in human pre-System years, with black hair, faintly glowing blue veins running through his body that occasionally fade and then return, and blue eyes filled with disappearing and reappearing magical circles.
Despite both of their clear Successor traits from their differing Primordials, the two have similar facial structures, with similar black hair after putting aside the Successor traits in their hair, and similar heights.
But what catches Sariel’s attention the most is that they both have the same last name.
Sinclair.
And if she remembers correctly, three of the most powerful people in all of the tutorials of this new planet have that same last name and share traits with them as well. Along with a fourth that isn’t quite as powerful but is still someone Sariel has looked into.
Whether that is a coincidence or not, Sariel isn’t sure. But she is certain that these two Successors must have something connecting them.
She wouldn’t even be surprised if they turned out to be twins.
“Ashley Sinclair and Blake Sinclair…” Sariel mutters, still tapping her finger against the table. But then she shakes her head as she focuses on Ashley’s livestream again. “Regardless of the relation, I find it hard to believe Chaos’s Successor will pull through this battle.”
While speaking, Sariel watches Ashley run around the massive chamber, only barely avoiding most of the blows from the mini boss. She runs from one place to another, looking like she’s trying to get closer to the goliath without being stepped on.
A plan that doesn’t seem to be going very well for her.
“Have a little more faith in the one chosen by Chaos,” her father suddenly says, making her glance up at him, only to look back at the screen.
Right when the Successor makes a sudden sprint towards the goliath moments after the goliath’s latest attack hits the ground. She then jumps upwards and lands on top of the goliath’s foot.
Sariel can’t help but lean forwards a little bit when the goliath begins freezing up, seemingly unsure of what it should do. But its pause only lasts for a few seconds, during which Ashley begins climbing up the leg of the goliath.
Then the goliath raises the leg she is climbing with a purple light enveloping the leg, only for the purple light to vanish and the foot to fall straight down into the ground, creating a large crater in the process. Meanwhile Ashley is sent flying far away before she crashes into the wall and coughs out more blood.
Sariel lets out a pent up breath, feeling a little disappointed after getting her hopes up.
But the Successor doesn’t give up and gets back to her feet as if she wasn’t bleeding all across her body. Which really makes Sariel wonder just what’s with this woman, since she has barely shown any reaction to this entire battle so far.
Not when she was sucked into the Gate. Not when she was trapped in with the mini boss. And not after being thrown around by the creature numerous times and very nearly killed.
At most Sariel sees small reactions like her eyes narrowing a tiny bit, or her lips pressing together a little. But nothing more than that.
Sariel glances at the other livestream, where the man who Sariel believes to be Ashley’s brother is fighting together with several of the people this world calls enforcers against a mini boss of his own. And the sight of his perfectly acting together with the enforcers makes her briefly question her belief of him being Ashley’s brother, even if he isn’t very expressive either, albeit still more so than Ashley by a large margin.
The new guildmaster goes ahead and glances at Blake’s potential skills again, finding it to be at a total of two thousand fifty one potential skills. One of the very reasons he was chosen by a Primordial as a Successor.
Then she looks at Ashley’s potential skills, which haven’t grown since the last monster she defeated.
Did she hit a bottleneck?
Sariel frowns at that thought before shaking her head and simply watching the livestream for several minutes. Watching as Ashley repeatedly climbs up the goliath’s legs, and is repeatedly thrown off again.
But with each climb she attempts, she makes it a little further up the goliath’s legs.
And with every attempt, Ashley’s health slowly decreases, and she takes more damage. Almost as if she has some sort of skill that makes it harder to take damage the more health she has.
After the fifteenth attempt, Sariel lets out a sigh and focuses on Blake’s screen. Deciding not to watch Ashley end up killing herself.
Time passes, and eventually she does look back at the screen when she hears her father say, “You might want to look at Ashley’s livestream.”
But what she finds isn’t what she was expecting.
Because the livestream is now turned off.
Disabled by the command of a Successor.
Sariel frowns and resumes tapping her finger on her desk once more, unsure of what to make of this. Since there are generally a few reasons a Successor would turn off the livestream.
Privacy being the main reason. Whether it’s for their own embarrassment, to keep a secret from the populace, or to trick an enemy.
But there are also those Successors who just dislike the livestreams and always turn them off in every System Event they compete in.
And in this case, Sariel believes the most likely reason for this disabling of the livestream is to keep something secret.
So just what are you hiding, Successor of Chaos?