Ignite the Dark: The Resonance Cycle: Book 7, page 1
Ignite the Dark
The Resonance Cycle, Book 8
Aaron Renfroe
Pivot Press Publishing
Copyright © 2024 by Aaron Renfroe
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Other Books
What Came Before (Abbreviated)
Starting Character Sheet
Prologue One: Glimpse
Chapter 1: Divine Alloy
Chapter 2: Is That You?
Chapter 3: Crusader Reliquary
Chapter 4: The Shadow of a Prime
Chapter 5: The Agora
Chapter 6: World Ship
Chapter 7: Counting Stars
Chapter 8: Strategic Surrogacy
Chapter 9: Infiltrator
Halcyrion Monroe Character Sheet
Chapter 10: Halcyrion is OP
Chapter 11: Mining Operations
Chapter 12: XF-109B
Chapter 13: Secrecy
Chapter 14: Memories and Revelations
Interlude: New Objective
Chapter 15: Numera’s Grace
Chapter 16: Splat
Chapter 17: War God Unleashed
Chapter 18: Prime Salience
Chapter 19: Judgment
Chapter 20: Death Wish
Chapter 21: Battle Chess
Chapter 22: Category Nine
Chapter 23: Dogfight
Chapter 24: War Chest
Chapter 25: C-T 03L
Chapter 26: Hairballs
Chapter 27: Theatricality
Chapter 28: Good Ole Normal Ty
Chapter 29: Forward Base FeeBee
Chapter 30: What Must Be
Chapter 31: Checking In
Interlude: A Time for Endings
Chapter 32: Sparks
Chapter 33: Wild Guardians
Chapter 34: Armada
Chapter 35: Unspeakable Horrors
Chapter 36: War’s Price
Updated Starchaser Statistics
Chapter 37: Resurrection Queen
Epilogue: Conversation
Final Character Sheet
Appendix
Glossary
What Came Before (Unabridged)
Author’s Note
Editing Note
AI Disclaimer
Appreciations
LitRPG Books Group Shout
LitRPG Group Shout
LitRPG Books Group Shout
GameLit Society Shout
Other Books
As of this edition, we have quite a few different series in production. If you want to explore other books the best place to start is the Amazon Author page, which has the most up-to-date listing. Here are a few we recommend:
Father of Constructs is hopeful, optimistic, and an entirely different take on LitRPG. You can find it here. Amazon link: https://amzn.to/41kyul3
Spite the Dark goes the opposite direction of Father, with lots of callbacks to the 90s and 2000s, with references to anime and action movies. Think of it as a more lethal, grounded series (in most ways) than Resonance. Find it here. Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3NskfVB
Wrath of a Greater God, book 8 of the Resonance Cycle, will be available later this year. You can pre-order it here: https://amzn.to/4bkKZ4h
Blood of Heroes (which is due a big facelift, since it was my first book ever) is my take on military superheroes. The (current) plan is to do a re-write to add it to our LitRPG titles and release more in the series in late 2024 or early 2025. Want it faster? Let us know on the discord! Try it here. Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/7lJoDGz
I'm part of a publishing group called Pivot Press Publishing. They are just starting out, but the goal is to produce other well-written LitRPG/GameLit, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi stories. Their website is here: https://bit.ly/3Tm0fHT
***
Audiobooks
Resonance 1-5 are out on Audible. Start here! https://adbl.co/3Uqq4qI
Summoner Assassin 1 is out as well. As of this writing, we're at 30% of our way to the goal of producing book 2 on Audible next (and it's only been out for a few days). Give it a listen! Link: https://adbl.co/3JpQyCe
Father of Constructs 1and 2 are out! https://adbl.co/3Un7eAA
***
Engage With Us!
We keep an active Patreon, with anywhere between 1-3 books ahead of our other publication cycles. Link: https://bit.ly/3RBs7GS
We also love chatting with fans and collaborators alike on Discord at https://discord.gg/GXn8csy2gg. Just be sure to pick a tag so we know which series brought you over.
What Came Before (Abbreviated)
We have included portions of the final chapter in the prologue of this book. See the Unabridged What Came Before at the end of the book for more details.
Starting Character Sheet
Name: Ty Monroe
Class: Merit Hunter
Race: Divine Scion of the Wild
Category: 4 (5 versus gods, + an additional 2 with Law Keeper activation)
Level: 20
Status: Tri-Herald
Progress to Next Level: 0
Hit Points: 84
Mana: 400
Mana Shield: 60 (Racial Maximum: 60)
Strength: 29 (+2 Alunite gauntlets; High-Supernatural)
Agility: 23 (Mid-Supernatural)
Vitality: 25 (High-Supernatural, +3 hit points per level)
Notice: Increasing physical attributes further costs 2 discretionary points per increase. Your Strength attribute caps at 30 unless you obtain access to Divine attributes.
Intellect: 20 (Low-Supernatural)
Spirit: 20 (Wild-attuned; Supernaturally Enlightened)
Notice: Increasing your Intellect or Spirit attributes further costs 2 discretionary points per increase.
Luck: 0
Applicable Skills and Abilities
Mixed Martial Arts (Sambo Focus): Master
Krav Maga: Peak Mortal Mastery
Akkoan Martial Arts: Peak Mortal Mastery
All Martial Weapons: Adept
Guns: Master
Survival: Adept
Tactical Techniques: Master
Meditation and Mental Fortitude: Peak Mortal Mastery
Body Shaper: Night Vision, Akkoan Joints and Vocal Cords (+2 Agility), Akkoan Alunite Battle Skeleton Fusion, Akkoan Eyes, Awakened Superior Salient Kestrel Symbiote Familiar
Unspent Merits: 81
Unspent Physical Attribute Points: 19
Unspent Discretionary Attribute Points: 19
Fractal Charge: Synthesis (0 out of 500), Shy (0 out of 250)
Achievements and Powers: Wild Touched, Magic Prism (Divinity, Monstrous, Wild, War, Fire, Darkness, Venom, Death, Chaos, Mystery, Guardian, Love, Life, Hope, Inevitability, Law, Technology, Inspiration, Time, Otherworldly+), Magic Siphon, Knight of the Wild Ability Package, Verdant Aura (Magic Activation, Anti-Demonic Properties), Read Magic, Divine Temporal Resistance, Fractal Awakening (Synthesis, Shy), Psychic Barrier, Fractal Mesh, Triplet Arbiter, Resonance Teleportation, Chaos Wielder, Verdant Aura (Sustain, Shape, Redirect, Transpose, Sovereign Aura, Telekinesis).
Law Keeper Salience: 7% available; static benefits unlocked at 15%, then every additional 20 percent thereafter. This percentage represents the total amount of energy required to unlock, or level-up a Law Keeper ability. This form of Salience is unique to the Law Keepers attached to the Guard, and uses a system that does not interface with Ty’s Arbiters.
Law Keeper Unlocks:
Three-Dimensional Awareness. Currently: 00%
Four-Dimensional Awareness. Currently: 00%
Processing Enhancements. Currently: 00%
Magic Resilience. Currently: 00%
Mental Resilience 1. Currently: 15%
Divine Resilience. Currently: 00%
Survival Enhancements. Currently: 00%
Combat Analytics. Currently: 00%
Spatial Movement. Currently: 00%
Spatial Manipulation – Storage. Currently: 00%
Spatial Manipulation – Weaponized. Currently: 00%
Stasis and Evolution Module 1. Currently: 15%
Mobility Diversity. Currently: 00%
Linguistic Adaptation. Currently: 00%
Organic Adaptation 2. Currently: 35% (Grants 2 Category upgrades)
Non-Organic Adaptation. Currently: 00%
Variable Shielding. Currently: 00%
Notable Equipment: Mind Fortress (Divine) with Technocratic Mind Gem Enhancement, Mantle of the Xotel (Divine+), Alunite Gauntlets (Legendary), Knight’s Raiment (Epic)
Unequipped Notable Equipment: Shielding Amulet (Lesser), Divine Anchor (Legendary), 2 Infernal Crystals, Hellstone X 5, Mind Fortress (Divine), 1 Personal Locket, Nightmare Silk, Forbidden Book of Necromancy, Monstrous Manual, Berserk Potion
Prologue One: Glimpse
Warning: You are in a zone of no mana. Magic will work, but with dramatically decreased efficiency. Your abilities will cost 50% more in this space. Furthermore, your mana pool and mana gems will leak between 5-10 mana per hour while they remain here. We do not recommend lingering.
Ako had been a dying planet the last time Ty visited. Standing in the charred, hollowed remains where the akkoan gods had once been, it felt worse than dead. This wasn’t a corpse; it was a desecrated graveyard.
Lyra’s Swarm spread out around them all, providing heat, oxygen, and enough pressure to keep them grounded.
Luckily, the terrain had not changed over the last several decades. The tunnel he’d spotted on her display was just a few hundred feet away. With a gesture, he took the lead. It wasn’t safe to fly here, not with the mana drain being so significant, and the terrain was unforgiving. Despite the power leveling the team had done prior to this mission, they stumbled and fell as they crossed gaping chasms and leaped over fallen rubble.
Ty held back, helping the students and Jim whenever they needed it. Lyra turned to look each time he had to intervene, her eyes urgent and intense in her otherwise stoic face.
Twenty minutes after their arrival, they made it to the tunnel. It was partially caved in, but Ty’s telekinesis made quick work of the obstructions. Although the ability was slower and much more difficult to use than on Earth, it still didn’t cost mana to activate. He didn’t think it would continue to work if he was drained of mana, however.
With the way clear, the group began their descent through the rough-hewn rock tunnel. The last time Ty had been there, he’d felt the concentration of mana decrease with each step. This time, it was the opposite. A gentle thrum, discernable through his aura, pulsed from below and grew in intensity as they went. Ten minutes of fast walking brought them to the fork in the path he was looking for.
Taking the narrow off-shoot course, they came to a faint barrier. To his senses, it felt like a single point of mana, infused with the Wild, and stretched across the hall. It was impossibly thin; little more than the width of a hair yet was still tangible despite the passage of time. He glanced back over his shoulder, and Lyra just gave him an empty look. The students, lined up in the narrow corridor, looked mostly anxious and a little scared. He didn’t blame them.
She doesn’t sense it, he realized. Even being a scion of the Wild, she couldn’t feel the barrier.
Ty: Stay here with them. I think there’s something in the chamber ahead. Let me call you if things go wrong.
Lyra: How about you call me either way? I’ll wait three minutes.
Ty: Fair.
He pushed forward. When he felt no resistance, he hurried the remaining distance to his destination.
The tunnel ended in a chamber dominated by an ancient Arbiter Matrix. It was dark, filled with a churning fluid that bubbled and frothed like waves on the edge of a beach. When the liquid peeled away from the surface, it revealed an immense hand.
As he entered the chamber, another, smaller Arbiter floated down from the ceiling and stopped at a level with his face. It looked cracked, like shattered metal and glass. Spinning to face him with its sole, intact pane, it lit up enough for him to see the interior.
Dozens of firefly lights, none bigger than one of his fingernails, danced within.
“You returned to us.” The voice from the Arbiter sounded like Rahlyn, the akkoan god of inspiration. “I hoped you would.” When she spoke, one of the swirling lights flickered in time with the words.
“Rahlyn, is that you?”
“It is. Most of us made it into this vessel, thanks to Asurtur.”
Asurtur, the god of Arbiters, spoke from another light. “I figured it out after you came, Ty. Inspiration’s touch on you carried even to this place. We made a repository for our continuity.”
“And that Wild barrier?” He waved back at the wall.
“Numera sneaked some help in years ago.”
A flash of light drew his attention directly beneath the Arbiter Matrix, where a fist-sized gem rested. He could sense residual Wild mana inside once he focused on it, albeit dimly.
“Good job, Mom,” he murmured. Returning his attention to the strange Arbiter, he asked, “What’s the plan, gang? Obviously, this place is still leaking mana and can’t sustain forever. You knew I’d be coming back, so you must have some idea of what comes next?”
The Arbiter bobbed. “Within this vessel,” Rahlyn said, “are the memories of the last akkoan gods. We are continuity, without form or power. This device may implant that continuity into a living vessel. You will provide us with a vessel on one of your other worlds.”
It wasn’t worded like a request, and it left Ty considering his options. These gods had been molded by the worship of people shaped by the Guard. However, if Numera had acted to rescue them, it said something.
Unless she wasn’t trying to protect them. He looked at the Matrix, with the body floating inside as certainty came. Numera wouldn’t care about akkoan gods, but she knew my plan. The local gods must have been the only way she could secure the Matrix.
“What do you mean ‘implant your continuity into a living vessel’?”
“This Arbiter will create a unique Fractal Mesh on a living being. The Mesh will store our continuity and will augment the host’s consciousness. It will provide us with protection until we can establish new worshipers.”
Like I did with Zalax, and am doing with Shy, Ty thought. In the back of his mind, Shy responded to the thought with a raucous laugh.
Ty, darling host, I’m not going anywhere. This is where I want to be. Can’t you feel it? What we’re on the verge of accomplishing?
He did his best not to feel queasy at Shy’s tone. “Is Gregoran in there too?”
Gregoran had been their god of Monsters. He’d taught Ty the true role of Monster gods, which was to act as a liaison between unknown and feared civilizations.
“Yes. He sleeps. Many of us are in hibernation to save our vessel its energy.”
Ty realized he didn’t have to decide about the gods yet, not when there were more pressing matters. Extending a hand, he touched the Arbiter and attempted to add it to his inventory. It vanished, along with a note.
Warning: Your personal storage space is now 95% claimed.
Lyla walked in on him cursing. “What’s wrong?”
The rest of the group filed in, instinctively sticking to the edge of the cramped room. Ty gave them all a reassuring smile even as he answered Lyra’s question. “It’s nothing.”
He turned back to the Matrix.
Jessica spoke in a soft, awed voice, “What is it?”
“The long version or short version of the story?”
“Can you do a fast, in-between version?” Lyra interjected.
“Sure.” Ty considered the wording. “A lot of akkoan history, especially as I learned it, is confusing. It’s because of time scales. Seeker left Volar sometime after the beginning of the God Wars. Once he did, parts of akkoan society changed. Or maybe parts of it that weren’t in a dominant state became so. It doesn’t make a big difference. Anyway, in his absence, new gods arose. This was before the Border Guard made it to Ako. What you’re seeing here is a relatively ancient corpse. It’s Hope, a god who gave his life to help save people.”
“And his body is inside this Arbiter?”
“Yeah. It’s called an Arbiter Matrix. This is what you get if you combine several Arbiters all together. The local gods thought he sacrificed his continuity, which is basically the highest form of self-sacrifice a god can make, to give the local akkoans a chance to survive. He’s embodied in here as some sort of material component for the spell he cast, or maybe his body is keeping this Arbiter intact? I’m honestly not sure.”
Henry contemplated the giant Arbiter Matrix. “It feels different, magically I mean. Less like an Arbiter and more like, I don’t know, some sort of dormant magical item, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah. It does. Aisling uses dummy Arbiters to do simple tasks. This might be a version of one of those.”
Jessica asked, “What do you intend to do with it?”
Unslinging his backpack, Ty walked up to the Arbiter. Willing the Alunite off his hand, he ran his fingers across the surface. It was solid in a way that felt deeper than magic or fractals, or even Alunite. This felt like it belonged to another universe, as if its presence distorted some fundamental law of reality.
He felt something tug in his chest, deep within his spiritual core. A sense of righteous purpose suffused him, sweeping through his Awakened Prism. It flowed outward, tingling up his spine like popping soda bubbles, and made his scalp tingle.
