The Path of Ascension

Chapter 284

Matt twisted in his seat as Drifter looked back at them. You three ready?

They had been inside the rift for two months, but with the rift's eightfold time dilation that was only a week and some change in real time.

Despite his [AI] keeping track of both reference points, Matt was still weirded out to be leaving the rift, knowing people would still be celebrating their Ascension ceremony while it had already become old news to him.

That was part of the reason they were already heading out for their new mission so quickly. The Empire, like all Great Powers who got a new set of Ascenders, wanted to be able to hold up their newest Ascenders and point to a victory just days after they finished the Path.

Knowing and even agreeing with the logic didnt mean Matt wouldnt have wished for another month in the rift.

They had just barely finished absorbing the first round of their new skills, and hadnt gotten any of the cool armor they had designed because they hadnt been created yet.

The three of them had still been given an upgrade in terms of armor and arms, but it was nothing when compared to what they would be getting. Matt was personally wearing a refitted legacy suit of armor that North Star, of the Cosmos, had worn, and was primarily designed to enhance light aspect and self-buff spells. He also had a prototype set of underarmor designed to integrate [Cracked Phantom Armor] into the main suit of armor, and while limited, he was excited to put it to the test.

But most of all Matt was nervous that they would go out there into a real war and fuck something up, and not in a good way.

So when Drifter asked if he was ready he didnt really have an answer. And if the silence from Liz and Aster was any indication, neither did they.

Allie answered for them as she rolled her eyes, Yeah, theyre ready.

Before Drifter could respond, the world blinked around them, leaving them in a private spaceport on the far side of the planet Fort Lightfoot was on. Allie was, without a doubt, the most convenient way to get in and out of the rift, but from what Matt had heard, convincing her to do so for anything but a mission was tough. Fortunately, they were on a mission, and so got to travel with Shadow Teleports inc.. Allie was very particular about her branding despite the fact it changed between conversations.

Good luck! Allie's last words were punctuated by her flipping them the middle finger and vanishing with a swoosh of her cloak.

General Darrow sighed. At least she sent us out at the proper location. Drifter, are we ready to go?

The pilot flipped a few switches, cast a pair of diagnostic spells, and nodded. Just about. Flight command, this is Drifter. Requesting permission to

While Drifter prepared for their takeoff, Matt joined Darrow around the nearest projector table. Suspended in the air was a mass of bright nodes, interlinked by countless lines, forming a map of the Great Powers. While tens of thousands of worlds were densely packed around the eight Capitals, it grew sparser near the edges, where they began to intertwine.

With a wave of his hand, the map shifted and rearranged, bringing into focus their first target.

Aflora was a simple Tier 9 world, notable for having a mist-aspected planetary core, and being strategically noteworthy enough to warrant being a Tier 25 battleground. It acted as a nexus point connecting to five other worlds leading fairly deep into Empire territory. It had also been under siege for the past five years from Federation forces, and they were slowly being worn down.

While not devastating to the war front by any means, if Aflora was lost, the Empire would be stretched just that much thinner. So, theyd been sent to ensure that wouldnt happen. Fortunately, its relatively low-priority status also kept the Federation from sending its best troops, or heavy reinforcements.

Unfortunately, no amount of resolution and determination on the defenders behalf could replace fresh troops or supplies, and they were projected to fall in the next year.

Their mission was to prevent that.

As it was their first mission, theyd be taking the long route. Which was to say, the normal route. Instead of cheating the distance with Allies Tier 25 Talent, this time they were flying with Drifter all the way from the Capital to Aflora. The reasons for this were numerous, but it was partially to be as thorough as possible for their first trip, partially to get them out of the rift for a little while while their skills and gear was incoming and partially because Allie insisted that they had to experience what things would be like if she wasnt around, before she started dropping them all over the Empire willy-nilly.

Overall, Matt was fine with it. Mostly, he was just happy that future travel time wouldnt be a concern, for the most part. Allie being fully capable of teleporting the entirety of Team Zero to the furthest reaches of the Empire meant they could hop from crisis to crisis with lightning response times, and spend all their time between missions at Fort Lightfoot, with good meals, good healers, lots of practice space, and all the amenities of home, instead of field rations and cramped quarters.

As a bonus, it made them look utterly prescient, as they could respond to attacks far enough away that they clearly had to have started heading in that direction long before they could have realistically known they needed to. But, that was secondary to keeping themselves in top fighting condition. Ascenders werent immune to being worn down over time, with most historic losses coming at the end of a drawn-out campaign, but Matts normal endurance would be magnified tenfold or more with the Empires current strategy.

Of course, Allies waypoints were spread out far enough that they still needed a wickedly fast ship, and a ridiculously good pilot paired with it, for the plan to truly work. And that was where Drifter came in. Out of everyone in Team Zero she was the one who benefited least from Matts assistance, with her Talents already making the essential functions of any ships she flew consume no mana. That didnt include weapons, so it wasnt like he was completely useless for her, but it still felt a little weird. His Domain grumbled a bit, but he refused to let it develop in a way that required him to revolutionize the life of everyone he ever met.

Drifter used every last bit of the overpowered engines on her ship, pulling off stunts Matt would call suicidal from anyone else with alarming regularity as she flew through chaotic space, not simply the neat space-lanes practically everyone used.

And unlike the one time Matt had accidentally drifted a bit too far into space the roiling chaos in his own ship, not once did the light start to taste like blue annoyance. Drifter navigated through vortices of twisting space, around distortion whorls, and through ontological pressure zones with a manic grin on her face the entire time.

Still, her flying managed to cut a full third off their trip, turning a two-month flight into a forty day one, and Matt spent most of that time working on his mana control with Darrow since it was just the five of them left on the ship.

His team leader wasnt some prodigy, but he was old and had spent a significant portion of his immortal life in the army. Hed spent that substantial time refining himself from a relatively average delver team leader into someone truly worthy of leading a group of Elites, and had the experience to prove it. Experiences he was happy to share with Matt.

Learning with him was odd, to say the least. He had never had to deal with wrangling millions of mana, he had never been trained by Luna or other famous trainers every day, he had never had unlimited resources until he was part of Team Zero, but General Darrow still had good advice.

Most of it boiled down to go slow, research what you want, listen to the experts, listen to your gut and other advice that seemed generic when summarized, but in practice was always useful and insightful. Darrows teaching was radically different from Lunas, unsurprisingly, as where his former Manager preferred to cut away Matts weaknesses, Darrow encouraged Matts strengths. He was naturally suited to excessive displays of power, and while there wasnt anything too incredible in his team leaders advice, it was still useful.

When they arrived in the Aflora system, everything seemed normal within range of his spiritual senses, but it only covered the planet just below him. The fortress world where the fighting would happen was near the edge of the stars gravity well, far beyond what he had the ability to sense directly, or through any of his current skills.

Drifter was only a Tier 25 like them, which limited her ability to pull them into real space too far away from the central planet of the system, but her ship's sensors were fantastic.

The initial information they got was purely passive. Cameras with incredible resolution intercepted the light moving through the system to get an initial view of the system and information flooded into the ship's AI and through it into Matts.

Matt, along with everyone else, viewed the situation, but their worst fears werent realized as the outermost planet was still holding strong.

A number of tentative sightings of enemy ships and defenses were tagged, but nothing was confirmed from the initial information.

No, they were confirmed from Aflora, who had started transmitting them updates the moment they had appeared on the world's sensors.

What had started as seven full battalions of Federation troops had been whittled down to something like five and a half, but that was offset by suspected reinforcements. Aflora had been watching the fighting go on overhead without fail but the fortress planet had been isolated by a number of formations which obscured outgoing light and interrupted most transmission signals.

Within fifteen seconds of arriving into the Aflora system, they had an information update from the inhabited world and started flying into the outer system.

It would take them five hours to curve past the star and steal a little energy to slingshot them to the farthest reaches of the system's gravity well, but those five hours felt like decades to Matt, Liz, and Aster as they were getting ready to fight.

Despite that, he didnt miss the arrival of Light, Shadow, Torment, Origami, Eric, and Dena as Shadow jumped in, via her local waypoint. While this was to be the debut of Torch, Quill, and Scoop as Ascenders, the others were still on standby to intercept any potential Federation ambushes.

Or at least that was how General Darrow had pitched it to Matt, Liz, and Aster when they were told about the mission.

Matt knew the truth, and so did everyone else. While there was a chance that this system was an ambush, it was incredibly unlikely. Instead, the rest of Team Zero were there in case they fucked up and needed rescuing. Even Light and Shadow had the same treatment for their first showing.

Others might be offended by their presence, but Matt was happy for it.

The rest of Team Zero were combat veterans. Theyd be their direct support in future engagements, but here and now it was their time to show off. Their time to introduce themselves, and their opponent was only a few battalions of ordinary soldiers.

Matt, and the planners at Chess, had expected the Federation to turn on them the moment they arrived, and the Federation did not disappoint.

Four of the five battalions turned and started manning the temporary defensive structures they had set up around the orbit of the fortress planet.

When Drifter's ship slowed to a relative halt a ways above the fortress world and the back hatch opened, Matt was well within spiritual range of the army now floating behind hastily constructed defensive walls. He watched as their eyes went from steely resolve to widened terror.

They didnt flee, but they were clearly hoping they were the forerunners of another army.

Not Ascenders.

That, oddly enough, settled Matts nerves.

It wasnt that he believed the propaganda around Ascenders being literally unbeatable, but now that he could see the enemies, he was back at home.

This wasnt a rift, these weren't mindless monsters, but combat was combat. If these soldiers did not die, the soldiers and eventually citizens of the Empire would be the ones who suffered instead.

Kill, or be killed.

Matt cast [Cracked Phantom Armor] and enjoyed the way that the skill slid into his new armor instead of covering it. It also slid over his temporary blade like a second skin and Matt smiled.

The skill's upgrades were about to be put to good use.

The three of them flew towards the oncoming army like meteors plummeting into a planet. To his right, Liz was armed with a spear enchanted to leave a curse that twisted healing spells to decay, worsening any wounds it left when they would normally be mended. To his left, Aster clenched an oversized silver gauntlet into a fist, forming a ball of ice that rapidly morphed into a fifteen-foot golem of slick ice, and then into a flurry of snow.

That snow accumulated around them, forming a lashing blizzard of ice and wind extending for at least a mile on each side of them, slowly engulfing the oncoming army like the first flurries of a bitter winter.

That signaled the start of the fight, and the Federation army started unleashing their own retaliatory spells.

Mana cannons embedded in the walls flashed, arrays spun into existence before activating, personal spells were cast in coordinated bursts, units rotated forward and back as they fired their spells and took cover, the ships turned their massive cannons and fired, shields flickered as their power sources were tapped to fuel a second array of attacks.

The attacks werent terribly focused, and while Matt was utterly confident in his armor, simply tanking hits for no reason was reserved for the movies, and [Flight] powered with five hundred thousand MPS was so maneuverable it was trivial to avoid most of the attacks directed at them.

Of course, most wasnt all, and the Federation soldiers were providing quite effective cover fire, and Matt spun up [Bulwark] after [Bulwark] to intercept the attacks they were otherwise bound to hit.

He spent first thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and finally millions of mana on defense, but he was still as fresh as they came as they approached ever-closer to the Federation soldiers.

The spells came closer and more concentrated, aim getting better and range becoming more potent. Domains pushed against them, Intents flaring as people unleashed their best attacks. Commanders directed the assaults of their squadrons, and the attacks only grew thicker and thicker. But then Asters [Dispelling Wind] whipped through their surroundings, and a nigh-overwhelming barrage of spellfire fell to something eminently manageable.

That flipped a switch in the Federation army, and defensive spells began blossoming like a rainbow of magic encompassing Matts entire field of view..

That was their signal to attack.

Matt led the charge, with Liz and Aster close behind.

Aster pushed her gauntlet forward, which sent the flurries of snow she had created from her tiaras summon into and through the enemy defenses, beginning to leech away their enemies heat. Some were stopped by the shields, and some were destroyed by the various enchantments, but enough got through that Matt was able to notice the enemy fighters start to slow down.

Matt, for his part, opened with [Telekinesis]. He may have been still severely lacking in the finesse needed to utilize the high-Tier skill to its fullest, but he didnt need finesse right now. A blast of pure force rippled through the battlefield, and it would not be denied. Willpower had been raised to reinforce the wall and tried to contest him, spells flared to try and stop him, but it was all for naught.

He wielded tens of millions of mana as easy as breathing, and the sword he wielded had been made for Harper, once upon a time. He swung it, and his [Telekinesis] sharpened into countless razor-sharp blades. Silvery arms channeling shields were severed from their owners, heads shouting battlecries were sent flying, and bodies alight with enchantment-work were torn asunder. Hundreds were wounded, dozens were killed, and that was simply his opening move.

The wall of shields in front of him was sent reeling, dented and broken in places, and Matt refused to relent.

Matt corralled his working of force, extending it through the crystalline longsword in his hands, and thrust.

The glowing shields flickered and died in a large area. He recognized the activation of backup formations, which tried to close the hole he created, but Aster refused to let that happen. Chilling winds whipped and lashed, scouring mana before it could properly form and sending the less-fortified soldiers flying.

Like some great machine, elemental attacks lanced out from the openings in the shield wall, but Matt [Barrage]-cast a trio of [Bulwark]s to intercept them. It consumed a worrying amount of mana, but Matt simply withdrew a bit hed stored in a mana crystal and he was once again fine, content to let his opponents tire themselves out on him.

After all, they were focused on him, and that meant they werent focused on Aster or Liz.

The all-pervading blizzard began to gather itself back together. Snow clumped into snowballs, then compacted into ice, no matter what was in the way. Soldiers, spells, floating debris, corpses, Matt saw them all get stuck in blocks of ice as Asters now substantially larger [Chill of the End] golem reformed.

The soldiers screamed as they tried to free themselves from the now animate ice. Healers and support personnel cast area dispels, but that meant they needed to contend with Aster. Splitting her attention to defend her summon meant some of the army personnel were freed but most of the hundred closest to them were now a part of the large ice golem. Those that were absorbed did not survive, their body heat drained away to nothing.

With a snap of her fingers, the ice golem detonated, [Cracked Shatter] turning the icy juggernaut into an explosion that utterly broke the frontlines of the Federation and filled the battlefield with razor-sharp fragments of ice.

Soldiers were already at work, clearing away the battlefield hazard, but the damage had been done. Blood had been spilled, and Liz was already pouncing.

Like a whipcord, the ribbons of blood drifting through the battlefield tightened and pulled, strangling and tying up hundreds of soldiers. Even if they didnt need to breathe, and though most of their opponents escaped the noose, those which had been trapped were pulled out of formation and into their comrades, disrupting the already-collapsing formations all the more. A faint undercurrent of fear had begun to pick up in the soldiers, but their commanders ordered them to hold and reshape.

But that wouldnt save them from Liz. A phoenix, clad in silver armor, swooped through one of the gaps in the wall, and in a burst of flame returned to human form. She skewered one soldier through his magical shield, prompting a small explosion of sparks as the focus for the shield installed in his arm overloaded.

The next moment, he had been completely exsanguinated, and Liz used that mass of blood to turn aside four more soldiers looking to take revenge for their fallen ally. Her own blood materialized through her domain, and formed into blades beginning to scythe through the ranks of soldiers near her.

Matt didnt bother attacking the man who was trying to skewer Liz from behind, as it just wasnt needed. The cloud of gore that had once been a Federation soldier solidified into Liz and reached out from behind the soldier and grabbed his head.

With a twist, the soldiers head was facing the wrong way, but it was Lizs thumbs driving into the man's eyes and brain which killed him.

The Liz clone picked up his weapon before the man exploded, and another Liz started to form from the blood cloud.

Matt stopped his barrage of ice attacks and darted to the other side from where Liz went as a few of the Liz clones started to defend Aster while his bond unleashed icy fury upon the opposing army, [Meadows of Rime] already making itself known as wounds opened from seemingly nothing.

An army sounded large. And academically, it was. There was no denying that, but inside, large didnt adequately explain it.

An offensive battalion was a thousand combat-capable troops, and with five of them here, Matt felt like he was in a sea of enemies.

Undoubtedly he was, but he was also a shark.

That didnt make him unbeatable, but he was the predator here.

The fish were already gathering and preparing their counter-offensive.

Matts [AI] spun in the background, focused not on trying to predict what his opponents would do he had long since surpassed what his [AI] could reasonably predict with his own training and instincts but instead, it focused on predicting what his opponents thought he might do. Soldiers came at him in waves, and he delighted in the sheer thrill of it.

One woman, slightly ahead of her compatriots, came at him with her arm extended into an electrified metal whip, and Matt didnt block any of it. Instead, he let her wrap his arm up in the lightning-infused tendril, charge up the arm of his [Cracked Phantom Armor] with her mana, then flared [Mages Retreat]. Before his opponent could process what was happening, the grapple had reversed. Now, he had a death-grip on the womans whip, and with a solid yank, she became an oversized flail for Matt.

At least, until her arm gave way and her body was sent hurtling off into the distance, but Matt just shrugged, telekinetically threw the cable at another soldier, and bisected him with his sword a moment later.

Sergeants were gathering their squads while Lieutenants barked commands. Matt sent a volley of a few hundred [Fire Bolt]s, possible thanks to a ring Firmament had given him, at the leaders trying to reorganize the battle. Some of them died but, there were more and more moving in from further away to replace them.

Matt shifted his grip on his sword and slashed out three times. The newly-upgraded [Mana Slash] was razor-sharp and, when paired with [Barrage] and enhanced with [Double Tap] and [Hypersonic Edge], cut a bloody swath through the army.

A hum in Matts spiritual sense was the only warning he had as a trio of advanced single man ships swooped into the battlefield, raining projectiles down onto him. For the first time in the fight, Matt was actually pushed back, as the mana bombs they unleashed broke through [Bulwark] and sent him flying, until he flexed his Intent to stop dead in space. They hadnt broken through [Cracked Phantom Armor], of course, but he still didnt want to take one of those attacks head-on. That would be a bad habit to fall into.

And he certainly didnt want Aster to take any of them head-on. Shed survive it, sure, but probably not unscathed. A barrage of spellfire from the ships flashed down on where a Liz was, tearing her armor to shreds and scattering her into an indeterminate mass of blood. In a flash, Matt identified and crushed the main person sustaining the spatial lock around him, then before the other soldiers could compensate, swapped places with Liz.

He momentarily rerouted nearly all of his mana, even drawing on his stored mana crystals, and flooded his body with every movement skill he had. The moment he reappeared where Liz had been, he was gone again, sheltering Aster with his body and a half-dozen [Bulwarks] he brought up just as the single man ships unleashed their latest wave of devastation.

With Asters support, Matts defenses held, the attacks only breaking through half of the [Bulwarks] before their attack was spent.

The single man ships swooped around, preparing for a second pass, but Matt wasnt about to let that happen.

Aster knew what was coming, and her biting winds swept through the army encroaching on them. Colorful bolts of spells were lost to the storm, Intents were crushed under the weight that his bond brought to the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Matt reached to the very core of his spirit, fondly cradling a skill hed longed for, and now finally had after all this time. He swapped his sword to his left hand, then let power accumulate in his right. The mana built incredibly quickly, but to Matt it felt like an age.

Mana coalesced, bucking and roiling at the speed and density it was being gathered in, budding forth from his skin like a geyser bursting from the ground, yet held back as Matt took aim.

The single man ships either didnt notice or didnt care that Matt was raising his arm at them, but he would make them regret that decision. He just needed to account for their speed, and there.

Three ships tore through the battlefield like avenging angels.

Mana blossomed, like a new star igniting.

[Mana Beam]

And then there were two.

[Mana Beam]

And then there was one.

[Mana Beam]

The final single man ship spun, twisting in incredible ways as its pilot fought desperately to stay alive. It stayed one step ahead of the implacable, unstoppable column of mana, nearly as thick as Matts torso as millions of mana fed into it.

In what could only have been described as an act of desperation, the pilot spun and flipped, turning completely around and upside down in the blink of an eye, diving headlong into the beam. But to Matts surprise, the single man ship didnt instantly explode, but instead managed to part the beam around the ship.

Even from this distance, Matt could sense the pilots Intent flaring, pushing back the beam just like Queen had done so many years ago with [Cracked Mana Spear]. But unlike Queen, the ship was unleashing ranged attacks all the while, trying to force Matt into dropping the attack, trying to outlast Matts attack.

The Intent was quite impressive, Matt could tell. Honed over millennia, designed to shrug off cover fire from artillery and the attacks of other ships. But artillery was insignificant, next to the power of an Ascender.

The realm itself trembled as the Domain gave way, and the ship detonated in a conflagration of lightning and light. A moment later, the ships last-ditch cover fire reached Matt, and he brought his sword to bear, cutting through the attacks with [Dispelling Edge]. For good measure, Matt used [Dragonflame] to blanket the battlefield as he defended himself.

A few Federation shield-bearing teams tried to step forward, but they were overwhelmed and pushed back by the flames, giving Matt the opportunity to dart forward and back into the melee, out of Aster's ice cloud.

A cloud that he noticed was growing.

In the interest of helping his bond, Matt cast [Hail] and let the spell create massive amounts of ice and wind as he struck down soldier after soldier with his blade and spells. Wind in a vacuum was fleeting, but the mana kept it moving and tangible. And of course, Asters ice only grew more potent in the cold void of space.

The fell wind swept through the Federation ranks, forcing them to break off their barrage of attacks to dig in. Those a bit too slow were caught in the currents of wind, sweeping them into their comrades and causing cascading failures of formation. The truly unlucky were swept off into the inky blackness, Asters Concept sinking deep into their flesh and leaving them as icy sculptures drifting into the void. The survivors huddled together in ever-tighter formations, stacking buffs to ward off the chill.

Of course, that just left them as sitting rabbits for Liz to sweep in as a [Blood Tidal Wave], overwhelming the tightly-packed squadrons. Healers spread throughout the troops worked overtime to keep their charges alive, but doing so only ever earned personal attention from Liz.

Even now, a clone resolved itself out of a splash of blood, and a sweep of Lizs arm summoned a half-dozen spears of blood otherwise matching her main one, her [Sanguine Pike Block] moving with deadly intent to skewer half a squad, while Liz herself charged straight through the alchemist-healer that had been previously keeping them alive.

The blood in her wake shivered and consumed itself in a flash of light. With the mana shed gained from [Blood Sacrifice], Liz powered up her [Sanguine Regeneration]. Flesh became blood, blood became two, and blood once more became flesh as another [Blood Clone] spawned, already on the hunt. One Liz transformed into a phoenix, leaving scarlet flames in her wake, and the other returned to the tidal wave draining the life from dozens of soldiers with every passing second.

Fear swept through the army.

A few particularly cowardly soldiers tried to make a break for it, frantically fleeing from their squadrons, but the first two who tried it were annihilated in an explosion of pink and blue energy.

Those same explosions turned on Matt a moment later, spellfire focusing on the three Ascenders as the armys commanders joined the fray.

They were led by a woman with cannons replacing her hands, the one responsible for the pink and blue spells hed noticed, but a full ten people swooped from the command ship. One was surrounded by a flock of golem-birds, three had swords integrated into their arms, another had metal tendrils extending from the base of their neck, and all of them had well-maintained and fairly potent gear.

They were all quite shiny, and certainly looked like an impressive bunch. With luck, theyd even put up a bit of a fight.

Alongside the armys commanders, another wave of single man ships jetted over the battlefield, unleashing spellfire on them below. Between the pink-and-blue attacks, and now the ship artillery, Matt felt even [Cracked Phantom Armor] get strained. He suspected there was armor-piercing at play, a thought confirmed as his armor began to crack and dent.

It was already beginning to mend itself, but it was the principle of the matter.

Aster was doing fine, but needed a bit more mana to keep up her barrier of wind that was deflecting all projectiles aimed at her into the soldiers still providing their own cover fire. Liz didnt even bother trying to dodge, and while plenty of the clones destroyed by spellfire didnt reform, his wife had blood to spare.

She also had plenty of sources to replenish herself with.

Aster began engaging with the ships starting with conjuring a [Tailwind] elemental to stay mobile enough to keep up, Liz coalesced into dozens of [Blood Clones] and charged the army itself, and Matt flexed his Intent, establishing himself as the center of the battlefield.

He charged the commanders, and they responded in kind.

The woman at the lead kept firing her projectiles, which Matt answered as succinctly as possible, using [Cracked Air Slide] to close the distance, and [Mana Charge], [Fire Weapon], [Shield Shatter], [Hypersonic Edge], and a fully-focused [Sword Twin] to literally disarm her.

His follow-up attack, while she was still weakened, left her a head shorter.

Nine to go.

The Domains of his current foes were finely-honed machines, permeating their bodies in a way which left them unable to simply be cut in half with a single blow, or torn in half with [Telekinesis]. Hed have to weaken their Willpower a bit before the killing blow if he wanted to use his blade to do the job.

Of course, [Mana Beam] didnt care about that, and utterly annihilated the chest of the next-closest man before carrying on to demolish the sword-arm and half the shoulder of the man behind him, and terminating somewhere in the mass of soldiers beyond all of them.

Seven to go.

However, the skill didnt stop when he commanded it to, instead going haywire and consuming more and more mana until he finally cut it off with a self-aimed dispel. Apparently, one of the commanders had [Spell Glitch] or something similar.

Those skills had the same weakness as nearly all dispels, in that they were practically helpless against buffs which meant the spell did nothing to stop him and little to even slow him down.

A flock of golem-birds swooped and dove around him, firing off a steady barrage of low-power attacks. They peppered his armor, but Matt ignored them for now, as they werent doing any harm.

The two sword-arm commanders who still had their swords flanked him, and Matt split off a [Sword Twin] from his main sword, crystallized it with his Talent, and grabbed it with his off-hand, blocking each attack in turn. Then, he flipped over backwards, leaving a trail of [Afterimage]s in his wake. He took hold of each image with [Illusion Manipulation] and split them off in every direction, disguising his own actions as he grabbed the back of one commanders neck and sent an overwhelming blast of [Lightning Torrent] directly into his head.

The man spasmed, and Matt finished him off with a sword through his back. Then, he kicked the body at the other sword-arm commander, empowering the makeshift weapon with [Fire Weapon] and using [Metal Manipulation] on the corpses integrated weapons to bowl over his former colleague.

Six to go.

Matt was momentarily distracted from finishing off the other sword-arm fighter by a dozen metal tendrils striking at his joints and the normal weak points of armor. He glanced behind him, and saw a pair of his opponents charging up blasts of plasma and force to strike him while he was immobilized.

In response, he powered up [Flight] and [Mages Retreat], tearing off two of the metal tendrils with a single motion and pulsing [Dragons Drought] to scour away the metal of four more. The remaining half-dozen tendrils he severed with a backhanded [Dispelling Edge], [Hypersonic Edge], and [Shield Shatter]. For good measure, he reached out with his Intent and pulled the recoiling tendril-commander into his hand, blocking the incoming attacks with the body.

Those attacks didnt kill the commander, but flooding [Cracked Phantom Armor] with decay mana did, as the neck in his hand rotted and rusted away, destroying the brainstem through the very port the tendrils had once come from.

Five to go.

Matt felt a blade sneak in between two of the plates of his armor, piercing [Cracked Phantom Armor] and sinking deep into his back. The attack carried an entire suite of debuffs with it, but Matt flooded the area with [Barbarians Hide] to help fight it off even as [Regeneration] erased the wound itself.

Matt spun on the spot, coming face-to-face with another attack that he judged would pierce his armor were it to connect. There just wasnt enough time to dodge.

So he froze and the realm followed his lead.

He was Dauntless. A simple blade, no matter how strong, would never change that.

Matt became a fixed point in space, and the blade stopped dead. It didnt bounce off, or penetrate the armor and stop on his eyeball. It simply stopped, right where it met Matts visor. Two more attacks slammed into him from behind, and a steady trickle of weak spellfire came from above, but they didnt matter. Matt was the fixed point here, and while fairly draining on his Willpower, nobody he was facing could harm him while it was active.

The man tried to draw back his sword-blade, but Matt struck faster. Three blades fell, meeting the hesitant single blade his foe was armed with, and emerged the undisputed champion. The blade didnt shatter, but it was knocked so far back that the man it was attached to went alongside it, meeting the razor-sharp edge of Matts crystallized [Sword Twin] head-first. It cut a massive gash into the mans face, and before he could even properly recoil, Matt had directed the second Twin to finish him off while he took the first in-hand.

Four to go.

[Barrage] let him dual-wield [Dispelling Edge], and force and plasma fell away as what remained of their spells forms. A woman with a wide-brimmed hat and a curved sword charged him, trailing aurora in her wake. He dodged her first strike, tripped her with [Gravity Manipulation], and cut a deep gash in her back as she fell. Colorful light engulfed her, a defensive spell of some kind, but Matt stripped it and her life away with a point-blank [Dragonflame].

Three to go.

The burned body of the woman fell away, and Matt pierced her head with an [Icicle] delivered with a kick for good measure.

Matt felt a telekinetic force try to grab onto him, but he overrode it with his own [Telekinesis] reinforcing his own actions. Between that and [Flight], he finally stopped getting distracted and jetted forward, one sword dedicated to each of the mages. The first attack disrupted them, the second maimed them, and the third killed them.

One to go.

The golem-birds still circled around him, firing off a negligible barrage of attacks seemingly with the intent of wearing him down. Dispels were mixed in, and there were a few somewhat-nastier attacks as well, but Matt had dodged anything that [Cracked Phantom Armor] couldnt shrug off.

Their controller hovered some distance away, watching dispassionately as Matt slaughtered the rest of their colleagues. Matt couldnt tell much about the commander, except that they looked to be little more than a bit of skin stretched over an almost fully mechanical body, and their face was hidden behind a silver mask.

Matt cocked his head, and unleashed [Mana Beam] once more. But instead of simply lancing through the commanders body, leaving a trail of annihilation in its wake, one of the golem-birds detonated into colorful smoke.

Then another.

And another.

The rest followed in short order, and while the commander was startled and began to teleport away, it all happened too quickly. The moment the last of the birds burst into silver smoke, [Mana Beam] finally worked its magic.

None to go.

He turned to rejoin the rest of his team, the commanders thoroughly eliminated. As Matt did so, he was interrupted by a blast of flame from the side. He turned to look, and saw the now-disarmed sword-arm man who had taken a glancing blow from [Mana Beam] at the start of the fight. Apparently losing a quarter of his limbs and torso hadnt dissuaded him, and had thought that Matt might finally be taken down with a sneak attack of simple fire.

Matt shot the man an incredulous look, then flexed his Intent, fired off a [Gravitic Bolt] and enhanced it with [Cosmic Pressure]. The barely-visible attack struck the man dead center, and a moment later hed collapsed into an indistinct ball of meat and metal, leaving Matt back on course to regroup with his friends.

Aster was flanked by two Liz clones as she eliminated the last of the Federations aerial support. Pieces of the ships, frozen and windblasted, slowly drifted through space, soon thereafter joined by fragments of ice and even more shrapnel as Aster threw a small glacier in the path of one of the two still-attacking fighters.

With a passing fancy, Matt reached out towards the final ship with [Telekinesis] wanting to mimic something he had seen recordings of Harper do. Instead he found that some combination of his control and the 10 million MPS he was willing to dedicate to the skill was insufficient to fully freeze the single man ship mid-flight.

So, he settled for a bit of a nudge, disrupting its flight patterns enough for Aster to conjure up a potent wind and send the ship on a direct collision course with the army. Soldiers scrambled to get away in vain, but turned into little more than sparks and blood as the ship collided with them. Instead of coming around for another pass, the last single man ship took a long route, returning to the capital ship well outside of Matts easy range.

One of the Lizs next to them intercepted an arrow, cutting it from its flight path, and the other darted off towards the seemingly-empty section of the battlefield it had come from.

All around them, dozens of Liz cut a bloody swath through the soldiers, a one-woman army of her own. The Liz still by Aster and Matt acted loosely as the main body, clad in [Blood Crystal Armor] and directing a handful of full [Blood Clone]s, each of whom had their own small squadrons of [Lesser Blood Clone] surrounding them.

Matt knew it was all a front. The main difference between [Blood Clone] and [Lesser Blood Clone] for his wife was simply whether or not it came with a mind. But that mind wasnt tied to any single clone, not truly. So long as its spawning body existed, it could pilot any of Lizs clones or rather, any six-to-ten clones, because Liz was like that.

Every once in a while she ran into resistance where a number of above-average soldiers had gathered. With how she had to split her skill usage across all her clones, there were several times she lost a clone in battle only for it to be reformed shortly thereafter, followed by Liz focusing on whoever had managed to get a lucky shot in.

More common were lost limbs, and the vast majority of the time whenever an arm, leg, or even head was lost, the Liz turned to blood, then returned to human form. Only certain types of skills were capable of dealing lasting damage as a result, and even fewer were actually fatal. She simply didnt have weak points any more, not even her head. Even having an entire clone annihilated wasnt a hindrance, no more than losing a finger would be for Matt.

Each and every body, each and every drop of her blood on the battlefield, was just as much Liz as the rest of it combined. The Talent scanner had said she was blood, and it meant it. The healers in Group Kudzu had speculated that every drop of her blood within her spiritual perception, centered loosely on her center of mass, would need to be destroyed for her to die a process which would only initiate her phoenix rebirth.

There was no such thing as being truly unkillable, but Liz was rapidly growing to challenge that assertion.

Of course, Matt wasnt about to let Liz have all the fun.

Some of the soldiers were rapidly retreating to their ship, but what looked like the strongest foot soldiers remained, trying to amass enough fire to overwhelm Asters [Chill of the End].

In response, Matt flooded his armor with fire mana and carefully activated his new Talent, confining the effect to strictly over the top of his current set of armor.

Crystal instantly encased him, the normal blue of [Cracked Mana Armor] replaced by a deep crimson, with phantom flames reflected in its endless facets, and Matt interposed himself between the barrage of fire and Aster without a second thought.

There were enough people involved in the barrage with a Domain or Talent dedicated to fire that he actually needed to try to block the incoming attacks, but with his armor pre-attuned to fire, that was the extent of it.

Before his Tier 25 Talent and before the upgrade orbs, such a trick might have blown past [Cracked Phantom Armor]s defenses, but not now.

Matt charged out of the flames and into the mass of troops who tried to hold their ground. The front liners held glowing shields, but between his [Mages Retreat]-empowered strength and his sword enhancing each of his telekinetic blows, Matt cut through them like a farmer harvesting wheat.

The look of resigned determination reminded Matt of the face his fellows in Minkalla had worn as they faced the Fall General. In that situation, there were only two options: stand and fight, or run and hope you could get away from someone insistent on taking your life. Except now the tables were turned. Matt was the implacable foe who wouldnt allow them to retreat.

A burst of [Dragonflame] showed them what real fire was.

They burned.

One particular soldier, perhaps one responsible for his earlier difficulty defending against fire, tugged on the [Dragonflame] with perhaps a lot less subtlety than hed expected. Compared to the iron grip of Zack or the nearly-invisible influence of Liz, it was clumsy but effective. For a moment, Matt considered using [Fire Manipulation] to properly contend with it but he decided against it.

Instead, he dropped [Dragonflame] and called upon [Dragons Breath].

The mighty wind scattered the soldiers around him and left a clear path to the woman Matt had identified as responsible for the attempted usurpation of [Dragonflame]. Fear radiated from her spirit and ignited, white and black flames forming into a torrent aimed squarely at Matt. They cut past the innate defense Matts armor had against fire, then bypassed his armor entirely. But they couldnt bypass [Regeneration], and they couldnt stop Matts [Crescent Sweep] no matter how many of the strange grayscale flames she threw around.

When Matt emerged from the conflagration, his armor was no longer red, but flickering black and white in the same way the womans flames were.

Matt felt [Cracked Phantom Armor] take hits on his back, but he had used the exterior layer of his armor to block the attacks. The damage the spells did was considerable, and all the blades had some very strong armor-piercing enchantments, but only twice did they manage to bypass the combination of [Cracked Phantom Armor] and the armor once worn by a member of the Cosmos themselves.

He and Liz killed the final soldier still on the field simultaneously, spear and sword piercing the mans silvery chest from each side. Everyone else was either dead, dying, or had already retreated to the ship.

Matt half suspected that to end the battle and was already transmitting an offer for surrender when he felt the mana cannons on the ships parked in orbit start charging.

If only it was that easy to kill Ascenders.

Matt swished his sword through the air, absorbing a mana crystal to begin his casting of [Breach]. By the time the mana cannon was ready, so was Matt.

And his was bigger.

An average capital ship at his Tier might have a main shot of about two million mana. Matt responded with a [Breach] twenty times that size, unleashed at the same time. The two projectiles met in midair, and after a moment of the two titanic spells colliding, the ships gave way.

Unfortunately, his single quickly charged attack wasnt strong enough to destroy the ships hull, but it did punch through its shielding and rend the metal open in several places.

Then, the offer for surrender came.

Matt, Liz, and Aster didnt need to speak to gather, and there was an uncontrollable excitement bubbling up in them.

If anyone thought they were false Ascenders, those rumors would be put to rest now.

They had faced down an army and won.

Now, they just needed to keep doing that until they won the war.

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