The Path of Ascension

Chapter 320

Janet was fifty hours into working on a rebuttal to a proposal for an overhaul of Veil policy in some of the inner regions when her AI blipped at her, but she ignored it. As much as she felt that mortals should not need to worry about cultivator business, they couldn’t allow the Empire’s current policies to go un-investigated.

The idea that low-Tiers, born of low-Tiers and unused to the normal ways of the higher Tiers, could make Gladiators wasn’t unknown. It was the original way in which the Gladiator program had gotten its name, after all. But the original Gladiator program was so rife with abuse and unambiguously unethical, it had been excised in its entirety shortly after the first veil-born had reached high office.

And now… it might be coming back.

She didn’t know how to feel about it, in all honesty. There would be far, far more checks in place, more oversight, diligent monitoring of the handlers to ensure their charges weren’t being abused, weren’t being thrown into the arena en masse, or killing billions in the reckless pursuit of a singular elite. That was nigh unforgivable, and a crime for which the Empire’s hands were more blood than flesh.

Harold’s proposal was far too lax in such important considerations. He was too cavalier, too content to allow the sands flow red as he hunted for the resplendent few, and while there was too much support behind his initiative to fully shut it down… she could at least blunt it. Millions would still die. That much was certain, if this proposal went through. Potentially for naught, if the prevailing theory remained that the origin of Gladiators was genuinely random. Signs still pointed to no, from what she could tell. Aiden Waters, Matthew Titan, and Zack Light were all from worlds that would have been Veiled were they in the Republic, that was true. But Elizabeth Legion and Allison Shadow weren’t. Aster Wraith was something of an in-between, but it was clear that the children of immortals still had a better chance at becoming Gladiators.

And this was all assuming that Aiden, Matthew, and Zack weren’t seeded talents, something which she could not yet discount, and in some ways, something that only became more likely as she looked into it. Matthew had actually entered Republic border space at the time that he had “met” Elizabeth. And while it was difficult to fully investigate on account of the planet in question being stolen, they were quite certain that at Tier 3, having never officially left his Tier 4 homeworld, he already had bonded to Aster and possessed his signature impossibly powerful armor skill. A Tier 14, cracked armor skill at that. There wasn’t technically enough evidence to implicate King Frederick in Matthew’s seeding, but the odds that he was uninvolved were astronomical.

But, officially the Empire simply was playing dice with the lives of their mortals, until astronomical odds became inevitable. That the Empire was being honest was the theory which Grand Senator Harold was operating under, and it was a theory that would be tested one way or another. She only hoped she could limit its harm. This war was brutal enough, she did not wish to brutalize her own people as well.

By all rights, the Empire should have already crumpled under the pressure. It was three on one. Even counting the nominal participation of the Conglomerate of Guilds, the Empire was still effectively outmatched two to one. Unchecked and aggressive expansion was the diplomatic reason for the war; they weren’t supposed to already be so strong that they could weather such intense pressure! If there was any consolation, the Federation was also being pressed, thanks to their smaller size, which meant they would be even in an even weaker position than the Republic would be if, or rather when, a war between them started.

The revelations of the Federation’s experiments upon their subjects had been… disturbing. She almost wished they’d been more successful, because then she would have better cause for forming a new coalition to declare war upon them. Perhaps if Virgil’s mad plan to eliminate Aiden Waters worked, then Janet could garner enough support with the Unification of Clans, and Monster Collective, to war with the Federation next, under the pretext of their too-powerful soldiers disrupting the balance of power? It might take some time for her and the Republic to recover thanks to how drawn out this war had been, but she knew her next target. Janet might be able to set aside her morals for the bigger picture, but that didn’t mean she would disregard them entirely. She would not exist in a realm with something as vile as Virgil leading quadrillions to their doom. Still, for now, the Empire was the larger threat.

Emmanuel, like his father, was a conniving piece of shit, but he at least didn’t boast in the horrible evils he wrought upon his subjects. He at least acted regretful about the billions, even trillions who had wound up dead upon his bloodbath of a Path, compared to Virgil’s disquieting and proud glee at her twisted “children.” But, to give credit where it was due, Virgil was at least upfront about her twisted mind. Rather than Emmanuel, who had either bewitched or cut backroom deals with half of the Realm to look the other way as he climbed ever-higher, giving paper-thin excuses for what were obviously preparations for war. They’d even bluffed cutting funding to their Farm. Janet didn’t know what it was a cover for, nor why they’d chosen that as a cover, but it was hidden behind few enough misdirections that it was obviously the intended story to leak. That any other Tier 50 could look at a man amassing power, preparing a vast war chest, and consolidating some kind of ability to create Gladiators nearly at-will, and see anything but a warmonger preparing to attempt to conquer the entire Realm was mind-boggling to her. It seemed utterly short-sighted.

The worst part was that if she hadn’t joined the war, the Empire might have outright won. It was a horrifying prospect that she had tried to use to bring either Aoife, Tobias, or JR into the war on their side, but all of them had refused. Tobias had done so with just enough fervor that Janet couldn’t be sure if he had been bribed or if he was just holding out for a better offer. The Turtle had, until just a few centuries prior, hated the Sophrons. It was a professional hatred, born of grudges left over from the war of foundation for the Monster Collective and before, but it was there nonetheless. Yet now, he steadfastly refused to entertain the idea of joining the war against the Empire, and she didn’t know why. Her best theory was far too petty, that he was friends with Mara Moore and thereby saw her daughter becoming an Ascender as unworrying. She wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but there was no evidence for anything, and the bonds of friendship didn’t leave a paper trail.

JR, the greedy raven, on the other hand, had outright told her that breaking his neutrality would be too expensive –a blatant admission that he’d been bribed to stay out of the war– and there wasn’t anything she owned that could tip the scales to bring him in.

Neither would say more than that, and Janet couldn’t force them.

Aoife at least had the noble excuse of honoring the treaty Hastor had signed before his Ascension, which Janet couldn’t refute without tarnishing either party’s reputation.

Her AI blipped again and she waved it away as she continued drafting her rebuttal to Harold’s proposal.

Sometimes, she truly wished that the Republic might have been set up more akin to the Clans, Empire, or Sects. There, whatever the Tier 50 said simply happened. But in the Republic, she certainly had power, and lots of it, but it was far from absolute. Especially in terms of allocating the ten Tier 47 slots and two Tier 48 slots each Great Power was allowed. Were the other three Great Powers simply dictated who got what slot, if they got a slot at all, her power was far more limited. Even Janet's Tier 48 running-mates hadn’t even been assured to be by her side in the election. Whereas the other three could simply allocate slots as they wished, six of hers were outside her control. Most trouble came from the three generally elected Grand Senators, especially those on their second, or- in Harold’s case- third term. To win the election for a Tier 47 seat three elections in a row meant that his influence and represented population extended far and wide.

It would almost be easier if he were one of the Grand Senators whose seat was set aside for the scholars, mortals, or blooded. Then his motivations would be more direct and focused, easier to work around, and simpler to negotiate with. But no, he kept winning the general elections, and that meant his appeal was wide and his goals were broad.

So, she did her best to simply limit the damage. Some people were advocating for universal state-sponsored awakening, others were advocating for lessening the loan programs present for awakening, and one faction wanted to do away with the Veil entirely. That particular group wanted to imitate the Empire and their mass-awakening technology in its entirety, nevermind that such machines were expensive and impractical to deploy at scale. How the Empire was managing it was something of a mystery, but it was eminently possible that they weren’t, given their apparent pushes for war.

Still, that particular bit of cruft was easy enough to dismiss with her counter-proposal of carefully expanding Gladiator recruitment. Firm documentation as to how and why the handlers chose a given candidate, explanation of the nature of cultivation before their first match, mandated handler-separated opportunities to leave the Gladiator circuit and get a low-level job at regular intervals, the list went on. Their Awakening could be state-sponsored if they chose to enter the circuit, but not if they opted out, and-

Janet glared as her AI beeped for a third time. Her flow interrupted, she brought up the message and froze for a moment until she jacked her perception to its max to go through and read the past messages.

02870105 11:12 ‘Empire Ascender Team has destroyed the alchemy crafting station at Resplendent Night.’

02870104 17:45 ‘Empire Ascender Team has destroyed the supply depot moon at Galphor’s Rest.’

02870103 02:32 ‘Empire Ascender Team has destroyed the arms crafting station at Kipling Two.’

02870101 09:53 ‘Empire Ascender Team has destroyed the…’

The messages repeated themselves five more times with various variations, but Janet couldn't quite process them.

It made no sense. The incidents were just days, if not hours apart, and crossing that much space should be impossible for a Tier 25.

What had happened in the war in the last few weeks?

The last report she was given had been about the death of an ex-Path elite and the serious wounding of Zack.

Janet had gone into her project content with the knowledge that all the resources that had been poured in the joint venture had paid off splendidly, and that the war was finally tipping into their favor after being a grinding slog for so long.

What had happened?

Scouring the attaching documents Janet almost couldn’t believe what she was reading. She didn’t want to believe.

They’d long suspected that Allison Shadow had a higher range than she was ostensibly letting on, but this was… impossible.

Rapid deployments across a Great Power were hard enough with Talented pilots. It had taken three Great Powers merging their resources to get enough of them to move that behemoth of a ship at a speed that should have made it impossible to outrun. Yet no matter how fast their ship moved, true instantaneous movement was faster still.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

They’d apparently left the frontlines, seen an incredibly powerful healer, then returned to the frontlines to fight and win against the Harmony Accord, all within the span of a week. From the injury reports, they had to have seen a overhealth healer, which meant that at minimum they’d gone to a regional capital, if not Sophron Imperium Maginex itself.

The Empire Ascenders had then gone on to ambush unsuspecting troop transports, causing mass casualties in the Tier 25 bracket. Troops needed to batter down the final layer of Empire planets. Troops they couldn’t afford to squander.

As if to further anger her, the Harmony Accord’s responses had only led them to getting pulled into a more remote region of the war front. That had given the two teams of Ascenders the freedom to slip deep inside her territory, where they proceeded to destroy Tier 25 bracket infrastructure like children having a tantrum.

The shipyards and crafting locations had few actual casualties beyond idiots who disregarded the Ascenders’ threats, but that was the only good thing about this mess. Sure, it would take decades, if not a century, to get those factories up and running again, but if the majority of the crafters themselves had been killed, the Tier 25 war effort would have been crippled for thousands of years. It took time to raise tens of thousands of Tier 25 crafters. But what hurt worst of all were the supply depot moons they destroyed. So much had been lost as those nodes crumbled upon themselves.

Janet felt a flare of deep hatred pulse through her as she watched a recording of Titan throwing a bomb into her moon. Watching the resulting destruction felt like finding one had a chipped tooth when eating something minty.

Her generals had already redirected troops from the frontlines to guard what was left of their Tier 25 production faculties, but it was too late for ten percent of her facilities.

Janet immediately drafted and sent a proposal to the senate for expediting replacements of those faculties. They would be fine using existing stock for this war, but losing ten percent of her Tier 25 supply making capabilities would make that entire bracket look weaker. Weak enough that the Clans, the Monster Collective, or Corporation might see them as being ripe for jumping on.

While rare, if a Great Power took enough damage in a war, the other Great Powers might start declaring war on her looking for easy concessions. She could always decline, but that would come with payoffs. Worst of all, the Sects and Federation hadn’t even been attacked in the same way, meaning they might be just as opportunistic as the others when this war ended.

Fists clenched so hard she started creating distortions as the fabric of reality struggled to contain her might, Janet counted down from ten thousand.

It helped.

A little.

Letting out a breath, she brought up the rest of the war reports, searching for any good news.

Maya beating Aiden into a bloody pulp was technically old news, but reviewing the beating delivered to the freakishly strong Tier 31 made her feel marginally better. So did the reports in the Tier 15 and Tier 35 brackets.

The Tier 15 bracket was a brutal meat grinder where fresh immortals were chewed up by the millions, but there at least, the three of them were doing well. Virgil's implementation of her rune soldiers had given them a distinctive edge, and the callous Tier 50 didn’t mind using her soldiers like shock troops, even with the losses that came from such actions. The lack of any Ascenders or Graduates in that Tier bracket meant there wasn’t too much which could go wrong.

Having one of the major war brackets essentially in the bag was a relief.

The Tier 35 bracket had been mostly in a stalemate, but with Maya’s victory taking Aiden out of the fight, they were making steady progress in closing in on Rusty’s capital.

Two out of three major war brackets was still a victory. That couldn’t be denied. Combined with the loss of a regional capital, the Empire would be forced to give exorbitant reparations. But a victory for them or even a stalemate in the Tier 25 bracket would lessen those damages.

War calculations had been long hammered out when the war was declared, mostly using existing precedent. They could demand the Empire stop expanding for forty thousand years or so, even if the Tier 25 bracket lost, but Janet wanted more.

It wasn’t enough to drive the knife in, she wanted to twist it. She wanted to hit the Empire so hard, they couldn’t recover for generations of immortal rulers. That was impossible, but she salivated at the thought. Even an unconditional surrender wouldn’t give her so much sway, but still, she wanted to take some of the wind out of their sails.

Things like the full Path of Ascension audit would reveal enough cause to further censure them. Taking inspiration from her current counter-proposal, perhaps they could establish some form of cap for the maximum number of deaths allowed upon the Path? That could effectively force them to limit the number of entrants, and therefore both strengthen the older more conservative noble factions, as well as make it harder for the oddities like Aiden, who weren’t exceptional until far later, to be discovered. Additional reparations, more planets, natural treasures… the Empire had a lot of momentum, but it could still be hampered, and in the best case, taken for the Republic’s benefit. After seeing Supreme General Alicia Fortan was going on the offensive to force the Empire to respond to them, instead of the other way around, Janet finalized her proposal for the expansion of the academies.

Janet wished there was something she could do to personally change the course of the war, but at this point, she was just an observer.

But she believed. Believed in the indomitable Republic spirit that would see them through this difficult time. Her people were nothing if not hard working and stubborn.

That would have to be enough.

It had to be.

***

General Declan Raven tapped the table with a finger as he got a report directly from Brigadier General Darrow.

The message had been sent just before he and his team had left the rift, which meant there was no way to respond. Declan didn’t take it personally or get mad. It was a classic move that he himself had pulled a few times before in his career, when he wanted to do something he knew wouldn’t go over well or wouldn’t get approved.

So long as the mission wasn’t a complete disaster, such transgressions were usually forgiven.

Usually.

When they weren’t forgiven, you ended up promoted to a seat on High Command, where you were endlessly tortured with paperwork and the inability to throw a fit.

Ahh well, such was life.

Opening the contents of Darrow's message made him wince internally, but he didn’t let any of that show as the others looked to him.

“Our Ascenders are planning to do their own thing.”

It was almost amusing to watch the others stiffen at the news that their most goodest boys had decided to slip the leash after so long of plodding along with the boring ass missions they had been given.

Declan wasn’t one to gloat. Eh, who was he kidding? He fully intended to rub it in. “And this is why I said we should be giving the Ascenders missions with some teeth. Keep them from getting too bored and complacent.”

General Brooks had a vein throb on his temple so quickly, it almost looked like he was trying to send a message. But really, it was just his anger. “What are they doing, Raven? We can’t have them messing up our plans now of all times. We are too close and have been working too long to prepare for this moment.”

Declan flicked a finger to send the message to everyone else and gave them a moment to process the information.

General Li let out a slow breath that was almost a sigh. “It could be worse. If—”

“Worse? This could spoil our plans. Operation Defang has been our trump card for winning this war, and the Ascenders are risking it by gallivanting off to take out a few armies and supply bases!” General Crawford was nearly standing from the power he slapped the table with. “I propose we issue them an immediate recall via any means necessary.”

Declan looked around but saw less support for the motion than he expected from everyone's expressions.

General Kjarr waved a hand. “If this is the extent of their plan we can work with this.” Seeing Crawford nearly explode at the very suggestion, Kjarr narrowed her eyes. “I understand you are worried about the operation you spearheaded, Crawford, but keep control of yourself, man. You are reacting like a six year old child who was told he can't have any candy. Far too emotional.”

Declan smirked at General Kjarr’s verbal smackdown, but didn’t add to it. He would have been a bit more cutting, but she had dealt with the situation and that was what really mattered. That, and he did understand where Crawford was coming from. Operation Defang was their big gamble in the Tier 25 war front, and if it was spoiled by the Ascenders going wild, they were screwed.

Let alone that officially, the Ascenders reported to him, so he’d be the one taking the heat of any issue from their actions both sanctioned and unsanctioned. Oh well, maybe they’d let him retire after this fiasco.

Once she saw that she had things under control, General Kjarr brought up a projection of the war front. “Without the Ascenders running out and plugging the war front assault, we are going to lose more ground than we expected, but Defang isn’t in danger of being exposed just because they show Shadow’s Talent a little earlier than we desired. If we want the operation to succeed, we still need Team Zero to smack the Harmony Accords down hard enough that they can’t respond immediately. This can be a good chance to force such an encounter. I say we let the game play out and react as needed. What’s more immediately important is the question of how we want to handle Team Zero’s absence on the war front. Do we bring out the last of our reserves to bolster the defenses, or let planets fall?”

Declan listened as the others argued back and forth, but ultimately agreed with the choice to let the war front get pushed in. It meant losses both in personnel and planets, but it would help sell the message they were on their last legs and being propped up by the efforts of their Ascenders.

The fact that it was true helped sell the not quite illusion, but this was the moment where hard sacrifices needed to be made.

They needed the Harmony Accords to take a loss, and if Declan was right, they were about to be led around by their noses. And for elites who must feel like they were on top of the world, that would be the worst feeling imaginable. That was their opportunity.

As days passed, they got more reports and Declan couldn’t help but grow excited. The dozens of armies that had been destroyed were great and all, but what he really cared about were the reports of the tub the Harmony Accords floated around in had been seen running around as they chased Team Zero across the war front.

Dozens of stops and starts when Team Zero moved around and hit locations until they finally decided on a place to hunt and their futures settled down. It was a simple strategy, but one that forced the Harmony Accords to respond, as Team Zero was more than happy to just slaughter armies should they not be checked.

After they brought the Harmony Accords across the warfront to an out of the way location, Declan and the other Generals waited for reports of Team Zero sightings.

The reports from the Watchers came in first, and they were glorious and eventually filled in when Team Zero returned to the rift.

Ten critical Tier 25 points of infrastructure taken out in the Republic, forcing all the Great Powers to redirect troops to their heartlands where vital infrastructure should have been beyond reach.

For the first time since news of their little expedition, General Crawford’s expression relaxed just the tiniest bit. “While they didn’t ruin our plans, we are at a juncture where we need to make a choice. Do we loose the arrow now, or do we hold it a little longer? Now that deployments are changing, we are going to start losing track of elites, and that could ruin everything. It might be worth it to send them right back out with now that we know the Harmony Accords are deep inside Republic space.”

Declan chewed the inside of his lip as he mulled over the problem.

He actually agreed with Crawford. A week and a half of travel time, two at the longest if their estimations of the ships capabilities were off, wasn’t the ideal opening they had been hoping for, but it was an opening. And sometimes, you didn’t get what you wanted. They could always wait, but the longer they waited, the more out of date their data became.

It would be better for the Harmony Accords to be inside their space, but this might be the best chance they got.

Operation Defang was the culmination of decades of planning on how to use Shadow’s Talent reveal for maximum effect. The idea was simple. Use her mobility in the waypoint infested war front to let Team Zero teleport around like madmen, with the single purpose of killing as many elites as possible.

Not to fend off armies, armies could ultimately be replaced, but elites, especially peak and pinnacle elites, were oh so valuable. A death or two could be shrugged off, but if Team Zero could kill a dozen of them, they could outright cripple their enemies’ ability to wage war in the Tier 25 bracket.

With the threat of Ascenders ready to pounce the moment an elite moved to engage in a frontline battle, the enemies would only have two options, neither of which was palatable. Gather all their elites together with the Harmony Accords, or pull their elites out of the war so they were safely sequestered away from the danger of an Ascender swooping down to kill them.

If their enemies were smart, they would pull their elites back, but if they wanted to risk a defeat in detail, Declan and the other Generals had plans for that too. Either way, the heaviest hitters would be removed from this war, which would make all the earlier losses worth it.

With that and Aiden assuring them he could single handedly turn the Tier 35 bracket around, the Empire had a chance to flip this war around in one moment.

They just needed things to go right.

And anyone who had led troops on even something as small and easy as a picnic, knew that never happened.

It had taken tremendous effort from all sectors of the Empire war machine for them to get precise locations of most of the enemy elites in this narrow little window, but that information would quickly lose its value as time passed and orders changed.

If they moved now, they could ensure at least a minimum level of damage. But if they waited until the Harmony Accords was inside Empire space, they could use their reserves to slow both the Accords and the elites down.

Settle for a smaller but more certain victory, or risk it all for the large victory?

The choice had plagued military leaders since man picked up its first pointy stick, Declan was sure, but now that he was in the position to help decide, he found himself conflicted.

As he cast his vote, he smiled seeing the others almost unanimously agree with him. It almost surprised him, but they all must have had the same thought.

Ascenders did the impossible all the time.

What was one more?

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