The Path of Ascension

Chapter 34

The next morning, there was a sense of anticipation that boiled in the air. Everyone felt it. People constantly snapped at each other for the slightest affront, and every shoving match that broke out threatened to turn violent.

The waiting area for those chosen to fight was directly behind the battle area. It was dead silent. No one spoke, and the atmosphere was tense. It put Matt's hackles up, and Aster felt the same. He wasn't sure if they were influencing each other, or if they were both just reacting to their surroundings.

Matt stood alongside Liz, with Aster at their feet. Being peak Tier 4's, they were near the dividing lines of the Tier 4s and Tier 5s. The Tier 4's would be able to attack up to the Tier 5's, but the reverse was not true. These battles still needed to respect the rules of war.

He and Liz had discussed the possibility of attacking up a Tier, but decided to make the decision in the moment. As peak Tier 4's, fighting up a Tier would earn them far more participation points than just fighting in their own Tier.

As the time ticked down to the official start of the battle, Matt looked around again. The towers set up had dozens of sentinels. Each was using a piece of flying equipment. None had even a quarter of the speed that the Tier 25's had shown, but the variety of the equipment was fairly shocking. Matt had mostly only seen flying swords and ankle variants in the movies and shows.

Here, he saw everything from brooms to clouds. He even saw one person flying on what looked like miniature birds. As the time to the start of the melee approached, the gathered combatants started fanning out over the battlefield.

There were about three thousand people on each side. Eight hundred of which were Tier 4's.

Matt had come up with a few ideas. He stayed up later than he probably should have last night, but he and Liz had crunched every number and variable that they could. She even pushed her AI to the point that her mana regeneration couldn't keep up, and he had to refill her mana stone.

It was frankly embarrassing that they hadnt thought of some of the ideas they came up with earlier. Still, they took solace in saving their best battle strategies for the highest stakes situation. They weren't perfect, but they would help them when it mattered.

Matt's heart beat smoothly as he watched the Republicans on the far side. They were an armored mass that would charge in and try to decimate their opposition. Decimate him.

He used the remaining minutes to try and have his AI scan anything and everything that would give someone's combat style away. Only the melee fighters and rangers were obvious. Lots of information could be gleaned from a glance at their weapons and gear. Mages were harder. They weren't hard to pick out of the crowd, but there was no way to see what magical affinity or mana element they specialized in.

[Cracked Phantom Armor] kept the cold at bay, but Matt felt the wind gently sway him on his feet. They were near the lake the twin cities had created, but they were outside the reach of the Empire citys heating wards. They were used to keep their side of the lake melted. Here, it was bitterly cold, and the damp air only added to the chill.

Or so Liz was muttering about. He felt nothing with his armor.

Watching the counter tick down, he rechecked that they were wearing their Empire armbands. The purple and silver colors announced their affiliation in this fight. It wouldn't be pretty if they got mistaken for enemies during the first engagement. That was when things would be the most hectic.

There was no grand speech or declaration, just a countdown. Matt watched it tick its final moments in the corner of his HUD.

10.

9.

8.

Each tick of the display felt like an eternity. The time distortion felt longer here than when he did planks during his workouts. He hated those.

All of a sudden, time seemed to speed up, and his heart rate matched its increasing speed.

3,2,1.

Matt and three thousand others started moving in a wave.

His heart was hammering. Each pump echoed through his head.

The sides seemed so far apart, but the first attacks launched early. Mages and archers were arching their projectiles over Matt's head.

What looked like a ball of magma soared over him from one of the mages in the backline. It hardened in the chilling cold, but he had no more time to watch it, as projectiles began entering his area. He needed to block for Liz and Aster.

With his AI draining mana at a rate only possible due to [Mage's Retreat] not being active, Matt calculated the trajectories of the incoming projectiles. He saw that only one would land within ten feet of the trio.

He marked it in his HUD so that Liz would see it, and pushed to Aster they needed to avoid that particular area.

They were still at a jog, and the missed projectiles were replaced by volley after volley. When they had covered a quarter of the mile length of the arena, the melee fighters sprinted forward.

Matt wasn't sure who started it, but it was the standard tactic for battlefields where the range was so short. It was nearly impossible to react to the ranged attacks, so it was better to close the distance.

This way, ranged attackers would think twice about launching indiscriminate attacks, for fear of hitting their allies.

Liz took up the rear, with Aster in between them. This was the formation they had planned, and it immediately paid dividends. An arrow glowing with silver light slammed into [Cracked Phantom Armor], and ricocheted into the air harmlessly.

The other fighters were only fifty feet away when he enacted their second plan. The one he was most embarrassed about not thinking of before.

He withdrew their refillable canteen, and tossed the water in an arc out in front of him.

The water, now exposed to the below freezing air, was instantly frozen. It wasn't the frigid temperature that was responsible. It was Aster.

She used her bloodline's power to create ice from the water. It was a much easier prospect than condensing it herself. The arc of ice stabilized in the air, then formed razor-sharp shards that rocketed forward.

Most of the enemies in the very front were heavily armored, but the little fox's attack earned more than one cry of pain from the enemy lines.

Right after his throw, Matt repeated the action a second time with a regular canteen of water. Liz had their other refillable canteen, and she'd be saving it for when Aster needed the refill. Each canteen took about ten minutes to fill up in an area so dry, so they needed to be conservative.

The time for thinking was over. The melee lines finally collided.

In front of Matt was a hulking figure that raised a massive tower shield. They held it forward and braced for impact.

Matt took that as the challenge it was. Behind the shield was a group of four ranged types that he wanted to remove from the battlefield.

In the final approach, everyone who had them used burst skills, or increased their speed to max the natural way. He did both. [Mage's Retreat] pushed him into Tier 5 strength, and with that power, he dug into the ground and bent low into a full sprint.

He covered the last few feet in a split second and turned his head. Matt saw the battle lines to his left close in like a wave cresting into levees during a flood.

The moment of beauty ended, and he slammed into the now glowing shield with his shoulder. If he didn't have magical armor, Matt would have never attempted something so reckless. Reflective properties on shields weren't uncommon, but they were to be respected.

With [Cracked Phantom Armor] not transmitting any of the force of his impact, he was able to ignore the enchantment's attempt to use his own momentum against him. He continued to press his shoulder into the shield, while the warrior braced behind it.

Matt's physical size wasn't enough to completely overpower a braced warrior in full metal armor, especially one with a reflective shield. So he removed their footing with a leg sweep and disrupted the warriors base, creating an opening.

It only lasted for a moment, but provided just enough of an advantage for his [Mage's Retreat] empowered steps to send the warrior back into his unsuspecting friends.

With the gap in the line, Matt, Liz, and Aster slipped through, and started to butcher the Tier 4's around them.

Matt was focused on keeping the enemy teams on either side away from Liz and Aster. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw a small stream of blood snake out, as well as a half dozen shards of ice that glinted in the sun. They reached the mages and archers of the Republic, and wreaked havoc.

With his attention gripped by the staff user in front of him, Matt threw all finesse to the wayside. He hacked down, and splintered the reinforced Tier 4 weapon with two blows. Thrusting hard, he pierced the Republicans guard and stomach with his blade. Before he had completely withdrawn the tip of his sword, a sentinel on a flying item swooped in, and removed the wounded from the fight.

He didn't have time to revel in his victory, as two more melee fighters were quickly on him.

His group was fighting 'up' to the right of the battlefield, where the Tier 5's were engaged in combat. If they wanted to win the battle, they would focus on fighting left and 'down', securing the Tier 4 battlefield before assaulting the Tier 5's with numbers. But no, they were much more concerned with earning points, and that meant getting to the Tier 5's before the weaker ones were defeated.

With wide and heavy swings of his longsword, he kept the new enemies back. Matt smiled under his armor, as shards of frozen blood perforated the lightly armored man on his right. They had avoided his head, but with how quickly a sentinel swooped in, he assumed something semi-vital was hit.

The man on his left used a shortsword and shield, and was blocking Matt's strikes with deflecting angles. He had learned from the first exchange of blows that this opponent could match Matt's raw strength head-on.

Feinting a blow to this worthy opponents body, Matt lowered the trajectory of the blow, and brought it down to the man's unshielded leg. He expected the blow to break the leg, but when he sliced through the leg and into the hard ground, he felt a twinge of guilt. That would cost the man quite a bit of money to fix.

He knew that first hand.

He knew that left hand.

With the latest party dealt with, they pushed right, reaching another group. This one had just finished off an Empire group off. As they approached, Matt was taken aback at the sight of a large lion with a mane of flame.

It saw Aster and roared.

***

Aster saw the enemy and snarled out a challenge in return. How dare it come into her domain? This beast of flame was beneath her.

It was a creature so desperate for heat, it surrounded its head with fire?

She'd show it the true meaning of cold. This plane of frigid cold was her domain, and this beast was intruding. The biting wind ruffled her fur in the most pleasant of ways as she locked eyes with her enemy. The two beasts let the humans fight.

They weren't needed here.

Just looking at this larger predator raised Asters hackles, more than she had ever experienced before.

This thing must be removed.

The rational side of her knew that the larger predator must feel the same way, but she didn't care.

This creature was the intruder here.

This was the cold.

She was the apex predator here.

Aster used the ice that her humans had brought, and sent a few shards at the flaming monstrosity. They melted before they could do more than cut the beasts fur. With a mental effort, she shoved more mana into the ice under her control.

It responded with glee, her will was its command. The ice shrunk slightly, growing harder, denser, sharper.

The enemy sent a burst of flame at her, but with a hop to the right, Aster dodged it. The abomination followed the insult up by charging directly at her.

It was large. It was fast.

But she was small. She was faster.

When the lion tried to close on her with a leap, she launched a barrage of ice with her will. The stupid beast tried to block with a wall of flames, but it was futile. This was her land. Her world.

Blood dripped from its coat.

She was pleased.

She hoped it stained. It wouldnt have long to worry, as she was going to end the ugly creature anyway. But the humiliation of dying with a tattered and stained pelt should engulf its last breaths in shame.

Aster scampered out of the way of the next blast of heat. She wouldn't let this latest slight go unanswered. With the power that pumped through her heart, she sent more shards of ice at the creatures maw.

She hoped they would remove its sight. It didnt deserve to lay eyes on a coat as beautiful as hers. Alas, its fire was strongest around its head.

Irritated with her ineffective attack, she launched another volley of ice with a wave of her tail. This time, the shards of ice sliced deep cuts into the flame vermins flank.

She hoped the wounds stung with the creeping cold of the end.

Matt was stupid. She loved him, really she did.

He gave the best scratches! His brushing technique could use some work, but that's why she got Liz; the blood mage handled that! Really, what was so hard about it?

He was so obsessed with endless. She showed him so many times. Endless was the cold. It was what all came from, and what all would return to.

The stars he tried to imagine so much were pretenders. Even she knew they would die. They would expend their heat, just like the beast in front of her. And once they did, the cold would creep in, like it has for all eternity.

She knew it. Her blood sang it to her. Why he couldn't understand that simple fact was beyond her.

Once again, she would show him that the cold always won. Given time, it would indeed always prevail. But she was patient. She would show him until he understood. It was so clear to her, surely he would see it as well.

Her next example would be this beast.

They exchanged another burst of elements.

Her cold won, of course, but this stupid feline almost singed her fur.

It was time to end this. How dare it try to mar her pristine coat.

With all the will she could muster, she borrowed from the cold around her. It heeded her call. Seven spikes of sharp, dense ice formed in the air around the enemy.

Pushing with everything she had, she drove the spikes through the beast. With her connection to the ice, she felt them collide inside its body and shatter.

The shrapnel of the crystalline ice added to its agony. The beast should have expected this outcome when it challenged her.

Aster was the Queen of this world, and its consequence for challenging her would be as sustenance.

She scampered forward. The floating ones had stolen her yummy hearts by swooping in, but this time she would not allow it.

Aster had been so careful to keep the heart intact. The victory over the flames would make this one taste so much better. She salivated in anticipation of the taste of victory that she was about to revel in.

Her new skill made retrieving the hearts much easier. The lowly feline looked into her eyes, and she met them. It should know the cold that extinguished its fires.

As she pushed mana into her skill and felt the connection to the weakening heart, one of the flyers dove down.

It was going to try and steal her snack again.

That was unbearable. Unacceptable. She tried to hurry the skill, but her ice spikes were broken, and the beast was removed from her influence.

She snarled at the sky, then saw that her humans were battling another group.

Ah. A Queen's duties were never over.

***

Matt kept a worried eye on Asters fight, but she seemed to have the larger beast handled well. She was in a suitable environment, but he still worried for his little bond.

He parried a blow from the spear wielder in front of him. The woman was good. So good that he was pegging her as having a Talent related to the weapon. Her skill was for naught, as Liz used whips of blood to decimate the rest of her team.

Right now, Matts only job was to keep her contained. She had nearly escaped, but while he couldnt beat her outright, he could out-muscle her to keep her at bay.

She was pinned down, and with a whip of blood around her ankle, the woman was pulled into the air. Matt brought his blade down as she was rising quickly by the second. At the last moment, he turned the blade, so that the flat would strike her. He was confident that he could have bisected the woman if he wanted to.

But, as he saw the sentinel already sweeping in, he decided to show some mercy. She was another worthy opponent, and if he didnt have to severely injure her, he would avoid it out of respect.

The woman landed, and was scooped up. She didnt resist, and even gave a slight nod to Matt as she ascended away from the fighting.

Trying to regain control of his breathing, Matt looked around, and saw that the Tier 5 area was right next to them. The only remaining Tier 4 nearby was a man nearly Matts own size, bobbing and weaving around the attacks of a dagger-wielding Republican. He fought alone, but was clearly a master of hand to hand combat.

Seeing Aster pattering up to them, Matt called out to the Empire fighter, Need a hand?

With a clear voice, he called back, No, though I guess the fun is over.

In two fluid motions, the man slipped around another swipe of the dagger. Grabbing wrist and elbow, he drove the Republicans own weapon into their chest. The now injured fighter was pulled out by a sentinel on flaming boots.

Matt was shocked. This man moved like a fluttering leaf. His motions were fluid, and his technique was unmatched. Matt had never come across nimble and flowing movements like this madman had displayed.

The fighter waved, and called out, Humptys the name, fighting the game. There was a slight pause, and then he finished, Ok. Im out of rhymes. Want to punch through the Tier 5 side together? The rest of my team got taken out by that dagger dude. Had some short-range blink skill.

Raising his eyebrows at that, Matt agreed, Sure. Anything we need to know about your style?

It was a standard question, just to see if he had anything that would affect the entire battlefield, and thus their team.

Not really. I guess that I dont use weapons or spells. Just dont crowd me too much. Need room to move.

As they ran to the next fight, Matt analyzed the fighter. He was a tall, larger man, which usually implied melee fighter. And that he was, but he fought with the agility of a rogue, more so than any man of his size Matt had ever seen.

Before Matt could analyze further, the four of them crossed an invisible line. From over his shoulder, an arm length shard of ice rocketed out, and took an occupied mage in the side.

They retaliated with a cutting arc of wind that Matt was able to barrel through. It stressed his armor a bit, but his practice at keeping the skill stable prevented the structure from breaking.

The mage turned to face them fully, and released a blast of fire.

Matt again ran straight through the spell. He felt not even a wisp of the heat. Fire and wind both had the same problem. They had little to no mass. Neither could stop his bulk.

He gripped the arm that spewed fire and raised it, redirecting the stream, and brought the pommel of his sword down on the mages collarbone. The mage was pulled out by a sentinel before Matt needed to inflict more damage on him.

Spinning, he turned back to his group, and saw Humpty fighting a man with a rapier.

The martial artist flowed around each of his opponents strikes, with his legs doing as much damage as his fist and palms.

Aster was taking potshots at anyone who came too close. She seemed to be doing fine, so he turned his attention to Liz.

She was... Magnificent.

The blood mage was fighting two opponents in close range. She used her spear offensively and defensively, cutting tender flesh with the spearhead and blocking strikes with the shaft. Her blood tendrils lashed out, and acted as an extra pair of limbs to fight with.

It was art in motion.

Matt was taken out of his momentary musing when an arrow slammed into his head. With long strides, he closed the distance to the pestering archer.

Two more shots slammed into his chest as he closed the gap. They were ineffective, but the next arrow started glowing a pale golden light. The archer drew the arrow back as Matt approached.

They were waiting until he was too close to dodge.

Matt ruined the archers plan by reaching down and pulling the small crossbow from his belt. He took aim and fired in one swift motion. The archer flinched, and loosed their arrow at the same time.

His bolt caught the Republican in the leg, while their arrow punched through [Cracked Phantom Armor], and lodged in his side. It wasnt a deep wound, as punching through the skill spent most of its energy. But it still hurt.

Before the archer could reload, Matt was upon them. They tried to run, but with the bolt sticking out of their leg, they could barely do more than limp.

Matt was about to run them through with his blade, when the archer raised their hands and surrendered. They were quickly picked up by a sentinel, so he turned and rejoined the fighting.

***

Liz weaved in between the two fighters she was keeping occupied. With a thrust of her spear, she caught the man to her right along the neck. He was quickly pulled away. She used a bit of mental effort to pull the extra blood into her power as the sentinel left with his quarry.

She stepped right, dodging a thrust from her second opponent. Her blood helped propel her to the side, and let her glide along the ground. Unable to stop his momentum, her remaining opponent stepped into the path of a tendril of blood.

Liz caught his leg and pulled him towards her, then ran her helpless opponent through with her spear.

The Tier 4 weapon was struggling a bit against the Tier 5 equipment, but it was rift-made, which helped it bridge the gap well enough. When they got off this planet, shed need to get the rune copied so she could use it on future weapons. It was effective.

She pulled as much blood as she could from the second man, before he too was removed from the battlefield. Most of her blood supply was from earlier fights. It hampered her, but her only other option was to blatantly murder people. That wouldnt reflect well on the Empire, or her family, so it wasnt an option.

Liz looked to find her next fight, and saw Matt, in his fully armored form, taking on two Tier 5 melee fighters. Despite his being outnumbered, he was winning. His blade indiscriminately hacked through flesh and metal, Tier difference be damned.

It was always nice to watch him at work.

He was physically stronger than most of these new Tier 5s, and with his armor, he was cutting a swath through the Republicans. Every hit just slid off his armor, and he punished anyone who thought they could stand against him.

He was persistence incarnate.

Liz came to a party in a fight, used a thin tendril of blood, and whipped their tank from behind. Their scream brought the attention of their archer. Liz bent back, and slipped down flat on the ground, dodging the arrow that was shot her way.

There was a slight course correction that her AI had anticipated. The way the archer loosed her arrow had given her away. Liz used a bit of blood to interrupt the skill enhanced arrow, and knock it off its directed course. Whatever skill the archer was using lost is tracking abilities when disrupted by the blow from her blood.

AI warning siren blaring, she scrambled to her feet, and vaulted over a geyser of pressurized water created from the ground near her feet.

Using the blood, Liz guided her landing. The mage was clever to attack her anticipated landing spot, but she wouldnt be outsmarted by a mere Republican. She returned the water mages attack with a fully powered heave of her spear. Her blood doping, combined with using [Blood Manipulation] on the blood filled capsule in the butt of the spear, launched the weapon at inhuman speed.

Realizing the danger, the Republican mage produced a wall of water with an upward wave of their arms, slowing the momentum of the spear. It wasnt enough to stop the impact, but the quick counter kept the blow from knocking its target out of the battle. Liz recalled her spear, as well as a substantial amount of blood from the gash she created in the mages side.

The blood and water mages circled each other, combat raging all around them as they took measured steps in a small circle a few feet in diameter. The Republican shouted some insult at her; she didnt bother to read the translation from her AI. Instead she responded by striking out with a blood whip, and her opponent mage responded with a water whip of their own.

Back and forth they lashed out at one another, matching each other strike for strike. This would be a true contest of manipulation skills, blood against water. Liz knew she had an advantage by using the more dense liquid, but who knew what other skills this Tier 5 had at their disposal. She decided to end the fight quickly, before the water mage could unleash another skill.

Too late.

The air around them seemed to shimmer, and the water mage unleashed a twelve foot tall tidal wave, seemingly out of nowhere. The torrent rushed towards Liz, ready to swallow her whole and wash her entirely away from the battlefield.

Despite the danger, she steeled herself. She grew up spending time with the best water mage in the Empire, Duke Waters. Her father was no slouch with water either, even though his specialty was storm spells. This was nothing she hadnt seen before.

She fed every ounce of mana she could, internally and from her mana stones, into both [Blood Manipulation] and [Create Blood] at once.

She quickly immersed herself into a spinning blood sphere, just as the torrent of water struck. She spun with the momentum of the tidal wave, using the force to spin faster and faster, drawing the water into herself. As the water and blood mixed, she channeled her skills to infect the water making it blood, and released the sphere form. She created a blood spout from her own blood and the massive flood unleashed at her. It towered more than twenty feet high, drawing the attention of most of the surrounding combatants.

The Republican water mage could only watch on in horror, as Liz unleashed the full force of the blood storm, and sent it directly towards her enemy. The mage was swallowed up by the torrent of blood, rising higher in the air with each rotation of the blood spout.

With sheer force of will, Liz sent the water mage sky bound with the rotational force of her blood storm, and released [Blood Manipulation]. The Republican was slammed to the ground like a stone, rendered completely unconscious from lack of oxygen in the vacuum created by the tornado. From the way their body was contorted on the ground, she didnt need her AI to tell her how many bones were broken.

It was most of them.

A sentinel quickly came to scoop up the Republican, Liz was sure that her opponents bones and internal organs were in bad shape from its rough descent. Exhausted, but satisfied with her victory, she scanned the area for her comrades.

The three of them ended their fights and rejoined their new friend with the stupid alias. There was no way that could be his real name after all. Humpty ended his latest fight with a kick that shattered the rapier users knee, and then a palm strike uppercut to the jaw. They dropped unconscious.

They found another Tier 5 team waiting. Nice of them to wait, but the rules of war stated that their little group was fair game for the duration of the battle, once they started attacking any Tier 5 teams.

Still, they waited to engage until Liz and Aster sent out volleys of ice and blood.

This cold was slowing down the blood and weakening Lizs control over the liquid. She still could use frozen blood with her manipulation, but it was harder, and drained her mana faster.

Liz checked her spirit. About a quarter of her mana left. Enough for this fight.

Matt charged into their melee fighters, and Liz tried to circle to get to the backline.

Her plan didnt quite work, as a fighter on the backline jumped into the air, and remained suspended. He unleashed bolt after bolt of lightning at Liz, using his levitation to maintain a clean line of sight.

She used her blood to block as much as she could, but a tendril got through. Her body locked up, but her mana was still under her control. From the sheer power of the attack, she put the lightning mage at peak Tier 5. Even one strike was enough to overwhelm her physically.

Humpty used his skill as an acrobat to jump off of Matts armored shoulder, and Liz made a last ditch effort to to help, before she was removed from the fight.

She pushed her blood to harden, and made a platform for the jumping man to get an extra step. It worked, and he leapt onto and latched onto the lightning mage, driving blow after blow into his body.

Liz hit the ground, and saw that Aster was singed. She scooped the little fox up as they were pulled from the battle.

Her last view was of a smoking Humpty falling alongside the mage, and Matt standing there alone, fighting the last of the team.

***

Matt tried not to get angry at the mage who had fried his teammates, but the heat of rage bled through. It brought a smile to his face when he saw that Humpty brought the mage down. He made a mental note that he owed the man a beer when this fight was over.

With a heavy swing, he deliberately opened a gap in his defenses. The sword and shield user took the chance to shield bash, so Matt dropped his sword.

He gripped the top of the mans shield, and let the sword skitter off [Cracked Phantom Armor]. Matt wound up and delivered a punch to the kidney that dropped the man. His teammate tackled Matt, but in their falling scuffle, he saw that the man he had punched was being removed from the field.

The woman on top of him was actually equal to him in strength, and had the weight advantage with her metal armor.

They exchanged places rolling around in the dirt, and Matt was on top for long enough to drive two spiked gauntlets into her armpit. She gripped his arm, using one of the strikes to get him in an arm lock.

Matt could tell that he was slowly losing the battle, so he resorted to a tactic he would only use in desperation. He dropped [Cracked Phantom Armor], and turned his AI into sleep mode. Then, he dumped everything into [Mages Retreat]. It was a sixty-one percent boost, and that little bit extra allowed him to slowly overpower the womans hold, and reverse the situation.

With a jerk, he heard a pop, and reactivated [Cracked Phantom Armor]. With the skill active, he slammed fist after fist into her armored helmet. He stopped when ornately armored boots landed in front of him. The sentinel took her away.

Standing, Matt stumbled slightly. The woman had kneed him, and cracked something in his hip.

Reached down for his sword, Matt readied himself, and charged into the next team. They were still fighting an Empire group, and he hoped that this final engagement would shift the balance, even a little bit.

Giving up wasnt an option.

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