The Path of Ascension

Chapter 301

Matt wanted to throw himself into practicing the lessons as they flew to relieve the sieges, but didnt feel right about their entire team going down like that. Instead of just moving through chaotic space with Drifter darting around like a minnow, they were moving with two full armies which meant they were moving at a third of their normal speed.

Except, there were six armies with them as Matt counted it, but the Guilds counted differently.

Army was a weird description in the Guilds. There was the Army, and there was the Army. The confusion came from Guild standard having two words for what Matt would consider an army, single word. The first was a normal army, which moved around and attacked worlds or did whatever the higher ups needed them to do. The second, they didnt consider to be an army no, they were the defensive units who held systems in the fortress worlds. They were a military fighting force, but not an army. It seemed like a weird distinction, and as a result, when the generals had said they were only bringing two armies it turned out that they meant two offensive armies, while there would be a separate defensive army ready to retake the fortress worlds as they liberated the systems.

The new bit of knowledge made Matt go into a rabbit hole, and with his access, he looked into what else made them different. The first was obvious the armies were separate political entities with little overlap or transfer between the two. If you joined the offensive army, there were few methods to transfer to the defensive side.

The second difference was in their training and equipment. The defensive armies were made to defend systems, and their training and equipment reflected that. They were repair specialists as much as they were fighters who could keep a planet defended through even the worst of attacks. The offensive armies, on the other hand, were naturally focused on the offensive, and were built around taking worlds or fighting besiegers in space.

It was odd to him to separate the two, but it seemed to make sense to the Guildies.

To make matters worse, at least in Matt's opinion, all the higher ups wanted to play Meet The Ascender under the guise of talking strategy. Matt would have loved to avoid that responsibility to do literally anything else, but Liz and Aster wanted to see if they could make any headway on the lessons Ezra had given them. And with how many times they had done the liaisoning for him, he couldnt refuse.

Truth be told, it wasnt as bad as he feared. There was, in fact, a decent bit of actual strategizing with the leaders of the armies. Or, there was with the Tier 27 army. Matt couldn't help the Tier 15 army fight their battle, though they were there. Their presence had taken him by surprise when he arrived at the meeting, not because they were there, but because of how many there were. Armies at the Tier 25 bracket had around four to five thousand combat capable troops, which was the norm going up all the way to the Tier 35 bracket, but the single Tier 15 army had a full one hundred thousand combat capable troops. He had seen the reports, he knew the logistics thanks to his preparatory training, but seeing their command staff outnumbering the rest of the officers a few times over really drove the point home.

After the fairly short briefing of how they would best be used in the Tier 27 battle, and after making it clear they would follow orders without kicking up a fuss, things started to resemble a noble gala more than a military meeting. It was thankfully not nearly as bad as one. Everyone here had seen combat for longer than Matt had been alive, which helped prevent some of the star struck badgering he knew was common to Ascenders. Matt mostly moved from group to group and made small talk while trying not to offend anyone. He knew that despite being an Ascender, he was the new kid when it came to battles and just let the officers tell tales about their most glorious achievements. Those feats might not have been on the scale of things he did, but it was a good reminder that wars werent won by a single Ascender.

A Tier 15 Captain had every right to feel proud and boast about how she and her troops had single handedly plugged a breach in a planetary shield long enough to get the projector repaired. A Major had every right to retell the story of his first command getting lost in chaotic space and accidently ambushing a supply line then bluffing their way into capturing the ships without firing a single spell.

Initially he had to fake his enthusiasm, but before too long Matt thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the exploits of the guild soldiers, and he was glad they had such staunch allies for the times ahead. Even if their Tier 50 decided to honor their alliance, it would be all too easy for them, the troops on the frontlines, to put in half effort and just retreat when things got difficult. Instead of taking the easy way out, they fought just as hard as if they were the primary target in this war. Matt was honored, even though he knew he had done nothing to create that relationship, and made a mental note to ensure they made those bonds of friendship stronger when they left.

He was so motivated, he went and did tours of the defensive armies ships so he could do a similar meet and greet. If he was going to show his face around, he was going to do it the right way. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was pretty sure that if he didnt go see them, there was going to be another strategy meeting. Not at all.

When Liz heard his excuse of visiting the other ships, she laughed so hard she started to revert to her blob form. Matt didnt see the joke in the situation, but he was also peopled out. If he needed to smile and play nice for five more minutes, he was going to throw himself into one of the mana storage units and hide there acting like just another battery.

He couldnt be too sad, though, as Aster had managed to develop her bloodline enough to alter her base element once more. His bond was thrilled, and the excitement was contagious. She wasnt about to do it while they were deployed, of course, but once they returned to Camp Lightfoot and got her hands on the final keystones for the change, there was nothing stopping her. That actually served as a bit of a wakeup call for Matt, as he hadnt realized she was quite so close.

But now that she was ready to transition to an aurora bloodline, Matt needed to ensure that Aster had rifts and natural treasures available to her so she could continue her advancement of her bloodline. He wasnt able to practice making rifts in Guild territory, but he was able to play with mana types and make some educated guesses with his [AI] about the steps needed to create the mana type Aster wanted for her Rank 2 bloodline in the future. He knew she had wanted something with void and ice mixed when they were younger, and while that was generally considered impossible if anyone could figure it out, it would be them. He had a few processes running in the background of his [AI] to see if it came up with anything, but it wasnt promising.

Mostly, he spared his attention to experimenting about aurora, as while it was a known mana type, it wasnt a very common one. Theyd have their hands full exploring its nuances and natural treasures for quite some time.

The project was a good excuse to lock himself away in a small lab the Guild army offered him, which conveniently allowed him to ignore any other requests for strategy meetings.

A trip that could have been done in days in practice took nearly a month, but at least then Matt was able to actually do his job.

When they arrived at the first planet, a Tier 25 planet occupied by the Republic, the defenders were already calling foul the moment the armada entered real space. Seeing thousands of ships, some of which were Tier 27, wasnt something he would consider normal. But as Matt, Liz, and Aster flew out flanked by Bolt, Stick, and Stone, they quickly understood the situation.

The defenders were evacuating before they even reached a reasonable engagement distance to the fortress in the outer system. They were clearly trying to run before it was too late, hoping they could avoid capture, but Drifters ship was fast. And unless they wanted to leave more than half their people behind, there was no way they could have completed their evacuation and gotten far enough away before Team Zero arrived. For a few hours, it almost seemed like that was likely, but someone must have realized they werent going to stop accelerating and they started broadcasting their surrender.

With that done, the Tier 25 defensive army moved in and took back command of the system. They did it with such fanfare that Matt was confused, but he only needed to connect to the local civilian networks to see that everything that was happening was being broadcast to everyone on the planet.

Their job done, Drifter brought them back around and they joined some of the higher ranking officers to land on the planet.

As they flew down and Matt was able to spread his spiritual perception over the planet, he got to see near-riot levels of celebrations egged on by the news stations playing on any screen that was on. There were even a few full-blown fights that were quickly handled by the local guards.

Despite not being local Ascenders, people seemed to know them and called out their new titles. Matt wanted to get mad at Ezra for making the choice to change their names, but he couldnt get too upset as he heard people calling out Indomitable Titan. It still wore on him a bit, but hearing people shout it in thanks to him wasnt too bad.

They couldn't stay for long, so they were unable to satisfy the throngs of people who wanted more facetime, and they quickly moved through the major cities before returning back to space.

Even while he plastered a smile on, Matt watched everything around him, or rather, everyone else. It was interesting to see the differences in behavior between the capes and army officers. The officers were a bit reserved and more formal in their demeanor, which lent them an air of authority, while the capes, like Mercury, were more like an Ascender. He was a celebrity. There were even people who brought memorabilia for him to sign, which ranged from comics that had been written about his younger years as a notable villain, shirts, replica armor or cybernetics, to even movie posters.

It quickly became apparent that Mercury was an old hand at people-facing chatting as, despite being a speedster, he took his time to really talk to those who got to his area. It was mostly the same few polite inquiries, but Mercury managed to keep it from becoming repetitive with his charisma and training.

The final thing Matt noticed about the planet was the largest relief of the entire trip. A good four percent of the rooms and buildings across the planet were empty.

The Empire under the Sophron dynasty had enacted laws that gave any mortals in an occupied system, who might not be able to afford the costs, the option to move to another planet on the government's credit. Few took the option before the war was truly lost, but it was good to see that the Guilds, the Empire's only ally, had not only implemented the law, but were actively allowing it this early in the war. Official laws could be little more than propaganda if there were enough clauses that prevented the system from being used.

The fact was that few people were willing to abandon everything they had built up over the years until things were far worse. Matt could understand not wanting to leave the homes and jobs they had early in an occupation, when rescue might come like they were doing now, but he had also seen the stats from the Empire. Even when a planet changed hands to a Great Power like the Sects, Federation, or Clans only thirty percent of a planet would take the offer to leave their homes and start anew. They would rather stay, even knowing that Sect society was brutal, that Federation caste structure wasnt optional, that if you werent a dwarf, Clan society had limited upward mobility outside Tier. Matt had no idea why anyone would want to live under those conditions, but the numbers didnt lie; only about a third of the planet would leave.

He just hoped this system would remain under guild control if worse came to worse and they lost this war.

The next world they went to was the Tier 26 world, and that Tier gap gave them enough of an advantage that they could battle it out long enough to escape.

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Between Mercury running around and breaking important things on the ships and Matt driving [Mana Beam]s through the ships shields and into engines, the Federation troops quickly surrendered. From there it was a near carbon copy of the last system, where they went and placed nice with the locals.

The easy victories ended there.

The Tier 27 battlefield started slowly, as the dozen ships that housed the Tier 27 offensive army moved through real space to where the fortress planet orbited the local star. They had to cross the star itself, which gave the defenders plenty of time to prepare themselves, and they got to watch as auxiliary shields were deployed until there was a full second layer covering the planet.

The expense of such an action was enormous, but doing it so early also allowed them to hammer out any issues in the guild system.

As they got close, Matt exited Drifters ship with the others. But instead of staying with them, he moved in next to the destroyer and unleashed a supercharged [Breach] to augment the fire coming from the ships large cannons.

Their attacks slammed into the shields and made a good quarter of the planetary shields go opaque, but the double layering of the shields paid off, as it took them a full five hours to batter down the first layer of shields. By that time, the army had set up their own bases and bought out portable cannons, which they set up near Matt and the battleship.

That finally forced the defenders to use the anti-ship weapons that they had been able to repair. They had been destroyed in the assault that had taken this system in the first place, and while the Republic would have sent some replacement parts, they werent going to invest heavily in a system that only had two connections, which meant only a few shots lanced out at them.

Normal tactics would have called for the attackers to move their orbit to try and find a spot with as few working anti obit cannons as possible, but with Matt and Aster there, they didnt bother. Instead, Matt used [Cracked Dragonflame] to create walls of mana stone while Aster used ice to link the pieces together into a makeshift wall.

Once she was done with that, and since Matt was there and able to feed her mana through his Concept, she started creating asteroids of ice which she threw at the fortress planet's shields. She had to be careful with her angles, as anything that didnt escape the star's gravity well would end up orbiting the star, and with a bad angle, could end up getting close to the inhabited planet potentially causing issues.

Together, they battered through the second layers of shields in just under a day.

Not a record by any means, but also quite impressive.

Once the shield was cracked and they destroyed the pillar that was the shield projector, the real fight started.

Liz started it with a wave of clones. Unarmored and created with her spare time, Liz led the charge down. Most of her bodies were blasted apart by spells and anti personal cannon fire, but none of the damage was significant. Instead, it allowed the attacking army to identify the cannon locations and they were quickly destroyed by depleted metal projectiles from orbit.

With a portion of the planet scouted out, the second wave was sent in, which was their cue to join the fighting.

Moving as a unit, his six on-the-ground teammates followed right behind Matt, who led their charge down with a crystalized [Bulwark]. Spells slammed into the shield as people correctly identified them as Tier 25 targets, but with Matts generation, hed need to take a hit from something stronger than a random spell or two if they wanted to get through him. Things werent perfect though. While crystallizing [Bulwark] increased its defense, it came with a downside: he and his allies couldn't shoot through the spell anymore. That meant they couldn't retaliate until they were down and amongst the troops.

Liz dove forward the moment they were below the anti personnel firing height, spear and shield clipping a soldier a little too slow on the retreat. He tried to recover and even blocked one of her spear thrusts, but he must not have expected Liz to drive her shield into his leg, shattering bone even through his armor. He retreated, but it was too late, as his blood fell under Lizs control and started to stab him even as it crept up under his armor.

His allies ended up killing him as they knew what was going to happen, but the man was no longer rational and kept trying to retreat to what he perceived as safety.

The moment he died, a Liz burst out of his body and was almost as quickly attacked by the same allies. They found Liz harder to kill than their comrade, as she was already in blob form and simply let most of the attacks splash through her. That Liz didnt rush into the troopers, but instead grabbed the soldiers weapons to her hands and joined their just-landing squad where it fell into a puddle.

The moment Matt landed, he cast a burst of [Mana Beam] at the nearest group of republic soldiers who used a bit of rubble as a defensive structure. A shield bearer slammed a tower shield down to block the attack, and while [Mana Beam] splashed on the shield and had its power scattered, the shield quickly started to crumble under the spell.

Matt didnt let up and instead flared the spell to the point where his arm projectors started to whine in protest. It worked, and [Mana Beam] punched through the shield, the shield bearer, and the soldiers who hadnt immediately retreated. They might as well not have bothered to retreat though, as he waved [Mana Beam] around, cutting them down.

Unlike the usual sight, blood flowed to the troops and then there were a full ten Lizzes armed and armored.

Aster had already cast her buffing spells on them, but she immediately started casting her various debuffing spells on the enemies who surrounded them, which lowered their power to a level that it wasnt too hard for Stick, Stone, Bolt, and Mercury to kill them. They were peak elites in their own right and quickly went to work.

Stick and Stone were using their complementary Domains to empower the rest of them, even as Bolt fired glowing crossbow bolts at anyone who looked to be giving commands. The Tier gap meant her bolts werent instantly lethal, but they rarely missed. And no matter how non-lethal the blow, getting part of your body blown off generally interrupted whatever plans you were trying to direct.

Liz even hitched a ride on some of the mundane bolts, infecting those wounded before detonating the bodies from the inside with massive explosions. Matt wasnt too happy with that tactic, as it forced Liz to kill herself since she needed to have control over the body's blood, which made it just as much a part of her as the rest of her blood, but it was effective.

Mercury was speed incarnate despite his limited range, and any time he saw an opening, he dove into a melee brawl against soldiers with half his speed. If Matt hadnt lived most of his life in rifts with a blood mage, he might have found it grisly to see the blood and guts sticking on the man's cybernetics after he ran through a mage, but he only noted it as a possible tactic with his own armor.

Stones own power armor, while not quite on the same level as Matts, still made him an impressive force to be reckoned with. He was a man-sized mountain serving as one of the anchor points for their line as they smashed, cut, and spelled their way forward to the command point..

Stick spun around Stone, weaving in and out of battle like the ribbons of cloth that made up her armor. Sometimes she entangled people just long enough for someone else to finish them off, but more often than not the tendrils of cloth cocooned someone and squeezed until they were nothing more than another Liz.

Matt, on the other hand, led the charge, taking hits to his armor using [Cracked Phantom Armor]s second layer to block the worst of the damage while decimating anyone within blade range.

He flared his Intents gravity field, changing the direction of a blade to scrape across his shoulder instead of landing on his forearm while stomping down on the trooper's lower leg. Bone broke and the soldier detached his own leg as he tried to retreat, but Matt flared his Intent once more, bringing the man flying towards him just in time to catch the pommel of his longsword, which cracked his head open.

In that same swing, his black sword cut through another soldier's armor like it wasnt even there, and he used that momentum to step deeper into the group of enemies he was fighting.

Flaring his Concept, Matt blasted them with a repulsion field.

A few of the soldiers were sent tumbling away, but most of them just stumbled. Even that momentary lapse was more than enough for Matt to switch his sword to its white form, and he cast [Lightning Torrent]. Arcs of lightning blasted from the sword and snaked their way to the soldiers before blowing up whatever flesh they found.

One soldier, a woman with officer rank insignia on her armor, survived the wave of lightning. Instead of damaging her, the lightning sunk into her and made her glow slightly even as her aura strengthened.

Whether it was a Talent, bloodline, or something else, Matt didnt care. He simply redirected the spell's full output into her. It took two full seconds, around seventy million mana, for the woman to pop like an overfull balloon.

Turning his blade to the next group, Matt took several blows along his armor but ignored them as he cut the attackers down. He was about to move to the command structure when a group of seven rushed over to him.

Feeling the pressure they gave him, Matt locked himself in place with his Intent to stop his forward momentum before throwing himself backwards and back to the group.

The attacking Republic soldiers were elites, and were not a group Matt was confident he could handle on his own.

As if to prove that thought true, an arrow slammed into his helm and carved a line in the armor as it was deflected upward.

Matt pointed his left hand and sent the archer a burst of [Mana Beam]. The spell was caught by a [Diffusion Shield], which weakened the spell enough that the shield bearer was able to block it without slowing down.

Still retreating, Matt cast a quick [Breach]. It was a relatively small cast, only a hundred million mana pulled from his armor's storage, but the spell caused the group to veer off course, unwilling to take the siege spell head on. They were able to dodge the slow projectile without too much effort, but that change in direction slowed them down enough for their ambush to fail outright.

The moment he was back in the group and had his allies behind him, Matt lashed out with a [Mana Slash]. The spell was fifteen feet tall and carved a channel through the group as it raced towards the attackers.

Spells peppered him and the rest of the group courtesy of the Republic soldiers, but they were quickly occupied by the Guild soldiers still landing, giving them a mostly empty battlefield. Few wanted to get involved in a battle of elites. That was a surefire way to die as collateral damage.

A beam of ice shot out and nearly caught one of the elites in the shoulder, but instead of just sailing past and hitting a wall, the spell exploded and covered the elites in frost that noticeably slowed them down.

A man in the rear cast a spell that caused a silvery light to flare which dispelled the slow, but Aster was already casting [Dispelling Wind], [Tailwind], [Winters Harvest] and [Headwind] which weakened the enemies and bolstered the rest of them.

A crossbow bolt took a swordsman in the lower abdomen just before the distance was closed.

Matt bent slightly and dodged a slash, letting the blade cross over his head, spinning in a way that made it seem like he wasnt wearing armor or that his armor wasnt as strong as it was. The fighter fell for it and tried to lock blades with Matt, hoping to over power him, and he happily allowed it.

Flaring his strength with [Archmages Presence], Matts strength cultivation increased which, thanks to the Tier 44 spell, fed into his armor and increased its power boosting effect.

Twisting his wrist, Matt deflected the elite's blade and stepped past him, drawing his sword along the man's flank. Blood flowed, but instead of cutting the man in half, he was only wounded. A wound that quickly started to knit together even before Liz could take control of the blood.

Kicking out, Matt caught the enemy elite off guard and sent him skidding back, but before he could follow up, another melee fighter closed in on him with a greataxe descending on his back, ready to cleave him in twain. Instead of turning, Matt flared his Concept and entered a contest of wills with the man. After what Ezra had told him, Matt was trying to use his Domains active effects more in combat to increase their unity with his spirit.

His Concept proved stronger than the elites and he slipped by the attack, taking the first man in the abdomen thanks to the opening caused by his first slash.

With his blade inside the man, a simple [Mana Slash] ended his life, and Matt turned to the other elite just in time to see he was already retreating with the mage who had cleared Aster's debuff.

Checking over their team, Matt saw none of them were badly injured and they continued leading the charge to the local headquarters.

It took nine brutal days of fighting leaving thousands dead, but they liberated the planet and the citizens. Unlike the previous places, the defensive armies had their work cut out for them, as there were hardly two rocks stacked together after the resistance the Republic army put up. They had surrendered, but only well after the losses were sky high.

Matt didnt know if that was just the local leader's command, but suspected it was, as after a group of Guild elites killed him, the army surrendered. He hoped the Republic troops weren't taking lessons from the Federation or Sects.

The moment the coast was clear, the Tier 15 army moved out like an inexorable wave and Matt could do nothing but wish them well as they split off and moved alone with Drifters ship. They darted between systems ignoring the safer lanes of chaotic space and ambushed any Tier 25 or Tier 26 army trying to siege systems down.

In that time, their notoriety grew from both the armies who surrendered without a fight, and the armies who thought they could run or resist. None of them succeeded, but it spread their reputations as powerhouses through the combined enemy armies.

Not that they got to do that for too long. Just a few months in Guild space, they got their first delving slot where they were able to fully abuse their combo. It was a little slower without Allie there to teleport them around the rift, but between Liz fielding an army of herself, Aster freezing everything that moved, and Matt abusing his Talent, they cut through the Tier 26 rifts. They had debated delving Tier 27 rifts, as they could easily kill monsters of that Tier, but that slowed their delving speed down enough that they got more essence per hour spent if they delved the lower Tier rifts. It made for tangible progress when combined with the essence stones they had been given before they left.

The easy mission quickly came to an end, though.

One of their reasons for entering Guild space was to take out the anti-speedster system they had set up deep in Guild space.

It was time for Klix Vutru, Fred Baxter, Cameron Chime, Dame-Askor, and Jastor Keys to die.