The Path of Ascension

Chapter 324

Matt watched as nineteen mostly frozen cultivators bound in manacles on their hands, legs, chest, and heads were dropped off to the stunned faces of the guards.

He still wished they were heads, rather than captives, but he had made a promise and he would not flaunt it. He had set his course, and he would certainly not waver from it now.

And so, five pinnacle elites and fourteen peak elites were being added to their collection that now sported twelve pinnacle elites, fifty two peak elites, and a handful of high level to lower elites. Matt would have loved to double, triple that even, but they were at the absolute end of what they could manage.

Once the Great Powers had gotten wind of their actions they had their elites gather before fleeing but they were so deep inside Empire space Allie had more than enough waypoints for them to chase them down or intercept them.

The last six hours had been grueling, but he wanted them to get one more run in before Allie collapsed. It was only the five Ascenders still pushing through at this point, with even Susanne tapping out after their second-most-recent engagement. Matt himself was starting to feel the weariness set in, most obvious in his slipping mana control. The interior of his helmet was illuminated by a flickering, harsh blue light as his mana glowed from inside his face, the result of a purged curse that had the side effect of causing the mana inside his body to react. If he wasn’t so tired he could have controlled it but he was utterly exhausted.

That didn’t matter though. This needed to be done.

Returning to the capital system with their prisoners had practical purposes. It wasn’t just a break or to lessen the burden for Aster and Allie. While they were here they could get up-to-date information on the fleeing elites.

The Harmony Accords ship had been running around gathering up as many elites as possible, but according to the reports there was still one large group of five pinnacle elites— two from the Federation, two from the Sects, and one from the Republic, along with twenty peak elites— fleeing through chaotic space to try and find safety in the oversized Harmony Accords ship.

It was possible it was a trap and that the Harmony Accords would jump on them the moment they tried to intercept the fleeing elites, but from all the reports the elites were running. They weren’t moving just fast enough to make an intercept possible, the scout ship which had seen them had seen them running between worlds not following the normal and much safer tethers between words.

That call, combined with the fact they knew where the Harmony Accords ship was, made it incredibly unlikely it was a trap.

It was more likely it was exactly what it looked like. The last vestiges of the enemy Great Powers’ elites fleeing for their lives.

Matt wanted to either capture or kill them if given the chance.

They were in bad shape, but he wanted to really put the screws to the Enemy Great Powers.

And snatching the elites that were almost safe right out of the jaws of the Harmony Accords would be the perfect ending to this mission.

That and Allie only looked like she had a handful of teleports left in her. The teleporter was almost entirely translucent now, though most of that was hidden under her armor, but the weirdest effect was how she was starting to look literally thinner, as though someone had compressed the space around her.

Zack himself had stepped in, giving his partner a firm warning that this would be the last stop, and then they were to return to the base no matter what. For the first time, Allie hadn’t argued.

Drifter pulled them into chaotic space, and Shadow began drawing in power. The degree to which her exhaustion had permeated her was obvious from her mere demeanor. Rather than an effortless fold of space which pulled them all elsewhere, she now had to spend several seconds gathering her strength before she laid her hand on Drifter’s shoulder and, using the pilot as a medium, dragged the ship and all its inhabitants with her as they dove deep, past the trackers and into the eddies and whorls of the space between worlds.

Shadow’s teleports had also taken on a much more visceral feel now, less of a smooth repositioning and more of a derailing train. Space jolted, the world went dark, and what felt like multiple minutes of turbulence hit all at once, rattling his very spirit as they returned to reality. Color was a bit slower to return, taking a few seconds as things emerged from a black-and-white visage to the full range of light and darkness.

Shadow was supporting herself on a ghostly arm resting on a console, panting deeply. Each breath she exhaled carried with it little motes of light, starlike embers that drifted around the cabin as Drifter kicked the engines on and tore through the chaos outside. Once Shadow had recovered enough, she teleported them again. And, a few minutes after that, once again.

Light had leveraged himself under Shadow’s arm and was steadfastly supporting her, even trying to pick up the ghostly-looking woman at one point, only to be waved off. She hadn’t declined the shoulder to prop herself up against, though, and given the way their spirits were flickering it was obvious the duo were communicating somehow. Matt could have potentially figured out what they were saying, but he let them have their privacy in favor of watching chaotic space fly by outside.

As they neared another section of tethers things started to stabilize and it was there they saw their final target.

Targets.

The ship was just a few hundred thousand miles from the Harmony Accords ship which was racing towards them.

Shadow pushed herself into a full stand, and she cackled a ghostly wheeze, heedless of the way her body flickered and pulsed like a bad hologram. Her hands tightened over her daggers, holding them so tightly her fist was outright closed. Matt understood the feeling.

They had them.

Space collapsed around their ship, Shadow fell to one knee and partially into the floor, but they were above the fleeing troops. With their sudden arrival, just as safety was in sight, they would be catching their opponents off-guard for the first time in quite a while. Titan couldn’t help but grin at the thought.

Showtime.

Wraith swept them into her spirit space for a moment, depositing the two groups of Ascenders outside in a burst of chilly wind. Titan blocked the attacks likely to hit them or the ship, while Light threw a coruscating bolt of scarlet mana at the ship below. Shields sprung up to stop it, but Shadow and Wraith worked together to ensure that it wasn’t blocked.

The projectile hit, and the engines spluttered. Legion burst forth from the impact site and sacrificed a body to climb bodily within the momentarily-disrupted engines and clog it with hardened blood.

It was dead in the water, but the sabotage wouldn’t last long, and with the Harmony Accords closing in, Titan estimated they had perhaps half a minute before they needed to be gone.

It would have to be plenty.

Someone inside the ship was strong, clever, and quick enough to bodily start the ship moving again with their personal power, but Titan interposed himself and called upon his Intent, making himself the immobile center of reality for a brief moment. He expected the ship to come to a halt, but the people inside were stubborn and refused to give up.

It worked.

An immovable object was opposed by an unstoppable force, and the ship was what gave. A massive chunk of hull was torn off, exposing the interior as ribbons of metal suddenly made themselves available to Titan’s [Metal Manipulation].

There was no finesse to be had here, but Titan had never needed finesse. A wicked screech accompanied the shards of metal as he charged forwards, smashing into an upraised shield with such force that the shockwave he generated broke the arm holding it, and he barreled into the first victim. A blast of lightning left them twitching, and Wraith swept in on a fell wind, spiriting him away.

Spells impacted him from every side, denting and gouging furrows into even his armor, but Titan halted the enormous warhammer descending on him with his left hand. With his right, his sword darted forward and relieved Cole Tachyar of his hand.

Three of Legion descended into the hull alongside him, launching themselves first as phoenixes, then as amorphous blobs of blood closing in on the closest elite, restraining Xachary Valor. A fourth and fifth Legion dropped in right thereafter, only to be met with a massive blast of black fire from one of their opponents, one Liu Fienfan. One Legion interposed herself with the fire, combusting from the intense magic, but successfully passing the magic off to her other body. The three engulfing Xachary erupted in obsidian flames, and a moment later the man was swept into Wraith’s spirit space.

Titan could feel the strain his bond was experiencing, continually taking people who were very much not fully incapacitated yet, but also her determination to succeed. None of the people in this ship were used to fighting with one another, and it showed. Domains contrasted and conflicted, spells kept catching their nominal allies in their effects, and chaos reigned within the ship as the five of them swept in.

Liu Fenfang didn’t relent, but two Legions coalesced from the blood where Xachary had been and joined their fellow body, putting the Dao Child under tremendous pressure. Not that any of the elites they fought needed additional encouragement, as they fought furiously, their safety snatched from them at the last possible moment.

Still, all they needed to do was hold off long enough for the Harmony Accords to either intercede or teleport them into their ship, so their vigor was immense. A Legion burst into gravel as a ten-foot-tall woman slammed a mace through the body, her eyes fixed on Titan. Versi Yenth was a berserker in the truest meaning of the word, and with enough build up, perhaps the physically strongest cultivator for her tier since Greathammer himself.

But she, like all of the elites they were fighting right now, had no time to build up or prepare, and Titan could use that.

Titan raised a gauntleted hand to once again block the blow, but while his invulnerable fist was once again fine, it was knocked into his torso with such force that Titan’s shoulder broke, and several of his ribs gave way underneath crumpling power armor. With his right hand, he crossed blades with Kayo Hatsue’s scimitar.

[Regeneration] knitted his shoulder back together in an instant, but by then he was already under attack once again. Titan backpedaled on a blast of [Cracked Air Slide], but Versi closed in the distance just fine. Not that he minded.

[Telekinesis] required immense finesse to use properly, but he cared about none of that as he yanked on Kayo, dragging the swordsman into the path of Versi’s attack. The scimitar broke, as did the hand and arm holding it. The man started to crumple, and Titan stabbed him, then let Wraith put him on ice. Backlash for the attack sent Versi flying backwards, where an angry Jasper Kel swatted her away.

An axe lost its green glow in the brief instant before it collided with his neck, then white bindings ensnared and dragged Hal Covi out of the ship. Darkness so absolute that not even Titan’s armor could sense out of it closed over him, and Titan had to act on instinct to dodge Versi’s attack, moving him into the path of an arrow that struck at the base of his neck, releasing corrosive mana into his torso. It creeped into his spinal column, mildly paralyzing Titan and attempting to use his nerves as a wick to reach his brain.

A few million mana disrupted its advance, and a few million more split between his lifedew and [Regeneration] undid the damage it had already done.

Titan hardly noticed.

Versi struck again, but winds dispersed the darkness that had been cloying to Titan’s head and swept them into the berserker’s own face, likewise stripping many of the woman’s protections from her. Suddenly senseless and defenseless, she made easy prey for a point-blank [Mana Beam]. Her bleeding body was gone a moment later.

Massive sapphire scales sprang into existence off to the side, a massive gong sounding their arrival as they tipped towards one side. Titan ignored it, and Light wrested the construct’s existence from its caster, turned it into metal, and sent it spinning like a top. An image of a blind justicar likewise sprang up, but its finger pointed at Roash instead of Light, and the former was instantly bound in rune-covered parchment.

A pulse of confusion passed through the ship, only to run headlong into a pulse of tranquility. The two Domains chaotically swirled, causing Eithan Coar to stumble in the headlong wake of them both, before his own Domain pushed back with such force that chaotic space groaned around him.

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Shadow’s daggers flashed down on Sevi Josu, removing his arm and leaving him open for Legion to spear him in the chest. Another Legion pelted Corin Althair with a hail of blood bullets, giving an opening for Wraith to blow him into reach of Titan. Titan grabbed the man’s hand with a grip of iron, and squeezed. Bones snapped, flesh mushed, and though a massive spell crashed onto his back, Titan ignored it. The meteors couldn’t pierce his armor, but the explosion did knock Veronica Visage out of stealth right before she attempted to backstab him, so it was overall a net win.

His armor caught on fire, but was extinguished an instant later by either Wraith or Light, he wasn’t sure. Around him, he created a shell of mana stone, isolating him and Corin from the chaos around him. Because the fire had weakened the spatial locks around him, he took the opportunity to break them, withdraw a crown-like item from storage, and shove it on Corin’s head.

The man knew what it was, and fought valiantly as the device’s blades dug into his skull and wrapped around his brain. But [Cosmic Presence] combined with [Gravity Manipulation] meant such things were… mostly futile. Titan did have to call upon his Intent for a moment, bringing him perilously close to empty, to withstand a particularly potent bout of lashing out, but the crown had done its job. None too soon, either, as the reinforced mana stone shattered around them.

Bali Cier was wreathed in sand, but was forced to cut off her attack as Titan shoved Corin into her face. An instant later, Wraith wrapped the crowned man in an aurora and pulled him away, and Titan charged forward to bring his sword down on Bali. She deflected the stroke and sandblasted Titan, but he didn’t slow down, instead charging past the woman to meet the whirling bladestorm that was Jasper Kel in his badger form.

He was already dripping with blood from where he’d shredded a pair of Legion, and blades of firmament mana swirled around him like a demented blender. His eyes and claws glowed red, and he pounced on another Legion, only to suddenly be met with Titan instead, as Shadow helped their teleportation rings slip through the spatial lock.

Nearly all of his mana went into an overwhelming [Archmage’s Presence] swordstroke so powerful that it left a shockwave in the chaotic space around them. The honey badger-like beast merely bounced like a ball off an invisible wall, shooting back at Titan like a cannonball, his claws gouging into his armor as he sought flesh to draw power from.

The second layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor] extended past the metal of his armor, keeping the ferocious beast off until he had a chance to shove his left hand into Jasper’s open maw.

The needle-like teeth scraped at his armor but found no purchase, and Matt drove his arm deeper until his hand was inside Jasper's throat.

[Mana Beam] went off and instantly ballooned the badger's stomach like he had eaten a dozen meals but the pressure couldn't build forever and would eventually find an escape. If his body was only of normal durability the spell would have ripped through him and been unable to fill him but the firmament mana permeating his body made his flesh like a battleship’s armor.

No matter how strong the vessel there would always be a weakness if attacked from the wrong way and after it became clear Titan would pop him Jasper sent a surrender.

Titan passed the message to Wraith, who swept through on a faint wind, leaving a snow sculpture of a badger clinging to Titan’s arm.

He shook it off and returned to the battle.

A battle that was winding down.

Almost a quarter of the elites had escaped and were racing forward but Titan knew it was stupid to chase them. Instead he flared his boosts, reentering the battle with his sword blazing with lightning.

He cut into the remaining peak elites, forcing out surrenders.

Space tightened around them, and Titan felt a growl seep through from Wraith as her spiritual space was restricted. Then a moment later, Shadow was beside her, fracturing the lock enough that Wraith could still sequester those who had yielded. But it was slow going, and Wraith could only do one person at a time this way.

It was, ultimately, too slow.

Spatial formations snapped into place, and while Shadow broke one of them before it could retrieve Hai Meglas, there were too many of them for her to stop them all, and the elites were rescued before their surrenders could be fully accepted.

Hai Meglas was thrown into the wintry kingdom, and then a sensation that everyone on Team Zero was very familiar with started to thrum through chaotic space.

The sensation of hundreds of millions, or even billions of mana accumulating. A brief glimpse confirmed the cannons of the massive ship approaching were glowing brilliantly.

Spatial fields of their own wrapped around the five of them, and then they were back at the ship. An instant later, cannons powerful enough to crack planetary shields blasted through chaotic space, utterly annihilating the drifting wreck of a ship they’d just been inside. The shockwave of energy swept outwards like a cascading explosion, but before it could reach them, Shadow’s power wrapped out around them all for one last time.

And then they were gone.

***

Emmanuel was picking through the paperwork involved in a dispute between a duchess and a Tier 40 corporation trying to set up in her territory when one of the seven most prominent pedestals in his office shimmered, leaving an elegant jade chip sitting upon the silk cushion, representing official communication from Winter Hornet glowing like a beacon.

The pedestals were the one reliable way for the leaders of the Great Powers to communicate, and it took about half of a Tier 50’s mana pool to activate, so they weren’t used commonly. But still, it was normal enough, so Emmanuel put it off as he finished up his current paperwork. But when a second and third message arrived from the Republic and Federation, Emmanuel’s eyebrows ascended into his hairline.

That was not normal.

He summoned the communications- a slip of white jade, a gleaming diamond, and a tablet of marble- and reached out with his power to get the most up-to-date information regarding the war effort, and he grinned as he processed it all.

The kids had caused an… incident.

Out of curiosity, he cast his attention to the most secure war-prison in the Empire, barking back a laugh at the number of new elite prisoners. Normally, it could take months or even years for captured soldiers to be transported to the maximum allowed holding facilities, depending on the nature of their capture or surrender. But Allison’s waypoint at the prison meant they were able to bypass the normal game of prisoner transport, instead instantly setting them up for the maximum degree of ransom for each and every one of their captures.

With a thought, Manny changed his Talents once again, utilizing Allison’s Tier 25 Talent as a base to project himself spiritually to Fort Lightfoot, searching for more captured elites.

He found another two pinnacle elites and nine peak elites getting pulled out of Aster's Tier 25 spiritual space. While he was there he grabbed updates on everyone's Talents, but that was more habit than need. The kids had all grown their Talents, but he was more interested in how they were doing.

Allison was the most notable, in an awful but stable condition. A more normal cultivator of her Tier might take a century of intensive healing and therapy to recover from her condition, but Manny expected she’d take no longer than fifteen years before she was fully recovered. Two real-time years might not have sounded like much in a war that had only been going for two hundred and fifty years at this point, but from the pace they were going at, he expected the war to be done in the next decade if not slightly sooner.

When exactly that would be depended on how the assault on the Citadel went, but there were enough forces arrayed there that one way or another, the war would be nearly over once it happened.

Tapping into the local systems, Emmanuel checked for the reports about Team Zero’s latest mission.

Leaning back, Emmanuel contemplated the kill reports.

That certainly explained why the other Tier 50s were up in arms.

There was something of an unspoken effort to try and… minimize deaths of pinnacle and peak elites during the wars. They were, broadly speaking, favorites of people across the Great Powers, and Manny half-expected to see messages incoming from JR or Aoife about their own people complaining about just how many had been killed recently. Normally, it wasn’t an issue on account of how hard it was for most peaks and pinnacles to die, and fights between them tended to be long, drawn-out affairs which presented plenty of opportunities for surrender. But with Ascenders, all of that was completely thrown out the window.

Twelve pinnacle elites dead along with sixteen captured, for a total of twenty eight taken out of the war in a single sweep was the proverbial coup of the century.

Most Great Powers had around fifty recognized pinnacle elites in war Tiers, mostly concentrated at the major fronts of Tiers 15, 25, and 35, but with a half-dozen or so either moving between Tiers or stationed at Tier 20 or 30. There were others who didn’t strictly fall into those categories, people like Joy Cosja, Susanne Velar, and while the latter may end up being reclassified as such by the end of this war, they weren’t counted yet.

Yesterday, the Republic, Federation, and Sects had forty six pinnacle elites active at Tier 25. Now, they had eighteen.

Emmanuel would have to check, but that had to be a record not seen before.

The captures were the most valuable, as with the war in its final decade, even the pinnacles could be held until the end of the conflict with no negotiations required. But if he traded them back now, he could get an incredible glut of resources or occupied planets. Each captured elite represented, on average, the concession of seven occupied planets for a peak elite and fifteen for a pinnacle. Entire armies could be ransomed back, the Empire could arrange for all of their captured elites to be released in one go, or they could be released for pure warscore in the final conclave.

This single mission had granted him so much negotiating power he couldn’t help but laugh.

That was fantastic news and took a weight off his shoulders.

The deaths on the other hand were different.

Deaths provided no direct benefit to the war, beyond the removal of an asset. In excess, they could even cost a bit of warscore, a light slap on the wrist to disincentivize outright massacres. Nobody liked losing their favorite pieces permanently, and he had a formal writ of annoyance from Grand Senator Taltor for the death of his granddaughter. That was just empty posturing, and was safe to ignore. Sectmaster Tuali had actually sent a letter of congratulations in regards to the death of his grandson, and he decided he’d forward that one to General Raven, to be shared with Team Zero.

Still, while the deaths of four or five pinnacles was to be expected, Team Zero had already killed seven prior to this most recent mission. Each of those deaths had been palpable, releasing pressure on their overstretched armies and reminding the others as to the cost of fighting Ascenders.

That was already a hard pill to swallow, but added in with the twelve newest deaths, the enemy Great Powers had suddenly, permanently, lost thirty-eight percent of their Tier 25 pinnacle elites In a single war. The dead peak elites were also a major blow, at nearly twenty-three percent of their forces slain. Combined, this war was quite possibly the single greatest blow to the upper end of the combat prowess of Great Powers seen outside of a true war for at least a million years.

He’d need to have a historian go through the records and see if there had ever been such a devastating blow, but he doubted it unless there was some instance wherein a Great Power only had a dozen pinnacle elites total. The combination of the unmatched mobility provided by Allison’s Talent and the overwhelming power of two Ascender teams was almost certainly unprecedented.

The numbers also explained why he was getting called by the respective Tier 50s.

Part of his goal was to simply weaken the most hostile enemy Great Powers but he hadn’t expected his newest Ascenders to be so successful the first time they were let off the leash so to speak. It was also far better than their estimations. The generals’ greatest projections had been forty percent, which would have let them stall the war front but Ascenders were Ascenders for a reason.

Still, this matter took some consideration. While this war was important and the kills were valuable, more important in the long term was that the gap would force the enemy Great Powers to rush some of their Tier 15 pinnacle elites to Tier 25, no doubt having more than normal fall to the level of peak elite. That would, in turn, cause the elites currently at Tier 25 to stall there for longer while they waited for proper replacements. .

Emmanuel wanted to stall the true war out for at least twenty thousand years to allow Matthew to reach Tier 45 at least. It was both where his mana generation would be truly game changing and where they could best abuse it.

That was far enough out that he had expected some of these elites to have left the war brackets, but it would have been only a few. In an ideal world Team Zero would have captured everyone but these more permanent losses had their advantages.

Not for him or the Empire, no. The ideal truce for this war would last at least ten thousand years, longer if he could get away with it, but that was about the longest any Great Power would allow themselves to be shackled under normal circumstances and if he pushed for any more the other Tier 50s would get suspicious.

The advantage would be for the other Great Powers who hadn’t joined the war. With the beating all the normal level troops had suffered combined with the devastating loss of pinnacle elites the Clans, the Monster Collective, and the Corporations would most certainly be looking at the Sects, Federation, and Republic like wounded cattle.

Surely he could entice them into going in for a nibble.

The Sects, Federation, and Republic would probably just pay out of the nose to avoid a direct war but if he could maneuver them into battling it out he could ensure all the Great Powers expended some energy. That would both mean they were a hair weaker when the true war started and would be less inclined to look at him and his for easy targets in the meantime.

After the showing his Tier 25s had just given, that was more than a little unlikely. Even with foreknowledge, such an alpha strike was hard to fend against.

He’d need to talk to Aoife, JR, and Toby, but he was sure he could work something out.

It was unlikely he’d be able to keep Allison in the active war bracket after she showed everyone her true Talent, but the threat was always there that he’d not take the payout to remove her.

Ascenders bent and broke rules all the time, and the war rules bent around them to accommodate. If an elite - usually, but not always an Ascender - was too disruptive, special exemptions and handling clauses might be built around them by name. Aiden was the most recent example, being counted as an Ascender locked at Tier 35, but another outcome was for a massive payout to be granted in exchange for the elite Tiering out of the war. It could be refused, as Cosmind had done for a time, but doing so was rare. An Ascender triggering a payout before Tier 30 almost never happened and never on someone's first war as far as Emmanuel knew. The Lady of the Final Bloom had been Tier 28 when she’d been moved up, nearly four hundred thousand years ago, but Allison had probably frightened the other Great Powers to make it a serious discussion at the final conclave.

Emmanuel knew that while she would be pissed to be removed from the active wars, she would also be tickled pink to be the lowest-Tier Ascender to ever present such a massive threat as to warrant a forceful retirement. That and she’d get a portion of the payout, as was only her due.

Best of all, because the payouts came from all seven other Great Powers which meant he could create small truces with them as part of the agreements. That would make the Sects, Federation, and Republic look like even more enticing targets.

He’d love to keep the lingering threat of rapid cross-Realm teleports hanging over everyone's heads, but they knew that as well.

Everyone had just seen how devastating it could be and wouldn’t want to risk their own elites. He sure wouldn’t.

Sixty percent of the enemies’ pinnacle elites had vanished in hours. Even in this war it would have a correspondingly large detrimental impact on the Tier 25 push. Sure, the Harmony Accords and their targeted training to counter Team Zero along with the influx of elites they had just taken into their ship would be a bit of an issue going forward. But they would be forced to remain together or risk a repeat of this incident, which limited them to a single location and accordingly, the harm they could do.

High Command already had orders prepared to bring up the remainder of the Tier 25 reserves to stall out the warfront but with the better then expected losses they might just reclaim some lost ground once Allison was back on her feet and able to teleport Team Zero again. The next few years without her would be difficult for Team Zero, but he believed they would pull through with the plans High Command had in reserve.

The end of the wars were always brutal, but this one would no doubt be one for the record books. They already were.

Sixty percent.

At the very thought, Emmanuel laughed and kept laughing even as he answered the message requests despite knowing it would transfer. It would make them even madder.

Good.

Thirty eight percent of their pinnacle elites dead.

Forty five percent of their remaining pinnacle elites captured.

Sixty percent of their power vanished.