The Path of Ascension

Chapter 322

Matt felt like his blood had been replaced by electricity the moment they arrived back in the rift. He wanted to pump his fist and cheer, but he was too focused on their follow up plans. As part of their attacking the enemy backlines, they had scored a victory versus the Harmony Accords, creating a large enough opening to go further behind enemy lines and really start smashing things. With a little experience, more ideas on how they could move faster and hit more targets started flooding in.

If they moved fast enough, they could probably even reach some of their more distant targets before they were reinforced by the diverted troops. It was so close, Matt could taste it.

He had hoped to get more than a single kill in their last battle, but he took solace in the fact that they had dealt out some serious damage to everyone else in the Harmony Accords.

They had lost the supply convoy, which meant the Harmony Accords had technically achieved their mission, but they had paid a substantial price for their victory. Even twenty supply convoys wasn’t worth the life of an pinnacle elite.

Still, the lost supplies would hurt the Empire's war effort. But Matt was working on a solution for that as well. He wanted to steal some from the other Great Powers. They couldn't take a lot, certainly not the amount they had taken from their first raid on a supply depot. But this time, Allie could just teleport back and forth a few dozen times. It would be hard on her, but it was possible to offset the losses from their last mission. If their enemies had lost a pinnacle elite for literally zero gain, it would hurt all the more.

As he connected to the LocalNet, he froze halfway out of his seat. He half expected to get an official reprimand for their previous actions, or even a congratulations for killing an elite, but what he hadn’t expected was to get orders that sent them right back out of the rift on a mission. Especially not a direct mission from High Command.

Normally, missions went through Darrow as he was their direct superior in the chain of command, but High Command had seen fit to bypass normal methods.

Reading the message, Matt pursed his lips. The reprimand he expected had come, but in a strange way.

Before the orders, there was a personal note from General Declan Raven himself. One of the few four star Generals in the Empire, the man held great authority. But more than that he was their official report and getting a message from him didn’t bode well.

‘Ascenders, I understand your frustrations and desires to take the war into your own hands, but believe me when I say, we have greater plans than letting you run around relieving sieges. To that end, High Command not only wants but needs your very best. With the war entering the ending of this game, we wish to cripple the enemies. That is not a euphemism or exaggeration. Our plan is to cripple the enemy's ability to make war in the Tier 25 range for the foreseeable future. To achieve this goal, we have located and tracked the enemy elites in your Tier ranges. All of them. Your charge is to remove, capturing when possible but killing when not, as many as possible before they are able to retreat back to secure territories or gather with the Harmory Accords. This is an opportunity that can only be realized now that you have sent the Harmony Accords reeling back. But this chance only lasts a moment, and we must act upon it. Attached is our recommended target priority, but you may deviate from the list as you see fit.’

— General Declan Raven.

Matt looked at the signature, not quite believing High Command’s idea. If he was still mortal, he would have hyperventilated, but the news still caused his blood to pump. Team Zero had considered this option when planning their little expedition, but they had disregarded it because they simply didn’t know where most of the elites were. A few elites who were embroiled in a battle were in static known locations, but that was the exception. And yet, High Command had sightings of every elite, from the lowest level elites to mid level elites, high level elites, and finally peak and pinnacle elites. Each and every one had a location noted. Most of the nodes were the lowest rungs of elites, those Matt didn’t even consider real threats, and they were immediately filtered out so he could look at the true prizes.

That wasn’t just his pride talking, but rather High Command’s intentions. Their attack list had them working down in order of importance, even though it would send them bouncing around the warfront like a hyperactive rabbit.

If they were able to kill half of this list, or even a quarter of the list, the enemy Great Powers would not only be seriously hampered in their war effort, but they would lose a ton of their momentum.

Currently, the Empire elites were being whittled down as they fought three to one, and that was wholly unsustainable. It allowed the enemy elites to cycle in and out of the frontline no matter the damage they suffered in a battle. Their deaths would give the Empire so much breathing room, Matt wasn’t even sure he fully understood the consequences of this deployment.

Allie whooped and floated up from her seat before flipping mid air in a way that was only possible because she contorted her body with spatial warping.

Darrow was a moment slower and looked out to the waiting healers and technicians. “One hour. Get checked over by the healers and get your armor and weapons serviced. If we finish up faster, we leave faster.”

Matt didn’t need to be told twice and moved at his max speed to reach the hospital where Melinda and her mentors could quickly take care of them. Even with his prodigious speed, he wasn’t the first one to arrive. He was the fourth. Zack had used a movement spell and travel mana to move fast as thought, but Allie had just teleported herself and Aster, beating everyone else.

Allie had received a few healer’s orders to limit her teleportation, given the strain it was putting her under, but she ignored them just as readily as Matt ignored the notes about his own exertions. Spiritual strain was a complicated beast, and Melinda’s Talent not affecting it meant they couldn’t wholesale ignore it, but there were potions, spells, and a few healers in the rift who could help manage it. If Matt didn’t miss his guess, Allie had just dosed herself with all of them. Her silvery hair had picked up an indigo shimmer and was flowing in an almost stuttery manner, her eyes blazed with ultraviolet light, and at the right angles, Matt could see her skull, black and menacing underneath momentarily translucent flesh. Her arms left trails of black runes in their wake, and her daggers hummed in her grip.

A few of the effects were ones Matt associated with some of her spatial trick enhancement suite, but most of them were about preventing total spiritual collapse. It wouldn’t help with the pain, and any normal person would be laid out for decades, if not centuries, by the time they wore off. But that was why they were Ascenders. She’d be down for… five, ten years at most. With the rift in play, that would just be a couple of months real-time.

Matt firmed his will at the realization. That just meant they needed to do enough damage in this next raid to buy themselves a few months of breathing room.

They could do that.

Matt would ensure that.

He flinched as Aster came over to him and took him by the elbow.

“Hey, I need to talk to you.”

Matt blinked down and probed his bond, but felt their connection slightly closed off. Not completely, but enough that he couldn’t really get a feeling for what she was thinking.

When she used their physical contact to send him an [AI] communication request, Matt grew genuinely worried, but accepted it nonetheless.

“What's wrong?”

“There isn't an easy way to say this, but I think we should go for as many captures as we can.”

Matt stiffened at the suggestion. He wanted to get angry, did she not feel how angry he was at their enemies? Did she not care, herself? That last one was unfair, as he knew she cared deeply for both Dena and Eric. But then why was she suggesting anything other than a full on offensive? These were not noncombatants they were talking about, but elites whose deaths would hurt even the Tier 50 leaders.

But this was Aster saying it, which made Matt hear her out.

“Why?”

“Because they are valuable, Matt. Their deaths can hurt. Their deaths might slow the war to a point that we can stem the tide, but their capture can buy us so much more. The Great Powers will bend over backwards for their elites' safe returns. Think about the ransoms usually exchanged for peak elites, let alone pinnacle elites. Instead of valuable treasures being traded over, we’re talking about entire star systems. Each capture can mean a dozen planets not handed over to the enemy should things end badly.”

Matt worked his jaw as a healer moved around him. There was nothing to heal, [Regeneration] had already taken care of the only attack that had broken through his armor, and his Millennium Willow Lifesap took care of any curses that had tried to infect him. But he might have missed some obscure hidden affliction, which is why it was standard procedure for everyone to be inspected.

“If we kill enough of them, we can turn the war around in our Tier bracket. Then —”

Aster's hand squeezed as she cut him off. “Then it comes down to Aiden in the Tier 35 bracket, and no one in the Tier 15 bracket. One out of three won't win the war.”

Matt hated it… but she was right. Wars being so structured came with a plethora of rules, but without the ability to attack down, a Great Power might win in the Tier 15 bracket but lose in the Tier 25 and Tier 35 brackets. If that happened, the question of who was the winner and by what margin came up. Winning in two of the brackets was the undeniable way to be declared a winner, but treaties were far more fluid then that. Like Aster said, at the end of the war, the return of important elites, while mandated, had weight. Should the other two major brackets crumble under the pressure of their combined enemies, the war score they earned with captures instead of kills could be the leverage the Emperor needed to save some worlds from being traded to the enemies.

Should they end up winning the war outright, or even forcing a white peace, the captured elites could still be traded for any number of concessions.

Matt wished she wasn’t right, but she was.

“You’re right. If we can take them alive or if they surrender, we should try our best to do so.”

Hearing that, Aster beamed at him. She shined so brightly, she started to actually glow.

Poking her through the blinding effect, Matt got her to shut off the illusion. “Just because you’re right doesn't mean you need to gloat.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does. See, I can enunciate too!”

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Their playful banter only lasted another few minutes, as the moment the healers finished their checks, they both left to finish their preparations for the next mission. Matt went off to Group Firmament for a few disposable formations, bombs, traps, talismans, potions, and his backup armor, while Aster went to gather some of their more robust capture equipment. Caging an elite was difficult in the best of times, pinnacle elites doubly so, but they had equipment which could ensure their tricks were limited. In the worst case it wouldn’t stop a core detonation, but it would slow one down long enough for them to shove whoever it was out a hatch, or more likely drive a blade through their brain.

As much as Matt didn’t want to admit it, many of the elites, upon seeing the odds stacked against them, would probably try to flee or surrender. It wasn’t like any of them wanted to die. Even Sect elites would probably surrender if the odds were bad enough.

Seeing Ai'la gathering supplies, they brainstormed a few things they might be able to cobble together in the short amount of time they had left. Most of it was too optimistic, but Matt was still happy with what they created.

Surprises were always good when the ones being surprised were the enemy.

Once they were all back in Joy's ship, Darrow took the time to give them a quick rundown of their mission before going into the top level elites they were to hit.

Matt carefully listened while burning most of his mana generation on simulating the fight with his AI. With all of them together, there was almost no chance of escape or failure, but it was still better to be safe rather than sorry.

Matt would accept a surrender, a capture, or elites who fled away from the frontlines before they came around to them. But he could not, would not, accept any failures.

Allie clapped her hands together loudly, and just like that, they were halfway across the realm.

Their first target was someone the Empire had wanted dead for years. Alexie Taltor, the strongest horde tamer of their Tier. Tamers of any sort were an uncommon sight, but Alexie had the strategy down to an art. She assembled entire armies of rift monsters, threw them at entire planets, and could take up to four or five worlds before she needed to restock, something which only required visiting a Tier 25 rift. Even when routed, her position at the backline meant she was never genuinely defeated. It also made her elusive and hard to pin down, but Matt was happy to take advantage of the rare opportunity provided to eliminate her.

The woman had taken almost a hundred worlds in this war herself.

She wasn’t the top target because of her individual combat prowess, but that didn’t mean she was weak.

Shadow immediately teleported them into the chaotic space between worlds tethers before they arrived at the Juliana system. As they ripped their way into real space, their ship immediately started pulling data about the fortress world.

Alexie had arrived just hours before them, and with a horde of monsters trailing in her wake, she had already started besieging the fortress world. Tens of thousands of Tier 25 monsters threw themselves at the shields with no regard for their own lives as they were shredded by the ground-to-space mana cannons defending the surface.

Allie teleported them to the battlefield in just a dozen quick hops.

Matt, boosted by a travel mana [Telekinetic Invisibility] cast on him by Light, raced after Alexie while the others started culling the monsters that would soon go wild once their mistress lost her life.

Matt would be enough to take care of Alexie and her guards. The guards were elites in their own right, but they were only high-level elites, and therefore not a concern.

Moving faster than he could easily control, Matt arrived next to the first guard without slowing down at all. He didn’t even bother to swing his sword, and instead just held the blade firmly, cutting through the man, his tower shield, and his magical shield projection all at once. With the lingering effects of the boost, Matt watched as Alexie’s eyes widened. With one of her protectors dead, Matt had an open path to Alexie, and he took it.

He knew what Aster and High Command wanted and captures would come when they had time to spare. For now, they needed to send a message written in blood.

[Cracked Air Slide] sent him forward in a burst of air that destroyed the slows the protectors tried to delay him with.

As if it was so easy.

Alexie, even as it looked like she was trying to surrender, materialized a nightmare monster that felt like a Tier 25 boss swinging dozens of tentacles with blades embedded in its limbs, but Matt hardly noticed it.

His full focus was on Alexie.

He was endless.

He was dauntless.

He was… determined.

Matt was willing to accept surrenders, but now that they had made their move an invisible clock was ticking, and surrenders took time they didn’t have. Which meant Alexie needed to die.

He flew through the boss monster, his glowing, pitch black longsword leading the charge like a lance. Before she could even fully process that she herself was under attack, Alexie was impaled on his sword.

Matt unleashed the [Mana Slash] he had cast into the blade, exploding her head and upper torso.

Spells slammed onto him from the elites and the monster who was still alive despite a Matt sized hole in its chest.

Slashing out with his blade, a second [Mana Slash] ended everything.

The boss monster dissolved into motes of nothingness while the elites' bodies exploded, adding to the essence spreading into the surroundings.

His job done, Matt joined the rest of his team even as Darrow ordered the defenders to sally forth and help. There were so many monsters, and they couldn’t allow any of them to reach the Tier 7 planet this fortress world defended. And now that the first pinnacle elite was dead, every minute counted. The Republic would have been informed the moment Alexie died; they might not know the how of it, but they and all the Empire elites had the same backups, each unique to make interception nigh impossible. Once most of the monsters were dead and it was clear the Empire soldiers had things under control, Team Zero rushed back to their ship. Shadow, who was the only one who hadn’t fought, immediately teleported them again.

Their next target, Li Luo, was a triple elemental Sect fighter who had killed almost a dozen elites in his time active at Tier 25, including one Graduate in the last Sect Republic war. But more than that, he was a tactical prodigy who moved with his own army. They might have taken less planets then Alexie, but he was one of the Sects’ most capable Tier 25s.

He and his army were also just two jumps behind the frontlines in a system where Shadow had a waypoint. From the reports, it was obvious their army was preparing for another deployment to the frontlines. But little did they know, the fight had come to them without the courtesy of a warning.

Matt once more threw himself out of the ship the moment they arrived next to the army floating around the local inhabited planet's moon. His sword sent out two crescents of mana that reaped the lives of hundreds of unprepared soldiers, but his gaze was entirely locked onto the figure of Li Luo, who had let loose a flare of power the moment they arrived.

He was surrounded by over a dozen cultivators that Matt’s [AI] registered as medium and high level elites, but just like with Alexie, Matt didn’t even slow down. He threw himself at them, pitting their bodily strength and durability against his and his armor.

It wasn’t even a fight. It was a slaughter.

Li Luo summoned a water elemental of some kind even as his subordinates cast dozens of spells, but they splashed harmlessly off his armor, not even leaving a scratch.

[Mana Beam] swept across the collected elites, and while most survived the attack, none of them came out intact. Many were cut in half and a lucky few only lost an arm or a leg. The only one fully intact was Li Luo, and Matt rectified that situation with a swing of his blade.

Li Luo tried to block his attack, but he wasn’t in his combat armor. And if he had any buffs active, Matt couldn't feel them. He had been caught flat footed, and that allowed Matt to end him in five exchanges.

Instead of bothering to fight the surviving elites still attacking him, Matt sent a message to Origami and the rest of the team. As they retreated into the ship, Origami tossed a torso sized mana crystal bomb out of the ship just as Matt entered.

Shadow teleported them out before the bomb went off, but Matt knew its detonation signified the rest of Li Luo’s infamous army was gone.

Their next target was less of a prime target and more of a convenient secondary target. Jiang Jiahao might only have been a peak elite, but he had the misfortune of being just a single jump away from Li Luo.

They descended on the ice mage just as they had with the pinnacle elites, but he didn’t even last long enough to know how he died.

Shadow teleported behind the besieging army and Light disrupted the spell he was casting while Matt sent a [Gravitic Bolt] through the back of his head. Either probably would have killed him, but it took only a moment and three teleports, which made it a worthwhile pitstop.

Their forth target, Algo, was a Federation duelist who had modeled herself after Cosmind. While only a pale imitation of the Chosen, even that was enough to kill three of the Empire’s Graduates in this war through a combination of body-jacking cybernetic weapons, illusions, and presumed foresight. It was hard to dodge the woman’s blade when your senses lied to you and your body betrayed you. It wasn’t quite as intimidating as the way the deadliest duelist in the Realm could get you to slit your own throat, but it was still enough to get her to rank third on High Command’s list of priority targets.

Shadow didn’t have a waypoint in the system where High Command said Algo was situated, but she did have one just three worlds away. A little far considering the ticking clock hanging over their heads, but instead of flying the distance they teleported dozens of times, which turned a multi day trip into a two minute one.

Shadow’s breaths were deep and slow, but it was clear that the teleports were catching up to her. She didn’t complain though, which only invigorated Matt all the more. If she could push herself so hard, he could do the same.

As they arrived in the Galos system they immediately came under fire, but they had expected that. Algo, surprisingly enough, was in a forward medical deployment center. Algo wasn’t a disabled combatant, so she was fair game, and her location wasn’t going to stop them.

Not today.

Today was a day for their enemies blood to flow, not one of mercy or compassion.

Matt left the ship with everyone else, but he didn’t rush for where he felt Algo. No, that was Liz’s job. Ten of her moved together in perfect unison while another Liz remained seated in the ship.

Matt, along with Light, Bolt, and Origami unleashed a wave of spells to keep the station's defenders on the back foot. He didn’t even really need to focus on defense, as a simple [Bulwark] was enough to stop the small amount of attacks they suffered from the cultivators, and Light destroyed any of the spells the emplaced mana cannons attacked them with.

They had to be a little more circumspect in this attack, as they couldn’t deliberately slaughter the wounded, but said wounded were also not completely off limits. They were still active combatants, just ones in a de facto surrender state. That made it mighty suspicious that Algo was waiting among them while being a valid target. There was surely some plot or plan in her actions, but Matt didn’t care about the technicalities.

Instead, he watched as the ten Liz’s threw themselves at Algo, who retreated, feet glowing and letting her skate around like she was on ice. Her rapier struck out, illusionary copies of it making it hard to tell which was the real one, until the blade pierced the head of one Lizzes, killing it with a burst of greenish-gray light. That was her triumph, but also the moment that ensured her death, as the other nine Lizzes descended on her, stabbing, slicing, and ripping her apart before she could play any more tricks.

Where Matt might have struggled taking out such a competent foe, Liz took advantage of any duelist's main weakness and just sacrificed a body to create an opening.

The moment they felt the essence wash out and confirmed the kill, the Lizzes fell into puddles with the Liz in the ship standing up. Once Matt and the others retreated back into the ship, they once more teleported.

This time, they were only a single jump away from their target. Harley’s team was a group of Evermore graduates who had made a name for themselves in the Republic's last war, where they reinforced why the academy was the Republic's elite making factory by securing and holding a critical Tier 25 system by themselves.

While they hadn’t made any such amazing contributions in this war, they had participated in several battles in the early stages, which contributed to the fall of key systems before vanishing back behind enemy lines.

Until now.

The Republic had pulled them back into active duty for this last push, which was going to cost them their lives. Along with everyone else in the army that they were supporting.

Light grunted as his grimoire fluttered its pages in one hand while he brandished his staff in the other.

Spell formations twisted into space in massive circles before spinning and flashing through various colors. The light show only lasted a moment; a moment that was long enough for the attacking army to realize they were under attack.

If they had a second more, they might have had time to offer a defense, but Light didn’t give them that opportunity.

[Meteor Storm] was a basic, if high Tier, spell but Light’s version of the spell was boosted to insane levels, feeling more like something Matt would cast then anything he would come up with. And that was the point. The power contained in the spell even before it was fully cast, screamed danger to anyone nearby.

Still, it was ultimately a distraction.

Or more accurately, it was a trap.

Harley, being a mage herself, tried to interrupt the casting of [Meteor Storm], but that only allowed Light to find her faster, which was the goal of the modified spell. Once he had her and her team's location, he changed the target of his spell and the space around them blazed with the concentrated power of the modified [Meteor Storm] spell.

For a brief instant, there was a new star born in the star system as all of the power of the spell was converted into a sphere of pure armageddon mana just fifty feet wide. Even the mortals all the way back on the inhabited world would notice as their night turned into day for a few moments. There wasn’t even ash left of the group, but there was still an army. They had a solution for that though. Matt and Origami still had another eight bombs.

A bomb lighter, they moved to their next target, all while Matt silently urged the equally silent Shadow to move faster.

The faster they moved, the more elites who would die before they stopped catching them unaware. Once true fights started, they would be slowed, and once the elites started to flee or gather, their pace would slow down even further.

Matt wanted at least a quarter of their list dead before that happened.

Maybe even a third.

Maybe even half.