The Path of Ascension - Chapter 302

The five of them and Guild leadership spent a little more than a week planning for the raid on the anti-speedster base, but they knew they couldn’t wait forever. They’d planned to spend two full weeks on it, but even that had been cut short—the spies that had the system under observation identified a few unsettling movements by the five anti-speedsters, which had forced their hand.

It was a trap, but one they needed to spring. If they were planning counters to Matt, Liz, and Aster—or even Dena, Eric, or Morgan—they didn’t want to give them any more time. Worse yet, Guild intelligence were pretty sure there were at least two other peak elites hiding at the base which, if true, would largely negate their current numbers advantage. There were likely to be even more people stationed nearby, ready to bolster the defenders, in an effort to get a win against the current forces arrayed against them. No one wanted to throw their top soldiers away for little gain.

Being outnumbered to that extent would be inconvenient, but it didn’t change what needed to be done, nor did it change their duty to do it alone.

The Guild leadership had offered them an army to back them up— the system had two armies there— but they flatly refused. It was a Tier 25 system, and it was implausible that there would be enough hidden forces nearby that they would require that level of backup. Given that, needing to worry about the Guild army would only get in the way of them being able to properly fight. Rather, Liz wouldn’t be able to let loose. Without friendlies to consider, the fact that there were thousands of Tier 25s simply meant Liz had access to all the blood she could want without having to worry about bursting an ally for a clone. The elites would undoubtedly have counters for Liz, but the average troopers, if they had anything at all, would have something mass produced and unlikely to be as effective.

Out of all of them, Joy was the most excited at the new mission. She’d been relegated to a simple ferrier for the last dozen outings, and she wanted to get her hands dirty once again. Matt, on the other hand, just wanted to get rid of the wound in the Guilds’ side. Their half of Team Zero had done something similar to the Federation, so he couldn’t rail against the injustice of such a forward operating base and the disruption it caused. But that disruption was exactly why he wanted to remove them—he knew the pain such a thorn in the side could cause when pushed correctly.

As they entered Isonwood’s real space, the world, or rather their ship, immediately rocked as explosions and mines slammed into their shields.

Matt made sure Drifter’s mana storages didn’t dip below ninety percent while he spread his spiritual sense outward. He found dozens of tiny distortions that tried to slip past his spiritual sense by blending in with the surrounding space, but he was able to push through and into open space.

As he did so, he felt a flare of rage ignite deep inside him.

Mining a jump point pushed the acceptable bounds of war, but that wasn’t what brought his fury to bear. No, it was the mass of civilian ships flying towards them packed full of explosives. Drifter immediately started firing upon the makeshift missiles and Matt stuck his head out of one of the side hatches to help cut a path through the ships.

Destroying the civilian ships would have lasting repercussions to the local economy, but the ships were packed so close, they had no choice but to carve a gap to get through the attack. The ships didn’t have any crew, which removed the major moral implications, but Matt still wondered what excuse the Federation used to confiscate close to a hundred civilian ships, even as he cut them apart with [Mana Beam].

If they had been a fleet of ships carrying an army, they would have been in a dire position between the minefield and the wave of ships packed with explosives moving at max acceleration. The Federation wasn’t playing around with their occupation of the system.

Good, because neither was Matt.

An attack that might have hampered a fleet only pissed them off, and within moments, Drifter had punched through the wave of ships out to the other side, with nothing more to show for it than a few scrapes on the outer hull. The civilian ships would never be able to catch them at this point, and Drifter turned their ship towards the floating fortress that hovered just a few miles above the inhabited planet’s moon.

Dena cursed upon seeing how close they were to the planet. “They’re really pushing their luck.”

Matt nodded, not saying anything. There was nothing to add to that. The Federation was pushing the bounds of the rules similar to how the Sects had with Maven’s first attack. They were already fighting with their lives on the line, but why did the Federation need to bring the civilians into it? The moon was just two hundred thousand miles away from the inhabited planet, putting it within possible danger of stray shots or debris flung out from the fighting. The responsible thing to do was to station someone by the planet who could redirect or stop these incidental dangers, but it wasn’t mandated, and there was no evidence that anyone was currently doing so. Fighters who chose to enter the war might be willing to wager their lives, but the civilians below hadn’t made such a choice. That they were Guild civilians didn’t change that to Matt.

It was irresponsibility of the highest order.

As they approached the fortress, Matt felt space solidify and tighten like ropes binding his movements, drawing tighter the more he tried to push against them. It was part of the standard anti-teleporter and speedster fields, which was why they came prepared with their own counter field stuffed in the back of Drifter’s ship. If it worked as the Guilds hoped, it would negate or at least lessen the restrictions in a few mile radius.

Gathering his mana and channeling it through stabilization arrays into a [Barrage] [Breach] combo, Matt pushed his spirit to the limit before pointing an armored finger at the center of the fortress.

He didn’t bother trying to hide his actions.

It was a naked provocation. A test.

The Federation fortress responded with a wave of spells that Drifter wove through with surprising deftness, sometimes banking the ship like it was flying in an atmosphere rather than the void of space.

Right before everyone else jumped off the ship, Matt released the spell that his spirit was trembling simply holding together and sneered as three blazing projectiles flew forward towards the fortress.

The shield blocked the first [Breach] with serious strain while the second spell hit the shield and cracked it before expending its power. The third, however, smashed through the weakened shield and slammed into the fortress wall, sending stone and metal flying in an explosion that must have seemed like the birth of a new star to the mortals watching from the planet below.

The armies stationed in the fortress started flying out, but instead of forming ranks and preparing to engage in open space, they flew backwards and broadcasted their surrender. Not the army’s surrender, not the system’s surrender, but thousands of individual surrenders they were obligated to accept, so long as they didn’t engage in the fighting and kept clear of the field of battle.

Matt was surprised at such a move after the Federation had been willing to throw two waves of troops at them when they controlled a single Federation system. That thought gave Matt a glimmer of what he suspected their reasoning was. Generals to fight Generals, soldiers to fight soldiers. After what Liz had repeatedly done to the average soldiers, the Federation leadership must have finally learned they were nothing more than walking clones for her. Those same Federation generals must have hoped that without the extra blood, she would be without clones and thus correspondingly weaker.

They weren’t entirely wrong, she most certainly was at her most potent as an army… but Liz had reached her status as an Ascender as a single combatant, and one to four bodies was still plenty for her to work with.

Seventeen fighters floated out of the fortress in a more leisurely manner, and these ones didn’t surrender.

Klix Vutru, Fred Baxter, Cameron Chime, Dame-Askor, and Jastor Keys were the Archwarriors they were primarily expecting, but Matt mostly focused on the group that contained Valos Kain, Keith Malko, and Tilla Rex. They registered in his [AI] as he got a good look at them.

While not Archwarriors themselves, they were still near the peak of elites, the likes of which might serve as the champion of a regular army. And they’d very clearly been selected in the hopes of countering them. The other nine were essentially additional backup, though Matt’s [AI] identified them as peak elites as well, they were all newer and lacked the prestigious records of the main three.

Keith Malko was a water mage specialized in countering ice mages. Aster might struggle to kill the man outright with his anti-ice counters, but from all the reports they had of him, he wasn’t too dangerous in and of himself.

Valos Kain, on the other hand, was more threatening. His Talent was, at least from what everyone could tell from the outside, an anti-liquid one that caused them to fall apart around him. There were some limitations to the ability, he probably wouldn’t be able to affect Liz’s clones, but just his presence would limit what Liz was able to do in battle.

Tilla Rex was the one sent to counter him. She was a melee brawler similar to Rusty, but instead of having ‘stamana’ like Rusty to keep her going, she linked herself to a mage and drained their mana to refill her own. She wouldn’t be able to appreciably affect how much mana Matt could leverage, but her style would look like a good counter to him on paper.

The three of them would be dangerous, especially alongside the other nine peak elites, but Matt suspected they wouldn’t be the truly difficult part of this upcoming battle. They were brought here to bolster the original five.

Pinnacle elites, like Archwarriors, CyberForce members, Graduates, and Dao Children were the next best thing after an Ascender. While they couldn’t be expected to single handedly counter an Ascender, they rarely fought alone, and were stuffed with a plethora of life saving gear. It was basically unheard of for five to fight together, but the Federation had been trying to hit the Guilds hard, and that was why they were here.

That was all the time he had to think as the fight broke out.

Morgan, in the rear with Aster, opened by launching two crossbow bolts at the enemy, only to have them blocked by Cameron with a projection of his shield as he slipped in front of the mage she was aiming at. She was forced to spin as her arrows appeared just feet away from her, but she successfully dodged the redirect.

Matt flew forward and moved to engage him as per their original battleplan, mostly ignoring Tilla as she rushed to intercept him. Slashing his black longsword at her with a quickly charged [Mana Slash], he forced her to dodge while he took a few attacks from the other Federation elites. They scored his armor, but none of them were able to punch through [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s second layer with just glancing attacks.

Closing in with Cameron, Matt sent another [Mana Slash] at him, knowing it would get reflected back at him. He was ready for that and took the attack head-on, letting it splash into his armor while he closed into melee range. Cameron, like all reflection fighters, was deadly to ranged fighters, who tended to have more attack than durability. But while his tricks worked on mundane melee combat, he couldn’t do much to a defensive powerhouse like Matt. Which was exactly why he needed to occupy him in particular.

The pinnacle elite’s mace came swinging around with perfect timing to hit him alongside his own reflected spell, but Matt reached out and caught the mace head with his invulnerable left hand. The enspelled weapon tried to break his armor with over a dozen effects to that end, but both Matt’s magical and physical armor, reinforced by the Stygian Gossamer, were far too robust to fail to such a hit. His hand didn’t stop the explosion of mana that the mace had been the vehicle for, and it washed over Matt as something like a force aspected [Mana Charge] was unleashed.

It didn’t crack Matt’s armor, but the force shredded a large portion of the fortress and caused it to start to fall towards the moon below as the weak gravity of the satellite started pulling it down.

Tilla used that same opportunity to dart in close. She tried to drive a fist into his spine, but Matt flared his repulsion and caused her attack to slide just off course. She spun mid attack and lashed out with a kick backed by her Intent that took Matt in the back, and he felt a connection snap into place.

It hooked into his mana pool like a leech, entirely bypassing his Domain and normal spiritual resistance, and started draining his mana. Even when he focused on the spiritual tap, he couldn’t dislodge it, and he could feel as his mana was siphoned away.

Fortunately, he still had plenty.

He was losing twenty thousand mana per second through the drain, but that was a rounding error compared to the tens of millions he was generating. Tilla’s drain would put a harsh time limit on how long a normal person could fight her before running dry, which she often capitalized on with hit and run tactics, but Matt had no intention of letting her get the better of him.

Still, he needed to pretend it affected him. To that end, Matt popped out and instantly absorbed a Tier 25 mana stone. He would need to absorb a steady stream of them to keep up pretenses, though only somewhat more than he normally did, but it was a small price to pay to keep his enemies from knowing that he had a Talent that could generate as much mana as he was visibly using.

Of course, he had to surreptitiously shunt the mana he absorbed to some specially-designed gear before it could clog up his mana channels, but he was an old hand at moving millions of mana around on command.

Tightening his grip on the mace, Matt twisted, pulling Cameron’s weapon out of position with his momentum. He slashed downward, just to have his blow blocked by the rebounding shield which sent the force back at him.

Twisting, he flared his repulsion field, forcing the energy to slip by him and almost catch Tilla, who was trying to attack him from the rear once more. Instead, the energy cut the arm off one of the other elites who was rushing to Tilla’s aid, thanks to Matt shoving them into the path of the spell with a well timed [Telekinesis].

Changing his blade to its white form, Matt let out another [Mana Slash], this time cast with almost a million mana. The spell nearly cracked in his spirit, but the fifty foot tall slash was unleashed nearly point blank and sent Cameron flying backwards into the still falling fortress. The reflected spell sent Matt flying back even farther, but he had been ready for the attack and caught it with his left hand, bolstered by [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s second layer, preventing too much damage from reaching him as the energy washed over and past him.

While he had made it through the exchange without serious damage, the other two hadn’t been so lucky. Cameron was spitting up blood and his shield was nearly cut in half, and Tilla was healing from shredded skin.

He barely had a moment to admire his handiwork before two of the other elites were attacking him with spells. Turning and lashing out, Matt cut them in half with another [Mana Slash].

Having finished the two irritants off, Matt darted forward, wanting to finish Cameron and Tilla off as quickly as possible, but a blade came out of a fold in space directed at his eye slot.

The depleted metal blade screamed danger, but instead of flaring his Concept to repel the blade, something he wasn’t sure would work, Matt commanded the realm to stop. He was the center of the realm, and if he didn’t want to move, he wouldn’t.

Everything shuddered to a halt as he jerked to a stop just inches from the blade. Firmly locked in, and with the best leverage in the realm, Matt slashed out with his blade at where he knew the hidden attacker was.

The midnight-dark blade slashed through the folded space and came out the other side covered in blood, even as the assassin flew towards Tilla and Cameron, sans their right arm. As some of the blood landed on him, Matt’s armor started reporting corrosion, which must have been one of their anti-Liz tactics. Poisoning one’s own blood was a solution, but not one that was likely to work on Liz.

Just moments after the premature attempt at ambushing him, the rest of his team were attacked by either bolts of depleted metal or spells that crackled with armor piercing effects.

His ambusher being forced to attack so soon meant the attackers weren’t in their optimal positions, but they were still effective. Liz took a crossbow bolt to the lower back, which caused her body to blacken and crack, while Stone took a blade across his hip that cut deep enough to cause failures in his left leg’s power amplifiers. Stick was next to him, so his flank was covered, but with the addition of the assassins, the fight immediately turned more hectic.

Aster had managed to freeze her assassin mid strike by pulling out her second tiara golem created with [Absolute White], allowing one of Bolt’s constructs to pepper them with spells and kill them before they could break free.

Liz was also being attacked by two assassins after the initial attacks, and they had come prepared with what he suspected to be a potent snake venom, thanks to the blood coagulation that lingered around the wounds they inflected.

Growling, Matt pointed at the assassin who attacked him and cast [Mana Beam]. Cameron intercepted the spell while the assassin slipped back into a space fold. It was only then that Matt realized how odd that was.

The space around them had been locked down by the Federation fortress. Sure, they could have had counter formations on their bodies for some kind of friend or foe system with the formation, but the assassin wasn’t causing any ripples as they slipped through space.

Despite all his advantages and what One Step Behind said, Matt wasn’t a Domain expert, certainly not one on the level of Duke Waters. He was, however, connected to space through his Domain in a literal way. He had a stellar body. That was his Domain, and his Domain was him.

Flaring his Concept, Matt stretched space around him for an instant before activating his Intent and shrinking space. Cycling the powers, he flew towards where the assassin had vanished all while forcing Cameron, Tilla and the two other peak elites to cower behind his shield with a stream of [Mana Beam].

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

As he got close, an explosion of blood appeared out of nowhere. He grinned as he flew past the place where the assassin appeared. Space being locked down and folded over on itself was a method that some weaker space mages used to create hidden pockets of space. In fact, he had learned such techniques when he looked into creating spatial pockets—but that wasn’t how good space mages, like Allie, created their own pockets of hidden space.

Locking down space by stretching the fabric of the world and then bending it so there didn’t appear to be any difference in the physical, while also messing with the spatial coordinates space mages used, was a good way to stop them from teleporting around a battlefield. While the manipulated space might look the same, it was all jumbled and twisted, which made any mistakes in a teleport lethal. The same logic applied to speedsters who used any kind of spatial folding to increase their speed.

It was hands down the easiest way to lock down space in a wide area, and had the side effect of creating pockets of nothingness that someone, or at least someone who knew where the folds were, could hide in. It was a favorite of armies everywhere, including the Empire. The issue was that anyone who could affect space and had enough power could cripple anything hidden inside those pockets by twisting, pushing, or pulling the fabric of reality, just like Matt had done to the assassin.

He expanded his range as he flew and crippled two more of the assassins before the rest fled their hidden spatial fold death traps and entered the battlefield properly. Twenty assassins shimmered into visibility, far more than he was expecting, and he worried that the tide might be turning against him.

Two assassins flew over to his battle with Cameron and Tilla, and as if that wasn’t enough, when Stick knocked back Kilx from their battle she redirected herself to Matt.

It was clear they wanted to take him out quickly and press their numbers advantage, but Matt was delighted at their mistake.

He was Dauntless.

Blocking a swing of Cameron’s mace with the flat of his longsword Matt redirected the mace over his head and spun, nearly taking Tilla’s head off, but she bent forward enough to dodge the attack while still landing a heavy blow that rattled his internal organs through his armor.

[Regeneration] quickly knit the shredded flesh together, but before he could follow up he was forced to dodge a small stream of arrows shot at him from one of the assassins. Klix, making use of the opening, pointed a finger at Matt and he felt his body slow down as if he was moving through water. It felt like reality itself was resisting his movements, and Matt had to flare [Archmage’s Presence] just to dodge Tilla’s blow to his head, which put him in line for Cameron’s mace.

This time, the mace caught him in the chest and Matt felt the enchanted weapon disrupt [Cracked Phantom Armor] while sending pulses of energy through his physical armor, tearing his skin and muscles apart. Faster than should have been possible, the mace retracted and slammed forward once again, increasing the damage a dozen fold.

Instead of trying to dodge the third blow, Matt snatched at the air to his right and caught the second assassin—she’d vanished from his spiritual sense and [AI] predictions, but her attack had been predictable enough, if barely—just as she drove a clear blade through his armor and into his chest under his armpit.

The blade sent searing fire through Matt’s spirit and nervous system, but he just roared through the pain and squeezed.

The assassin’s chest exploded and her head tried to fly away, but Matt slashed out with his blade. He wasn’t left handed, but Luna made damn sure he knew how to fight with his off hand. And despite the jerky movements, Matt cleanly bisected the assassin’s head.

He took a heavy blow from Tilla in the side that shattered his just-healed bones, but he ignored it as he rebuilt [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s structure. Flexing, he broke the clear blade inside him, taking another mace strike to the head for his trouble. This time, [Cracked Phantom Armor] began to splinter, but held enough to deflect an arrow that hit him in the eye portion of his armor.

Pointing with his left hand, he sent a pulse of [Mana Beam] at Klix. Her debuffing was hindering him more than anything else, and he needed to force her to drop the spell or Talent she had hit him with. She had a device that acted like [Diffusion Shield], but even with it turning [Mana Beam] from a point of death into a cone, it was still a dangerous spell. She was forced to drop her hand to deal with it, which caused the bindings slowing him down to weaken.

They didn’t vanish outright, though, and the small respite he earned only lasted for a second as Klix quickly pushed through the pain of the damage that made it through her shields. But Matt only needed that single moment.

Punching forward and casting [Fist Blast], Matt locked everyone together with his Intent right before Klix locked him back down. She was a moment too late, as the blast hit Cameron and shattered his already damaged shield. With the shield broken, there was no reflection and he took the full brunt of Matt’s blow.

His armor crumpled and a dozen life saving spell formations sprung to life even as he was sent flying into the nearby moon. Only, he wasn’t alone, as Matt had tied everyone together in their relative space in the realm. If Cameron moved, everyone moved, but Matt was the only one ready for it. He grinned as one of the assassins burst into a spray of blood at the unexpected acceleration.

Cameron slammed into the moon, sending up a wave of dust and debris with enough force that he might have been sent into the core of the celestial body, but his own Intent flared and created a cushion which spread the force out across the moon. That saved him from any serious damage, but caused the moon to crack and sent pieces of debris the size of islands flying outward.

Instead of relenting and letting the struggling elites break free from his Intent, Matt flared [Archmage’s Presence] and sent another punch forward before using his now healed right arm and slashing out with [Mana Slash], before absorbing another mana stone. The two follow up blows drove Cameron deeper into the moon while sending the others into their own smaller tunnels.

Feeling his Intent was a moment from being broken by the combined efforts of the elites and assassins, Matt preemptively dropped his Intent to spare himself the spiritual strain. He was going to charge at Klix when he noticed Cameron hadn’t died, and had instead pulled out another shield.

His mangled and torn body quickly knit itself back together, but as he screamed silently in the void of space, blood sprayed and there was madness in his eyes as he charged at Matt.

Tilla, now free from his Intent, was the first to close the distance. Bobbing and weaving as she advanced, she drove several heavy blows into Matt’s sides and back. With [Cracked Phantom Armor] back up, even her blows that were backed by the purple hand wraps failed to slip past his armor.

Keeping an eye on Klix, Matt cursed as she kept out of easy range of his attacks. He sent a burst of [Gravitic Bolt]s to keep her on her toes and reduce herslowing effect to a minimum, sending a few towards the assassin hanging around the edges of the battlefield.

Just as he was closing in on Cameron, one of the elites slammed an axe into his leg hard enough to strain his armor, thanks to a surprisingly strong armor piercing Domain and Talent combo.

Flaring his black hole intent, Matt pulled the man in and kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing a mile deep into the still crumbling moon. Turning his attention back to Cameron, Matt thrust his blade into the man’s upraised shield.

It reflected the force back at him, but Matt and his blade were strong enough to resist that level of attack, so it did little more than blunt some of the damage inflicted on the melee elite.

Cameron’s damaged armor cracked even further, but the mace that had been sent flying when Matt punched him into the moon appeared back in his hand, and he slammed it into Matt’s hip. Its armor disrupting effect allowed it to break through and crack his hip, but Matt ignored the shattered bones and let [Regeneration] heal him through the damage, even as he brought his sword down and cut though Cameron’s leg.

The elite screamed as his leg was severed, but Matt’s attention wasn’t on him or Tilla, who drove a penetrating blow into his spine, but rather it was on the mass of spirit moving through the moon ground in an [Earth Body].

It was the other elite with the axe. Matt reached into the ground with [Earth Manipulation] and tried to crush the man, but the elite was slippery, and passed through the areas Matt had command of.

Klix darted in just close enough to take Matt’s attention and threw a purple powder at him that Matt tried to repel with a burst of his Concept, but it passed through and ate at his willpower. In sync with that move, one of the other elites drove a rapier through Matt’s weakened hip armor. The weapon started to eat at his flesh, but Matt ignored it and flared [Cosmic Pressure] for an instant.

That small increase of gravity caused Klix to stumble towards him just as the axe elite came out of the ground and Cameron attacked him with his mace.

They were betting that Matt would dodge the attacks and therefore lose his chance to take Klix out of the fight.

They bet wrong.

As the axe came carving up out of the ground, it was perfectly in sync with Cameron’s mace, which disrupted [Cracked Phantom Armor] enough that it actually sliced through both the physical and magical armor, taking his left leg off just above the knee.

At the same time, Matt’s longsword plunged through Klix’s chest and detonated.

Her body evaporated, but space rippled as a naked Klix appeared a dozen feet away, even as what was left of her half destroyed armor flew to her.

The slowing elite was pissed, and looked like she was going to crack a tooth with how hard she was gritting her teeth, but the rest of them looked gleeful at the damage Matt had taken. Or, they did until his blood reached out to the severed limb and pulled the leg back into place, just for [Regeneration] to heal him as good as new before they could follow up the opening.

Even his armor had started to rebuild connections, though the leg was only operating at half strength. But half strength was more than enough.

With his left hand, Matt grabbed the rapier elite and swung him at Cameron like a club. The reflecting mage made the smart call and blocked the attack, but Matt’s improvised weapon exploded in a spray of gore as the twisting energies ran rampant through his body.

Slamming his reattached leg onto the ground, Matt cracked the moon apart with a burst of [Earth Manipulation] just in time to force the axe wielding elite into the open. The rocky man looked on in horror as a [Mana Slash] cut his [Earth Body] in two and ended his life. Matt wanted to finish off Tilla as well, but she was a step faster and used the exploding moon to launch herself away after shattering Matt’s other leg.

Just as Cameron attacked with his mace glowing like a sun with the essence of the spell empowering it, Klix reestablished her slowing effect on Matt as they tried to finish him off with their latest combo attack.

Instead of just taking the blow, Matt cast [Cracked Air Slide] and broke himself free of her restrictions with a burst of air that he used to slide to Tilla, longsword leading the way.

The black blade removed her left arm before Matt slammed into her, and she went flying as a large portion of the moon was turned into powder and dust by Cameron’s last attack.

[Afterimage] and [Illusion Manipulation] created two other copies of him, one going at the assassin and one at Klix. He hoped it would cause a moment of confusion, but Klix’s Talent either still had a lock on him, or her years of experience had let her follow the flow of battle and predict his move. Either way, Matt felt himself slowing down as he neared Cameron.

Turning his sword white and integrating it with his armor to amplify its spell boosting powers, Matt cast [Gravitic Bolt] with [Barrage] to send out a volley of spells at Tilla and the assassin who tried to help her.

Cameron played it smart, and with Klix’s help, kept his distance while using his reflective shield and mace to batter Matt for a few exchanges. Matt deflected the worst of the blows, which prevented him from taking too much damage as he waited to finish healing.

Once [Regeneration] fully healed him from previous physical damage, Matt flared his Intent and pulled Cameron’s mace in.

It allowed the elite to land a perfect, essence powered hit on his recently wounded right ribs, shredding his internal organs with a wash of energy greater than mana. He must have thought it would be a worthy exchange for Matt’s upcoming return blow, but it was exactly the attack Matt was waiting for.

Cameron also couldn’t have expected Matt to drop his sword as he cast [Sword Twin], allowing the magical blade to merge with the physical, just as he grabbed Cameron’s shield.

[Dragonflame] set the emptiness of space aflame. Most of the damage was reflected back onto Matt, and with the close distance, he could see Cameron’s confidence with his own eyes as most of the flames washed over Matt.

One second.

That confidence vanished as [Cracked Phantom Armor] took on the fire aspect and became more resistant to fire.

Cameron tried to run, but Matt had one hand on his mace and another on his shield, and the elite knew he was dead if he lost the shield.

A variety of spells slammed into Matt’s back as Klix and Tilla tried to force him to defend through overwhelming firepower.

As if it were that easy.

Two seconds.

Matt watched as Cameron realized he was also going to die if he didn’t drop the weapon and shield, but that was when Matt flared his Intent and held Cameron as the center of the realm locked relative to himself. Neither of them could move, and even with most of the flames reflecting back at Matt, Cameron cooked.

At the same time Cameron let loose a flurry of essence cast spells point blank into Matt’s face but he ignored them and let [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Regeneration] block or heal him through the damage.

He wasn’t letting go.

Three seconds.

Tilla tried to land a melee blow and stop Matt, but between the true and reflected flames, it was hot enough that even an elite melee fighter like her couldn’t get close without losing her life. Klix did something that tried to move Matt backwards, but he was the center of the realm and refused to budge.

Four seconds.

Cameron silently screamed as he ignited his cultivation core right before he died.

Matt felt like the world slowed down as Cameron’s spirit erupted, not just by bursting his essence core, but igniting his Domain and throwing his mana into the fire, bursting skills in his spirit, doing everything that a cultivator was trained not to do to prevent self harm, all in this final blaze of destruction.

Matt stopped his attack and threw up what shields he could, but he was a hair too slow.

The world went white as Matt was launched backwards, his shields destroyed, his armor nearly melted. An instant later, he slammed into the side of a mountain like projection of the shattered moon, thankful that his Intent had prevented him from being thrown entirely out of the battlefield, but far less thankful for the pain of his sundered armor burning against his skin.

It took him a few seconds to collect himself, to make sure that he wasn’t too hurt. [Regeneration] hummed along, healing his broken bones and burnt skin, but even as his body was restored he felt pieces of his armor were still lodged into his muscles.

Picking himself up from the crater he had made in the mountain, every movement hurt, every flex of his legs opened new wounds that were just as soon healed.

One down, one to go.

Sighting Klix on the other side of the glowing crater that Cameron had created, he launched himself at her with all the speed he could muster. Fear almost visibly radiated from her as she tried to flee Matt in his glowing armor, and she sent out a surrender message at the same time she reactivated her slowing Talent.

A heartbeat before he sliced her in half, Matt slammed his feet into a bit of space hardened by his Concept and came to a halt just past her, leaving her unharmed. Klix went to her knees, dropped her spells and Talent, and continued broadcasting her surrender to him. Walking up to her, Matt raised his sword to her neck.

He really wanted her dead.

He could probably even get away with it.

Making his decision, Matt slashed his sword down on Klix’s head.

And with an effort that hurt even more than his spirit did, he stopped his sword just before it hit her skull. Her helmet was nearly cleaved in half, and a short burst of [Telekinesis] ripped the rest of it off her, exposing her tear streaked face to the shattered landscape of this moon.

He wanted to do it, wanted to so badly he could taste it but he didn’t want to go down that path. He wouldn’t succumb to his base instincts like some rift monster. He was better than that.

Walking the rest of the way up to her, Matt pulled out a cultivation suppressing helmet from his ring and put it on Klix’s head. Thankfully, she didn’t resist, and as soon as the helmet’s suppression kicked in she collapsed to the ground. This battle was over, and she would be picked up as a prisoner of war as soon as the army moved in.

Once he had Klix taken care of, he turned around to find Tilla.

It turned out that Bolt had taken care of her. Just over the horizon of where Cameron had died, Tilla was wrapped up tightly from one of Bolt’s spells, struggling against the bindings but seemingly not able to break them. He’d need to thank her for capturing someone so valuable as they were trying to escape.

After repeating what he had done with Klix, he started flying towards where everyone else was still fighting.

Just as he got close to where his team was fighting, a dagger appeared from nowhere, driving towards his skull.

Just as quickly, his hand shot out to catch the blade.

Not the one in front of him, but the invisible one from behind. As the invisible assassin struggled to escape his grip, the illusion in front of him splashed harmlessly against his helmet, and with a flourish he twisted and locked the assassin in cultivation suppressing manacles.

If this one cut off their hands and tried to escape, he wouldn’t mind shooting them down. He was almost hoping they tried.

He was tired of these enemies.

Aster and Bolt were the closest and were fighting Fred Baxter, a short-range time mage who darted around them, but was unable to get close enough to cause damage. While he wasn’t able to kill them, he was fast enough to keep the duo fully occupied.

Matt washed the area with [Cracked Dragonflame], creating a mountain of solidified mana which entombed the man. He thought Fred was good and trapped, but the man vibrated and teleported back to the fortress before turning and fleeing the other way. Once he got to the edge of the locked down space, he pulled out a single man chaotic space ship and tore through reality.

Matt didn’t bother to stop him. If he thought it would be so easy to get away, he had another thing coming.

Mercury hadn’t been happy about the trap the Federation had set, nor about his inability to help clear it, as it was built to counter his power set. That was why he was acting as their backup, ready to grab anyone who tried to flee back to Federation controlled space instead of surrendering.

With Aster and Bolt freed, Dame-Askor and Jastor Keys, the final two Federation soldiers alive, fled from Liz. Only Dame-Askor was successful, as Liz impaled Jastor as he turned to flee, though her escape forced her to use an essence powered skill to get away from Liz’s spear.

That signified the end of the battle, and the Federation incursion into Guild space.

Checking in with his team, the medical reports were worrying. Aster had been brutalized, nearly half her skin had been pressure blasted off, but she was in the best shape of them. Eric’s power armor was simply gone, either abandoned somewhere or annihilated, and the man himself was mostly gone too. Both legs, one arm, and the lower half of his torso had been lost in the fighting, and Liz was attending him to keep him conscious. Liz was absolutely riddled with curses that she was fighting off as best as she could, but she would need a healer soon or things could get dire. Not that it was terribly obvious outside of his [AI], as she had a skill that kept her wounds from being visible and left her as an utterly beautiful, spotless, and powerful goddess of war. He couldn’t stop his grin, and Liz met his gaze and gave him a wink.

Dena and Morgan had fallen unconscious the moment the fighting ended, but it was more from spiritual strain than physical injuries, though they too would need attention from a healer to prevent their conditions from worsening. Reviewing the analysis from their medical scans, it was tough to say whether Eric was in a better position than them or not.

Matt looked to the two Federation armies still floating in space on the other side of the moon. His bloodsoaked, half-melted armor must have been an intimidating sight, as a number of them flinched.

“Are you going to come and turn yourselves in, or do I have to come and get you?”

They quickly moved forward while keeping their weapons stowed in their spatial rings.

Drifter blipped in and out of real space for a brief instant, which was all the time that was needed for the Guild defensive army to enter the system. With their larger engines, they were able to exit real space farther away from the inhabited planet, which let them avoid the battlefield debris and whatever mines still lingered around the planet’s atmosphere.

Matt wanted to leave— his spirit burned with the damage the clear blade had done— but he knew that was impossible. This was the time he needed to show everyone he was the ‘Indomitable Titan’ that was being proliferated by the Guilds’ news channels. He needed to show up in his ravaged armor and shake hands.

But first, he wanted to fix the moon. He had destroyed it, and he wasn’t like Maven, leaving ruined moons in his wake.

Brute-forcing a connection to the planet’s equivalent of a PlanetNet, he found a scan of the moon just two weeks old and used [Earth Manipulation] to get the satellite back into roughly the same shape. Some of the asteroid craters were a little more uniform then they had been before, but it was close enough that none of the mortals should be able to tell the difference. And despite his wishes, he didn’t have more than a few hours to work. He only had the time the others spent helping the army ensure the capitulation of the Federation soldiers, thus finishing the job. The time spent repairing the world reminded him of terraforming the world with Liz while Aster was at the Bond Academy. It also served as a way for him to cooldown, which allowed him to let go of his anger.

He wouldn’t have wanted to see the civilians in the mood he was in, as he had still been smoldering at the actions of the Federation. They didn’t deserve that from him.

Then, it was time to go to the planet. Though, even with his acute spiritual pain, he found it wasn’t so bad. Meeting the planet’s leaders was a chore, like always. Even during such a disaster, most of them were more interested in trying to create a ‘personal connection’ to him rather than looking after their people. But despite that rough start, he actually enjoyed getting to talk to the mortals.

They were honest and sincere in their thanks, as only those whose fates weren’t in their own hands could be. Matt hadn’t ended the war for them or solved the million and one problems that plagued their daily lives, but he had removed the existential threat that had lingered over their heads for the last few decades. The threat their children had been born under, and the one they had expected to die under.

These were people like his own parents. Mortals who just wanted to live their lives as best they could, free from the gods who lived among them. Thinking about that made him wonder if maybe the Republic and their veil worlds might be onto something.

Seeing the kids who clamored to touch his armor and proclaimed that they wanted to be like him when they grew up, Matt had his answer. No, knowledge might have its downsides and woes, but ignorance was not bliss.

It was just one battle, but they had made a difference to these people’s lives. It had cost pain, lives, blood, and future restless nights, but he had taken a burden off the mortals’ backs. Looking up to the intact moon which hung over head, Matt knew that made it all worth it.

It also confirmed a truth about the realm itself.

Not an inspiration, just something mundane and fundamental.

If he was strong enough, he could right his wrongs, like how he had fixed the moon. But, if he was weak, he was little more than a mortal, watching from the ground below.