The Path of Ascension Chapter 198

Chapter 198

 

Matt walked through an alley and shied away from the shadows that reached out to try and touch him. It was just an instinct, but something told him that if he allowed the shadows to touch him, he’d never be able to leave.

At first, it was easy to casually walk along, but with each step he took, it became harder and harder to progress. Soon, he was jumping and flipping, using every bit of his Tier 1000 body’s prowess to avoid the grasping shadows.

Just as the shadows were about to finally entrap him, he felt someone push him from the side, and he woke up with a start.

Liz had her face buried into her pillow and murmured, “Bad dream. Tossing and turning.”

Matt kissed her forearm draped across his chest, then slipped out from under it and into the living room.

There, he found Aster standing guard. Which meant she was curled around a carton of ice cream and using her spiritual perception to watch their surroundings.

With their shielding, their house was nearly impervious from attacks, but nearly impervious wasn’t enough this deep in Minkalla.

Aster felt him arrive then whined in what he interpreted as a question, and he quietly explained, “Weird nightmare. I was super strong but trapped in an alley, and shadows were trying to trap me forever. So yeah, I’ll give you some company for a bit until I settle down.”

His bond picked up her ice cream and settled into his lap, where he brushed her fur while she ate her treat.

While he sat there, he contemplated his dream and the implications it carried, and what they said about himself.

If his fading memories of the dream were right, he had been something like Tier 1000, and impossibly strong. But despite all that power, he had still been cornered and captured like a mundane human, in the end.

He interpreted the dream as his brain trying to reconcile the danger of Minkalla and the realization that eventually, the Emperor and other high Tier people like Luna wouldn’t be able to protect him. Soon, he would be in danger everywhere he went, in every waking moment.

Minkalla was the first time since he had gotten a manager that his life was in immediate danger, and there was no one who could pull him out of the fire if it got too hot.

The idea of death had never been far, but Matt and his team had been seriously wounded, and now, they were on a floor where they could actually run out of mana for their skills if they weren’t careful.

Even his Talent couldn’t fix the issue when the cost of a skill became more than an entire mana pool.

This floor had the possibility of being a hard stop for them, if they weren’t careful.

It was a degree of danger that Matt had known about but hadn’t really conceptualized as he should have.

But while they were in Minkalla, there was nothing they could do but push through. So, after he mulled over the feelings he was left with, he did his best to push them out of his mind.

Without his AI to translate Aster’s yips, he was forced to rely on their bond, but they didn’t really need any more than that. She was comforting him, and wanted him to know that it was just a bad dream, which was quite appreciated. The follow up thoughts of her wanting a warm brownie with her ice cream were also meant to comfort him, he was sure.

Aster didn’t have a selfish bone in her body after all. Not a single one.

They were watching a movie when Susanne came out to take over the guard shift, and Matt took the opportunity to go back to sleep himself.

After brewing Susanne some coffee, he slipped back into bed with Liz and the leg cooler that was Aster.

When he woke up the second time, after a dreamless nap, they set off quickly after a small bite to eat.

The second level of this floor was better than the maze they had been stuck in, but the waves of rats that they were up against had forced them to dip into their spell usage, despite their trying to rely mostly on items.

It could have been worse, admittedly. The rats were swarm monsters, and were quite weak individually, meaning Liz could just cast [Blood Sprites] and allow the multiplying nature of the spell to wipe out most of the horde.

Even then, they had to deal with the next wave as they pushed forward, which quickly made the tactic untenable. Though, after clearing an area of the rats, they were able to slowly bait the rest into the room and finish them off in smaller numbers that they could safely handle.

Susanne got to test out [Crescent Sweep] for the first time, and she seemed to deeply enjoy the ability to make her sword spin through dozens of rats at a time. The ability to summon a second copy of her manifestation and use that for a potent short ranged attack, while also attacking normally, would catch a lot of people off guard.

After they finished the labyrinth ruin and entered a forest, they decided to retreat and take a break for a few hours to get some sleep.

Without their buffing spells, they were spending more energy with each fight, and without [Endurance], they were unable to magically purge the exhaustion from their bodies either.

They could use potions to help, but that would burn through their limited supply, and even potions couldn’t be used one after another without side effects.

So they went without.

It slowed them down a little, but everyone should have nearly the same problems and restrictions.

As they moved into the forest, Matt gripped his sword with one hand, and his staff in his off-hand, prepared to cast spells the second something attacked them.

Except, there was nothing.

As they sped up slightly, they discovered the aftermath of battle in the form of trampled trees and shrubbery, but it had been long enough ago that Minkalla already reclaimed everything.

At nearly the same time, they felt a bright beacon of Genesis Energy ahead of them, like a shining star to their spiritual sense, as soon as they came into range. It felt like one single person, but they couldn’t be too sure.

It took the four of them nearly half an hour, but eventually, they encountered the nude man that they had seen in the second floor’s safe room, fighting a swarm of monkeys with various colored fur.

Not wanting to seem like they were going to attack him, they stopped and watched. As they did so, Matt whistled.

The man was a fantastic fighter, which he would have to be without any weapons or armor.

Each attack missed him by inches; the man was just a bit faster than all of his opponents, and somehow was able to keep track of the entire troop during the skirmish.

After dodging the dozen or so monkeys’ attacks for roughly fifteen seconds, he finally launched his own counter attack, and his fist lashed out like a falling meteor that sought to wipe out all life on the planet.

As his fist landed, all of the monkeys exploded at the same time in a display of gore.

Even before the bodies hit the ground, he spun and faced them.

In the corporation language, he asked something, but seeing their non reaction, he changed to the Republicans’ language. Seeing their blank stares, he finally asked in perfect Empire, “Is there something I can help you with?”

Once more, Matt was surprised. The man’s Empire was textbook perfect, despite the man not using an AI to translate, which was impressive. Even Luna hadn’t bothered to teach them the other Great Powers’ languages beyond a few key words, having considered it a waste of their limited time.

The man seemed to be avoiding confrontation by denying anyone the ability to determine where he was from, which was an interesting strategy. Few people would be willing to attack members of their own nation; national loyalty ran strong in many cultivators, so plausible deniability on his origin would at the least give people pause. Just like what was happening now.

Matt assumed that the man must have a spatial storage implanted in his body somewhere, as there would be no way that anyone would be willing to go through Minkalla without the ability to carry items around. In addition to being a waste of loot, all of the growth item floors wouldn’t do anything if one didn’t have an item to use them on.

Liz shook her head. “We were just looking for monsters to fight, and stumbled upon your battle.”

The man nodded and pointed to their right. “From your direction, I assume you came from the rat caves?” At Liz’s nod, he continued, “There’s a Horse-Lizard ruin that way, if you wish. Or if you would rather fight for this ruin, I will welcome your challenge.”

Liz shook her head. “Not necessary. We’ll take our leave then.”

Having said that, the four of them turned and started walking in the indicated direction, while keeping a portion of their spiritual sense on the nude man. He didn’t make any aggressive moves, and after they passed through the treeline, he similarly turned around and moved deeper into the ruin.

As they moved in the direction he had indicated, they were attacked by a few of the monkeys that hadn’t been defeated by the naked man, and they slowly killed their way forward.

Upon reaching the dividing line between ruins, the surroundings went from a lush forest to a grassy plain, where they found a herd of horses with scales and long, thick tails.

Matt shot a [Mana Bolt] at the nearest one, and the entire herd of twenty turned on them and started charging. If it had been a normal rush forward, that would have been fine, but they all used [Charge] to accelerate their mad dash. They seemed to be pouring mana into the skill, because they continued to run even faster as they came closer, each step carrying them further than the last.

Matt and the others simply took to the sky, and used the height advantage to kill the monsters that tried to curve upward with their Concepts. While [Charge] was a dangerous move, it had the weakness of making it hard to change one’s direction, and they ruthlessly took advantage of that fact.

Sadly, the horse lizards weren’t mindless beasts. Seeing that their first collective charge only yield aerial counterattacks, they canceled their spells and turned in various directions before trying once more to use [Charge] and attack them. Being in the air and having three different attack vectors to worry about increased the threat of the horses’ advance, but Matt and his team didn’t have any issues in dodging the monsters, even without their AI tracking them.

There were a few close calls, but they finished the horses off and started to loot the items they dropped, when all four of them felt the new arrivals with their spiritual senses. A group of ten people came out from the forest and immediately started casting spells directed at them.

Matt didn’t hesitate to cast [Bulwark], relying on the spell to defend his allies. Even still, he was staggered by the damage that the spells did to his own. Their attackers weren’t holding anything back in their initial bombardment.

Aster immediately cast [Hail] and used the ice as a screen to cover the follow up attacks, while gathering the ice on the ground and sending it forward at the their attackers in a small wave.

Their attackers split at the sight of the wave, and in two groups of five, tried to flank and pincer them. But Matt and Aster broke off to face one group, while Liz and Susanne held off the other.

A five versus two wasn’t impossible, but it would be a hard fight, and Matt disregarded any concept of rationing his spells usage during the engagement.

As he closed in on the group, an arrow glowing with silver mana raced towards him, but he summoned a shield from his spatial ring and used it to block the attack. He was forced to toss the shield away with his Concept, as he felt a sense of danger from the arrow. Before it did anything, he quickly pushed it into the group of enemy cultivators. Half a second later, it exploded in a blinding flash, which unfortunately didn’t seem to harm the other group.

That forced them to scatter, and he charged at the closest attacker, a woman who was blocking for her team with a massive tower shield.

Matt wasn’t willing to deal with these people, and quickly slapped a talisman on the shield before deflecting their retaliatory attack with his sword. Spinning, he rushed to where two of the attackers were trying to overwhelm Aster.

The fox in question was darting around the battlefield, keeping a number of their enemies tied up in fending off her [Snowblind] afterimages, which were empowered by a fog of snow coming from her tiara.

Using that slight distraction to his advantage, Matt drove his sword forward in a lunge that skittered off the armor of the shortsword wielder.

The other woman tried to rush Aster, but was met with a snowflake the size of her chest that appeared and impaled her, then started to spin and cut through the woman like a saw blade.

That seemed to earn the group’s ire, and while a healer went to see to their mutilated teammate, two of the others tried to attack Aster in retaliation.

Seeing the woman’s body start to pull itself together, Matt lashed out at the healer with a [Mana Slash], but one of the men attacking Aster threw themselves in front of the crescent of mana, trying to protect their healer.

Seeing his attack blocked, Matt started casting [Shield Shatter], and allowed a few hundred mana to flow into the spell before he brought the blade down on the man’s shield.

The resulting explosion sent the man flying, gravely injured, but he wasn’t dead. To make matters worse, the healer had already repaired most of the obvious damage for the first woman who Aster nearly killed.

The same woman punched out at Matt and broke one of his ribs with the strike, despite the protection from [Cracked Phantom Armor] and his physical armor.

Caught by surprise, Matt dodged the next attack, and was about to bring his longsword around at the woman when he caught an arrow in his arm that interrupted his swing.

Cursing, he pulled back and tossed a half dozen [Fireball] talismans out of his spatial ring and activated them with a thought.

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The streams of fire went in nearly every direction, and seemed like a chaotic and uncoordinated attack that would miss each of the attackers. But Matt used [Fire Manipulation], and at the last second, caused all of the spells to turn and slam into them.

That earned him a second of reprieve, and gave Aster a second to cast [Ice Spear] at the healer, who was recoiling from the ball of fire that had just hit her in the chest.

The shard of ice exploded inside her from Aster’s [Shatter], and Matt ensured that the woman was dead with a swipe of his blade. Unfortunately, he had had to take a [Shield Bash] to the arm in order to secure the kill.

The woman who Aster nearly killed with her giant snowflake tried to punch Matt in the side again, but he kicked out and tried to break her overextended knee, only to find her body was made out of what felt like concrete.

With his failed attack, he caught a punch to the face and felt his jaw pop out of place, spitting out a tooth a moment later.

Despite that, he didn’t allow the pain to overwhelm him, and quickly brought his longsword up and around, cutting the woman’s arm off at the elbow.

The precisely aimed strike ignored the woman’s stronger than usual bones, and earned him some breathing room, which he used to twist and swing his sword around at the man who was rushing his rear.

His [Mana Slash] was cast at the last second, and he used its resulting explosion to tackle his remaining assailant with a burst of [Mage’s Retreat]. With the extra boost, he was able to overpower the woman. He had to send more mana into the spell than he expected, as the woman was far stronger than he had initially thought.

She felt like a Tier 14, despite only being a Tier 12, and when Matt felt her strength increase as she activated her own spell, he sent mana into his gravity gauntlets while morphing the first layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s gauntlets into spikes.

His fist landed on her like a falling star, brutalizing her face and shoving her nose into her brain, hopefully bypassing her abnormally tough bones. Quickly turning his gauntlets off, he repelled her head with his concept, then reversed the polarity of the force to land a second blow that should have liquefied her brain. The finishing strike left him absolutely covered in blood and gore.

Before he could revel in his victory, he had to deflect a glowing shield that sought to decapitate him, diverting it with his sword to land on the neck of the woman he had just killed.

He had been taught well to never let a good blow go to waste.

At the same time, he felt a burst of happiness from Aster, and an accompanying burst of Genesis Energy, which told him that she had finally succeeded in taking out the archer who had been peppering them.

Regaining his footing and sliding back, Matt took a slash on his leg in order to lash out with a heavy chop that carved a furrow through the opposing man’s breastplate.

With a moment of reprieve, Matt cast [Cracked Mana Trap] without any additional mana in order to delay the man for a few seconds while his latest assailant’s ally closed in on him.