The Path of Ascension Chapter 379

Chapter 379

Ra’thala had never minded fights, spars, battles, or even death feuds where only one side could walk away. They were a part of gathering power and influence. Friendly fights could also be a good way to learn about someone, and these Ascenders seemed interesting.

If he was understanding the bits and pieces of information he had picked up correctly, these people were the strongest fighters in this Realm at their cultivation level. That would have been reason enough to fight them in normal circumstances, but Ra’thala wanted to see for himself just how much his power had increased with his arrival to this Realm. It had felt like a complete fundamental reworking of himself in the moment of his Ascension, but he had nothing to base the feeling off of.

Another part of him wanted to see just how well his Celestial Guides stood up to the absurdly simple method these people used. It was undeniable these people were more advanced in many ways than his own, but it would be foolish to extrapolate that to mean everything about them was more advanced. Their way of guiding essence might work, but it was the epitome of simplicity, to the point that he couldn’t believe it was effective. Everything he knew said that such a system couldn’t be very powerful. He also suspected that they had similar thoughts, but neither side really had a frame of reference until they were able to test things.

The Librarian seemed certain that their peoples had used similar methods before, but that time seemed so long ago that it was of dubious authority. And the best way to find out was to throw themselves at each other and battle it out.

After he agreed, he felt the world warp around them, and once more he was pulled across the stars.

This being the second time he had gone through this, he felt that he could have resisted the movement with either his Sky— Domain, or even a few of his skills, which gave him a degree of security being in a foreign Realm with still unfamiliar people.

His gut told him that these people weren’t bad, but he was still firmly in the trust but verify stage he was in anytime he went to an unfamiliar location or world.

Even the strongest people could get caught off guard if they weren’t careful.

Looking around, he found himself in an area not too unfamiliar from what he was used to, which both caught him off guard and made him feel a bit more at ease. There were only so many ways to safely fight in an inhabited environment, and it seemed their peoples agreed on wide open areas protected by imbuements— skills, or no, enchantments, Ra’thala was pretty sure that was the correct translation.

He would have preferred a layer of sand to coat the ground, but the rough-cut stone would act as fine footing should flight be disabled.

The six started bickering before the fox-featured woman, Aster, if he remembered correctly, turned away from their huddle to where he stood waiting.

“As the guest who everyone wants to fight, how do you want to do this and who do you want to fight first? We can tell you a bit about ourselves first if you want to make a more informed decision, or we can go wild and just brawl randomly.”

Ra’thala considered that for a moment before clenching his fist and feeling even more power than he had had before he ascended.

That gave enough confidence to just brawl but caution prevailed. “I understand this Realm has a great peak of power and this world feels firm, but is there any risk of our fighting damaging things, each other, or bystanders?”

All of them assured him that wasn’t possible nearly on top of each other, so Ra’thala decided to follow their lead.

“If so, I’m fine with fighting any of you. One on one seems acceptable as a friendly spar. As for my opponent…”

Ra’thala let his eyes wander over the people who had picked him up with a critical eye as he had done previously.

Allie, or Ascender Shadow, caught his eye once more. Her skin being a tapestry of stars helped in that, but he was starting to get used to it. Either way, she wasn’t an ideal first opponent if the daggers at her hip were any indication. The same could be said for Zack, Aster, and Liz, whose non-standard combat styles he hadn’t encountered before thanks to the lack of a cultural driver pushing everyone to use swords.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t or wouldn’t fight them, given the chance. Seeing someone at his level of power who specialized in the spear, a weapon he hadn’t used since he became a Celestial— a cultivator— was a fun idea, but it wasn’t where he wanted to start. No, it was better to start with something he was more familiar with.

Which meant he had Ascender Titan— Matt, he reminded himself— or Susanne who, if he understood things correctly, was one step weaker than the others.

Part of Ra’thala wanted to start with Susanne and move his way up to the peak, but his surging power demanded to dive right into the best and see where he stood.

Interlocking his hands, he flexed politely; he knew they probably didn’t have the same customs as he was used to and he would eventually get around to learning and adopting them, but he wanted to do this right.

“I’d be honored to fight you, Ascender Titan.”

Matt grinned with what Ra’thala could call smug satisfaction as everyone else started to heckle him. They spoke a little faster than the spell was quite comfortable translating, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t get the gist that Titan had been arguing a similar logic to Ra’thala’s own for why he should get to fight first.

Summoning a blade with his Stone Creation Con— skill, he reminded himself. [Stone Creation] was one of his personally-modified spells taken and honed until he could create armor and weapons out of stone at his own Tier with ease.

Thanks to his Talents being upgraded via the Ascension, he was able to imbue— enchant— both items into complicated works that would have taken him a decade or more of effort in a single instant.

Even better was the fact that both items being made of stone interacted with his Tier 1’s new effect that made them nigh indestructible.

A claim the machine made that he was eager to put to the test.

Ascender Titan stood forward with a blade that looked more ornamental than anything he had seen before. Instead of a solid bar of steel, the blade looked like it had been hollowed out into something like an interweaving lattice of strands, almost like a loosely woven reed basket.

Just as he was wondering how that was practical, the blade filled in with solidified star power, mana he reminded himself, to make a uniform whole.

Huh.

Titan grinned as he wiggled the blade. “I’m still working on this new application, but don’t worry about it breaking or anything. It’s not so easy to destroy.”

Agreeing, Ra’thala flared his cultivation, sending his essence swirling through his celestial passageways before he activated his buffing skills, [Strength of the Mountain], a spell he had created based off the remnants of a Celestial Guide he found in an old clan’s stronghold. It increased his strength and durability together to ensure he could handle the rigors of a melee fight. [Speed of the Breeze] boosted both his reaction time and movement speed, while [Breath of the First Rain] increased his healing and self-recovery abilities.

Having brought himself into a full combat-ready stance, he nodded to Matt, who had just waited for the brief instant that Ra’thala used to get ready.

Except, his opponent hadn’t gotten ready. Ra’thala didn’t feel his cultivation surging, or spells being cast, and was about to gesture for a halt when Titan moved.

It wasn’t the fastest he had ever seen someone move, but it was close, and with no warning from his lack of surging cultivation, it caught Ra’thala off guard for a moment. Though being caught off guard didn’t prevent him from being able to react in time, and he brought his blade up to block Titan’s simple thrust.

Deflecting it to the side, he slashed upward, aiming to cut Titan’s chest.

As a man of roughly similar size, Ra’thala expected Titan to dodge to the side and was already preparing a spike of earth to impale him should he react that way, but Titan just summoned a simple and unadorned blue armor skill that deflected the unempowered thrust.

Seeing that he couldn’t easily overwhelm his opponent, something that hadn’t happened for centuries before he reached the peak of power in his old Realm, Ra’thala settled in and activated one of his oldest skills from his very first celestial guide, [Fury of the Blade].

Every swing of his blade sent out shockwaves of mana that would cause damage to anyone who got too close to him. In the case of those using skill armor like Titan was, such constant damage was a good way to wear through their mana pool. Physical armor often fared a little better, but the blades of mana were sharp enough to damage even the best armor, which was all a swordsman of his level needed to bypass such defenses.

With that first cast, he was able to get a feeling for the changes his ascension had wrought.

It wasn’t what he had expected, such as a flat increase of power. Instead, despite the contradictory nature, he felt that his oldest spell was stronger than ever before and weaker at the same time.

His gut told him that at least part of that feeling was that because he was in a new, stronger, tougher Realm. Where his [Fury of the Blade] would have torn holes in reality before, they simply cut through the air similar to when he was a God. Logically, it made sense, as he was only halfway through the power scale similar to as he had been when he was a simple God. But it made him feel like his skill was weaker, even though it wasn’t.

It wasn’t that he just wanted to believe the skill wasn’t weaker and was deluding himself, he could feel the difference through the resonance and see the difference in the pulses of mana. Each cut was thinner, faster, cheaper, and felt more dangerous than what he was used to.

The same went for his other skills which, now that he was pushing himself, he could get feedback from. Each of his boosting skills felt fifteen to twenty percent stronger after his ascension and made moving feel like flying.

Wanting to test that more, and seeing that Titan wasn’t struggling to deal with his moves, Ra’thala increased his tempo once more, reaching seventy percent of his maximum.

As he slashed out with an [Avalanche], he let the wave of formed earth crash down on Titan, ready to un-bury him should he need to, but that proved wholly unnecessary.

While his skill did pierce Titan’s armor, it hadn’t collapsed it entirely and the armor quickly reformed, which was impressive and spoke to a well-modified skill. Or a very high level one; with their ability to pull skills out of rifts, he couldn’t really judge things like that without a better understanding of the baseline of each and every skill.

A daunting task he knew he’d need to settle eventually.

Just a second after kicking his way free of the stone, Titan’s left hand started to glow with the light blue color indicative of mana.

Ra’thala felt a great pulse of danger from the spell and instinctively summoned a wall of earth out of the ambient essence to block whatever attack Titan was about to use.

Having heard these people were the strongest members of their Tier, he had expected a lot. But he wasn’t prepared when the beam of mana Titan cast blew through his wall. Even if it was a hastily made one, it was if it hadn’t been there at all.

His flash-made constructs were one of his signature moves, and he had turned the tides of battle more than once by creating them around his enemies. So to see it crumple under a single blow was a bit of a rude awakening.

That shock compounded with the fact that he still couldn’t feel Titan surging his cultivation to fight at this level. It wasn’t hard, not for one of Ra’thala’s level who had fought all of his life, but he knew some cultivators who couldn’t keep their cultivation at a peak level for even a few hours and started showing fatigue quickly. Despite knowing Titan didn’t have a cultivation to usher forward, it felt like he was being toyed with or otherwise not being taken seriously.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Dodging the beam of mana before it could sweep at him, Ra’thala cut out using [Silence of the Fallen Snow] to sever the connection of the skill in Titan’s spirit, forcing him to drop the spell. He had traded away a fortune and a half to get a copy of that Celestial Guide as a Divine, but it showed its worth once more, even in this new Realm, as the beam of mana petered out before cutting him in half.

Thrusting out, he launched himself forward in conjunction with [Rhino’s Charge], accelerating him into a blur.

His marble blade met surprising resistance as it pierced through the blue armor Titan had conjured. When he flash-enchanted the weapon, he had made it incredibly sharp, and when combined with his buffing spells and [Rhino’s Charge] with its armor piercing effects, he expected to have pierced through any such conjured armor with ease.

Still, he managed to impale the man and, after anchoring himself to the ground with his Concept, he twisted and wrenched to cut Titan in half.

They said they had good healers on staff, so it shouldn’t be a dangerous blow, but it wo—

Ra’thala nearly caught a blade to the head as he paused upon seeing Titan still standing there, already fully healed. He had encountered a few fighters who went into a full self-regeneration style, allowing them to trade blow for blow in combat. But most of them had to sacrifice other aspects of their cultivation to achieve such levels of physical regeneration, which was why Titan’s healing caught him off guard after feeling how physically and magically strong he was.

Even as Ra’thala’s mind was reeling over the decades of downtime such an injury should incur, and Titan ignoring it all, his opponent seemed to speed up even further. His blade, or rather the solidified mana inside of it, started to glow with a truly massive amount of mana as an attack that made his spirit tremble was readied.

Ra’thala used [Pebble Bouncing] to dodge the initial swing, but he was too slow to fully dodge the wave of mana that arced out and felt some of his armor crack and wounds open up all over his body as the tremors rattled him silly.

[Mud Mends] fixed all of the surface level wounds in an instant, but the deeper level wounds would take longer.

Not that they would stop him.

Ra’thala hadn’t gotten to where he was without learning how to fight while wounded.

Still, that was an impressively strong spell, and Ra’thala was starting to understand his new opponent, which was the most important aspect of any fight.

Titan kept up the pressure of his offensive and his blade came down once more. This time, it crackled with lightning that Ra’thala was able to redirect into his Concept, where it dissipated harmlessly and invigorated him as he took the power for his own.

He used the moment that bought him to cut upward, wanting to remove the offending arm, but Titan reached out and grabbed his blade with his hand.