The Path of Ascension Chapter 380

Chapter 380

Rusty watched as a dozen people filed into his throne room. Next to him were Frederic and Tur’stal to round out the meeting. Now that the Emperor had stated this was his final offer to the Knight revival program, they were either going to move forward or the effort would die here.

It had taken almost fifty years after they officially presented the proposal to reach a hopefully mutually acceptable agreement. But now, it was time to convince the stubborn mules that were the remnants of the Orders into actually accepting.

Because things could never be easy.

It was days like this that Rusty wondered why he had ever accepted the mantle of King instead of just remaining a duke,or just passing the title onto a relative and ascending.

Sadly, he couldn’t even shunt this off to Frederic and had to host the meeting himself. This was, out of all of their duties, primarily his.

His kingdom’s leader two generations ago, King Damian, despite being an Agatha loyalist, sheltered a number of the old Knight remnants in defiance of the overt disapproval of the Empress. With the then Duke Damian protecting the remnants of the Knight Orders, those he sheltered were spared the majority of Agatha’s wrath and they had settled down within his borders. And so, his kingdom had the most Knightly Orders who still knew the closely guarded secrets of just how they could merge Natural Treasures with newborns and make the benefits genetic enough to become inheritable.

Rusty’s predecessor had continued the trend of protecting the Knights even when Georgios wanted the information of how to create elites, but the remaining Orders had made it clear they would rather die than share their secrets with anyone. Georgios had apparently even tried to look back in time to watch the procedure done without their consent, but the time between Agatha’s rise and her outlawing such measures was simply too long, which made the cost impossible to pay when paired with their once-formidable wards.

The Knightly Orders had had very robust anti-divination, anti-clairvoyance, and anti-pre and post-cognition wards around their strongholds, which increased the difficulty exponentially. Combined with the fact it had been a full sixty thousand years, it was probably impossible even once Matt was T50.

Not that he thought Manny would be interested in trying, even if he could.

A stand he personally agreed with.

His own opinions were irrelevant, though.

His faction might not be as traditional as Frederic’s, but even they were nearly unanimous in their desire in taking some power from the Imperial government, which was why he had backed the effort.

Officially, Tur’stal was in a similar political position, but Rusty was pretty sure she was personally invested in creating or taking over an Order around nature, which at least partially fueled her support of the effort over the last fifty years.

Frederic, on the other hand, was a bit of a mystery to Rusty. His faction supported the measure because they were the most traditional, and anything that harkened back to the ‘good old days’ was something they championed, but Rusty couldn’t pin down the man’s personal motives.

Was he just doing his duty as a representative of his dukes, or did he have a deeper motivation in backing this motion?

Rusty had his people do their research and he wasn’t sure.

Being the descendants of the factions that had been on Agatha’s bad side, they had historical connections to the Orders, but their practical connections had been fairly cleanly severed when Agatha purged most of the Orders. His people had noted a few of the noble families in Frederic’s kingdom probably had existing connections to various orders, whether in the form of having sheltered them, just financially supporting one, or even outright being the remnants of one. However, no hint was found that Frederic’s family had any connection at all.

Rusty knew Frederic fairly well as a politician who had done the impossible and wrestled a kingdom for himself. But once he had his prize, Frederic had been nothing but a model King, balancing his internal faction’s desires and his duties as a Royal perfectly.

That shouldn’t have been surprising as Emmanuel had allowed his coronation, but Rusty had always felt Frederic had layers within layers and plans within plans. And Rusty trusted his gut, which meant if Frederic was backing this proposal… Not just backing, but championing it as he had been the driving force behind the revival efforts, he had to have a reason.

Rusty just didn’t know what it was.

Not that it mattered anymore, the die was cast.

One hundred and sixty three people walked into the throne room and Rusty couldn’t help but sigh at the sight.

The once grand Knightly Orders that had had thousands of branches and variations were reduced to a measly one hundred and sixty three surviving members.

All of them were old immortals from Agatha’s time, thanks to the Order’s methods being outlawed and their own reluctance to create new Knights, even illegally, because of Georgios’ ability to peer back in time without significant preparation. Only those who had remained in this Realm and hadn’t died were left.

During the negotiations, almost a dozen had refused anything but a full return to their former rights, privileges, and prestige, and they had been encouraged to ascend. But they were the exception. Most who had waited this long were desperate for any form of legitimacy, as those too proud in the slightest had all ascended long ago in disgust and protest. That, or they had been arrested for continuing to act as if the same freedoms they had under the last dynasty still applied.

Which left them dealing with this motley crew of past glories.

Stella Pattinson was the first through the door, and while she didn’t look physically old, late thirties for a mortal at most, she carried the weight of her history like heavy baggage that dragged down each and every step she took despite being Tier 45 and beyond such frailties.

For all of her melancholy, she was an astute schemer and was a prodigy at pulling strings from the shadows to get her way. It was how she had survived where so many others had fallen afoul of the government or ascended in the last two generations of leaders.

She was powerful, however, as she represented one of the more intact Knightly Orders. The Order of the Final Breath had famously been imbued with Fall’s Final Leaf, a Natural Treasure that increased all aspects of a person the closer they were to death. Her Order’s use of the Natural Treasure shifted what qualified as being ‘close to death’, giving them the significant boost in power without the risks of actually being close to death, and managed to extend this effect to other damage based boosts.

Stella herself was one of the Order’s successes who had both a Talent related to her natal Natural Treasure and a Domain in the same vein. A pinnacle elite in her own time, she was one of the driving forces for the Knightly Orders’ revival, and was a perfect showcase of just what could be achieved with their methods.

Rusty didn’t care too much for her, but that was at least partially because she treated him and everyone of his generation like misbehaving children who should default to her older and more experienced judgment.

That was one of the risks of lingering in a Realm for so long. It led to such stagnation and was a potent reminder why all of the Great Powers ensured their leaders cycled.

Ernest Baxter was the second through the door and walked with confidence and pride Rusty knew were both fabricated. A Tier 45, he had been a failure of a Knight in that neither his Talent nor his Domain revolved around the Dawn’s Blossom Natural Treasure his Order espoused. He did have the natal Natural Treasure’s effect spread through his body, which gave him a resistance to light-based attack, as well as a multiplicative damage effect to any light-based spells. But his own inclinations leaned towards being a blade mage who had no real elemental affinity.

A peak elite, he was still a success in that his power had been enough to put him in the second highest rung of combat Tiers besides Ascenders, and he had been influential enough to single handedly turn the Light’s Knights from a third-rate Order into a first-rate one, just before Agatha had usurped the throne and ruined all of his hard work.

Despite his loss of position and the dismantling of his faction, Ernest hadn’t become bitter like Stella, but instead threw himself into securing his and other smaller Orders’ survival once Agatha outlawed the process.

A laudable endeavor, but the tens of millennia of effort with no payoff had led to a fairly public nervous breakdown that had seen Ernest bedridden and cationic for almost five thousand years, until he slowly started to pull himself out of his depression.

Now, he was little more than a shell of a man putting on airs to reclaim some manner of dignity.

Personally, Rusty hoped that this step in a direction Ernest had been working for so long would see some level of true return to the man. But if his trembling left hand was any indicator, he was far from truly recovered.

Finally, the last Order leader to enter the hall was the one Rusty wanted to see the least.

Cornelius Ross Jr., Knight Commander of the Order of the Damned, was lucky to be alive.

Officially, he was the returned descendant of his father by the same name born via Natural Treasure solely to his father. But most everyone suspected he was the same Cornelius Ross who had fled Agatha’s wrath into chaotic space, only to return halfway through Georgios’ reign after he changed his appearance and spiritual feel slightly.

It was a bold move, as Georgios had nearly killed the man outright, but had stayed his hand for unknown reasons that even Emmanuel either didn’t know or wouldn’t admit to knowing.

Cornelius Ross Sr. had been one of the most foul and monstrous Knights who led one of the most sadistic Knightly Orders, the Order of the Damned. They had led the way in experiments on the unawakened, using their abilities to create pseudo-zombies to pair with their signature Natural Treasure, Black Bone of Baltha. Similar to void mana, it destroyed the host’s body until they had reached immortality and could stop the corruption.

Normally, the Natural Treasure shifted their consciousness from the brain to the skeleton, and was almost exclusively desired by necromancers. But the Order had dedicated themselves to pushing its effects much further, and used it as a means to revive from even complete bodily annihilation. However, much of the time that revival came at the cost of their Squires, many of whom were unwitting commoners thrust into an almost zombified state with little free will, but formidable combat prowess.

Rusty was of the opinion that they should have just killed Cornelius Ross Jr. just to be certain that he wasn’t his father in disguise, but the matter was long since settled.

Cornelius Ross Jr. had also managed to bring back seven other Knights of his Order, which made them the most intact Order by a long shot, and a powerful if marginalized force.

The other Order leaders were all Tier 45s and had, like most successful Knights, never amounted to anything more than a medium-level elite. That would be fine, but ultimately, they were shells of their former selves, and Rusty could see they were desperate enough to take any shelter in a storm.

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It would be the three he singled out that they would have to argue with, as they had been the ones corralling the rest into refusing the earlier offers.

Frederic, Tur’stal, and himself had argued with Emmanuel for a number of licenses and exceptions, but they could only do so much, and their ‘victory’ wasn’t the clean sweep that some of the Knights were dreaming of.

Which shouldn’t have been a surprise, but somehow was to these ancient warriors long past their prime. This was not their era, and Emmanuel would rather the Orders die out than let their unbridled avarice go unchecked.

A stance that Rusty agreed with.

As the head of the military, he had a different perspective than a lot of his noble peers, both hereditary and non-hereditary. Knights were useful and often hit above their weight, but he had access to the reports from near the end of the last dynasty’s reign by the various generals of the time.

A lot of these Knights, or at least their fellows, were prima donnas who thought themselves the most special existences imaginable and balked at any order they didn’t like. They were like Ascenders in attitude, but without the truly prodigious combat power that came with that title.

Rusty would not allow such an atmosphere to grow under his watch. But seeing the relics of the ‘good old days’ gathered in front of him, he suspected that would be easier said than done if they were given too much free rein.

He could see naked hunger in some of these eyes who thought this was their opportunity to return to their oft dreamed-of glory.

Frederic looked to Rusty for permission to address the gathered masses, and Rusty waved him forward. Having seen the Orders, he wasn’t in the mood to politic, even if he should be the one to start this meeting.

Frederic stepped forward off his throne and smiled. “Good day my fellows. As many of you suspect from us gathering you all here, we have just days ago gotten word from the Emperor, who sent back our latest proposal on reviving the Knightly Orders.”

A small cheer went up from a number of gathered Knights, but the more astute realized the other shoe was about to drop.