The Path of Ascension Chapter 410

Chapter 410

The moment the last guard landed back onto their floating island, Matt and Liz immediately began moving through the Empire at unprecedented speeds once more.

Matt was sure that even if it hadn’t started quite yet, the rats were about to start scurrying. But he was equally sure no one was ready for what they were about to do.

Eighty two planets later, they arrived at a world adjacent to their target and Liz called out, “Get in formation. Prepare for battle. We’re going in hot. Take anyone you can alive but kill if you have to.”

Their guards moved into their positions in a snap as Matt cast [Portal] to bring them above the teleporter. A moment later, Liz activated their override and they appeared in the adjacent world.

The moment they were fully in reality, Matt cast [Portal] and shoved the floating island through with a burst of [Telekinesis].

As they appeared before a mountaintop citadel, they immediately came under fire, with the floating island’s shields flaring light blue as they blocked the mana cannon shots. The otherwise innocuous estate had come to life, with half a dozen mana cannons appearing out of disguised buildings and scenic landscapes.

On the surface, the estate was a vacation home for a Tier 20 of little note, but in reality, it was a training ground for the Circle of Ever Flame battle division, and one of their most important locations in this portion of the Empire. Mainly used for internal enforcement, this was where the more active members of the order were trained. Nardo’s information had it as one of the highest priority targets if the Society of Stagnation and the Ever Flame societies ever escalated to open conflict, and the six of them agreed.

If anyone could get inside its system, it would be chock full of information for them to dig into. That was if they could take the base before the people inside destroyed everything.

There was an argument for a quiet approach and having Allie, Zack, and Susanne hit the location, but they needed this building to fall in short order with no chance of failure, so they were doing it with their guards.

Unlike the Marquess Galip battle, dozens of Tier 30 through Tier 40s— the facility’s trainers— rushed out even as space started to fluctuate and twist.

Matt activated his Domain Meld, interrupting the Domain-based movement abilities, even while activating the island’s spatial locking formations. As a ducal capital, their island’s capabilities were robust, even when not accounting for Tier, and together, they were more than enough to prevent any and all of the society members from fleeing.

After all, the initial incarnation of flying islands were war chariots for the Empire’s nobility when they personally led armies into battles both internal and external. While the exact uses had changed as time passed and warfare evolved, the islands were still an Empire duke’s method of projecting power.

When space settled, it took on a fuzzy effect as reality started to warp on the entire planet, but Matt wasn’t done yet.

[Cosmic Pressure] descended on the mountain range like a horror movie. As the spell took effect, all of the unenchanted mountains in the surrounding area crumbled under the increased gravity. Their ducal guards hadn’t been trained in Matt’s rhythmic pulses the same way Liz and Aster were, so he just kept it at a brutal but steady thousand times normal gravity.

That slowed most of them down, and even a lot of the Tier 35 stumbled for a moment when they realized they could feel a skill from somebody 8 Tiers below them at all. A stumble their guards were more than happy to exploit.

Trapped behind their walled formations, the defenders had the advantage of the estate’s arrays and boosting formations and that allowed most of the Ever Flame society members to keep their cool under the increased pressure, even if their worry was obvious.

Matt and Liz’s ducal guards flew off the island under a light bombardment as the main mana cannons in the estate were firmly aimed at the floating island itself, leaving only the antipersonnel cannons to track and fire at them. After ten seconds of gathering mana, the massive cannon batteries unleashed it in four well-aimed bursts, trying to overwhelm a local portion of the mana shield.

A good strategy, but one ineffective against them.

The island’s shields went fully opaque in the area of the attack as the shield projectors were strained, but as quickly as they darkened, they cleared back up. The massive backup mana banks refilled the shields in moments.

At the same time, the island’s own mana cannons charged up in response. Instead of simple cannons, these were mana beam variants based on the mana cannons mounted on Matt’s armor, making them capable of channeling billions of mana every second. Billions of mana pulled from his storage ring that was prepared precisely for this moment.

The air turned blue as unspent and radiating mana started to saturate the surroundings.

One second.

Two seconds.

Thr—

The estate’s shields went from opaque to fully white until the shield generators exploded and the island’s cannons stopped firing, so as to not destroy the evidence they so desperately wanted.

The strongest Society of Ever Flame member present, a Tier 40, moved to attack the island, but Captain Kestrel, their guard commander, intercepted her. They both kept their power in check, as neither side wanted to see the slaughter of their lower-Tier members, but that didn’t make their battle any less fierce.

When there wasn’t a clear winner from the outset, the two of them rose into space, where their spells grew in size and ferocity.

Even as the two moved fast enough he could only see the aftershocks of their clashes, Matt trusted in the former general to come out victorious. And it wasn’t like just going to space would see them out of the spatial disruption zone. If the Society of Ever Flame Tier 40 wanted to escape into chaotic space, she would have to get well outside the orbit of the local moon; which was easier said than done when another Tier 40 was intent on keeping her from doing exactly that.

A full thirteen Lizzes using [Coven Casting] cast [Ichorous Plague], further modified by [Analgesic], which caused the blood mist she had been dispersing into the surroundings to glow golden as it latched onto everyone except their guards, even the lower Tiers who were either cowering in the estate or unconscious.

Normally, [Ichorous Plague] wasn’t something that could escape a Tier 35’s spiritual sense and would be quickly expunged. Since they were distracted in their desperate attempts to escape, and thanks to Liz’s Courtly Warfare boon, [Analgesic] managed to slip past their defenses with its effect of making blood spells harder to detect and purge.

A few of the Society of Ever Flame instructors attempted to flee as well, but they were outnumbered and unprepared. Despite that, a few of them still managed to escape the net the guards had created. But with Liz being so intimately connected to them via [Ichorous Plague], the only thing they could try was to outrun the guards.

At the same time, ice started to form over the estate, both protecting the lower Tiers and the equipment in the base from sabotage.

Being so much lower Tier then everyone else, there wasn’t too much more they could do for the society members. Thankfully, only a few unlucky ones died from stray attacks, and in just a few minutes, the battles started to turn as their ducal guards either subdued or killed their opponents and moved on to help their fellows.

Not that there was truly any question of who would win, as with Matt’s Concept keeping their guards’ mana regenerating, they could cast spells without fear of an extended battle, which gave them unexpected ferocity that helped overwhelm their opponents.

The true end of the battle was signified by Captain Kestrel dragging the Tier 40 back. Rather, he brought back her head, but they didn’t really need any more than that, as a simple decapitation wasn’t enough to kill a Tier 15, let alone a Tier 40.

The guards threw everyone into the island’s prisons, stacking them like cordwood to fit them all. This wasn’t their only stop, and after Aster brought the entire mountain— or what was left of it— into her spirit place for storage, they left just as they came.

A few dozen portals later, they arrived at another location the Society of Ever Flame had in plain sight. This time, it was an auction house they controlled and used as a cover for the goods that their Society members got ahold of in their various schemes.

It wasn’t illegal in and of itself, as it was an official auction house, but it was a cover for illegal goods and one of their largest and most important laundering methods, according to Nardo’s information. So important that the Society of Stagnation had been scheming on how they could take the auction house from the Society of Every Flame for centuries.

If they could take it and get the records, they could trace millennia of the society’s moves back to their members.

Unlike the training ground, there were way more people at the auction house, but they made sure to try and round up everyone. A large number of people, mainly the shoppers nearest the exits, still escaped their net, but they captured nearly all of the workers and most of the shoppers. While it was unfortunate some got away, the three of them got what they wanted, which was all of the data storage devices in the facility.

Society members tried to physically destroy them, and in some cases had succeeded, but Tholly and the other spies were confident in restoring enough to dig into the society’s monetary secrets.

Returning to Palustris with an island full of prisoners was an odd experience, but the atmosphere was boisterous, with none of their own people having lost their lives and the operations going off without a hitch.

Matt hadn’t considered it, but the experience was distinct from returning from a mission in the army. A successful mission felt good in both, but in the army, they were part of a larger organization. A win was a win from the planning teams, to the logistic personnel, to the actual fighting force, to so many others. But here, it was purely their duchy’s win, which made it all the sweeter.

Instead of returning the island to the sea, they kept it floating high in the atmosphere as their and Aster’s people came in and transferred everyone to planet-side interrogation cells, where even the Tier 40 would find it difficult to escape.

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

In space, far away from Palustris’ moons, Aster dumped the buildings she had taken just in case they had any traps or the like that might have somehow escaped their notice. It was unlikely, but they didn’t want Palustris or the two inhabited moons to be affected by anything the Society of Ever Flame might have prepared for whoever attacked them. Though someone stealing away the entire buildings probably hadn’t been high on their list of possibilities, it was undoubtedly on there somewhere.

Liz pumped her fist as they watched their people swarm the buildings. “This was exactly what we needed. A good, solid win.”

Aster agreed, “Too true. I’ve been thoroughly tired of waiting for the next incident to hit me from the side. I can’t properly focus on the dozen other projects I ought to be working on.”

Matt didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but he felt he needed to bring them back to realistic expectations. “Even if this definitely proves it was the Society of Ever Flame targeting us, we are still going to be on the defensive. At least most of the time. Undoubtedly, the society will burn a lot of their assets as they try to slink back into the shadows, which will hurt them, but I doubt we are going to find a members list that will conveniently give us the leadership so we can go arrest them. If it was that easy, these kinds of societies would have been disbanded by the Empire or their competition a long time ago.”

Aster swished him with her tail. “You’re right, but you’re also wrong.”

Feeling through their bond that she wasn’t playing a prank on him, he asked, “Oh?”

“Now that we have a target, a true target, we can start chasing down other leads, as well as working with people who are also enemies of the society. Sure, we’ll still need to watch our asses, but we will have targets to hit now as well. That’s a huge step in the right direction. They will need to be watching out for us just as much as we were already watching out for them.”

Matt agreed and said so.