The Path of Ascension Chapter 421

Chapter 421

 

Matt rubbed his hands together as he looked at the rift in front of him.

It might not be the most famous rift of the dwarven Great Power they had been delving, but it was definitely on the list. In fact, it was one of the ones they had been explicitly told they needed to delve by both sets of Clans Ascenders, and was a pair to another rift they would hit just before they met up with the allocated Domain trainers, said to be made by a Talented aperologist from the time of the Everlasting Kingdom.

They had been so insistent about them delving this rift, they actually reserved three delve slots, one every other month.

Wun rubbed his hands together as he approached. “Okay. I’ll come in with you guys and give you a little of that Wun Special.”

Allie and Aster moved in unison, covering his approach, having experienced Wun trying to ‘help’ them by influencing their rift drops.

There was no way they were going to let him do that again, and Aster called out, “Keep your luck changing fingers away from our rift. We don’t trust you not to sabotage us. Again.”

Wun pretended to look hurt but couldn’t keep the smirk off his face as he said, “I’m sure you guys will find a use for the box of boxes. I’m sure someone can make that a very valuable… object.”

Moe sighed as he inspected the building that housed said rift. “Ahhh. I ‘eally ‘iss this place. So many good items ‘ulled out of ‘ere.”

Brian nodded, his head nearing falling off. “Remember when we pulled the Scepter of Eeppy Sleepy. I loved that thing. Shame it broke during that fight with the Grand Regent of Kalrun. Damn, that was a fun adventure.”

Matt resisted the urge to ask about the mission they had gone on and instead inspected the rift in front of him.

Matt met Zack’s gaze and the two of them nodded in unison. They both stepped forward, the Tier 35 guards not reacting to their presence.

After inspecting the rift and making sure it was full of mana and bordering on a rift break, Matt stepped inside.

He was quickly followed by everyone else to escape the spoilers.

The entrance to the rift was not really what Matt expected.

He had heard the rift was slightly a choose your own monsters variant, but he hadn’t expected to be dropped into a simple stone room with a single plinth in the center.

Walking over to it, Matt and Zack both inspected the three shards of light that hovered over it, just to be joined by the others a heartbeat later.

“Okay, so we need to pick one of the three options. Left seems to be some form of light, center seems to be fire, and right seems to be a mystery room. How do we want to play it?”

Allie immediately pointed at the rightmost option. “I say mystery. They can have the best shit.”

Liz shook her head as phoenix Liz pointed at the center with a wing. “Then we should choose the middle. Fire is a good safe bet. Remember, we need to choose for longevity if we really want to push this rift and finish all nine floors.”

Aster shook her head. “And what does fire have to do with longevity? Light seems like an easier mana type if it’s going to affect all of the monsters going forward.”

Matt weighed the odds as well as running the simulations before looking to Susanne, who just quietly shook her head, staying out of the conversation. Seeing that, Matt frowned but didn’t push.

She was always quiet but she had been especially so in the last few days, and he had a pretty good idea of why, but if she didn’t want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to push. Yet.

Zack, however, spoke up. “I think we go with light.”

Liz tapped him with the butt of her spear. “That’s just because your name is Light. You’re biased and therefore don’t count.”

Zack simply nodded, which got a laugh out of everyone else and was a good enough reason to choose one over the other. Given that they were simply in the first room, their choice didn’t really matter too much, as they weren’t hard countered by any of the elements. Not that any Ascender worth their mana stones would be hard countered by any one element.

Poking the light shard, a portal spun itself into existence at the end of the room.

Matt and Liz were the first through the portal, and immediately came under fire as a trio of ogres brought massive stone cudgels down at them.

Liz blocked two. The first with her shield, which then created a bubble of protective force around her that blocked the second attack, while Matt just cast [Bulwark] to blunt the majority of the Tier 30 monster’s attack and used his blade to direct the remainder of the energy past him.

He chopped down hard on the wrists of the ogre, cutting through the thick skin and bone.

As his blade cleared the now severed wrists, he stepped in and brought his blade back up, cutting into the groin and then belly of the creature.

He was just about to unleash [Mana Slash] to finish the creature off when he saw the ogre hadn’t lost its weapon as he expected.

The ogre brought its club up in a tricky trajectory, right at his head.

Matt ducked and brought his blade around, gathering momentum for a second strike.

During that brief moment, he was able to see that he had cut the monster’s hands off, but it had a light-based body hidden inside its physical body.

Seeing that, Matt shared the news through the group chat to Liz, knowing the others would see the information the moment they entered the area. That would be any second, which meant he and Liz needed to clear the entrance to the portal.

[Cracked Air Slide] launched Matt right at the ogre and he felt bones crack as he impacted the Tier 30 monster, but Matt didn’t let it faze him, throwing his Concept and [Telekinesis] into the move to send the ogre flying.

Free, Matt turned to the two monsters Liz was fighting and brought his sword down, unleashing the mana he had filled the blade with.

His current blade was the same lattice of metal weaving together to form a sword shape, and he had enchanted the mana stone he filled the hollow inside with to amplify his magical attacks, having expected to fight strong but traditional enemies. However, upon seeing enemies they were facing, he instead ignited the entire core of mana in a single [Mana Slash].

The expenditure of billions of mana in a single spell overtaxed his sword, and he could feel the stress as it tried to resist melting, but it also obliterated the upper bodies of the two ogres, causing their attacks to falter.

Liz brought a whip of Ichor around which cleanly cut through the light-based bodies, causing two rushes of essence to pour into her. Matt siphoned what he could absorb, but without the rest of the group, most of the essence was simply lost.

The others arrived a moment later, led by Susanne, who protected the squishier members of each team.

They were just in time to fight the ogre Matt had sent flying.

Matt raced forward, baiting out a smash of its club as the follow up attacks were slowed by a blast of cold. That made it downright easy for Matt to cut its head off, exposing its light head, which Zack put a [Mana Bolt] through with expert precision.

Aster sniffed upon seeing there wasn’t another ogre to fight. “And this is why I said we should choose fire.”

Liz shuddered as she spun on Matt’s bond, poking her in the armor. “You liar and cheat. I’ll remember this.”

Aster whistled even as Zack bent down, inspecting the pieces of the first ogre Matt had cut off and comparing it to the severed body.

“Possession?”

Matt weighed the possibility and shrugged. “It’s possible, but unlikely. I think it’s more likely a flesh puppet.”

Zack brought the severed stump up to his nose and sniffed. “Weird scent for that, but the mana flows are similar. Physical soul?”

Allie rolled her eyes and pulled out a small white dagger Matt had never seen before. “Easy way to tell.”

She vanished for a moment and returned shaking her head, even as a scream of pain and anger reached them from deeper in the rift.

“Not possessed. Oh, also, there are like ten of the monsters coming this way.”

Matt rolled his eyes at the comment, as he could damn well feel there were a dozen ogres racing at them, including one who had a missing flesh eye.

Jumping into the air, Matt quickly cast a [Breach], which vaporized the first two ogres’ physical bodies, leaving two light ogres racing at them undaunted.

That at least confirmed Allie’s comment about possessions being ruled out. Or at least the typical style of possession, which needed at least a modicum of flesh to inhabit.

That didn’t confirm a flesh puppet either, as both flesh puppets and physical souls could exist without their fleshly prisons for a small amount of time. The main difference was that physical souls were one and the same as the body, and were unique to that monster; not that different from a second life. Flesh puppets, on the other hand, could and would try to inhabit dead monsters if they were intact enough.

Both, however, were typically vulnerable to magic-based attacks as well, but flesh puppets were vulnerable to dispelling where physical souls were not.

The question was answered when Aster hit the leading two monsters with a dispel, followed by Zack doing the same.

When the ogres were unaffected, they had their answer.

Physical souls being a first monster modifier was less than ideal, but would hopefully translate well to their final reward.

Matt threw himself forward even as he regrew the mana crystal in his sword, but instead of doing any fancy empowering, he simply made a magical armor-bypassing effect, as well as a spiritual disrupting effect.

Driving his blade into the first ogre, the effect was immediate as the creature screamed its pain and rage.

Dodging its retaliatory bite, Matt brought his blade up and chopped into its mouth.

Unlike before, the monster didn’t survive having its head destroyed, with the spiritual disrupting effect being the equivalent of poking a hole in a balloon, leaving only the fleshly body left to protect the manifested spirit.

After they finished off that pack of monsters, Allie immediately teleported them to the next pack, where they tore into them with a vengeance.

Susanne was a monster, with her manifested blade acting just like Matt’s enchanted weapon and destroying the physical spirits.

Once they finished the first cavern, they had to kill the mini boss of the area.

It was another ogre, but a massive one, fifteen feet tall and fully armored in chainmail.

Allie simply stabbed it in the eye, penetrating into its brain with a dagger Matt created out of his mana and enchanted similarly to his blade.

Riding the boss down, she laughed. “And this is why you don’t play with the spirit, people. Lesson number one.”

Aster nodded. “I’m so glad I said we shouldn’t pick fire.”

Liz just continued to glare at his bond, but Matt happily raced Allie into the portal that formed over the boss’s body.

Once more, they were in a simple room with a plinth, but it wasn’t alone. Just next to it was the rift reward distortion, indicating they could exit the rift any time between rooms if they just dispelled the reward.

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Not that they would. Instead, they all looked at the plinth. Rather than three shards of mana types, they were presented with a sword, a shield, and a fireball. The choice was easy, with Matt only waiting for Aster to enter the room to poke the fire symbol.

Like before, a portal appeared in the room, allowing them to fight their next set of enemies, and once more, Matt and Liz took the ambush head on.

Instead of ogres, this time they were fighting proper trolls.

Nine feet tall, lanky, regenerating trolls.

Trolls that crackled with silver lightning.

To make matters worse, instead of being bottom Tier 30 monsters, these were nearing the middle of the Tier, and were correspondingly that much harder to deal with.

Matt took the first strike on his [Bulwark], this time cast with enough mana to ensure it didn’t break in a single attack, allowing three Lizes to rush forward to attack the seven trolls. Tossing a rock back through the portal, everyone else rushed through.

Allie vanished and Aster started casting her debuff spells, but Zack started snatching the lightning out of the trolls’ control the moment the spell left their bodies, sending the bolts anywhere but at them.

With the trolls’ spells nearly completely negated, the fight was short and quick. The troll’s largest remaining advantage was their massive healing factor, which meant they needed to be dispatched with a single, devastating attack or by burning. But that was hardly a problem for their group of two Ascenders and a pinnacle elite swordswoman.

Even the physical spirit didn’t help them much, as their regeneration was purely a physical trait of theirs, which didn’t apply to anything so magical, allowing the group to cut through them.

It was time to push as deep as they could.

***

At the end of the eighth room of the ninth floor, Matt didn’t bother to look at the plinth as he entered the choosing room, instead flopping to the ground and slowly stretching. Only once he felt his right knee and his lower back crack in several spots did he sit up, just to see everyone else in various stages of recovery.

Hauling himself to his feet, Matt looked at the plinth. There was a humanoid face with tusks sneering back at him in the leftmost slot. The middle slot had a pair of hands cupping a single flower. The third and right most slot had a silhouette standing in a neutral stance.