The Path of Ascension Chapter 463

Chapter 463

 

Matt’s only thought as they stepped into the barrier was that it felt far larger than it had any right to be. He didn’t think it was only a spatial expansion, but he was fairly sure there was a perception distortion making the moment stretch into taffy.

It was almost like entering an isolation chamber and, in the emptiness, becoming hyper aware of oneself.

Reality reasserted itself as Matt felt his outstretched hand breach the other side of the ruin’s outer barrier.

A cool and humid air prickled his skin, and with his normal perception, stepping out of the barrier only felt like stepping out of water too quickly. Possible, but if one tried to move too fast, there was resistance.

The first thing that caught his eye was the size of the enclosure. They’d deliberately chosen one of the smaller exterior bubbles to enter, hoping it would be weaker. But once inside, they found themselves in a savanna that stretched on for thousands of miles.

Being on the wall broke the illusion, but they could now be sure the ruin had its own spatial compression, which gave them a whole host of new things to be on the lookout for.

Not being attacked immediately, Matt allowed himself to appreciate the view. The bubble they were in wasn’t endless, but it was impressively large. Thoughts on the ruin’s method of spatial compression were interrupted as the others came a beat behind.

Taking note of the time difference, he quickly calculated roughly how long the compressing was.

“Two point four times time and spatial compression, given our stagger.” Looking back at the pearlescent barrier they’d just walked through, he whistled silently, not willing to make that much noise before they knew what they were fighting. “That is a top notch open air effect. Damn cool.”

Allie, Zack, Rah, and Aster all readily agreed, but they were, in turn, interrupted as a truly massive kudu launched itself out of the waving grasses and at their group, where they flew a few dozen feet off the ground.

Its body was covered in a steel gray glow as it became airborne.

Being Tier 29, even a peak Tier 29, it died under Liz’s casual fist, its body unexpectedly pulverized into an overly gory mess.

In its place, a ghostly pale copy of the antelope was locked, frozen in the moment of its death.

From the depths of the creature’s colorless illusionary body, a red light like a wisp of dye appeared as if being injected into water. It was slow, relatively speaking, but they did nothing.

Not because they didn’t want to, but because the sight before them wasn’t happening inside of the plane of reality they normally operated within.

Or, that was Matt’s best guess, given the small spatial fluctuations he felt emanating from the creature’s… spirit?

As the red filled the spirit, Matt could distantly feel as it grew stronger. Not higher in Tier but more powerful, as if the creature had been given a lifetime of training and had become far more dangerous.

Or that was how he interpreted the feeling.

Objectively speaking, it didn’t take long for the red color to fully fill the creature’s spirit, and once it did, the creature broke its way back into reality with a bellow.

Seeing Liz, its anger seemed to ignite and the creature charged, despite being mere feet away from her. While its first approach had been fast, the creature was now even faster, its movement enhanced by several skills.

Liz reached out and grabbed one of the kudu’s horns, locking the creature in place. Its horns sparked as something similar to sharp-metal mana crackled along their length, trying to shear through her golden grip.

Matt leaned forward as the monster struggled, ensuring he got a good look.

Reaching out and rubbing a bit of the kudu’s pelt through his fingers, he contemplated the fur-like feeling.

Without his eyes, he’d think he was touching a completely normal monster.

Three punches later, they even had a rough idea of how much stronger it became.

Liz’s first blow was a perfect copy of the previous killing blow, and didn’t even dent the monster’s now-stronger skull. Her second strike did, and the third killed it for a second time.

A second burst of essence rushed out from the creature, instantly ratcheting up their collective interest.

Being able to double the essence they received from a creature was a solid reason for them to stay longer, but it wasn’t quite enough alone.

Flying away from the wall, they quickly got into a fight with a small group of kudu.

Four of the large antelopes launched themselves with metal energy, but they didn’t play with the monsters and quickly killed them.

As the first monster died and exploded, the same cycle of its spirit being manifested into reality, slowly filling with red energy, started. As they killed the other three monsters, they found their spirits started with the same progress the first one has, keeping them all in sync.

In unison, all of the monsters came back to life, but this time, they were noticeably a level stronger from having undergone the process together rather than one at a time.

It made no difference and they were quickly ended, but it was a clear warning about the tactics of this ruin.

Having only seen Tier 29 monsters after multiple fights and types, they stopped holding back and went on a rampage.

Always sensitive to energies, Rah stopped them after fighting a group of one hundred. “Has anyone else noticed the mana and essence move a lot here?”

Matt had noticed the same but, given their method of entry, he hadn’t considered it much.

Zack, however, was two steps ahead of them. “I believe there is a convection cycle. All the energy in this place cycles to a few points. I believe we passed a transitory area behind us near where we fought the group of thirty two.”

Allie grumbled about not sharing such information earlier, but they stopped wandering and moved with a purpose.

Zack was proven right not too much longer as they found a watering hole in the savanna.

At the center of the crystal clear lake sat a single Tier 29 water lily in the place of honor within the energy cycle.

A powerful feeling of cleanliness lingered in the area.

Almost immediately, the mana slowed to a stop, before moving to the nearest Natural Treasure. They didn’t recognize it, but its properties were obvious enough there was little doubt it would sell exceptionally well.

Depending on the purchaser, the lily might become a powerful antitoxin or it might be added to a more permanent item to help break curses.

Once they grabbed the other Natural Treasures, they moved back to the edge of the bubble via Matt’s [Portal].

Allie insisted on assisting, leaving him with a tiny wound on his spirit, but it did allow them to cover the distance back to the edge in a single teleport.

Wrapping themselves with essence, they pushed through the barrier, experiencing the same disorientation.

Matt had hardly made it through the barrier when he felt a small hand grip his cheek and tear forcefully.

The small Tier 32 hands were like iron, but Matt didn’t let that stop him from reaching up and grabbing the monkey’s head with his left hand.

The monster’s fangs scrambled to find purchase on the indestructible skin of his palm, but its struggles were far too late.

[Mana Beam] evaporated its head, leaving him grabbing a ghostly copy of the creature as deadly rays of mana leaked from his finger cage.

Knowing he’d started the timer, he idly noted the ghost was filling with a green energy as he inspected where they’d landed.

Seeing it, he felt his stomach drop, knowing the bomb was going to be a large one. One of the quirks of the ruin was the more monsters in a group the longer it took to empower the spirit bodies. That also meant unless they deliberately dragged out the battles, they had to fight massive spirit groups.

The monkeys screeched in rage as they flew at him, glove-like projections formed around their hands.

They’d appeared midway up the bubble, putting them at the canopy height, hundreds of feet up. The monsters being monkeys meant they’d appeared right by a troop, with nearly five thousand members.

Unable to change their exit, Matt could only fight, knowing this was going to be bad.

As such, he started casting [Hail] at a measly two million mana a second.

The output was like a wall of ice, but Matt didn’t cast it in front of himself, rather behind, forming bubbles of ice on the wall and creating a barrier for the others to orient themselves. At the same time, he split off a portion of his mind to use [Ice Manipulation] to hold the ice up and compact it into something robust.

Matt was quickly acquainted with their gauntlets as dozens of them smashed or grabbed at him.

As much as he wanted to limit the casualties so the resulting second wave wouldn’t be as bad, the monsters weren’t giving him the choice.

[Cracked Phantom Armor] started to crack and pop as he held back as long as possible, cursing how long it was taking the others to exit.

Feeling the first monkey revert, Matt sighed, knowing a small crisis had been averted, but aware the much larger one still loomed.

Feeling Liz start to exit, he went on the offensive.

[Mana Beam] cut out once more, slicing through limbs, bodies, and trees with indifference. There were so many enemies, he couldn’t even see the ruin beyond.

Liz finally made it through the barrier and upon seeing the situation, split into three.

The first stayed by the wall and helped cover the others as they exited. The second flew head first at the oncoming wave of monkeys through the small opening he’d left in the ice wall, while the third started chanting as she prepared to cast a large spell.

Wanting to help as much as he could, Matt split off a million mana per second to create a wave of Ichor to speed her efforts along.

Forgoing single target spells, Matt flooded his sword with mana, still using his now typical combination of [Mana Slash], [Mana Charge], and his personally modified [Tribulation Strike].

Together, the three skills cut down hundreds, but there were thousands to replace them.

Ghostly bodies slowly filling with the green energy started to surround him as Liz began her own rampage, using the bodies’ explosive deaths to fuel her own growth.

Flaring [Archmage’s Presence], he slashed out right as a second wave of monsters arrived before him, preparing to take the hit to slow the wave down.

[Mana Charge] clung to his longsword like oil, but the power was unleashed when his sword came into contact with the first monkey. The single spell cleared the area around him as [Cracked Phantom Armor] took the backblast without issue.

His respite lasted only a moment as the green energy filled spirits replaced the physical bodies.

The Tier 32s monsters were fast and tough, but they were also small and not quite as durable as other monsters of their Tier, which made them hard to deal with but not impossible.

[Mana Slash] came out of his weapon as a small arc, but with every inch it moved forward its size expanded, as the millions of mana sought to find an equilibrium within the spell.

He knew it would reach almost a quarter of a mile long, but it didn’t have the opportunity to reach its full potential, not that it was any less potent for it. The monkeys that got in its way never noticed the difference, but there were plenty more to replace them.

[Tribulation Strike], deliberately delayed, cracked the air as the lightning arced out from his sword to the monsters around him, killing off his third wave of attackers.

Bursts of essence rushed into Matt like a series of waves, but he hardly noticed as he allocated them equally across his core raising all of his physical abilities equally with the first third of this Tiers essence.

Liz finally reached a critical mass as the others started exiting the barrier, dozens of her fighting, uncaring of the consequences to a single body. In fact, a substantial number of her bodies were in their full liquid form. Liz, not having the bandwidth for complicated fighting techniques, concentrated on creating as many copies of herself as quickly as possible.

Aster, having felt the situation through their bond, immediately took control of the ice fortress while claiming the ice [Hail] made.

As he was fully swarmed, he felt Aster start casting debuffing spells.

The monkeys fought back with their own wind powers, but Aster’s abilities were far more potent than simple wind spells.

Frost and ice materialized out of the corners of his awareness, the illusions not aimed at him but still being potent enough to draw a part of his awareness inside.

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Monkeys clamored over Matt, trying to grab and twist his armor, causing serious damage.

Unable to protect everything, he deprioritized his lower half, letting the monsters shred his flesh, using the pain and attention of the feasting monsters to cast a [Barrage]d [Gravitic Bolt].

Dozens of projectiles appeared in rapid succession, aimed so they crossed right by his body.

Temporarily cleared of monkeys, Matt lashed out with his familiar trio, but a new wave of monsters grabbed at him relentlessly.

Having recently Tiered up, meaning the corresponding doubling, Matt had enough mana to push all three skills to their limits and beyond. Their spell structures in his spirit shone with a vibrant light as they struggled to contain the amount of mana he flooded them with.

With his control, he pushed them to their limits, but they were still far below what he wanted.

[Tribulation Strike] was better, but that was because it was a proper channel spell, and therefore didn’t have a maximum throughput. Sadly, it had severe diminishing returns past a few million mana, making its lead over the other two miniscule.

Ideally, when he merged the three skills together, he could fully use the input mechanism from [Tribulation Strike]. But he hadn’t wanted to do the merge before returning to settled space, where he could have his guild’s experts look over his ideas.

A rapid-fire burst of spells appearing throughout the battlefield signaled Zack’s arrival, but it was Gan Le’s presence that relieved Matt the most, after Allie herself.

Knowing the following team members would have someone beyond an already overworked Liz to protect them let him fully relax, with Allie able to get them out of the danger zone.

The second wave of spirit monsters finally finished their transformation and added their presences to the battlefield.

Their roars were more like great apes, but their strength was all their own.

With half a dozen on him, Matt could hardly swing his sword.

Flooding his body with willpower, he forced his blade up enough to cause the stored mana to explode.

[Mana Charge] didn’t kill the spirit versions of the monsters, but it did knock several off, letting him regain enough freedom to cast [Breach] point blank.

Flooding [Cracked Phantom Armor] with neutral mana, he used the skill’s third upgrade orb ability that allowed his armor to better defend against the same type of energy attack as it was damaged by the mana type.

[Breach] annihilated the monsters around Matt, but the cycle was still repeating itself with them needing to kill the monsters twice.

What had been a fun addition to the ruin when they were far stronger than the monsters had turned into a near fatal change, given the monkeys’ numbers and Tier.