The Path of Ascension Chapter 465

Chapter 465

 

Not willing to blow their covers for a single person out of a group, they allowed the Tier 32 to ‘subdue’ them. They put up a token resistance, but quickly capitulated as he wasn’t a very good fighter.

Seeing him move, Matt mentally pegged the bandit as a mid-level elite at his absolute best. He clearly knew how to fight and did a lot of the correct things, but for whatever reason, he over relied on his Tier as he ‘got them under control’.

Gan Le nearly blew their cover by being too damn durable, but they muddled through after he got ‘knocked out’ and went limp. His pupilless eyes sold the act surprisingly well, though he nearly overcommitted.

Battered and bruised, they were escorted through three worlds until they arrived at a Tier 32 world the mapping corporation hadn’t identified, as per their latest update they’d bought from the previous gathering point.

The Peak Tier 32 commanding the bandits smiled upon seeing them.

An ordinary looking man, Matt wasn’t able to confirm his real identity under the disguise he was wearing. He’d suppressed or otherwise hidden his [AI] instead of broadcasting it. Given the bandit’s current occupation, that didn’t surprise him too much, but he didn’t think it would matter either.

When they were brought before the peak Tier 32, he laughed as if they were old friends and they were having a joyous reunion.

In perfect but accentless Empire, he said, “Don’t worry about this. A small detour in your exploration. We simply need some cannon fodder for this little game. We have no intention of killing any of you, but we can’t enter alone. I could if I would, but I can’t. I have no interest in really pissing off whoever your backers are. Cooperate and you can all leave alive. A fantastic and fair deal.”

There was a chance he was telling the truth, but Matt didn’t believe him.

Where better to dispose of loose ends than inside a strange realm?

Such things went both ways, but they had no intention to enter any strange realm at someone else’s discretion blind.

Aster, clearly channeling her actor friend Cynthia, quavered. “What are the strange realm’s rules? We won’t go in if it’s guaranteed death.”

The man’s smile widened as he pointed to Allie who was standing next to Aster. “Come here.”

Putting actions to his words, the Peak Tier 32 grabbed Allie by the bicep and turned in one fluid motion. Not knowing how close he had come to death, the leader dragged her to the strange realm, letting her get a feel for it.

Allie paused for a minute while she was close to the beehive. Touching it, she turned back to them, her upper lip quivering as if she was terrified.

“It’s competitive and killing is allowed but… but, not man… man… mandatory.”

At the same time, Allie made an innocent looking maneuver with her foot.

Matt was mildly surprised when her hidden signal confirmed her audible words as accurate.

He’d expected a betrayal, but he considered that he might be wrong.

His hopes were looking shabby as three other groups were brought forward to be dragged into the strange realm alongside them.

One was a pair of Tier 32s who looked like a couple; the other two were larger teams, but only Tier 31. None of them spoke as they were pulled over but they were wearing cultivation-suppressing headbands.

In fact, every group besides their own was.

Thanks to not being subdued, he was able to scan the bands with his various senses. They looked Corporations in design, but that meant little. He’d seen similar bands at the Corporations’ trading hub they visited not too long ago, being sold as prisoner restraint methods for teams who chose to defend their chosen planets instead of rushing to the breachpoint.

The bands clearly worked, given the lack of AI information from any of the teams, but that, combined with the nondescript armor the couple were wearing, meant he couldn’t place their Great Power like he could with the other two teams.

The Tier 32 male prisoner gazed at them for a few seconds before he dismissed them in the escape attempt he was clearly contemplating. The woman tried to make contact with several of them but they avoided her eyes, trying to play at being weak Tier 30s and out of their depth.

The other two groups weren’t nearly as strong, though they were more identifiable.

A team of Tier 31 dwarves who felt average for those who were willing to enter the breach. They felt generally strong, but it was clear they weren’t exceptional enough to fight up Tiers to defend themselves.

The same seemed to hold true for the other Empire group who were doing their best to avoid looking in their direction. They feared their weaker group asking for their assistance, and as such, refused to raise their heads.

Matt didn’t mind or hold it against them, though he wasn’t impressed either.

It took their captors nearly twenty minutes of disorganized yelling before everyone was shoved into the strange realm.

The Peak Tier 32 leader personally forced the Tier 32 couple to enter the strange realm, not letting them escape while the suppression bands were off.

Matt nearly gave them away when he stared a little too long.

One of the other Tier 32s barked at him, “What are you staring at?”

Trying to look contrite, he looked down mumbling, but his ruse must not have been believable as the man took a step forward with his hand raised like he wanted to slap Matt.

Before he could kill himself, his leader reigned him in. “Stop fucking with the shrimp. Go get the Iron Bones.”

Matt didn’t miss the Peak Tier 32 using the Monster Collective dwarven insult, but he didn’t trust it being a true slipup either.

While the lackeys appeared disorganized, the Peak Tier 32 seemed to know what he was doing. That made his willingness to turn to banditry stand out more, and as such their guards were up.

Powerful cultivators doing cruel things because they wanted an easier strange realm wasn’t too surprising, but the bandit leader seemed to understand restraint. That surprised Matt in someone willing to turn into a ‘bandit’ at the first drop of a hat.

He didn’t have any more time to linger on the thought as the Peak Tier 32 lost his patience and gestured for them to step forward. He never questioned their obedience to his commands for a second and they hurriedly walked forward, fulfilling his wish.

Touching the beehive, Matt appeared in a circle of light with his group.

When everyone had entered, the Peak Tier 32 smiled, rubbing his hands. “Now, try not to struggle too much. We wouldn’t want anyone to die in these fights now, would we? Accidents happen after all. All we need you to do is scream.”

The world around them shifted and twisted as a stadium formed beneath them. Its presence expanding the space between their light platforms far less than it should have.

In the center of the stadium, an opaque crystalline pillar stretched from the ground to the very limit of the fighting arena’s space.

Hidden deep in the pillar’s heart, a strand of darkness shone with all-devouring light.

The contradictory visual experience was novel, but Matt got the distinct feeling he needed to do everything he could to keep the light alive. If it went out, they would collectively fail the strange realm.

The Peak Tier 32 looked like he was about to say something when a new light cluster appeared. It was small enough that it could only contain a single person, but that was all it needed.

A Sects woman in traditional auctioneer’s robes appeared and bowed slightly before she started speaking.

As she did, her form twisted and morphed with every few words. An attractive woman, a gruff man, a young man just entering adulthood, an old lady looking forward to her graceful end.

While visually confusing, the spoken words were clear despite the various bodies’ vocal changes.

“Foremost goal: Entertain the crowd. Fill the pillar with the worst of humanity. Defeat it. Claim your reward. Final team remaining claims all. Surrender allowed.”

Matt was sure things weren’t so simple, but the ‘person’ vanished after speaking.

Aster, having dropped her false fear, turned to the peak Tier 32. “So, what is the reward for this place?”

The leader smiled as a silver tint appeared and started cycling through the light platforms.

“Now that we are all inside, I don’t mind sharing more than the strange realm itself did. First and foremost, this strange realm does allow surrender, but there is a caveat. It must be accepted by the other side.”

Before anyone could ask how he knew that, he continued. “An acquaintance of mine entered here a few days ago. He didn’t win, but the guy who did was able to earn a bond-like summon. That’s all he was able to tell me, but when I heard that, I knew I had to have it. I know there is a good chance it won’t be as good as Spirit Journey, as it uses the bond slot, but I needed to try. So, I set up the right conditions to ensure I can succeed.” He paused to subconsciously lick his lips, his eyes widening and dilating. “I always dreamed of getting Spirit Journey, and here is my second chance.”

Snapping back to reality, he looked between the other three groups and the lights circling started to slow. “So, no hard feelings. We’ll try not to kill you, but no promises if you don’t do your best to please the crowd.”

His smile at the end was predatory, but Matt got the impression he was telling the truth about killing. The man wanted to avoid it, though he clearly considered it a viable option.

Matt was mulling over the implications of that new information and if it should change their plans when the cycling light finally slowed down.

For an agonizingly long moment, it paused on the bandit team. So long in fact, he was sure they would be given the first choice, but at the very last moment, the light ticked over once more to settle on the Tier 32 couple, where it started pulsing.

The man stepped forward, but before he completed the motion, he vanished. After a brief pause, he reappeared on the platform the strange realm had created, a lone body standing above the stadium.

It almost appeared as if he was standing on top of the central pillar, but the cheers of the crowd told a slightly different story. Whatever the man saw, he was perfectly central and able to inspect all of his possible opponents.

He looked at their group for a brief instant before he looked down, as if ashamed to have considered taking them on as the easy option.

Matt internally cursed, as the sooner they got onto the podium, the sooner they’d control the strange realm.

The husband’s gaze traveled over the bandit team who taunted him, trying to egg him into picking them for his fight, but his only response was to sneer at their attempt.

Finally, he indicated the other Empire team and their light circle bloomed like a flower opening. When the spectacle settled down, a woman armed with a chain dagger stepped forward.

Instead of appearing with the first man in the circle of light, they both appeared inside the stadium at opposite ends.

The ankle-deep sand started to fade away as concrete, steel, and glass shot out of the ground, where it replaced everything except the central pillar filled with darkness as the interior of a space station built itself in seconds. The one standout feature was the Empire-style buildings scattered inside the space station. The terrestrial buildings looked out of place in the half cylinder the battlefield had turned into, but not egregiously so.

Knowing they were an integral part to this strange realm, Matt tried to inspect the stands and its people, but found an anomaly where the closer he looked the more people he found. Most of them were lifeless and still, but every once in a while, he’d find someone attentively waiting for an exciting moment to occur. Looking around more, he suspected it meant there were theoretically endless people to please in this competition.

They did finally learn the man’s name was Rubert when his wife murmured it, further identifying them as being from the Corporations.

Rubert was a passable fighter, but at the outset, he made a mistake that cost him.

He tried to talk, saying in Empire, “We don’t need to play alo—”

The woman didn’t hesitate for a moment, her weapon appearing and striking for his eyes in a practiced and fluid motion.

He raised his shield, deflecting the blow, but that caused him to miss her stepping on the chain as the dagger was deflected upward and continued.

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Pulled along with her weapon, she rode it like a flying device, kicking the lowering shield and sending Rubert into, and then through, the nearest building.

Rubert reacted correctly by disengaging fully. That gave his healing spell a moment to work, restoring the blown out eardrums the kick’s shockwave had created.

Turning and dashing through a window, he flew into the air, but it became immediately obvious flying took considerably more effort than normal, as both his speed and maneuverability were abysmal.

Reaching out, he used a finger to launch himself upward in a much more natural motion.

Clearing the building, he landed on the roof, where he saw the Empire woman about to fly overhead.

Throwing himself forward, he tackled her off her chain and over the edge of the building. The two fell to the ground, creating a crater that caused several buildings to crack ominously but none of them collapsed.

In their fall, Rubert drove a dagger into the chain fighter’s side several times while calling out for her to surrender, but she stubbornly drove an elbow into his face, trying to batter through his skull.

Rubert was so intent on trying not to hurt her, he missed her chain as it flew straight downwards chasing after them, slamming into the Tier 32 man. It nearly penetrated his skull and ended the fight then and there, but her aim was slightly off from a fatal strike.

Whether that was intentional or accidental, it got the crowd cheering, with many people standing, excited to see the legendary feat of someone fighting up Tiers, even if it was only one.

They cheered even harder as their newfound hero failed to disengage properly and was punished for it.

Legs and arms moving in unison, Rubert twisted around the woman. Her shoulder gave way a moment before her elbow, but she never stopped fighting back, even as her arm was mangled.

Her tenacity wasn’t enough, as down an arm, Rubert’s hands faced little resistance as they slithered upward to grip her skull.

With a roar, he repeatedly slammed her head into the ground with hard thumps that became inadvertently synced with the crowd’s pleased cries.

The blow before her skull was finally breached, she cried out as her body and weapon were both engulfed by orange flames, trying to force the Corporations cultivator off her.

The woman’s screams were accompanied by Rubert’s, but both of them were drowned out by the crowd’s cheers.

Before she could finish turning things around, the man withdrew his dagger from her side and drove it into her throat, threatening to drive it upward into her brain.

Spitting blood as he spoke through charring lips, Rubert growled out. “Surrender or die.”

The woman vanished after a brief pause but Rubert wasn’t given any respite.

Instead, he once more found himself above the central pillar, needing to choose another opponent. He wasn’t even healed by the strange realm, his wounds closing at a snail’s pace.

At the same time, the black light in the central pillar grew. Its dark radiance cut through the smokey shell, basking the coliseum in shade for a moment before the ‘sunlight’ took back over.

Rubert’s gaze once more swept over them, but he ended up choosing the Clans team.

Matt instantly got a bad feeling when the team’s tank stepped forward.

Rubert’s second fight was longer than the first, but much worse by every metric.

Having been able to see what limited abilities Rubert used, the dwarf, Kurndal, took his time bating attacks out, slowly whittling the higher-Tier opponent down.

If Rubert hadn’t been seriously injured in his first fight, it might have been close, but it became clear almost immediately he was no endurance fighter.

Kurndal didn’t push things too far, and when Rubert lay on the ground, an arm missing and his leg bent and twisted, the fight ended.