C_Mantis
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Chapter 284
🕑 Added 2023-11-10 19:58:00 +0000 UTCI will be taking the 25th, the 29th, and the 1th off for my birthday (dec 30th) so chapters will go from the 22nd to the 5th.
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PoA book 5, the Tournament arc is now on amazon FYI, no need to buy but its there for anyone looking for it. https://a.co/d/9yAjXsA
Audiobook is delayed until late January at the earliest. Narrator is apparently very busy.
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Chapter 284
Matt twisted in his seat as Drifter looked back at them. “You three ready?”
They had been inside the rift for two months, but with the rift's eightfold time dilation that was only a week and some change in real time.
Despite his [AI] keeping track of both reference points, Matt was still weirded out to be leaving the rift, knowing people would still be celebrating their Ascension ceremony while it had already become old news to him.
That was part of the reason they were already heading out for their new mission so quickly. The Empire, like all Great Powers who got a new set of Ascenders, wanted to be able to hold up their newest Ascenders and point to a victory just days after they finished the Path.
Knowing and even agreeing with the logic didn’t mean Matt wouldn’t have wished for another month in the rift.
They had just barely finished absorbing the first round of their new skills, and hadn’t gotten any of the cool armor they had designed because they hadn’t been created yet.
The three of them had still been given an upgrade in terms of armor and arms, but it was nothing when compared to what they would be getting. Matt was personally wearing a refitted legacy suit of armor that North Star, of the Cosmos, had worn, and was primarily designed to enhance light aspect and self-buff spells. He also had a prototype set of underarmor designed to integrate [Cracked Phantom Armor] into the main suit of armor, and while limited, he was excited to put it to the test.
But most of all Matt was nervous that they would go out there into a real war and fuck something up, and not in a good way.
So when Drifter asked if he was ready he didn’t really have an answer. And if the silence from Liz and Aster was any indication, neither did they.
Allie answered for them as she rolled her eyes, “Yeah, they’re ready.”
Before Drifter could respond, the world blinked around them, leaving them in a private spaceport on the far side of the planet Fort Lightfoot was on. Allie was, without a doubt, the most convenient way to get in and out of the rift, but from what Matt had heard, convincing her to do so for anything but a mission was tough. Fortunately, they were on a mission, and so got to travel with Shadow Teleports inc.. Allie was very particular about her branding despite the fact it changed between conversations.
“Good luck!” Allie's last words were punctuated by her flipping them the middle finger and vanishing with a swoosh of her cloak.
General Darrow sighed. “At least she sent us out at the proper location. Drifter, are we ready to go?
The pilot flipped a few switches, cast a pair of diagnostic spells, and nodded. “Just about. Flight command, this is Drifter. Requesting permission to…”
While Drifter prepared for their takeoff, Matt joined Darrow around the nearest projector table. Suspended in the air was a mass of bright nodes, interlinked by countless lines, forming a map of the Great Powers. While tens of thousands of worlds were densely packed around the eight Capitals, it grew sparser near the edges, where they began to intertwine.
With a wave of his hand, the map shifted and rearranged, bringing into focus their first target.
Aflora was a simple Tier 9 world, notable for having a mist-aspected planetary core, and being strategically noteworthy enough to warrant being a Tier 25 battleground. It acted as a nexus point connecting to five other worlds leading fairly deep into Empire territory. It had also been under siege for the past five years from Federation forces, and they were slowly being worn down.
While not devastating to the war front by any means, if Aflora was lost, the Empire would be stretched just that much thinner. So, they’d been sent to ensure that wouldn’t happen. Fortunately, its relatively low-priority status also kept the Federation from sending its best troops, or heavy reinforcements.
Unfortunately, no amount of resolution and determination on the defender’s behalf could replace fresh troops or supplies, and they were projected to fall in the next year.
Their mission was to prevent that.
As it was their first mission, they’d be taking the long route. Which was to say, the normal route. Instead of cheating the distance with Allie’s Tier 25 Talent, this time they were flying with Drifter all the way from the Capital to Aflora. The reasons for this were numerous, but it was partially to be as thorough as possible for their first trip, partially to get them out of the rift for a little while while their skills and gear was incoming… and partially because Allie insisted that they had to experience what things would be like if she wasn’t around, before she started dropping them all over the Empire willy-nilly.
Overall, Matt was fine with it. Mostly, he was just happy that future travel time wouldn’t be a concern, for the most part. Allie being fully capable of teleporting the entirety of Team Zero to the furthest reaches of the Empire meant they could hop from crisis to crisis with lightning response times, and spend all their time between missions at Fort Lightfoot, with good meals, good healers, lots of practice space, and all the amenities of home, instead of field rations and cramped quarters.
As a bonus, it made them look utterly prescient, as they could respond to attacks far enough away that they clearly had to have started heading in that direction long before they could have realistically known they needed to. But, that was secondary to keeping themselves in top fighting condition. Ascenders weren’t immune to being worn down over time, with most historic losses coming at the end of a drawn-out campaign, but Matt’s normal endurance would be magnified tenfold or more with the Empire’s current strategy.
Of course, Allie’s ‘waypoints’ were spread out far enough that they still needed a wickedly fast ship, and a ridiculously good pilot paired with it, for the plan to truly work. And that was where Drifter came in. Out of everyone in Team Zero she was the one who benefited least from Matt’s assistance, with her Talents already making the essential functions of any ships she flew consume no mana. That didn’t include weapons, so it wasn’t like he was completely useless for her, but it still felt a little weird. His Domain grumbled a bit, but he refused to let it develop in a way that required him to revolutionize the life of everyone he ever met.
Drifter used every last bit of the overpowered engines on her ship, pulling off stunts Matt would call suicidal from anyone else with alarming regularity as she flew through chaotic space, not simply the neat space-lanes practically everyone used.
And unlike the one time Matt had accidentally drifted a bit too far into space the roiling chaos in his own ship, not once did the light start to taste like blue annoyance. Drifter navigated through vortices of twisting space, around distortion whorls, and through ontological pressure zones with a manic grin on her face the entire time.
Still, her flying managed to cut a full third off their trip, turning a two-month flight into a forty day one, and Matt spent most of that time working on his mana control with Darrow since it was just the five of them left on the ship.
His team leader wasn’t some prodigy, but he was old and had spent a significant portion of his immortal life in the army. He’d spent that substantial time refining himself from a relatively average delver team leader into someone truly worthy of leading a group of Elites, and had the experience to prove it. Experiences he was happy to share with Matt.
Learning with him was odd, to say the least. He had never had to deal with wrangling millions of mana, he had never been trained by Luna or other famous trainers every day, he had never had unlimited resources until he was part of Team Zero, but General Darrow still had good advice.
Most of it boiled down to ‘go slow, research what you want, listen to the experts, listen to your gut’ and other advice that seemed generic when summarized, but in practice was always useful and insightful. Darrow’s teaching was radically different from Luna’s, unsurprisingly, as where his former Manager preferred to cut away Matt’s weaknesses, Darrow encouraged Matt’s strengths. He was naturally suited to excessive displays of power, and while there wasn’t anything too incredible in his team leader’s advice, it was still useful.
When they arrived in the Aflora system, everything seemed normal within range of his spiritual senses, but it only covered the planet just below him. The fortress world where the fighting would happen was near the edge of the star’s gravity well, far beyond what he had the ability to sense directly, or through any of his current skills.
Drifter was only a Tier 25 like them, which limited her ability to pull them into real space too far away from the central planet of the system, but her ship's sensors were fantastic.
The initial information they got was purely passive. Cameras with incredible resolution intercepted the light moving through the system to get an initial view of the system and information flooded into the ship's AI and through it into Matt’s.
Matt, along with everyone else, viewed the situation, but their worst fears weren’t realized as the outermost planet was still holding strong.
A number of tentative sightings of enemy ships and defenses were tagged, but nothing was confirmed from the initial information.
No, they were confirmed from Aflora, who had started transmitting them updates the moment they had appeared on the world's sensors.
What had started as seven full battalions of Federation troops had been whittled down to something like five and a half, but that was offset by suspected reinforcements. Aflora had been watching the fighting go on overhead without fail but the fortress planet had been isolated by a number of formations which obscured outgoing light and interrupted most transmission signals.
Within fifteen seconds of arriving into the Aflora system, they had an information update from the inhabited world and started flying into the outer system.
It would take them five hours to curve past the star and steal a little energy to slingshot them to the farthest reaches of the system's gravity well, but those five hours felt like decades to Matt, Liz, and Aster as they were getting ready to fight.
Despite that, he didn’t miss the arrival of Light, Shadow, Torment, Origami, Eric, and Dena as Shadow jumped in, via her local waypoint. While this was to be the debut of Torch, Quill, and Scoop as Ascenders, the others were still on standby to intercept any potential Federation ambushes.
Or at least that was how General Darrow had pitched it to Matt, Liz, and Aster when they were told about the mission.
Matt knew the truth, and so did everyone else. While there was a chance that this system was an ambush, it was incredibly unlikely. Instead, the rest of Team Zero were there in case they fucked up and needed rescuing. Even Light and Shadow had the same treatment for their first showing.
Others might be offended by their presence, but Matt was happy for it.
The rest of Team Zero were combat veterans. They’d be their direct support in future engagements, but here and now it was their time to show off. Their time to introduce themselves, and their opponent was only a few battalions of ordinary soldiers.
Matt, and the planners at Chess, had expected the Federation to turn on them the moment they arrived, and the Federation did not disappoint.
Four of the five battalions turned and started manning the temporary defensive structures they had set up around the orbit of the fortress planet.
When Drifter's ship slowed to a relative halt a ways above the fortress world and the back hatch opened, Matt was well within spiritual range of the army now floating behind hastily constructed defensive walls. He watched as their eyes went from steely resolve to widened terror.
They didn’t flee, but they were clearly hoping they were the forerunners of another army.
Not Ascenders.
That, oddly enough, settled Matt’s nerves.
It wasn’t that he believed the propaganda around Ascenders being literally unbeatable, but now that he could see the enemies, he was back at home.
This wasn’t a rift, these weren't mindless monsters, but combat was combat. If these soldiers did not die, the soldiers and eventually citizens of the Empire would be the ones who suffered instead.
Kill, or be killed.
Matt cast [Cracked Phantom Armor] and enjoyed the way that the skill slid into his new armor instead of covering it. It also slid over his temporary blade like a second skin and Matt smiled.
The skill's upgrades were about to be put to good use.
The three of them flew towards the oncoming army like meteors plummeting into a planet. To his right, Liz was armed with a spear enchanted to leave a curse that twisted healing spells to decay, worsening any wounds it left when they would normally be mended. To his left, Aster clenched an oversized silver gauntlet into a fist, forming a ball of ice that rapidly morphed into a fifteen-foot golem of slick ice, and then into a flurry of snow.
That snow accumulated around them, forming a lashing blizzard of ice and wind extending for at least a mile on each side of them, slowly engulfing the oncoming army like the first flurries of a bitter winter.
That signaled the start of the fight, and the Federation army started unleashing their own retaliatory spells.
Mana cannons embedded in the walls flashed, arrays spun into existence before activating, personal spells were cast in coordinated bursts, units rotated forward and back as they fired their spells and took cover, the ships turned their massive cannons and fired, shields flickered as their power sources were tapped to fuel a second array of attacks.
The attacks weren’t terribly focused, and while Matt was utterly confident in his armor, simply tanking hits for no reason was reserved for the movies, and [Flight] powered with five hundred thousand MPS was so maneuverable it was trivial to avoid most of the attacks directed at them.
Of course, most wasn’t all, and the Federation soldiers were providing quite effective cover fire, and Matt spun up [Bulwark] after [Bulwark] to intercept the attacks they were otherwise bound to hit.
He spent first thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and finally millions of mana on defense, but he was still as fresh as they came as they approached ever-closer to the Federation soldiers.
The spells came closer and more concentrated, aim getting better and range becoming more potent. Domains pushed against them, Intents flaring as people unleashed their best attacks. Commanders directed the assaults of their squadrons, and the attacks only grew thicker and thicker. But then Aster’s [Dispelling Wind] whipped through their surroundings, and a nigh-overwhelming barrage of spellfire fell to something eminently manageable.
That flipped a switch in the Federation army, and defensive spells began blossoming like a rainbow of magic encompassing Matt’s entire field of view..
That was their signal to attack.
Matt led the charge, with Liz and Aster close behind.
Aster pushed her gauntlet forward, which sent the flurries of snow she had created from her tiara’s summon into and through the enemy defenses, beginning to leech away their enemies’ heat. Some were stopped by the shields, and some were destroyed by the various enchantments, but enough got through that Matt was able to notice the enemy fighters start to slow down.
Matt, for his part, opened with [Telekinesis]. He may have been still severely lacking in the finesse needed to utilize the high-Tier skill to its fullest, but he didn’t need finesse right now. A blast of pure force rippled through the battlefield, and it would not be denied. Willpower had been raised to reinforce the wall and tried to contest him, spells flared to try and stop him, but it was all for naught.
He wielded tens of millions of mana as easy as breathing, and the sword he wielded had been made for Harper, once upon a time. He swung it, and his [Telekinesis] sharpened into countless razor-sharp blades. Silvery arms channeling shields were severed from their owners, heads shouting battlecries were sent flying, and bodies alight with enchantment-work were torn asunder. Hundreds were wounded, dozens were killed, and that was simply his opening move.
The wall of shields in front of him was sent reeling, dented and broken in places, and Matt refused to relent.
Matt corralled his working of force, extending it through the crystalline longsword in his hands, and thrust.
The glowing shields flickered and died in a large area. He recognized the activation of backup formations, which tried to close the hole he created, but Aster refused to let that happen. Chilling winds whipped and lashed, scouring mana before it could properly form and sending the less-fortified soldiers flying.
Like some great machine, elemental attacks lanced out from the openings in the shield wall, but Matt [Barrage]-cast a trio of [Bulwark]s to intercept them. It consumed a worrying amount of mana, but Matt simply withdrew a bit he’d stored in a mana crystal and he was once again fine, content to let his opponents tire themselves out on him.
After all, they were focused on him, and that meant they weren’t focused on Aster or Liz.
The all-pervading blizzard began to gather itself back together. Snow clumped into snowballs, then compacted into ice, no matter what was in the way. Soldiers, spells, floating debris, corpses, Matt saw them all get stuck in blocks of ice as Aster’s now substantially larger [Chill of the End] golem reformed.
The soldiers screamed as they tried to free themselves from the now animate ice. Healers and support personnel cast area dispels, but that meant they needed to contend with Aster. Splitting her attention to defend her summon meant some of the army personnel were freed but most of the hundred closest to them were now a part of the large ice golem. Those that were absorbed did not survive, their body heat drained away to nothing.
With a snap of her fingers, the ice golem detonated, [Cracked Shatter] turning the icy juggernaut into an explosion that utterly broke the frontlines of the Federation and filled the battlefield with razor-sharp fragments of ice.
Soldiers were already at work, clearing away the battlefield hazard, but the damage had been done. Blood had been spilled, and Liz was already pouncing.
Like a whipcord, the ribbons of blood drifting through the battlefield tightened and pulled, strangling and tying up hundreds of soldiers. Even if they didn’t need to breathe, and though most of their opponents escaped the noose, those which had been trapped were pulled out of formation and into their comrades, disrupting the already-collapsing formations all the more. A faint undercurrent of fear had begun to pick up in the soldiers, but their commanders ordered them to hold and reshape.
But that wouldn’t save them from Liz. A phoenix, clad in silver armor, swooped through one of the gaps in the wall, and in a burst of flame returned to human form. She skewered one soldier through his magical shield, prompting a small explosion of sparks as the focus for the shield installed in his arm overloaded.
The next moment, he had been completely exsanguinated, and Liz used that mass of blood to turn aside four more soldiers looking to take revenge for their fallen ally. Her own blood materialized through her domain, and formed into blades beginning to scythe through the ranks of soldiers near her.
Matt didn’t bother attacking the man who was trying to skewer Liz from behind, as it just wasn’t needed. The cloud of gore that had once been a Federation soldier solidified into Liz and reached out from behind the soldier and grabbed his head.
With a twist, the soldier’s head was facing the wrong way, but it was Liz’s thumbs driving into the man's eyes and brain which killed him.
The Liz clone picked up his weapon before the man exploded, and another Liz started to form from the blood cloud.
Matt stopped his barrage of ice attacks and darted to the other side from where Liz went as a few of the Liz clones started to defend Aster while his bond unleashed icy fury upon the opposing army, [Meadows of Rime] already making itself known as wounds opened from seemingly nothing.
An army sounded large. And academically, it was. There was no denying that, but inside, large didn’t adequately explain it.
An offensive battalion was a thousand combat-capable troops, and with five of them here, Matt felt like he was in a sea of enemies.
Undoubtedly he was, but he was also a shark.
That didn’t make him unbeatable, but he was the predator here.
The fish were already gathering and preparing their counter-offensive.
Matt’s [AI] spun in the background, focused not on trying to predict what his opponents would do— he had long since surpassed what his [AI] could reasonably predict with his own training and instincts— but instead, it focused on predicting what his opponents thought he might do. Soldiers came at him in waves, and he delighted in the sheer thrill of it.
One woman, slightly ahead of her compatriots, came at him with her arm extended into an electrified metal whip, and Matt didn’t block any of it. Instead, he let her wrap his arm up in the lightning-infused tendril, charge up the arm of his [Cracked Phantom Armor] with her mana, then flared [Mage’s Retreat]. Before his opponent could process what was happening, the grapple had reversed. Now, he had a death-grip on the woman’s whip, and with a solid yank, she became an oversized flail for Matt.
At least, until her arm gave way and her body was sent hurtling off into the distance, but Matt just shrugged, telekinetically threw the cable at another soldier, and bisected him with his sword a moment later.
Sergeants were gathering their squads while Lieutenants barked commands. Matt sent a volley of a few hundred [Fire Bolt]s, possible thanks to a ring Firmament had given him, at the leaders trying to reorganize the battle. Some of them died but, there were more and more moving in from further away to replace them.
Matt shifted his grip on his sword and slashed out three times. The newly-upgraded [Mana Slash] was razor-sharp and, when paired with [Barrage] and enhanced with [Double Tap] and [Hypersonic Edge], cut a bloody swath through the army.
A hum in Matt’s spiritual sense was the only warning he had as a trio of advanced single man ships swooped into the battlefield, raining projectiles down onto him. For the first time in the fight, Matt was actually pushed back, as the mana bombs they unleashed broke through [Bulwark] and sent him flying, until he flexed his Intent to stop dead in space. They hadn’t broken through [Cracked Phantom Armor], of course, but he still didn’t want to take one of those attacks head-on. That would be a bad habit to fall into.
And he certainly didn’t want Aster to take any of them head-on. She’d survive it, sure, but probably not unscathed. A barrage of spellfire from the ships flashed down on where a Liz was, tearing her armor to shreds and scattering her into an indeterminate mass of blood. In a flash, Matt identified and crushed the main person sustaining the spatial lock around him, then before the other soldiers could compensate, swapped places with Liz.
He momentarily rerouted nearly all of his mana, even drawing on his stored mana crystals, and flooded his body with every movement skill he had. The moment he reappeared where Liz had been, he was gone again, sheltering Aster with his body and a half-dozen [Bulwarks] he brought up just as the single man ships unleashed their latest wave of devastation.
With Aster’s support, Matt’s defenses held, the attacks only breaking through half of the [Bulwarks] before their attack was spent.
The single man ships swooped around, preparing for a second pass, but Matt wasn’t about to let that happen.
Aster knew what was coming, and her biting winds swept through the army encroaching on them. Colorful bolts of spells were lost to the storm, Intents were crushed under the weight that his bond brought to the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Matt reached to the very core of his spirit, fondly cradling a skill he’d longed for, and now finally had after all this time. He swapped his sword to his left hand, then let power accumulate in his right. The mana built incredibly quickly, but to Matt it felt like an age.
Mana coalesced, bucking and roiling at the speed and density it was being gathered in, budding forth from his skin like a geyser bursting from the ground, yet held back as Matt took aim.
The single man ships either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Matt was raising his arm at them, but he would make them regret that decision. He just needed to account for their speed, and… there.
Three ships tore through the battlefield like avenging angels.
Mana blossomed, like a new star igniting.
[Mana Beam]
And then there were two.
[Mana Beam]
And then there was one.
[Mana Beam]
The final single man ship spun, twisting in incredible ways as its pilot fought desperately to stay alive. It stayed one step ahead of the implacable, unstoppable column of mana, nearly as thick as Matt’s torso as millions of mana fed into it.
In what could only have been described as an act of desperation, the pilot spun and flipped, turning completely around and upside down in the blink of an eye, diving headlong into the beam. But to Matt’s surprise, the single man ship didn’t instantly explode, but instead managed to part the beam around the ship.
Even from this distance, Matt could sense the pilot’s Intent flaring, pushing back the beam just like Queen had done so many years ago with [Cracked Mana Spear]. But unlike Queen, the ship was unleashing ranged attacks all the while, trying to force Matt into dropping the attack, trying to outlast Matt’s attack.
The Intent was quite impressive, Matt could tell. Honed over millennia, designed to shrug off cover fire from artillery and the attacks of other ships. But artillery was insignificant, next to the power of an Ascender.
The realm itself trembled as the Domain gave way, and the ship detonated in a conflagration of lightning and light.
A moment later, the ship’s last-ditch cover fire reached Matt, and he brought his sword to bear, cutting through the attacks with [Dispelling Edge]. For good measure, Matt used [Dragonflame] to blanket the battlefield as he defended himself.
A few Federation shield-bearing teams tried to step forward, but they were overwhelmed and pushed back by the flames, giving Matt the opportunity to dart forward and back into the melee, out of Aster's ice cloud.
A cloud that he noticed was growing.
In the interest of helping his bond, Matt cast [Hail] and let the spell create massive amounts of ice and wind as he struck down soldier after soldier with his blade and spells. Wind in a vacuum was fleeting, but the mana kept it moving and tangible. And of course, Aster’s ice only grew more potent in the cold void of space.
The fell wind swept through the Federation ranks, forcing them to break off their barrage of attacks to dig in. Those a bit too slow were caught in the currents of wind, sweeping them into their comrades and causing cascading failures of formation. The truly unlucky were swept off into the inky blackness, Aster’s Concept sinking deep into their flesh and leaving them as icy sculptures drifting into the void. The survivors huddled together in ever-tighter formations, stacking buffs to ward off the chill.
Of course, that just left them as sitting rabbits for Liz to sweep in as a [Blood Tidal Wave], overwhelming the tightly-packed squadrons. Healers spread throughout the troops worked overtime to keep their charges alive, but doing so only ever earned personal attention from Liz.
Even now, a clone resolved itself out of a splash of blood, and a sweep of Liz’s arm summoned a half-dozen spears of blood otherwise matching her main one, her [Sanguine Pike Block] moving with deadly intent to skewer half a squad, while Liz herself charged straight through the alchemist-healer that had been previously keeping them alive.
The blood in her wake shivered and consumed itself in a flash of light. With the mana she’d gained from [Blood Sacrifice], Liz powered up her [Sanguine Regeneration]. Flesh became blood, blood became two, and blood once more became flesh as another [Blood Clone] spawned, already on the hunt. One Liz transformed into a phoenix, leaving scarlet flames in her wake, and the other returned to the tidal wave draining the life from dozens of soldiers with every passing second.
Fear swept through the army.
A few particularly cowardly soldiers tried to make a break for it, frantically fleeing from their squadrons, but the first two who tried it were annihilated in an explosion of pink and blue energy.
Those same explosions turned on Matt a moment later, spellfire focusing on the three Ascenders as the army’s commanders joined the fray.
They were led by a woman with cannons replacing her hands, the one responsible for the pink and blue spells he’d noticed, but a full ten people swooped from the command ship. One was surrounded by a flock of golem-birds, three had swords integrated into their arms, another had metal tendrils extending from the base of their neck, and all of them had well-maintained and fairly potent gear.
They were all quite shiny, and certainly looked like an impressive bunch. With luck, they’d even put up a bit of a fight.
Alongside the army’s commanders, another wave of single man ships jetted over the battlefield, unleashing spellfire on them below. Between the pink-and-blue attacks, and now the ship artillery, Matt felt even [Cracked Phantom Armor] get strained. He suspected there was armor-piercing at play, a thought confirmed as his armor began to crack and dent.
It was already beginning to mend itself, but it was the principle of the matter.
Aster was doing fine, but needed a bit more mana to keep up her barrier of wind that was deflecting all projectiles aimed at her into the soldiers still providing their own cover fire. Liz didn’t even bother trying to dodge, and while plenty of the clones destroyed by spellfire didn’t reform, his wife had blood to spare.
She also had plenty of sources to replenish herself with.
Aster began engaging with the ships starting with conjuring a [Tailwind] elemental to stay mobile enough to keep up, Liz coalesced into dozens of [Blood Clones] and charged the army itself, and Matt flexed his Intent, establishing himself as the center of the battlefield.
He charged the commanders, and they responded in kind.
The woman at the lead kept firing her projectiles, which Matt answered as succinctly as possible, using [Cracked Air Slide] to close the distance, and [Mana Charge], [Fire Weapon], [Shield Shatter], [Hypersonic Edge], and a fully-focused [Sword Twin] to literally disarm her.
His follow-up attack, while she was still weakened, left her a head shorter.
Nine to go.
The Domains of his current foes were finely-honed machines, permeating their bodies in a way which left them unable to simply be cut in half with a single blow, or torn in half with [Telekinesis]. He’d have to weaken their Willpower a bit before the killing blow if he wanted to use his blade to do the job.
Of course, [Mana Beam] didn’t care about that, and utterly annihilated the chest of the next-closest man before carrying on to demolish the sword-arm and half the shoulder of the man behind him, and terminating somewhere in the mass of soldiers beyond all of them.
Seven to go.
However, the skill didn’t stop when he commanded it to, instead going haywire and consuming more and more mana until he finally cut it off with a self-aimed dispel. Apparently, one of the commanders had [Spell Glitch] or something similar.
Those skills had the same weakness as nearly all dispels, in that they were practically helpless against buffs which meant the spell did nothing to stop him and little to even slow him down.
A flock of golem-birds swooped and dove around him, firing off a steady barrage of low-power attacks. They peppered his armor, but Matt ignored them for now, as they weren’t doing any harm.
The two sword-arm commanders who still had their swords flanked him, and Matt split off a [Sword Twin] from his main sword, crystallized it with his Talent, and grabbed it with his off-hand, blocking each attack in turn. Then, he flipped over backwards, leaving a trail of [Afterimage]s in his wake. He took hold of each image with [Illusion Manipulation] and split them off in every direction, disguising his own actions as he grabbed the back of one commander’s neck and sent an overwhelming blast of [Lightning Torrent] directly into his head.
The man spasmed, and Matt finished him off with a sword through his back. Then, he kicked the body at the other sword-arm commander, empowering the makeshift weapon with [Fire Weapon] and using [Metal Manipulation] on the corpse’s integrated weapons to bowl over his former colleague.
Six to go.
Matt was momentarily distracted from finishing off the other sword-arm fighter by a dozen metal tendrils striking at his joints and the normal weak points of armor. He glanced behind him, and saw a pair of his opponents charging up blasts of plasma and force to strike him while he was “immobilized.”
In response, he powered up [Flight] and [Mage’s Retreat], tearing off two of the metal tendrils with a single motion and pulsing [Dragon’s Drought] to scour away the metal of four more. The remaining half-dozen tendrils he severed with a backhanded [Dispelling Edge], [Hypersonic Edge], and [Shield Shatter]. For good measure, he reached out with his Intent and pulled the recoiling tendril-commander into his hand, blocking the incoming attacks with the body.
Those attacks didn’t kill the commander, but flooding [Cracked Phantom Armor] with decay mana did, as the neck in his hand rotted and rusted away, destroying the brainstem through the very port the tendrils had once come from.
Five to go.
Matt felt a blade sneak in between two of the plates of his armor, piercing [Cracked Phantom Armor] and sinking deep into his back. The attack carried an entire suite of debuffs with it, but Matt flooded the area with [Barbarian’s Hide] to help fight it off even as [Regeneration] erased the wound itself.
Matt spun on the spot, coming face-to-face with another attack that he judged would pierce his armor were it to connect. There just wasn’t enough time to dodge.
So he froze and the realm followed his lead.
He was Dauntless. A simple blade, no matter how strong, would never change that.
Matt became a fixed point in space, and the blade stopped dead. It didn’t bounce off, or penetrate the armor and stop on his eyeball. It simply stopped, right where it met Matt’s visor. Two more attacks slammed into him from behind, and a steady trickle of weak spellfire came from above, but they didn’t matter. Matt was the fixed point here, and while fairly draining on his Willpower, nobody he was facing could harm him while it was active.
The man tried to draw back his sword-blade, but Matt struck faster. Three blades fell, meeting the hesitant single blade his foe was armed with, and emerged the undisputed champion. The blade didn’t shatter, but it was knocked so far back that the man it was attached to went alongside it, meeting the razor-sharp edge of Matt’s crystallized [Sword Twin] head-first. It cut a massive gash into the man’s face, and before he could even properly recoil, Matt had directed the second Twin to finish him off while he took the first in-hand.
Four to go.
[Barrage] let him dual-wield [Dispelling Edge], and force and plasma fell away as what remained of their spells’ forms. A woman with a wide-brimmed hat and a curved sword charged him, trailing aurora in her wake. He dodged her first strike, tripped her with [Gravity Manipulation], and cut a deep gash in her back as she fell. Colorful light engulfed her, a defensive spell of some kind, but Matt stripped it and her life away with a point-blank [Dragonflame].
Three to go.
The burned body of the woman fell away, and Matt pierced her head with an [Icicle] delivered with a kick for good measure.
Matt felt a telekinetic force try to grab onto him, but he overrode it with his own [Telekinesis] reinforcing his own actions. Between that and [Flight], he finally stopped getting distracted and jetted forward, one sword dedicated to each of the mages. The first attack disrupted them, the second maimed them, and the third killed them.
One to go.
The golem-birds still circled around him, firing off a negligible barrage of attacks seemingly with the intent of wearing him down. Dispels were mixed in, and there were a few somewhat-nastier attacks as well, but Matt had dodged anything that [Cracked Phantom Armor] couldn’t shrug off.
Their controller hovered some distance away, watching dispassionately as Matt slaughtered the rest of their colleagues. Matt couldn’t tell much about the commander, except that they looked to be little more than a bit of skin stretched over an almost fully mechanical body, and their face was hidden behind a silver mask.
Matt cocked his head, and unleashed [Mana Beam] once more. But instead of simply lancing through the commander’s body, leaving a trail of annihilation in its wake, one of the golem-birds detonated into colorful smoke.
Then another.
And another.
The rest followed in short order, and while the commander was startled and began to teleport away, it all happened too quickly. The moment the last of the birds burst into silver smoke, [Mana Beam] finally worked its magic.
None to go.
He turned to rejoin the rest of his team, the commanders thoroughly eliminated. As Matt did so, he was interrupted by a blast of flame from the side. He turned to look, and saw the now-disarmed sword-arm man who had taken a glancing blow from [Mana Beam] at the start of the fight. Apparently losing a quarter of his limbs and torso hadn’t dissuaded him, and had thought that Matt might finally be taken down with a sneak attack of simple fire.
Matt shot the man an incredulous look, then flexed his Intent, fired off a [Gravitic Bolt] and enhanced it with [Cosmic Pressure]. The barely-visible attack struck the man dead center, and a moment later he’d collapsed into an indistinct ball of meat and metal, leaving Matt back on course to regroup with his friends.
Aster was flanked by two Liz clones as she eliminated the last of the Federation’s aerial support. Pieces of the ships, frozen and windblasted, slowly drifted through space, soon thereafter joined by fragments of ice and even more shrapnel as Aster threw a small glacier in the path of one of the two still-attacking fighters.
With a passing fancy, Matt reached out towards the final ship with [Telekinesis] wanting to mimic something he had seen recordings of Harper do. Instead he found that some combination of his control and the 10 million MPS he was willing to dedicate to the skill was insufficient to fully freeze the single man ship mid-flight.
So, he settled for a bit of a nudge, disrupting its flight patterns enough for Aster to conjure up a potent wind and send the ship on a direct collision course with the army. Soldiers scrambled to get away in vain, but turned into little more than sparks and blood as the ship collided with them. Instead of coming around for another pass, the last single man ship took a long route, returning to the capital ship well outside of Matt’s easy range.
One of the Liz’s next to them intercepted an arrow, cutting it from its flight path, and the other darted off towards the seemingly-empty section of the battlefield it had come from.
All around them, dozens of Liz cut a bloody swath through the soldiers, a one-woman army of her own. The Liz still by Aster and Matt acted loosely as the ‘main’ body, clad in [Blood Crystal Armor] and directing a handful of full [Blood Clone]s, each of whom had their own small squadrons of [Lesser Blood Clone] surrounding them.
Matt knew it was all a front. The main difference between [Blood Clone] and [Lesser Blood Clone] for his wife was simply whether or not it came with a mind. But that mind wasn’t tied to any single clone, not truly. So long as its spawning body existed, it could pilot any of Liz’s clones… or rather, any six-to-ten clones, because Liz was like that.
Every once in a while she ran into ‘resistance’ where a number of above-average soldiers had gathered. With how she had to split her skill usage across all her clones, there were several times she lost a clone in battle… only for it to be reformed shortly thereafter, followed by Liz focusing on whoever had managed to get a lucky shot in.
More common were lost limbs, and the vast majority of the time whenever an arm, leg, or even head was lost, the Liz turned to blood, then returned to human form. Only certain types of skills were capable of dealing lasting damage as a result, and even fewer were actually fatal. She simply didn’t have weak points any more, not even her head. Even having an entire clone annihilated wasn’t a hindrance, no more than losing a finger would be for Matt.
Each and every body, each and every drop of her blood on the battlefield, was just as much Liz as the rest of it combined. The Talent scanner had said she was blood, and it meant it. The healers in Group Kudzu had speculated that every drop of her blood within her spiritual perception, centered loosely on her ‘center of mass’, would need to be destroyed for her to die… a process which would only initiate her phoenix rebirth.
There was no such thing as being truly unkillable, but Liz was rapidly growing to challenge that assertion.
Of course, Matt wasn’t about to let Liz have all the fun.
Some of the soldiers were rapidly retreating to their ship, but what looked like the strongest foot soldiers remained, trying to amass enough fire to overwhelm Aster’s [Chill of the End].
In response, Matt flooded his armor with fire mana and carefully activated his new Talent, confining the effect to strictly over the top of his current set of armor.
Crystal instantly encased him, the normal blue of [Cracked Mana Armor] replaced by a deep crimson, with phantom flames reflected in its endless facets, and Matt interposed himself between the barrage of fire and Aster without a second thought.
There were enough people involved in the barrage with a Domain or Talent dedicated to fire that he actually needed to try to block the incoming attacks, but with his armor pre-attuned to fire, that was the extent of it.
Before his Tier 25 Talent and before the upgrade orbs, such a trick might have blown past [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s defenses, but not now.
Matt charged out of the flames and into the mass of troops who tried to hold their ground. The front liners held glowing shields, but between his [Mage’s Retreat]-empowered strength and his sword enhancing each of his telekinetic blows, Matt cut through them like a farmer harvesting wheat.
The look of resigned determination reminded Matt of the face his fellows in Minkalla had worn as they faced the Fall General. In that situation, there were only two options: stand and fight, or run and hope you could get away from someone insistent on taking your life. Except now the tables were turned. Matt was the implacable foe who wouldn’t allow them to retreat.
A burst of [Dragonflame] showed them what real fire was.
They burned.
One particular soldier, perhaps one responsible for his earlier difficulty defending against fire, tugged on the [Dragonflame] with perhaps a lot less subtlety than he’d expected. Compared to the iron grip of Zack or the nearly-invisible influence of Liz, it was clumsy but effective. For a moment, Matt considered using [Fire Manipulation] to properly contend with it… but he decided against it.
Instead, he dropped [Dragonflame] and called upon [Dragon’s Breath].
The mighty wind scattered the soldiers around him and left a clear path to the woman Matt had identified as responsible for the attempted usurpation of [Dragonflame]. Fear radiated from her spirit and ignited, white and black flames forming into a torrent aimed squarely at Matt. They cut past the innate defense Matt’s armor had against fire, then bypassed his armor entirely. But they couldn’t bypass [Regeneration], and they couldn’t stop Matt’s [Crescent Sweep] no matter how many of the strange grayscale flames she threw around.
When Matt emerged from the conflagration, his armor was no longer red, but flickering black and white in the same way the woman’s flames were.
Matt felt [Cracked Phantom Armor] take hits on his back, but he had used the exterior layer of his armor to block the attacks. The damage the spells did was considerable, and all the blades had some very strong armor-piercing enchantments, but only twice did they manage to bypass the combination of [Cracked Phantom Armor] and the armor once worn by a member of the Cosmos themselves.
He and Liz killed the final soldier still on the field simultaneously, spear and sword piercing the man’s silvery chest from each side. Everyone else was either dead, dying, or had already retreated to the ship.
Matt half suspected that to end the battle and was already transmitting an offer for surrender when he felt the mana cannons on the ships parked in orbit start charging.
If only it was that easy to kill Ascenders.
Matt swished his sword through the air, absorbing a mana crystal to begin his casting of [Breach]. By the time the mana cannon was ready, so was Matt.
And his was bigger.
An average capital ship at his Tier might have a main shot of about two million mana. Matt responded with a [Breach] twenty times that size, unleashed at the same time. The two projectiles met in midair, and after a moment of the two titanic spells colliding, the ship’s gave way.
Unfortunately, his single quickly charged attack wasn’t strong enough to destroy the ship’s hull, but it did punch through its shielding and rend the metal open in several places.
Then, the offer for surrender came.
Matt, Liz, and Aster didn’t need to speak to gather, and there was an uncontrollable excitement bubbling up in them.
If anyone thought they were false Ascenders, those rumors would be put to rest now.
They had faced down an army and won.
Now, they just needed to keep doing that until they won the war.
Comments
Noah
Killer whale(orca) is more threatening and frightening to see let alone face than a shark would if I were to a comparison for this moment for Matt
Juli Freixi
Thanks a lot for the chapter C_Mantis!!
Nicholas Grey
No, the “minimum cost” is the set initial cost of 500 *and no extra “charging”* (which caps out at 100x initial). You can then charge it from there. There’s no indication that you can increase the initial cost. Just like there’s no indication you can cast a 10-mana fireball for 100 mana to make it bigger. That’s why spells have higher-Tier “versions” that have increased cost and increased power, eg [Jolt] -> [Bolt]. Exceptions like [Hail] and [Sheer Cold] have always been explicitly flagged. Matt's 1% is currently 410,000 (as his max mana is 41 mililion). He should have been able to pay 400,000 upfront
Donan The Barbarian
I think it's a case of minimum initial cost on regular [Breach] is 500 and then you can increase the spell to 100x the initial cost you used. So [Breach] at full charge is 50,000 mana if you used 500 mana as the initial cost but if you used say 200,000 mana as the initial cost you can charge it to 20,000,000 mana, now I think Matt's current 1% mana isn't 200,000 mana yet so he needs to use a mana stone to get above 200,000 in a second then he can cast [Breach] with most of his mana regeneration in the next second.
Nicholas Grey
"Matt swished his sword through the air, absorbing a mana crystal to begin his casting of [Breach]. [...] two million mana. Matt responded with a [Breach] twenty times that size, unleashed at the same time. " This runs directly counter to the description of [Breach] from Volume 3. "[Cracked Breach]. The Cracked effect drastically reduced the minimum cost for the skill[...] But the cracking made it impossible to further lower the cost. [...] Its original 500 mana base cost was reduced to 100, but it could then be charged up a hundredfold for added damage. With the Cracked version, which meant it could take up to 10,000 mana for a devastating long range attack." This clearly defines the un-Cracked version of [Breach] as: "Costs 500 mana. Can be charged *up to* 50,000 mana". There's no indication *in genera* that non-channel spells can be deliberately cast at higher cost/higher power, so Matt should never have needed to crack a mana crystal to cast it, and it certainly shouldn't have been able to be cast at 40 million mana (indicating an initial cost of 400,000, which is actually within Matt's 1% mana range anyway. This issue is potentially obviated with the use of an Upgrade orb, which inherently seems to include +cost/+power in addition to the bonus effects. Was this intended to be the case?
James Van Riper
The Empire, like all Great Powers who got a new set of Ascenders, wanted to be able to hold up their newest Ascenders and point to a victory just days after they finished the Path. So the other powers have ascenders too? I thin kwe have only seen spoiled lords so far. I dont think this was clear and I always wondered why they didnt create them. I see now that the real secret is the Empirors ability to search the best future to find those Ascenders and nurture them., So all that scheming of that Queen a couple chapters back was all TRUE!
MinE
I think the Republics thing was cybernetic augmentation. I think the feds thing is being crazy. P.s Wonder how long till they realize how crazy she is.
Neil
It's not great, but everyone T25 has lived more life than you or I can ever expect to, these probably aren't people with young children, but rather young great great-grandchildren. If I got to live that long at the cost of potentially being slaughtered in battle after a thousands years I would take it in a heartbeat.
Neil
In real life a medic is primarily going to be concerned with saving lives and preventing long term injury, and are not going to have a major immediate impact on the battle. A healer in this setting is literally bringing people back to combat readiness in seconds and only healing cooldowns and instant kills will prevent any team with a healer from being effectively unbeatable. So I'm not sure the rules make sense with magical healing. Taking into account the ability of T15+ of surviving and perfectly recovering from nearly any injury that doesn't instantly kill them if given the chance, and healers play a very different role here than they do in our world.
BurnNote
Plus, training. Luna doesn't like AI, so he wouldn't be using/training it that much for combat prediction, and his AI started at 0. It's not as good as it could be.
Sean Jennings
Better at individual combat prediction specifically. Not full information analysis. I'd imagine that there would be a lag if he was relying on his AI to make combat decisions because there would essentially be a mind telling another mind what it should expect, instead of just one mind taking in information and responding.
Fake Name
Yeah I'm thinking he needed mana in a fraction of a second due to higher tiers experiencing time during battle much faster
Darth Bayes
> Matt is far better than his AI This makes no sense to me. Matt's brainpower scales with his cultivation, but his AI scales with his _mana_, which is _absurdly_ greater.
MikeL
Now that I think about it, the Guilds are by far the least explored. It might be nice if MLA got to visit their Allies. Maybe they can help fight a battle in a shared system.
Joles
500K Mana for a 30/70 split
DisgruntleFairy
I'm intrigued that the Federations "thing" is that they explore cybernetic physical augmentations. The Sects are all about altering skills. The Monster Collective are all beasts, the Clans are all about teams (and elite gear), and the Corporations are all about combat suits. So that leaves us to wonder what the Guild and Republics "thing" is.
Evernap
First Aster turned a hurricane of spells and attacks into just a few barely mention able stragglers. Then primed Liz to start controlling the battlefield with blood by turning her summon into shrapnel. Slowed enemies down, made spells harder to create, use and land. Forced enemies to clump together so Liz could Tidal Wave groups. I agree some of her kit and attacks should be better explained and shown but she does a lot also.
Michael Maor
I don't actually like Aster, and I'd think it would be perfectly fine if she wasn't part of the team. My issue isn't "we don't see enough of Aster". My issue is that she's presented as if she's an equal member of the team, but when they actually fight she seems useless at best, or like in the fight with Light and Shadow actively hampering Matt and Liz (because Shadow was able to keep Mat and Liz locked up just fine until Aster was defeated, but not after that). David's explanation for why she shouldn't be a full member of the team makes perfect sense, and if the characters acted like that it would be fine, but if the characters act like she's a full member then we should actually be shown that.
David Oldfield
I say this because more casualties occur when armies are more closely matched in power. a healer working for both sides is almost a recipe for disaster, in that the fight will almost certainly end with both sides dead.
David Oldfield
I am curious. If I heal a soldier and send him back to the battlefield to kill enemies, is it not true that that soldier, is in reality, a weapon in my hand. If I can heal a million soldiers, but have only a thousand, than likely that thousand can become a million if I have the required resources? If a general is a viable target, than a healer that works for only one side is a target. Moreover, I sort of think that a healer that works for both sides is a bigger target.
Phoenix R
I agree that I'd like to see more time spent on Aster's contribution to this fight, but I cannot agree that her only actions in this chapter are *small* attacks. She took on multiple ships solo toward the end, and she destroyed a whole swath of troops with her combo attack right at the beginning. Plus, she also slowed and controlled enemies throughout. I wouldn't call all these things a small contribution.
David Oldfield
Michael, I too like Astor a great deal. but the reality is that she was configured into the team (truly) in the late game. She had half the time to find ways to fit into the team when they were using mask powers than everyone else, which means she had to find ways to be useful in that way while they were still on the path. Before she went to the school, she was "just a bond" no matter her experience, and not a public part of the Q&T image. And after school she became scoop, and they had to drive hard to disconnect Matt from Quill, Torch from Liz. Moreover, both of her teammates are perfect tanks, able to absorb damage on an unholy scale. Now, all three of them are unfettered, allowed to display their powers without reservation. And yet, Scoop has existed for some 75 years while Q&T have existed for ... what... like 160?
Dylan Alexander
I like that thought
David Oldfield
Honestly, the fact that the great powers exist is proof that they each have political weight. In truth, the Empire exists primarily because the Uncle Manny has a domain dedicated to sacrifice and service. It is similar I think, and perhaps intentionally, to the reality of the world. How well a thing works depends on how it is implemented, and those who are implementing them. There is an old saying... something about how likely it is for a cheater to make accusations of cheating. I sort of thing Mr. C. Mantis sort of animated that point. Lady who murderers many of her own citizens to inscribe their bones and turn them into freaks, will suspect that ascenders arriving prematurely are similarly created. Monster collective might have similar views, considering where much of there strength comes from. It is in our own nature to cast our own sins upon others, especially when they do it better than us. So ... in regards to Republic, Clans, Etc. and who is better... I think that very much depends on where the winds are blowing.
David Oldfield
Waters uses primarily his domain/willpower for the water manipulation, likely augmented with skills in a mage configuration. I can see the strength, however, I think a lot of people are forgetting that the domain uses willpower, which is cultivated in the same way muscles are built. Duke Waters of the now (in PoA terms) has had thousands of years to hone that willpower, competing with +4Tier cultivators, and I remember a reference to +7 rifts... though no specifics. There is little information within the series about his relative abilities at Tier 25, beyond him being a monster. Now Matt has a similar domain, in that it is dominant within his sphere and suppresses his opponents, and infinite mana. Both of those advantages will increase over his next 7-10 tiers of progression, even as Waters increased his own willpower. Also note, that people at T25 really don't need to breathe more than once a year or something. so he really must pit his willpower in much the same way as Matt, as well as actually manifesting water. In this respect, I suspect that he would have showed up at the defenses and chased everyone around for a few weeks, trying to get close enough for his domain to suppress them, even as he attempts to use the water in their own bodies to kill them.
MR105
I’m not asking for less combat, more integration between those two sides of the story. The last chapter was entirely made up of a few conversations about gear and this one was wholly combat - in both cases the pace sorta felt like it overstayed its welcome
Mario Morales
That dude is not real. He's the main character in an extreme OP MC story.
Tom Henman
Did we read same chapter?!
Michael Maor
I wasn't asking for her to send huge damaging spells, just to show that she was actually having an effect. THere was a single person ship that she helped destroy, other than that? Matt seemed to do everything with no support. The chapter was focused on Matt, which is fine, but there was still time to mention a few times the way Aster's debuffs made destroying the enemy easier if that was what was happening. Instead there was just repeated mentions of Matt being concerned she'd get hit.
Tristan R Mitchell
Aster is a Support Caster. She doesn't send the huge damaging spells, she sets up for the other party members to land the huge damaging spells. She slows the enemy, puts out Golems to attract the adds, buffs her allies, and so on.
Oni no chi
What I understand (Gamer terms) she was debuffing the enemy and was holding a concentration spell so her getting hit would mean that the enemy was no longer weakened
Michael Maor
This was a great and terrible chapter. Great -because taken on it's own the chapter was great and the battle scenes were exciting and very well done. It also does a good job of moving the plot , however Terrible - because once more we have Matt and Liz fighting an enemy with Aster not only contributing anything but needing to be protected. At least this time, unlike the fight with Shadow and Light you don't have defeating Aster make Matt and Liz suddenly become much more effective, but if Aster is supposed to be support, we should see her supporting Matt and Liz. Instead all we see is her toss a few small attacks that don't do much while Matt and Liz mow down enemies in job lots.
Dylan Alexander
I definitely see where you’re coming from and you make a lot of sense. Fuck it, let’s just all join the corporation. At least we all know it’s just about making money.
Havokk
@evernap I would also add to the suggestions list the Warformed series and wish upon the stars
JauPim
Personally, I don't think this fight will expose too much. The original cover was that Matt's talent was his armour skill. And if the other GP's manage to get info from the Playpen then they will see that Matt has had it from the beginning. It's also a very extreme crack which means it doesn't really resemble the original skill anymore and would be far too valuable for him to have been given without breaking the Path rules. Manny and Co have probably removed any mention of the skill shard being lost. The GP's will probably accept that the armour comes from his talent as the logical explanation. Matt has now upgraded his skill so this fight is the first the GP's will see of him since he reached tier 25. So his 'armour talent' now has its upgrade which will only make the story more believable. This means that the GP's will be working on the assumption that his talent is indeed focused on his armour, with the tier 1 being the armour and the tier 25 being the crystalising and mana aspecting. Which leaves the tier 3 as the wild card. And since the mana aspecting absorbs mana from incoming attacks they are more likely to believe that the tier 3 allows Matt to store the mana of incoming attacks for later use. If they learn that his tier 1 blocked mana cultivation then it might only further support this assumption as it would explain why he uses talismans and why he developed a mana granting concept, since his theoretical mana pool would be reliant on incoming damage. Just my thoughts.
NeverNaught
Replace dogs with foxes and you got it.
1FantasyFanatic
Can someone please give me a reminder of what a normal tier 25 soldier’s mana capacity and mana regen. are? We’ve spent so long with ascenders I have forgotten the stats of mere immortals.
Tommy
@Evernap Off the top of my head: Defiance of the Fall Primal Hunter Cradle I Shall Seal The Heavens Battlefield Farmer Beware of Chicken Threads of Fate Ripple System Mother of Learning All the Skills Mark of the Fool System Universe Hero of the Valley Shadow Sect A thousand Li A Will Eternal Martial World Some of these veer into full on Wuxia /Xuanhuan territory. Some are better than others!
Serran
I'll have to disagree on the Republic being better, though that is mostly depending on the guy in charge of the Empire being a good guy. The thing is, the Republic lies to it's citizens about stuff that is central to their organization. Large amounts of the "Republic" apparently don't even know they are part of a multiplanetary society. Until that part of the Interlude I was firmly of the opinion that the Republic was better, at least in general terms. However no democracy can work without the Voters being able to asses what they are voting for. If the lowest tiers don't even know that they are part of the Republic their Vote is most likely completely irrelevant for the larger society. I considered that there might be something of a Tiered voting system, as distateful as this would be for something that at least tries to be democratic. However given the way that even starting cultivation on the lowest tier Worlds depends on being lucky, finding something that is intentionally hidden and convincing someone to help you the entire Name is nothing more than a cruel joke. WIth that it is also not surprising that we got a Conspiracy Nut as Ruler of the Republic. She is running an incredible large, complicated and damaging conspiracy which I consider ver much horryifing. Sure there are even worse examples in the story. But the fact that there are worse examples doesn't make the "Republic" any better.
Evernap
Given that you read PoA and Jason's got any recommendations to read?
Evernap
Great comment.
Evernap
It's been mentioned time and time again that the enemies pore over battle data and pull from every Talent and skill to make perfect counters. So they have to constantly fight blind while all their tricks slowly get revealed and countered more and more. Specific kill squads will be made. Reread the L&S fight vs Dao Child Maven in CH. 255
Evernap
L&S obviously aren't slouches in stand up fights and power. (being ascenders) Shadow could make every attack miss and every hit hit. High dagger dmg so probably one shots most of her enemies. Remember they were surprised when only Torch was effected by the daggers. L would take every spell against him and steal the mana and target weaknesses with little mana expenditure. Both M&L have significant mana control so L being able to easily counter their spell work would be worse against the avg soldier.
Evernap
Usually you know what abilities people use and the avg mana cost then range of cooldown/efficiency usually possible. So either Matt could be using lot's of mana, high efficiency, pre charged Talismans, etc. Either way it is obvious there was a significant mana expenditure. Also they are no longer fully trying to hide Matt's power just the full extent.
SodaBoBomb
Duke Waters would've showed up in the system and barely had to move as the entire enemy army drowned where they stood.
SodaBoBomb
Artillery is insignificant next to the power of the Dark Side.....wait....I mean Ascenders!
Alex
Reactions are always the best xD
Alex
Yeah. But they live in a world where everyone T15+ is virtually immortal. Wars are population control. War is terrible, but I'm pretty sure joining the army is voluntary in every great force. Nobody forces anybody to fight. Hell, if you want you can even be an independent and just be done with politics forever. They all chose this life.
Alex
Yeah, killing should weigh on them. They've done it before, but this is on a bigger scale. It does help that I'm pretty sure the army is voluntary in every great power. That means they all chose to be there. Truthfully I doubt most of them are bad people, just soldiers doing their jobs, trying to protect their home on both sides. But they knew the risks when they signed up. Killing them to make sure they don't kill others on the empire side. And the empire didn't start the war after all. That gives them the moral high ground (though the other forces probably have their own propaganda machines working to convince their people that the war was necessary to stop the big bad empire from killing them all)
Alex
Killing combat healers is fine, you're not allowed to target aid stations. It was the same in the Pather War. Melinda was fighting as a team healer and thus she was fair game to the enemy.
Alex
Mana regen intent :)
Alex
Yeah, I don't like that you have to go into serious debt to be allowed to awaken. Maybe not force it on people, fine, but at least make it an affordable option for the poor. Reminds me of Matt all the way back, working for over a year so he can go afford a single rift slot. That sucked too. But yeah, overall, long term the republic is probably more stable than the empire. I prefer the empire as it currently is, but all that central power means one bad ruler can do so much more damage than in the republic. But a good one can also do a lot of good. The fact that each Emperor is on the Throne for 30K years and the emperor can't really be assassinated (Emmanuels grandma killing her previous emperor being the exception) and them having the power to beat everyone up even without the need for armies also makes them a lot more stable than Earth empires. Mortals at least live good lives. Overall the sects are the worst I think.
Alex
What else is there though? Conversations is kinda a broad term for anything non combat. And they are Ascenders, their whole purpose is combat. Makes sense they do it a lot. (I love the reaction chapters more though :D but they would kinda fall under conversations too)
Bob Bryan
Yes and no. The next war is more important because it will be a true everyone in war but winning here will give them an edge. Plus matt and the rest all need training now for that war. So it's important but the upcoming war this one leads to is crucial because it will be no holds bared. Plus if they find out his talent to soon, that would be very bad.
James Faulkner
That’s what I was thinking. He doesn’t need a refill, unless it’s a %of a second to cast
David Oldfield
I think Vietnam proved a few points in this regard. Sometimes you need to lean on Uncle Pragmatism. After all, under the right conditions, a good healer can turn 10 enemies into 500 enemas, and enemas must be avoided at all costs.
David Oldfield
Liz is Legion. Mat is almost invulnerable. Aster can treat a battlefield like a particularly annoying game of 3D Tetris and manage a high score. I'll sit by your comment and drink a Heineken, because both sound interesting, and the truth of it is manifestly obvious.
SilasDrekken
She's more than a little paranoid. She's a full-on tin-foil clad "The chemtrails are turning our frogs gay!" conspiracy nut.
Sean
Do people have a sense of how much Mana is used in attacks? Because I feel like when you suddenly see a flood of possibly a billion Mana in a fight there has to be some kind of trace of it.
David Oldfield
T&Q, L&S, were all stacked gimmicks. The mask was more than physical. It was personality and power as well. The reason I bring this up is, as I said in another comment recently, longevity will always overpower strength, so long as skill is involved. If I can crush cement with a single punch, it doesn't matter so long as you can dodge my punches, and last long enough. And I think that is the real truth about war. Even with both numbers and tactical superiority, there is a quality to endurance that nothing can overcome. Any team with Matt is guaranteed to overstay its' welcome.
Dylan Alexander
The empire in 40k are xenophobic cunts. But I mean that whole Universe in general is just a sadistic mess haha. But I mean even the empire in this world is still an empire. And empires in general will always end up doing some pretty dark stuff. Look at the British Empire, we invented labour camps for ffs. Among other horrendous things.
Mario Reiman
As I Was reading this chapter I was thinking of the warhammer 40k human faction. The mech implants, dictatorship, servitors and other horrors in the name of preserving their empire.
MR105
I like getting some combat again, but I do wish it wasn't only combat. Makes the story feel really slow when each chapter is only combat or conversations.
David Oldfield
Really, you rather demonstrated that the fastest way for him to refill his mana pool is to empty it, right? I mean, can't he simply surge all of his remaining mana to his chip, and instantly have more? Hell, at this point, he can fill any number of channel spells with "all of his mana" and then up the charge to max immediately. That said, on a war footing, it is difficult to remain near friends, and he is finally moving into mana quantities, and possibly concentrations, beyond his tier by a great deal. Seems likely that he can manifest (Or MANAfest) crystals for his allies in advance, in case he is elsewhere?
David Oldfield
Pretty sure that even basic intel gathering will turn up Matt's mana concept, Quill's inspiration at Minkalla, Tournament failures about Quill "throwning money at it", Liz's blood affinity, most everything about Aster, and the changes to Matt's """"ARMOR TALENT"""". They will target Aster, because MLA made such a big production out of protecting her, while both showing clear signs of invulnerability. Pretty sure Gen. Darrow will raise the issue and Luna will pound it home. The next battle, enemies will seek to exploit a vulnerability that was corrected. If I had to guess, Aster will likely take the form of a Liz clone, protecting a Liz clone that is shaped like Aster.
Dylan Alexander
I see your points, and yeah fuck the federation. I honestly the republic is probably the best out of all the nations even if there current leader is a little paranoid and has a little hero complex.
Dylan Alexander
He’d actually be fine even if the empire lost this war. This war isn’t all that important as mentioned by the Emperor, it’s the one after that matters.
David Oldfield
Pretty sure a PoA version of the game would be VASTLY more entertaining.
David Oldfield
words are two dimensional. Life is omni-dimensional. Each aspect of life builds upon others, creating dimensions that do not typically exist in regular perception. It really is the reason that humans have such varied and unpredictable personalities. The very chemicals in our bodies can change our choices at times, or some long forgotten childhood trauma can cause us to make a decision that we do not fully comprehend. My point, with all of this, is to say that any scene... P.O.V, Fight, Train, Recreation, etc.; they are all valuable in creating a bigger picture, and that picture makes the rest better.
Bob Bryan
That's understandable on that. Also I agree that I don't want them to be killing machines, but I don't think they will be. This is a battle field and kindness gets you killed there, always does. How they act after the battle is important. How they will react to civilians will definitely be important. They are fighting soldiers who knew what they signed up for. Plus don't forget everyone here is above tier 15, they don't go down easy. They can regrow lost body parts, organs, etc. They need to hit them this hard or they won't go down. Ripping someone's limbs off wouldn't even count as a flesh wound here. For lack of a better term no one here is sqisuhy anymore, they are immortals and what needs ro be done to stop that would appear brutal for anyone who is below that tier. We are tier 0's watching a tier 25 war. So I don't think we need to fear them becoming killing machines. The empire wants ascendors not monsters thankfully, unfortunately those murder machines are being created in the federation. That, unfortunately, is where those fears are unfortunately true.
David Oldfield
If you remember, back during that ascender war at T-6, Matt made it known that he had the mana concept, and his team had greater longevity in a fight than others. Also, during the tournament, ascenders realized that he spent certain hours at a community hub, helping ascenders to recharge their mana... while Quill was accused of infusing money into his success due to the mana requirements of making talismans. Assuming that the enemy is not stupid, and has a decent intelligence gathering apparatus, They will almost certainly surmise that Matt has a domain that supplies mana regeneration based on personal proximity to him, that his inspiration at Minkalla improved it, and his intent made it near infinite. They will also assume, rightly to an extent, that his manager believed that such a domain would solve the most important problem soldiers and ascenders had, which was endurance. If I am more powerful than you but that only lasts a few seconds, you need only dodge a few attacks and I am helpless. If his domain generates mana for himself and his teammates, then his manager would help them to build off of that first because it helps them grow faster even has it helps them to last longer. Also, his armor has very publicly changed since he completed the path, which reinforces the idea that the armor is his talent.
Dylan Alexander
Again, I never even suggested an alternative. Please read my comments again. I know the war was inevitable. All I can as saying is that I don’t want our protagonists to devolve into mindless killing machines. Killing machines with some empathy hopefully. Them killing thousands of soldiers in such brutal ways is just hard for me to read that’s all. With what’s going on in todays world it’s just a little triggering.
Bob Bryan
I don't think we have to worry about him enjoying it to much. They already killed others in MInkalla. If Matt had his way he would be making new rifts and technology. Liz would be doing alchemy etc. Both would be making Mata and Leon happy having kids and aster would be making new ice cream flavors. It's just they know the stakes. If you show an enemy mercy on a battlefield, you end up dead. If the enemy wins matt at best becomes a living mana battery FOREVER and Liz and aster probably become trophies. Not to mention all the death and destruction over the empire as a whole. So it's less they enjoy it and more know the price of failure. War is hell but it's not the worst hell.
David Oldfield
There was a comment in a recent chapter claiming that he fought up 7 tiers once, but that might have been a typo. Either way, I have seen evidence that he can take down 6 elites at +3-4 tiers pretty fast, but nothing in that last chapter specified that everyone was EXACTLY T25. Remember, they are allowed to supply +1-4 Tiers in that fight, which is far more likely for the commanders than it is for the rank and file. Considering the benefits provided by the tiers, it is likely that he curb-stomped all of them (who were likely selected with the idea of putting down ascenders), in less time than it took us to read about it. What I gather about D. Waters, is that his domain, and especially his willpower, is the next thing to unassailable. After all, even the human body has a lot of water, which may in fact may well belong to him when he presses upon it. That said, Water is a patient adversary that erodes over time, while Matt is a nuclear plant in a field of solar collectors. While it is possible that he is straight up stronger (tier for tier) than Matt, though I doubt it, I am pretty sure the massive mana production just smote the scale.
Bob Bryan
No, from the enemy that started this. The empire didn't declare war, they are in the empire defending their home. You can't have mercy like that on a battle field. You do, your the one who dies. They already did this in minkalla if you forget. Do you think the people they are fighting wouldn't act exactly the same way. If they don't fight matt gets thrown in a box for the rest if his life and Liz and aster share a very dark fate most likely along with countless innocent lives and military personal slaughtered by their enemies. THAT is the alternative to war.
John Anastacio
Healers can be and commonly are killers in this setting. Like the combat healer Bulwark or the many healers SLAM fought in Minkalla, or Soddus of the Monster Collective. Healers who only heal do exist and that's where healer stations come into play, but often a combat healer is just a killer with a healing spell or two.
John Anastacio
Shadow gives perfect mobility and range to her team and Light can steal and subvert the mana of others the way Liz steals and subverts their blood, so I figure Light and Shadow do fine in large engagements. Shadow just has to teleport them rapidly from place to place in sequence as opposed to the way MLA dominates from a relatively fixed position.
Dylan Alexander
I never even suggested an alternative. I just said I didn’t want them to shrug off killing thousands of people. At the end of the day from every other nations view they see the Empire as the antagonists even if it wasn’t them who started the war. Now the federation and sects are some of the worst nations out there for sure, no nation is perfect even the empire. It’s just hard to read our protagonist become such merciless killers. Monsters are one thing but when it’s your fellow man? That’s something else entirely.
John Anastacio
quote from above: They were led by a woman with cannons replacing her hands, the one responsible for the pink and blue spells he’d noticed, but a full ten people swooped from the command ship. One was surrounded by a flock of golem-birds, three had swords integrated into their arms, another had metal tendrils extending from the base of their neck, and all of them had well-maintained and fairly potent gear. my comment: I wonder if the 'ten people' depicted above are like the 10-person death squads SLAM met in Minkalla, designed and indoctrinated by Virgil. If so, MLA has come a long way since then - they killed them easily instead of having to fight hard and desperately.
Bob Bryan
Okay but what is the alternative? Is war brutal yes, but if Matt and them didn't do that to their enemies it would be done to their allies and civilians. The feds, sect and republic could all just go home, end of war, no one dies. They are not, that's on them. Don't blame Matt and the rest for the hand they were dealt. What alternative would you suggest? Also enough of that bull about collateral damage. If farmers decided they wanted to put something in their crops how much collateral damage do you think they could cause? How much collateral damage do politicians cause daily for their greed? Could Matt and them hurt people, yes obviously but they wouldn't. I am tired of that bs argument.
Mister Cakers
The latter could even be used to accuse Matt as being a fake ascender.
Mister Cakers
I’m wondering what the other great powers will assume Matt’s talents and power set is. They’ll likely still believe he has an armor talent, and that he’d applied it to his bulwarks much like Light thought during their fight. But the sheer amount of mana being used will likely need a lot more excusing. They’ll have to either assume his mana regen concept has grown to allow him to power such things, or maybe that his intent could maybe empower skills he casts? Otherwise they’d think he wasted an unreasonable amount of mana stones.
Meyster
He'd do it quicker, Duke Waters is fighting up 4 tiers and killing quicker still
David Oldfield
Hmmm... I am thinking that Tier 25s from all the great powers are practicing the sacred art of "Shitting Themselves". I really hope you do a P.O.V bonus of people (both allied and enemy) who get to watch that fight. Considering it was only possible due to a monstrously prodigious amount of mana, I can't even imagine Duke Waters could best thousands of like tier opponents that quickly.
Mashiara
Nice. The kiddie gloves are off. As I was reading this, a quote that perfectly encapsulates this chapter was this: "Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war!" I am also looking forward where MAL finds someone of their level with no restrictions
Chris Fey
Real world war crime. Killing medics is against article 25 of the Geneva Convention
DasGoat622
Also if that was the case wouldn’t every army just have healers spread out through out the fighting army so they could claim war crimes were committed during the fighting. Those weren’t healers they were combat healers. I think there’s a distinction.
DasGoat622
It would be nice to how this stacks up against battles that Light and Shadow were in. MLA seem tailor made for large scale confrontations where as what saw from L&S was more of small unit skirmish with elites. I’m aware that any ascender should have the abilities to handle this it just seems that MLA are perfect for this situation. It would be interesting to see them enter a series of l battles where the armies get bigger with the enemy hoping to find the army large enough to stop them.
DasGoat622
I don’t think there will be much of a negative impact on them. They know what they are about and understand the level of power at which they operate. Given the nature of Matt’s talent it would be hard for him to not know what happens when he enters a battle field. He is also a believer in the Empire and what it stands for and the armies he facing are invaders and he has experienced directly the results of that invasion. I wouldn’t worry about him having misgivings I’d be more concerned with him enjoying it too much.
MikeL
I really want a chapter with just the other GP’s reports on what they think MLA talents are. They must be really confused.
Allen
Loved the chapter! They came to make a statement, and I believe the message was received.
Melody Haren Anderson
I think she has a few times put her blood into someone to... make their life short and very painful. But seems like only that blood was hers till they died. Just they had blood they couldn't stop messing things up in their body. It's possible she can get there with more time. Perhaps some sort of twisting of blood sprite?
Dylan Alexander
War definitely changes people. Imagine slaughtering thousands, tens of thousands and walking away with a clear conscience. We better not see that here.
Violet
I think I'll really appreciate this chapter in a few months, when the horrors of war aren't already overwhelming me. For now... Damn. That was brutal.
Violet
Oh, this is going to fuck them up horribly over time. But they've been (for lack of a better term) groomed for this position for nearly two centuries and the Empire has had Ascenders aplenty before. Luna will have prepared them, and the military will have resources devoted to ensuring their superweapons don't break.
Fozzy
I so misread this. I immediately thought, of course he can swap with any Liz. Why wouldn't he?
Violet
Remember those statues and how Matt didn't recognize them? He will soon.
Phil
A good fight scene shows off the progress made in training without overstaying it's welcome or becoming rote. At least in my eyes. I've never been as much a fan of combat so much as I am of characters getting a chance to express their progress and seeing people's reactions to it.
Havokk
Am I the only one who wile re reading this keeps hearing Mortal Combat in the background?? "It Has Begun" "Fight" "get Over here" "Finish Him" "Fatality" "Flawless Victory"
Hozukimaru.ext
This is the best chappie of PoA yet
Jason Hatter
Pretty sure it's the one wearing the ring, since the ring is the source of the effect
brennon Petersen
Tftc!
Dylan Alexander
Ascenders are literally elite killers. Could you imagine the collateral damage they could cause? The way Liz just casually gouges someone’s eye out too…it’s a brutal universe they live in that’s for sure.
Babasola Osikoya
I agree. It was hard to read.
Bob Bryan
For some reason or other I'm hearing a woman Hercule shouting "it'd just a trick" in my head.
Bob Bryan
They will probably try. Launch a huge number of soldiers at matt to see where is mana pool cuts off at. It will be helpful for thr empire if Matt and the rest cut down 5 battlefields of enemies without having to pay for spacefare.
Wrathwind
This is what I want to see an echos chapter reaction of.
Baconater
Man, this makes me upset. You keep making me switch my opinion on if I like fight scenes or training montages better. I want to say I love training montages but then you pull out a chapter like this and I say fights. Then you do a full gear setup or new spells and I say oh yeah, training. Stop making me confused!!!
Azulmar
Good chapter. I think we all needed to see MAL curb stomp some feddies.
Markus
It is as Light or Shadow mentioned in a earlier interlude. They can show their fighting skills, it is their strategic usage of the skills that need to be secret. Matt's society scale mana regen, global teleport to every corner of the empire, instant regeneration for elite tropes. That is what is needed to be kept secret. That Matt can use large attacks in battle is fine to show off.
Havokk
The Empire news will be running headlines about the Three newest ascenders breaking a siege by themselves on a constant stream for sometime. and anyone who questions Asters place as will definitely have to rethink their position. I really want to see president Janets reaction to this I expect she will start falling further into madness as she screams about "The End of Realm"
Havokk
The healers were in an active combat zone. IIRC the rules about healing that were created after the Harvest Moon incident are specific to healing stations which would be setup to heal those pulled from active combat rather than those who were working to maintain and actively engaged force
Dion Crump
They aren’t anywhere near as young as Jason, this isn’t their first war, and they do have regular mental health counsel
IAN A WILSON
Ngl I'm more excited to see the reactions of everyone (both friends and enemies) to this battle, then I was of the reactions to them being ascenders. Pretty sure this is the first battle in forever where all restrictions are truly off. Sure they didn't fight at 110%, but they weren't limited either
James Faulkner
Take it up with the Geneva Suggestion 😎
Evernap
It's why I believe the Emperor was setting up meetings using the dragons blood. To affirm support for him
Evernap
They're probably gonna chalk it up to an exploit with the whole Ascender team buffing the one attack/array.
Evernap
Next chapter huge Naruto style brawl between all the clones for the One Ring!
Chris Fey
Warcrimes included here are deliberately targeting healers….
Evernap
Eh. War propaganda is pretty strong and both sides see the deaths not as wastes but as spent protecting others.
A B
I was going to say Liz is bloody scary, then Liz and Matt, then Liz, Matt, and Aster are a bloody scary whirlwind of endless doom for their opponents. Feel like that's still understating it, but I stand by the comment.
Thomas Brusilovsky
Hot damn
Tommy
I get that the enemy is the enemy. But I hope they get some mental health support / healing to deal with having slaughtered thousands of people, even if they are the bad guys. Not to the extent of HWFWM cos that would be tedious 😂
Dylan Alexander
Absolute ruthless killers. Think about all those soldiers who will never get to see their families again. War is horrendous.
Keith Coffey
That was a beefy chapter, amazing way to show immediate impact of the ascenders
Alex
For every other Ascender I would agree. Once they become Ascenders it's fine to show their true capabilities. But Matt's talent is gonna spark a true war when it goes public. That's bigger than what they're fighting for right now. They have to be ready. That means controlling when his mana talent goes public.
Alex
Mattery :) that just to be the name that Rusty was super proud of.
austin kutz
Don't forget about Waters. He's got perfect power for tier 35 combat to the point that no one can challenge him. It's almost as if all the other Great Powers are being forced to break the rules
Kenneth Dennis
This was a fantastic warfront debut.
C_Mantis
it lets him refill his mana pool so yes. That was the idea.
Luciaron
I wonder who the other power can pull out to face these guys, because numbers just ain’t going to cut it
Bunny Waffles
Like they said long ago when the Emperor found out just how busted those talents were, that is both a boon and a calamity for the Empire. A boon because that is utterly amazing and gives them a massive boost, no matter who the opposing factions resources/talents might be. A calamity in that it gives the Empire such an edge, especially in the future, that it might cause literally every other faction to band together against them to crush them before they can fully realize the insane growth of the future so long as they survive.
David Harr
It’s past time for that. The masks are off and everything is in play. They will do their best to obfuscate things, but Matt is not going to put himself at a disadvantage by not using all his abilities to the max.
mitchell kaiser
Fantastic chapter! Can’t wait to see the reactions from the opposing commanders/ leaders. Love to see them finally in the thick of things though. Can’t wait to see more!
1FantasyFanatic
Sweet!
James Faulkner
Tftc! Also is the purpose of Matt absorbing his crystals just to supercharge his own spells in a shorter amount of time?
Sezra_
Thanks a bunch! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔゞ゛
Aurora1325
mattery
Andrew K
Based on last chapter, she has to give up any blood out of her spiritual range, so she'd be limited to only relatively local drops rather than those in other star systems (though IIRC, at higher tiers, some nearby systems might be in range).
Discordian23
It was a Talisman! :)
Discordian23
We need to put Liz's Blood in Matt's Gosmer Hand.
C_Mantis
they have to be in range to prevent that exploit
Wes
A 40 million mana Breach will probably send the other Powers reeling. They are definitely going to investigate him more now. Even if they can't guess exactly what his talent is, showing that much power probably just put a much bigger target on his back. Love it though. Bring em all on
Jeppe Fiig
Perfect healing, Unlimited mana, Instant deployment. That is some serious advantages held by the empire
Derze
Technically , his Intent is shielding him from divination , plus everyone will think most of his armor and some exploits are clever use of talismans and other upgrades/ items. You have to remember Liz and aster also have ways to passively steal health and mana from kills/enemies so it wouldn’t be far fetched to think his armor is also doing something similar. (Just like Light Does).
MikeL
I’m guessing only near the other ring, or he would be able to swap with any drop of Liz’s blood.
Alex
Allie is truly having a great impact. Logistics matter a lot in war, especially on this scale. Cutting down on travel time means they can do soooo much more.
MissingP_rt
Do Liz's blood drops have to stay in range of her Spirit to maintain the 'resurrect from a single drop' effect or could she have what effectively amounts to a phylactery back at base?
Alex
Yeah, but she's not normal. Normal people think about what is actually possible based on millions of years of history :D Allie doesn't care that it shouldn't be possible
William Johnson
Man, folks who were thinking Liz's blood mage thing was a cover are going to be so confused. So Liz is all of her blood does that mean Matt can swap with any of her clones, or just the one with the ring?
Abriel Blauer
Well, Allie McStabby, AKA Shadow, did guessed it.
Derze
Bruh
Abriel Blauer
Damn I liked it
Mathias Eriksson
Carnage !! :D
Alex
And I guess him having a couple thousand times more mana regen than a T50 mage is just so absolutely crazy and unbelievable that nobody will actually guess it
Joshua Jernigan
Well it's publicly known that Matt has a mana regen concept with the new knowledge of who his manager was and the minkalla cycle they went in it gives a lot of wiggle room for it
Joles
Shit that felt gooood to read
Spearman
Terrible ascender title idea for Matt: Mana Matt
Michael Younger
My reading of it is it has to be blood filled with her essence which means she would have to take control of it first and i recall her being unable to do that while it was still inside an opponents body.
Raymond Horn
That was great! I am curious though, when you said that every drop of blood would need to be destroyed does that also include blood inside someone's body? I assume when it comes to enemies blood she would need to overcome their will/domain to be able to claim their blood, but if Matt were to keep a single drop of her blood stored in his body or even just have some way for her to bypass his defenses and use his blood in an emergency doesn't that mean she wouldn't ever be without an endless blood source?
Alex
Sooo... Not hiding his mana?
John Rogerson
I need a cigarette after this chapter
Bob Bryan
I believe that is a sufficient hello.
Fake Name
I, really, really really, want to see the reactions to this.
Tftc!
R.M.
Nice
Miguel Canarte
thanks
william wallace
Woohoo
