The Path of Ascension

Chapter 158

Shadow watched on through the rend in space into the mundane room that the two Sect spies were staying in. Using a mundane hotel under a fake name was such a traditional idea that the base had slipped under the radar for nearly two full weeks. Seeing it in person, the set up was so obvious it had to be a trap.

She grinned wolfishly as she saw the man scribble a note down, then fold it into a bird before enchanting it. Shortly afterward, it flew off as if it were alive.

Through her AI, she called out the mark. Message leaving through the window. Expect it to pass through the barrier between section five and six in seventeen seconds.

Stone, as it was, responded. Roger. I have eyes on it. Acting as it passes the corner. Three two one. After a second of silence, he came back on and reported. Message successfully intercepted. Note that the bird tried to split off a spiritual copy, but that was also intercepted.

Shadow internally nodded at the man. She had been leery when she and Light had been paired with the duo of almost-ascenders, expecting them to only be a burden. But she was repeatedly being proven wrong.

She heard her partner call over the AI, Barrier and sound proofing formations are down on my end, and the smaller formation is ready to be activated.

Shadow called in her status. I have eyes on them. Ready when everyone else is.

Stick reported in. Primary formation ready to give assistance.

Stone reported the same thing. Primary formation ready to give assistance.

Light then called in. Secondary formation ready. Moving in as cleaning staff. On my mark.

Shadow readied her Talent, and felt space fall under her control everywhere her spirit could reach.

With long practice, it was easy for her to locate the shadows that she needed, and prepare a teleport to the room.

Something with the shadows still felt wrong, but she had already warned the team, and they were prepared for anything.

All the reports said that this was a trap, which was why they were tripping it early. From the number of materials that had entered the room, the counterespionage teams had calculated that the Sects spies had created a fortified base, or something worse.

Still, the counter-espionage teams were very, very good at their jobs, and ensured that no information had been able to leave the base. While the spies might have been able to destroy any information, they hadn't been able to get anything out.

Now, it was just a matter of cleaning out the base and capturing the spies, preferably alive.

As Light, with an illusion hiding his weapons and armor, came up to the door and knocked, Shadow readied herself.

The second the door opened, her partner cast [Mule Kick] and shoved the door into the man who was standing behind it. She was already moving through a spatial tear, and stepped out of a shadow inside the room once the door and man hit the ground near the interior wall.

Her dagger took the second man in the chest right next to the heart as the door tipped to the side. The blade sank deeply into his flesh and grazed the man's left ventricle, depositing the Tier 26 Swamp Viper venom directly next to the sensitive organ.

The spy dropped like a rock as the venom restricted his cultivation. While the venom would only temporarily make the man's essence become harder to control, while it lasted he would need to spend enormous effort to manually keep the blood moving around his body.

With the essence restriction, he needed to focus on mundane things, like breathing.

The Swamp Vipers' venom sadly wasnt long-lasting, but it would take the Tier 24 out of the fight long enough for her to capture them.

A quick [Shadow Dagger], one of her true shadow skills, cut the other spy's carotid artery and sent him down in a spray of blood. With a twist of power, she started to take her captive and escape. As she was pulling the incapacitated man through a portal hidden inside a shadow, she saw what had been hidden inside the room.

Golems. War golems.

As she sank into their prison, she called out. Team Bravo, move in to assist. Plan seven, variation Juliet.

Light, for all his power, wouldnt be able to fight off the twenty-plus war golems without breaking containment. And the civilians in the rooms and building surrounding this one couldn't be involved. That would mean the mission was a failure, and Shadow hated failure more than anything else.

Seeing the techs had the first spy hooked up to a number of medicines to stop him from either killing himself or escaping, she stepped behind a pole and teleported through the line of darkness.

Hiding her Talent had taken time, but her management team had started training her early and well.

Ironically, it was that power that had caught their attention shortly after she and Light had met each other.

They had been forced together by a local noble who refused to allow two Tier 4s to delve a Tier 6 rift by themselves, and forced them to join up if they wanted to delve above Tier on his planet.

That Baron had been a particular flavor of luddite, but they had learned that they worked together exceptionally well. When they had chafed at the long wait times on the planet, they had started to steal rift allocations. That ended up not going as unnoticed as they thought, and an investigator had quickly been called in to deal with them.

He had, after seeing how strong they were, recommended them to a management team, which meant their covers were exceptionally thorough.

As she fell back inside the room, she felt the restrictions of the secondary formation and cast [Dagger Empowerment], which wrapped her blades in mana to strengthen them.

She dodged the first golem's fist, and while dodging the blow, slipped through the shadow that the golem fighting Light created. Coming out from behind a third golem, she cast [Thrust] and drove her dagger through the golem's armored back.

The twice empowered blade sunk through the armor like a hot knife through butter and nicked the power core.

Sensing the power start to run rampant, she slipped through a portal and reappeared in the second adjoining room, as Light contained the discharge of mana. Seeing there were another seven golems in this room, she tried to duck through a shadow cast on the floor from the door next to her, but the room brightened to remove every place of darkness.

She pretended to stumble as if her portal had failed, but it was an act.

This wouldn't be the first time someone tried to ferret out her real powers, and she knew how to act in such a situation.

Turning her stumble into a roll, she slashed out with her dagger at the higher Tier golem that tried to stomp her, and smiled as her blade parted metal to expose the more vulnerable interior of the monster.

Each weapon had its specialties, and so did the skills made for them. Daggers, for all their tiny size and short range, had unique spells that had some of the best armor penetration. And of course, range was hardly an issue for her.

With Tier 25 daggers and the Tier 26 empowerment skill, she was able to cut through the metal with ease.

Still, she was kept at a disadvantage; she was outnumbered, and was forced to fight defensively while still hiding her true Talent.

That only lasted until Stick and Stone arrived on the scene.

She felt them before she even heard them as their Concepts and Intents washed over her and empowered her.

She had been surprised that the couple had both created more supportive Domains, but seeing the overlapping effects, she understood why they went as far as they had on The Path of Ascension.

It also explained why they were falling off.

Their empowerment domains were purely external, and while incredibly strong, they could only do so much in a group of two. But when others fought with them, they were boosted by both Domains, and the effects were exponential.

With increased proprioception, flexibility, mind, and senses, the parts of her cultivation she asked to be boosted, she could dance through the now slower golems as if they were standing still.

Stone came into her room and cast [Chop] with his axe, taking a golem in the side before the spell dissipated and its leftover energy could so much as splash on the far wall.

Shadow slipped under a vibro knife that one of the golems was equipped with and put her dagger into its armpit, cutting the conduit that sent power into the weapon.

The golems, for all their higher Tier materials, were easy to kill with just their rudimentary, pre-programmed attack patterns. If the duo of spies had been able to finish equipping them, and had been able to send them out under AI control, they would have been far more dangerous.

Now, they were worse combatants than a training dummy, and in less than five minutes, they had safely dismantled the war golems.

As they expected, all the information they had gathered was destroyed, but they still gathered the remnants up for the counterespionage department, who might be able to salvage something from the shattered storage crystals.

It was a long shot, and Shadow believed that they would have a better chance at interrogating the captured spy.

That didn't imply that the chance was good, but it was a better chance all the same.

Regardless, that wasn't their job.

She and Light needed to go back and retake their positions for the upcoming tournament's first rounds.

Stick and Stone would be doing the fun work of setting up their next target.

As she pulled them through a shadow once they left the room full of lights, she turned to the two newcomers and nodded at them while sticking out a hand to shake. Good work. I was leery of teaming with the two of you, but you more than held your own.

Light cracked his neck but agreed. Yes. That would have been a dozen times harder without your direct help and Domains.

Before they could say anything else, Stick and Stone's manager came through the door and pointed at Light and Shadow. Marcus wants you back now. He sent half a dozen messages, but you two haven't responded.

Shadow tried to play it off. Whoops, new AI, and I blocked his number as spam. How silly of me.

To Gerards credit, he didnt even blink at her snark. Bullshit. He then smiled and added, Marcus said you might say that, and he said if you did try to delay any further, he'd start making promises for you both to teach local elementary school kids. And you wont get out of it.

Cursing, Shadow grabbed Light and fell through the shadow of a nearby chair.

She refused to spend time teaching kids who couldn't wipe their asses without messing it up.

She had been one of those kids, and didnt need any reminders.

Better to sit on her ass and talk into a mic.

***

Camilla sat with Aunt Helen, Hazel, Aster, and most of Lizs family while watching the news reporting on the just-starting Pather team tournament.

Having seen Matt and Liz fight before, she knew they were sandbagging, but she had been trying to pester one of the people in the know to spill the beans of who their Masked identities were.

Aunt Helen was her current target.

The woman owned and operated one of the largest gambling houses on the planet, but refused to let Camilla place a bet on anything.

She had tried everything from pouting to weedling the information out of the woman, but had so far come up with nothing.

Ten years ago, she wouldn't have been cavalier about seeing the two people who were the closest things she had to friends so obviously faking their power, but she had grown a lot since she had been foisted upon their team.

Aunt Helen poked her side and pointed at the wall-mounted screen, which had finally started the report.

The bald news anchor smiled at the screen and said, We have a special program for everyone before the first round of the tournament starts. The camera panned over to a well-groomed man who stood with two other people flanking him. Javier, Rosemary, and Aldar, who together make up one of our local Tier 12 teams, a part of the Rising Raiders guild. Please give them a warm welcome as they join us.

When the screen came back to the news anchors, they were sitting on a couch with enough open space for the trio to sit down between them.

Javier was the first to speak and shook the bald man's hand as they sat down. It's our honor, Amir. I know that my parents are more than happy to see me on your show. The team leader looked directly into the camera and smiled before saying, Look, Mom and Dad! Im sitting on The Couch Of Doom!

Amir laughed along with the audience before waving at the camera and smiling with a fake, thousand mana smile. Always good to see my fans showing the young ones the good old clips. Javier, for being such a big fan, Im going to send you home with two tickets for the show during the finals for the folks. Prime, first row seats. Theyll be able to see everything live. You think theyd like that?

Javier seemed slightly taken aback before he, giddy with excitement for his parent's good fortune, nodded and profusely thanked the man.

Camilla tuned out the nonsense pandering to the audience until they got to the point of the interview. Amir was just too fake for her.

Amir brought the cheering crowd back under control as a clip started to play in the background.

It was Javier's team moving their way through a rift with Amir talking over it.

This is our young guests team, moving through one of the Tier 13 rifts currently active on the Tournament planet. He was awarded this privilege from Lady Tur'stal herself, to show just how strong some of the best competitors in this year's tournament truly are. Javier's team is one Tier weaker than the rift, and is doing excellently, let me add. Truly an exemplary showing of one of the up-and-comers in our society. But they are one Tier weaker than the rift, and it took you guys how long to clear it?

Javier leaned forward as he said, Roughly ten hours, give or take a break or two.

Amir slapped the table as he exclaimed, Ten hours! Ten hours people. I couldn't have cleared a rift a Tier above me in a week, let alone just ten hours. Javier, Rosemary, Aldar, you three are good. How would you describe the rift? It has Amir looked off to the side as if consulting someone before saying, Three monster types. A bear that has incredible durability and empowered claws and teeth, a tribe of goblins, and then a breed of water birds. What was your impression of them?

Rosemary finally spoke, and Camilla noted her captivating voice. We expected the bear or the goblins to be the worst, but the birds were the biggest challenge by far. They kept diving into the lake and healing themselves, which forced us to spend hours whittling them down until it was safe to cross the bridge.

Amir nodded along before pointing at the air, where a window showing the team fighting the monsters in question were shown.

Camilla had to admit that they did seem like tough opponents, considering their elemental synergy with the lake.

Amir then shouted, And this is a good team of strong delvers, very solid work and effort. Everyone remember this as we show you the next clips of some of the top ascenders fighting these same opponents.

The first clip was of a team with numbers on their faces that simply ran across the bridge, cutting down any bird that dared to come near them, without taking a hit.

Next, a video of Dianas team came where their ice mage flash froze the surface of the lake, preventing the monsters from going into the water to heal.

Camilla nodded along, but chuckled as Aster scoffed at the ice mage's efforts. I would have frozen the entire lake. Wimp.

The next video showed Pause, who just let the birds cut her to ribbons before she healed herself and moved on.

For the fourth video was of a summoner, Samuel, who had a small army of tiny elementals that surrounded him. They beat any of the birds that tried to attack him to death in short order.

The final video was of Queen, who just danced her way along the bridge, cutting the birds out of the sky without pause.

Amir shouted again, to Camilla's annoyance, jarring her out of the trance she fell into while watching the alluring swordsmanship. Out of the five top twenty teams that challenged the rift, the longest clear for that section of the rift was twenty minutes. And half of that time was due to their mage freezing the lake over. What do you have to say about that?

Camilla felt the question was mean-spirited, but Javier just laughed good naturedly and with a twinkle in his eye that showed genuine mirth. It shows that they are strong! Stronger than us, by far. Even if we had an ice spell that strong, it would have taken us longer to kill our way through the birds. If we also had to fight up three Tiers? I dont know if we could have done it. We can frequently fight up one Tier, and sometimes even two. But even then, we usually take injuries and need long recovery periods afterward.

Amir slammed the table again as he nodded along vigorously. You heard it here, folks. And again, Javiers team isn't weak. Theyre nearing the peak of Tier 12, and are a formidable team by any metric. Better than me, and I'd wager even most of you!

Amir turned around to face a new camera before finishing the segment.

That's all the time we have for this wonderful interview, but if youlike myselfare leery of delving and want strong protectors, The Rising Raiders guild is offering a special rate to commemorate Javier and his team's wonderful showing. Get strong guilders to carry you through delves while allocating all the essence to yourself so you can Tier up. Dont let anything keep you down!

Camilla rolled her eyes while Hazel started to twitch her back legs, ready to thump the man.

They both hated that kind of showboating and insincerity.

She turned to Aunt Helen and asked, Why did I need to pay attention to that?

Aunt Helen frowned at the screen. Amir was supposed to plug my gambling house during that bit. Im the one who got them that slot in the rift for the show. Show and boast about our new anti-Seeker methods to ensure the bets are fair for the average person.

The old bird didnt outwardly look upset, but Camilla smiled at the overly loud man's upcoming misfortune.

Despite being a chef, and usually reserved, Aunt Helen was scary.

Camilla picked up Hazel as Aster lunged for the bunny. She missed and went for her again, but hit Camillas open palm while straining half-heartedly to get to the annoyed beast. Camilla restrained Aster, settling the fox who was technically stronger than her on her lap. Once Aster was subdued, Camilla placed the bunny on top of the fox and smiled at their continued shenanigans.

Aster had no problems with it, and just laughed as Hazel tried to criticize her fur, until the first of the team matches drew all of their attention.

***

Queen looked at her fellow competitors in the masked Pathers lounge and her face burned with embarrassment.

She had earned herself a three round bye, and a chance to change her opponent, but had foolishly done so in the solo competition.

She had been paying more attention to the walking arsenal that Light carried around, and by the time she found herself teleported out of the arena, she had no idea what was going on. She had just followed everyone to the nearest pillar, which was one of light.

It wasnt until Quill started bragging about not needing a team or a solo fight change up that she had realized her blunder.

But it was too late for her to change it, and even if she could, she wasn't sure that shed be able to handle the embarrassment that would come from trading the spot with another team.

She was just glad that she had a mask to hide her true face, along with the burning crimson on her cheeks.

Queen tried to look on the bright side. It wasn't all bad; it ensured that she got to fight at least one of the people she had noticed using a sword well in the last six months.

She internally nodded and repeated to herself that that had been her plan all along.

If she said it enough, she might even start to believe it.

***

Matt looked around and sat with Liz in their contestant's box.

They had been able to skip the first day of fights, but the second began the second round, and their real identities bye had only been for the first.

Quill and Torch had earned the maximum three-round bye, which, when combined with their different brackets, meant there would be zero overlap between when theyd need to fight until well after he and Liz should have been eliminated.

When their number was called, the two of them stood before a team of five people. They were vaguely familiar, but it took Matt checking his AI to realize that they had been frequent customers of his free mana sessions.

They were even nice people who always bought him a croissant after they refilled.

He was pretty sure that the leader's name was Kat.

Matt gave them a wave. Hey, guys.

At Kat's look of embarrassment, he shrugged. No hard feelings either way. This is meant to be a fight, and one of us has to lose. All we can do is fight our best.

Liz, next to him, tapped her helmet as she said. Dont overthink it. We wont.

That seemed to settle their opponents down, and Matt could hear the announcer assigned to their stage give a summary of Matt and his mana-giving exploits.

As the ref came into the ring, he explained the rules that they had heard before every match. The fights are no holds barred. The royals are watching and ready to intervene if needed, but I should be more than enough. Leave everything in the ring, and hold your head up high no matter the outcome.

In a quieter voice that didnt get picked up by the microphone, he added, The Empire is watching. Do your best.

In his regular voice, he continued, You start at zero. No skills or movement before then.

As the ref started his countdown from five, and they were lowered into the arena, Matt inspected where they would be fighting.

They had drawn a light forest biome littered with young and thin trees that blocked a good degree of the light, but not so much that it compromised their vision at all.

When the ref hit zero, Matt raced to the right while Liz went left. The rift was spatially expanded, so he was able to run for nearly half a mile before he found the edge of the expanded zone and turned inward.

With [Mages Retreat], Matt raced through the forest without bothering to be stealthy, letting [Cracked Phantom Armor] keep the distracting branches at bay him as he blew past and through them. He saw the protective formation that Kat's team had created, and messaged Liz with the information as he barreled towards the small wall of hardened earth.

He saw Liz racing over from the other side and pumped his arms faster for some extra speed, so he would get there first.

An arrow whizzed at him, but throwing extra mana into the second layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor] easily deflected the arrow to the side.

Nearly in unison with Liz, he reached the wall and jumped over it, inside their opponents formation.

To his surprise, he found only an archer golem that slowly panned over to attack him.

He kicked it as he threw himself off to the side, just as a massive ball of fire landed on the trap fortress they had just entered.

Matt felt it slightly strain his armor, but even with his restrictions, it was easy enough to block.

What surprised him was how the fire was trying to linger and eat into his armor.

It was an interesting skill, but it had also alerted them to where Kats team was attacking from. He checked on Liz, who was hiding in a sphere of blood she must have pulled from her gloves storage, before tracking the enemy team..

With the trajectory, they easily found the five of them, who then unleashed everything they could at Matt and Liz, but their attacks were weak and ineffective.

It was clear that Kat's team was not one of the better teams on the Path. Matt would be surprised if they were able to safely delve rifts two Tiers above them.

Still, he and Liz let them show their best skills off as they slowly whittled away the team's defenses. They werent here to show off or humiliate anyone, and three minutes after they started fighting, the pair eliminated the last of the enemy team.

The announcer wasnt overly excited, but narrated the end of the fight before wishing the now beaten Kats team good luck in the losers' bracket.

With so many people, they didn't have another fight the rest of the day, and were on standby until the third day, when their next match was scheduled.. This team was slightly better, but still not enough for Matt to find the fight memorable.

On day four of the first week, they were finally able to fight as Quill and Torch.

As one of the top seeds, they were given a larger break, but their first team fight was going to prove harder than their two fights as Matt and Liz.

While top seeds had been put into separate brackets, ensuring that they didnt have to knock each other out early, and thus ruin the later matches, that didnt mean the low-seeded teams were weak.

Anyone who was able to survive to the fourth round was powerful in their own right.

The team they were facing was an unknown team of three before the tournament, and had made something of a name for themselves while hunting down monster bounties in the Jungle.

Quill glared off to the side when they drew a tundra with a blizzard raging on for their match location.

If he didnt know better, he would bet that someone was ensuring they had exciting matches by giving their opponents the best terrain for their abilities.

It might have been their first round, but he smelled a conspiracy.

When the fight started, Quill followed Torch as they trudged through the deep snow and blustering wind that cut through the dense trees.

They had been moving forward for a few minutes when an ice arrow shattered off Torchs spear, exploding in a cloud of ice crystals.

Quill threw out a [Flame Barrier] Talisman, which countered the ice arrow, before throwing himself into a nearby snowbank to dodge a thrown dagger.

Knowing the attacker had already moved, Quill let his instincts guide him as he mentally recreated what he believed the attacker would have done. He used an [Earth Spike] talisman in the area where he figured his enemy had relocated.

The yelp of pain told him he had found something fleshy, and without hesitation, Torch sent a pulse of flame at the location.

The fire was weakened by the blizzard raging around them, but they had both felt the attacker's veil slip for a moment, and their spiritual perceptions were able to lock onto them.

Quill threw out a [Wind Barrier] talisman just as his battle instincts began screaming that danger approached, and an arrow exploded in a cloud of poisonous yellow gas.

The wind blew the attack directly at him and Torch, so he cast [Air Burst] to push the poison away from them.

That move gave their opponents enough of a distraction to relocate and slip from Quill's spiritual perception.

Knowing they needed to take what advantages they could, he pulled out and cast a five talisman array, creating what would have normally been a scorching and dry day. But since the heat needed to fight the wind and cold, it only created a clear area of lightly falling snow. But that was enough for Torch to see a running figure.

With a flame-empowered leap, she landed in an explosion of steam as the surrounding snow was flash boiled during her landing.

That would have normally been more than enough to take out most people, but her spear took the somehow fleeing man in the back.

The ref teleported the man out before he was gravely wounded, but they still had two more people to deal with.

From the arrow barrage that started to assault them from five different directions, Quill knew that they unfortunately still had to contend with the teams archer.

With the sunny zone nearing its end, the blizzard started to howl and obscure their vision once again.

Slapping a talisman on his chest, Quill slunk through the forest and started his own hunt.

It only took him a few minutes to guess where the archer was hiding. After inspecting the area and finding a dozen traps, both magical and mundane, he decided to just zap the man from a distance.

For all the archers' preparation, he didnt ground himself, and was a smoking husk when the ref pulled him from the snowbank.

A commotion drew his attention to where Torch was fighting, and he found her abusing the melee fighter of the group.

To the woman's credit, she was taking the cuts and bashes from a boosted Torch without a grimace or complaint.

She was losing, but was doing everything she could to minimize the punishment she was taking. Quill had to give her props for surviving so well, but he also knew that if she was hoping for her archer teammate to save her, she was waiting in vain.

You should just give up now. I already fried your archer. Save yourself the healing cooldown.

The woman growled but didnt give up.

Instead, she exploded in light and deflected Torch's spear, driving the side of her shield into Torch's side.

It would have been effective if Torch hadn't caught the shield, holding it and the woman at bay.

With eyes wide at her opponent catching what was probably her trump card with a single hand, the woman called out, I give up.

Just like that, they were all teleported out of the arena.

Quill dusted off the residual snow as Torch flared some fire and burned it all off. This time, the announcers for their team were two old hands who had been officiating at every Tier 10 tournament for the last few thousand years.

Quill heard Shadow comment how his stalking had been good, but he had used an ineffective search pattern for low visibility situations. Considering he had just been inspecting the surroundings for clues, he had to wonder exactly what the serious woman had been referring to.

Still, they won their first fight and moved on to the fifth day.

As Matt and Liz, they had another easy match and advanced as well, and soon, the fifth and final day of team fights for the week was upon them.

As Matt and Liz, they had a long and drawn-out fight against a solo wind mage, who flitted around the two of them for four hours before finally being forced to land when he started to run out of mana.

He had strong wind skills at his disposal, but forced to contend with both Matt and Liz with his mana drained, the wind mage was finished off in seconds.

Matt almost felt bad for the mage, as his skills were strong enough to break [Cracked Phantom Armor] in the limited capacity he was restricted to during the tournament. But they weren't strong enough to break through his physical armor underneath. Combined with Liz hiding under a dome of blood, the man had little recourse to fight them when they refused to meet him on his terms.

That didnt mean the man was out of the running altogether, as he was still able to fight in the losers' bracket, but getting knocked out of the tournament in the first week wasn't a good result.

As Quill and Torch, they had a much easier fight than they had expected. With nearly half a million contestants, they still had a lot of weaker teams to fight through.

The sad thing was, the team battles were much faster than the solo fights, which would commence next week, then go on for two weeks before reverting back to the team battles. With everyone needing a chance to fight, and with limited arenas at their disposal, more time was needed if both formats were to end in six months.

The fights started to get harder and more intense as the weeks of competition turned into months, and by the time the ninth month of the tournament rolled around, the fights finally started to get interesting at the tournaments three quarter mark.

These were the cream of the crop of Tier 10 Pathers, and there was nowhere better to showcase exactly what they were made of.

Luck, skill, experience, and tenacity all would play a role. Even though Matt knew they would be taking a fall at some point, to continue protecting their real identities, he was still happy to be here to see and learn what he could. He was stirred from his thoughts when the next match began. He cheered with the crowd from his seat in the stands, wondering what he would see next.