Chapter 280

Chapter 280

Zack was wholly unsurprised that Allie challenged the new Ascenders to a fight. He probably would have done it himself, though he would have at least waited a little longer, and been a bit more polite about it. First impressions, and all that. But at least this way, he would get to fight them right away, thanks to his partners proclivities.

It was oft annoying, but useful on occasion.

The moment Allie teleported the room to the canyon they used for sparring he was already flying backward to dodge the falling table, even as the rest of Team Zero flew backwards to clear the area.

Perfect.

He had been waiting years to find out exactly what precisely Quill could do, and the reveal that he was Matthew Moore, one of the first candidates theyd eliminated, was a shock that didnt help anything. Zack had investigated Matthew at his Tier 10 tournament and found him to be a fairly standard fighter, no more than the normal number of tricks up his sleeves. It was likely that his mana Concept had more depth and power than had been shown, which would go some ways towards explaining Quills feats, but reviewing his past assessments, it still didnt quite line up.

There had to be something more there, and he was assuredly going to get a glimpse in a few moments.

Allie flickered, returning with a very particular chest that used to be at the very bottom of a carefully-organized stack. A few seconds later, he was out of the clothes he was wearing and inside a surprisingly nostalgic robe. It was heavier than he remembered, having since grown accustomed to wearing same-Tier armor, but the spiritual weight the enchantments carried felt like the embrace of an old friend.

He hadnt worn these clothes in eighty years, longer in subjective time, but in many ways it felt like just yesterday. It was odd to feel sentimental for a suit of armor scavenged from a rift and that needed replacing every half-dozen delves, but there was a certain level of simplicity and satisfaction inherent to the action. And, it would be nice to not fight teams specifically outfitted and trained to shut down all his favorite tricks.

A couple of back-and-forth pings had established general ground rules for the spar, and by and large theyd hold back on any truly last-resort tactics, full Willpower exhaustion, and any generally grevious wounds. They werent trying to kill one another, just feel each other out in the way only Ascenders could appreciate.

Quill, Torch, and Scoop were already outfitted, having quickly swapped to what would have been their newest armor. Allie was off convincing Bulwark to oversee them, and while they waited, he recalibrated what he could use for this spar, and coordinated with Allie to ensure that they would be on as even a footing as they could be. Comparatively little in the way of Intent usage, scaled-back skill potency, avoiding use of their higher-tier skills when possible, and certainly no usage of their Power Talents. Meanwhile, the other three were completely unrestricted. It was impossible to truly return to where theyd been nearly half their life ago, when adjusting for time dilation, but they could at least attempt to be fair. While it went unspoken, Zack knew that he and Allie alike would be taking it a bit easy on the newcomers. It wouldnt do to end the fight before they properly got their measure.

Zack took a moment to inspect Torch and noted that she was using the shield and spear that she used as Torch, but her armor, while outwardly similar, was far darker and infused with blood mana.

So the blood magic was her main combat power. He would potentially need to throw out a number of strategies he had thought of to counter the pyromancer, but hopefully there was something salvageable from them. Blood was an exceedingly uncommon element to fight with, so there wasnt much in the way of literature he could draw on for reference if she acted as more than an alternative water mage.

Scoop seemed to fight in line with her bloodline, judging by her armor and frozen staff, which limited the scope of what new tricks she might pull out. A number of news stations had attempted to call her out as a false Ascender, but history was not kind to those who doubted the legitimacy of the mantle. No leader in the past hundred thousand years had allowed a charlatan to finish The Path and represent their Great Power as an Ascender; such deceptions never lasted long and universally disgraced all involved beyond measure.

The moment General Darrow was outside of the canyon, the match began.

In less time than it would take most people to even use a skill, Allie teleported mere inches away from all three of their opponents, her daggers flashing in an attempt to eliminate the Ascenders before they could even properly react. The blades, empowered with her Talent and Domain, were sharp enough to cut space, and anything vulnerable to physical trauma fell before their might.

Her attack cleaved through Torch, bounced off a set of light blue mana armor Quill had summoned, and was blocked by a [Bulwark] the instant before it would have cleaved Scoop in half and she was back at his side before the three had finished reacting.

Had he transferred the durability of his Talent armor to his defensive spells, perhaps? It was difficult to tell how Quill had managed to have such powerful defensive tools, but Allie would certainly tear through them with a few more strikes, even if her probing attack hadnt finished the fight. Still, at least theyd gotten Torch Ah, no. The Ascender flickered red for a moment, turning into blood and fixing the infinitely thin cut that Allie had removed her head with.

Then Torch, Quill, and Scoop began to flare with magic as they activated their skills and charged.

Zack cast a pair of spells meant to enhance Allies daggers with decay and her body with lightning, his partner appearing just as she was needed for the buffs to actually connect. The next instant, she was gone, and with a sweep of his staff Zack unleashed two dozen [Mana Bolt]s, each a unique aspect to test for weaknesses in their defenses. As they approached the trio, Zack felt a fairly insistent force trying to dispel them and tear his attack apart, but he easily pushed past the effect. Quill cast a [Bulwark] to block the assault, but Zack responded with a force [Laser Blast] to break the shield before it could block the rest of his attacks.

His own spell made a hole through the opposing shield just large enough for his first volley to pass through, before Quill reinforced his shield and the damage closed. The volley splashed without much effect against the blue armor, and from his mana sight, he judged that the sand attack had done marginally more damage than the other spells. None had done much, though. As he swept himself up on a column of air, Zack started summoning clouds of sand to start harassing the opposing team.

Allie was busy jumping between the three of them, forcing them to focus on her and not him. Even then, her attacks werent especially firm. After her initial attack, she was simply probing their defenses, wearing them down a bit, rather than trying to finish them off. This was a friendly spar, after all.

Quill was fending her off with excellent sword-play, while Torch and Scoop had each summoned assistance- a clone made of blood from Torch, and a vaguely bipedal mass of ice for Scoop- to keep Allie on the defensive as well.

Zack unleashed his attacks, sandblasting the trio, and Allie made her proper move, teleporting behind Quill and stabbing him in the neck.

Implausibly, she missed. Zack wasnt entirely sure how that was possible, but she was blocked from an immediate follow-up strike by a sword warding off her probing attacks. He must have had a fairly firm spatial lock in his immediate surroundings, or else Allie would have stabbed the man no matter the distance he was buying for himself.

Quill teleported, and Allie followed immediately behind, a single attack continued uninterrupted from Quills attempted escape. The man brought up a forearm to block the strike, but Allie twisted space to still stab Quill directly in the gut.

This time, her attack broke through, but barely. She was immediately forced back by a combination of raw repulsive force and an incredibly large blast of lightning. Zack blunted a lot of the attack with his ongoing sandstorm, the raw power of the assault turning branching streams of sand into slightly muddy glass. He took those shards and exploded them back at Quill but the other Ascender didnt even seem to notice the shrapnel.

Allie reappeared right in front of Scoop, only lightly singed by Zacks estimation. Her blades flashed down, but a powerful, icy wind engulfed the area around Scoop, turning Zacks sandstorm into a blizzard. He reasserted control a moment later, but frowned as Scoop kept contesting him. She must have been expending serious amounts of mana for that.

Hed dealt with worse, and soon the blizzard was a sandstorm once again. Still, it foiled Allies attack long enough for Torch and her clone to flank his partner. Allie teleported behind the real Torch, but a coiling tendril of blood manifested from thin air and tried to wrap itself around her arm, forcing her to teleport a few inches to the right and continue her attack.

Suddenly, Quill and Torch had swapped places, but Allie once again followed the teleport and landed a strike on Torch, cutting deep into her shoulder. A geyser of blood lanced out, nearly spraying Allie in the face, but she bent space to make it miss. Then it looped back around, spreading into a blanket that Allie was forced to teleport to dodge.

The blood simply returned to Torchs shoulder and sealed up the wound on its way in. Zack couldnt tell if there had been any lingering damage, as even the decay effect, strong enough to rot Tier 27 monsters to dust in moments, didnt seem to have taken hold. Zack had taken advantage of the momentary weakness to force sand through the gaps in Torchs armor and was currently turning them into miniature whirlwinds, trying to sandblast Torchs eyes into paste, but the moment he first tried the helmet had filled with blood, and he refocused his efforts to re-open the wound Allie had inflicted but they were closed before he could do any real damage.

Allie had returned to harry Scoop once more, but had been stymied by the Ascender riding around inside her summoned elemental, and Quills continual attacks. Though Zack rendered the ice elemental into rubble with just a few moments of focused sand-blasting, that didnt do much to help his partner. Even attempting to cut open a huge swath of space had been parried by Quill, a move that stumped both of them. Torchs clone wasnt making things any easier, displaying enough combat prowess to keep Shadow from staying still for even a second with its reckless charges.

Over to his side, the real Torch had pulled her way out of his sandstorm and was quickly closing in on him. Hundreds, even thousands of blood pellets, like a [Water Bullet] but harder than steel, were already pelting him which forced him to drop his attacks and put up defenses. Just as she was just about to reach him, Zack was suddenly elsewhere, as Allie teleported him to the opposite side of his storm compared to where he had been.This chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

Quill took advantage of Allies momentary distraction, and struck at her with his sword. Two copies of said sword, each made of neutral mana, also closed in on his partner, as did a wicked [Ice Spike] and a spear thrust from Torchs clone. She gracefully backflipped, passing through the space which didnt exist between all the attacks.

Zack formed a rope of sand and sent it at Quill, trying to tie the man down. As it connected, Quills armor, followed almost immediately by his mana swords, transformed into a hardened crystal, and a blast of wind and repulsion pushed the sand away forcefully enough that Zack nearly lost control of it.

Torch re-entered the fight with Allie, stepping in for Quill as the man suddenly lost all weight, and was sent tumbling through the sandstorm. Then, he usurped the sand around him and began riding the wind. His sword shifted subtly, and he thrust it under himself like it was a flying sword. Zack didnt even have time to react as the unstoppable force was suddenly within feet of him.

Allie was forced to abandon her engagement with Torch and Scoop to pull Zack out of the line of fire, but he left a parting gift for Quill in the form of a targeted joint dispel and mana bomb, each right in Quills path. Quill narrowly dodged the trigger by ducking out of the way, but Zack activated it manually, and sent the other Ascender tumbling. Unfortunately, it looked like the armor he was wearing hadnt so much as flickered, but hopefully he had come out on top in the mana exchange.

All three were burning mana at a truly prodigious rate. He knew that Quill, or rather Matthew, rather publicly had a Concept that boosted his own mana regeneration and that of those around him, but he hadnt expected it to be so strong. Their Minkalla run had ended with Mind Over Matter, so he could no doubt keep up the effect nigh-infinitely, but that didnt explain just how the effect was so powerful.

Want Not.

His Domain was all about efficiency, and he knew he could outlast any mage in a battle of control and attrition, let alone a melee fighter.

Instead of fighting for control over the wasteful spell, he simply created a weak point in the spell and let the mana ribbon and feed his shield. It still did tremendous damage, but it was well within his control limits to deflect and block. The longer he battled the spell, the more he realized how much more of it there was, how much mana was being spent on this single ability. It was sloppy, too. The mana was controlled well enough considering how much of it there was, but it was the kind of control that Zack would have expected to see from an experienced delver, not a veteran soldier.

Not from an Ascender.

It didnt make sense.

Just as he felt he was about to burn out his mana channels to keep up with the battle, he messaged Allie to help him, and instantly, a dozen knives lodged into Quills armor, forcing him to end the struggle. Only a scant few had managed to actually strike flesh, but it was enough of a threat that he couldnt afford to stand there and attempt to overpower Zack.

Her attacks of opportunity still left Allie open to counterattacks from Torch, who was ferociously attacking with four clones. His partner had done an excellent job avoiding what was, by all accounts, five exceptionally good spear-fighters working in perfect harmony, but even she hadnt gone unscathed. She was a lot better off than Torch, though. Allie was perhaps the best dagger-wielder in the Empire, even before her command over space was utilized, and shed torn the golden crystal armor to shreds, even cutting off several pieces of armor underneath. Torch wasnt bleeding despite several gashes on her body, and while her clones were made of blood, their lack of armor meant they had taken far more attacks, and bands of decay were spreading across them like ink in a glass of water.

Allie dodged the first spear, teleported around the second, flipped over the third, sliced at Quill from ten feet away to bait out the fourth, and landed an actual attack that broke through the blue crystal armor as the fifth attack grazed her side.

Zack was impressed. Normally, when someone tried to stab Allie in the head, they missed by a few feet. It didnt make it past Allies armor, but it did force his partner to turn her attention back to the squad of Torch instead of pressuring Quill.

Quill, for his part, froze in place as Allies [Paralyzing Strike] took hold, and his movements were somewhat jerky. Despite that he managed to start moving sooner than Zack expected and he knew they needed to step it up.

Feeling ragged but determined to win, Zack infused his steps with lightning to rush toward Quill, with a plan in mind to end this fight for good. He withdrew Codex and called to hand a carefully-constructed [Piercing Shot] infused [Mana Slash] formed from light, plasma, and metal. Hed used the combo often in the past to pierce even the most potent of armors, and this would be no different. He empowered it further with his staff, its mana reserves, and even a non-trivial amount of his own willpower. Quill attempted to dodge, but the spell was not so easily avoided. It connected, and sliced through the crystalline armor, tore a gouge into the armor beneath, and nearly severed Quills leg at the thigh.

Quill grunted in pain, but that wasnt Zacks goal. With his armor down, and bare flesh exposed, Zack pulled out his favorite trick he had found while on The Path.

[Inspect Reserves] was a minor divination spell, used to analyze the specific structure and characteristics of spells that reserved mana. Few people used it.

When Zack used his Talent to aspect the spell to mist mana, it did rather the opposite: any active reserved spell would cause the reserved mana to dissipate in the spirit, often causing an opposing fighter to lose more than half their mana in an instant. Used later into a fight, it was oftentimes an instant win. Given the mana Quill had expended, he could not possibly have much mana left, and could not regenerate more through his Concept in time for it to matter.

No one could fight without mana, not at this level.

Using a paltry three hundred and twenty-six mana, a small white ball shot out from Zacks hand and hit Quill in the exposed thigh, doing visually nothing, but accomplishing everything.

Retrieving his rapier from his ring, Zack ran up to stab Quill in the skull. Clean, quick, and there was no way for him to defend against the attack, not with the disparity in what spells they had boosting them.

Quill barely even seemed to notice.

Just before Zacks blade hit Quills skull to end the fight, his left hand came up with impossible speed to grab Zacks blade, even as the armor reappeared far too quickly. Zack tried to pull his blade away, but the man was too strong. Zack wasnt the strongest person around by any means, usually just utilizing [Arcane Manipulation] to fake it, but Quill was holding onto the Tier 27 blade Zack had completed the Path of Ascension with, in his bare hand without it leaving so much as a mark.

Still holding on to Zacks rapier, Quill lifted his own sword and swung it at Zacks neck, faster than he could possibly dodge. It was only thanks to Allie warping space to her limit that allowed Zack to drop his blade and escape from the clutches of Quill.

Codex, even in his spirit, was throwing out dozens of improbable theorems for how Quill managed to rebuild his armor so quickly, but he didnt have time to pay attention. Allie teleported him out of the melee where Torch was ready to run him through from behind and they regrouped.

Or no, that was the clone. It only had a spear and shield. It had become proper flesh at some point, instead of a mass of blood, but he couldnt tell the difference between it and the original.

Well fuck me sideways and upside down. That combo always works. Did you fuck it up?

Zack didnt dignify her surely rhetorical questioning of his abilities, but instead shared what he had learned.

He's incredibly strong. Stronger than a pure fighter should be. Dont risk taking one of his attacks head on.

Well the blood babe isnt any easier. I did my dagger trick to the head but shes still going. Barely even slowed down.

Zack wanted to frown, but before he could, he felt a massive spell engulfing their surroundings.

Allie reacted the moment he flinched and teleported them miles into the air above the valley.

A valley that was no longer there.

The entire mile-long valley had slammed itself shut like the jaws of an earth elemental.

The display of raw power involved in reshaping a landscape ten Tiers above them so quickly was mind-boggling, but before he could properly adjust, he felt the atmosphere around them fall under Quills control as well. The pressure began to rise, and millions of air blades began to form in an area that spanned miles to each side.

A desperate move, but Zack sensed an opportunity to turn a trump card back on its wielder. It had to be a talisman of some kind for that large of a working. Most likely, an attempt to overpower him with raw mana, a move that had failed time and time again.

He always enjoyed when he could snuff out his opponents hopes and spells in a single move.

It was just efficient.

Want Not, he told the world with his Intent, and the world responded, redirecting the spell responsible for the working to him.

Power flowed through him, and Zack struggled to get it under control. As the total mana rapidly blew past five million he expected the flow to stop but the power kept coming, and a struggle turned into a losing battle, then into an uncontainable torrent as the mana blew past what he could control.

The moment that happened there was a massive pop of mana, and then Zack knew only darkness.