Chapter 323

Chapter 323

Matt knew he had a feral grin etched on his face as they left their eight elite floating in a spreading cloud of lightning, but he couldn't help himself.

They had chosen their targets carefully and gone after the more valuable targets first, with peak elites being handled in passing if they were close enough to the pinnacles. As a result, of the three dozen pinnacle elites the opposing coalition had at their Tier, they’d killed eleven. Even spread across the three Great Powers, those—along with the four peak elites—were losses not seen in generations.

Thirty percent of the enemy's strongest forces at Tier 25 had vanished in less than an hour.

It felt like proper retribution only possible thanks to them finally using Allie’s Talent to its true capacity and the work of High Command who gave them data on most of the enemy elites location. Matt knew how extensive the protections were that elites used to block or subvert divinations and tracking spells—the plan must have been the work of decades, all in preparation for one decisive moment.

It was a stunning feat of intelligence work and planning, paired with a faith in Team Zero’s abilities that Matt had not seen coming. High Command hadn’t been holding them back out of risk avoidance, in the end; they’d kept their new Ascenders low-key to make this strike all the more impactful. After all, if their own maneuvers had shown off Allie’s Talent in their tests of the Harmony Accords ship, they might have ruined some part of this plan.

They’d even kept the team itself in the dark, maybe to limit their own exposure to divination; luckily, they might have slipped the leash with their mission’s extension, but they hadn’t exposed Allie’s Talent on their own.

Allie had talked about just going wild a thousand and one times in the last seventy years, but for all her flaws she wasn’t dumb enough to just do it on a whim. She knew the value of revealing such information at an opportune moment. And if the bloody grin she was sporting was any indication, reality was living up to every daydream she had ever had. That was in spite of her already starting to run low on willpower—hence the bleeding—and the spiritual strain, which was starting to manifest in physical damage that Arthur couldn't heal.

The higher-Tier someone got, the more their spirit influenced their physical body. While it was most commonly brought up in regards to the way that immortals could edit their body however they wanted, it also meant that certain forms of spiritual damage could impact the physical body in very overt ways.

Something Matt hadn’t seen before was what Arthur had called ‘fading.’ It was apparently an occasional symptom of incredibly deep spiritual exhaustion, and was exactly what it sounded like. The tips of Allie’s fingers were literally becoming translucent, and her normally-shimmery hair had become a transparent ghostly white. Arthur had given a strong recommendation that Team Zero should return to base, taking their victories and getting Allie the appropriate medical care, but Matt’s fellow Ascender had vetoed the proposal in no uncertain terms.

Even now, her arms were shaking, ripples of spatial energy rippling across her body with every teleport, but Allie’s weak spirit was nonetheless wholly focused on the task at hand. It was a sight echoed across all of the group, spirit-deep exhaustion from battle after battle, after battle. Willpower reserves were exceptionally low across the board, with Dena at total exhaustion, and Sebastian and Ai’la actually sitting the current battle out to preserve their Domains. Liz was nearing the very last dregs of her strength, and Matt was, so far as he could tell, the only one not ready to just drop.

If any of them truly bottomed out of willpower, that would put them out of commission for decades, which wouldn’t be great. Allie was likely to need a decade to recover, which would still functionally leave them if not stranded, slow compared to their normal movement speed. Being short a few members just meant cycling in some of their reserves but that didn’t make it a good idea.

It was just that none of them wanted to give up.

They were finally scoring a lasting blow against their enemies and it felt good. Team Zero had their hands around their enemy’s throats, and refused to let them breathe for even a moment. He was going to squeeze not just until they stopped fighting back but until they went limp. Anything less would be a betrayal of all the losses their side had endured.

Or he wanted to.

As he landed back on the ship, Aster materialized right in front of him, finger pointed accusingly at his nose. “Matt! We had this conversation. Enough killing. The first few were acceptable because we needed to move fast but enough is enough. We could have captured these.”

“We need to keep moving,” Matt protested, “Capturing takes so long, and it’s going to be harder and more dangerous, not to mention that it gives our enemies more time to prepare for us.”

“I know that!” Aster snapped, “It’s why I was fine with the first few. But now? They know we’re coming, and we don’t need to rush. And so what if it’s harder? You promised you were going to go for captures more than kills, and you aren’t.”

The aurora in Aster’s hair flickered red, punctuating her words as she jabbed her finger in his face.

“I-” Matt tried to protest, trying to gather the words for why it was still needed. This was the only way they could truly protect the Empire, and not just give their enemies their best fighters right back to them.

“I nothing, Matthew. I don’t care what justifications you have, you know I’m right about this. You promised, are you breaking that promise?”

Matt’s domain flared unconsciously. He was not breaking his promise. Once he set his course, he would never deviate from it. The enemies of the Empire would pay for what they’d done.... He clenched his fist. That didn’t matter. His course had been set with a promise made to his sister.

“You’re right,” he ground out. “I promised. Captures from here on out, as best as we can manage.”

There was a shifting among the others but no one spoke up against the change.

With that settled they teleported into another battlefield, they found exactly what they didn’t want to see: there were three elites in the system, rather than one.

There were actually dozens of elites but most of them were lower or middle level elites. While Matt would happily give them a burst of [Mana Beam], they were ultimately just bodyguards. Their targets were the three elites already trying to run.

The elites hadn’t even seen them. Their ship was still at the inhabited planet and most Tier 25’s spiritual perception couldn't reach that far, nor would the light from their arrival have reached the outer system, but they were already boarding their ships.

Word must have spread, but they’d known it would—through the future sight amplifier of the Harmony Accords, if nothing else. The wave of deaths they had left behind when they attacked the pinnacle elites would see to that, thanks to the normal soldiers having deactivated their divination wards.

They had considered not killing the armies, but Darrow reminded them it didn’t matter. Elites all had safeguards that would alert their handlers on their death just as Team Zero did, so they might as well do as much damage as possible while they had the initial moments of surprise. Part of the reason they were attacking right after having injured the Harmony Accords was to either force them to not respond at all—which was admittedly unlikely, even if it would have been nice—or to have them weakened when they did inevitably respond.

High Command expected the Harmony Accords to either chase after them, intercept them to tie them down or to use their incredible speed to gather elites into their ship. The second option was... less than ideal. That ship was so large and so heavily armored that if they simply buttoned up, activated their shields and closed any hatches, even Matt couldn't do much to the ship without spending more time than they had. Even in a best case scenario it would take hours if not days to burn through that much shielding and armor which was more than enough time for the fleeing elites to run back to a safe haven.

Allie didn’t teleport to the outer system immediately but waited a few seconds for the ship’s sensors to pick up on exactly who the extra elites were. It wouldn’t do to walk into a trap.

Raymond Turner was the elite they had been expecting to be in this system and was one of their high priority targets. An old Republic pinnacle elite, he had been a household name in the Republic known for his undefeated record in bladework competitions until he reached Tier 15 and joined their military. There, he cemented himself as a mid level elite before working his way up to the level of pinnacle elite.

Tracy Norton was a slightly weaker pinnacle elite who had only crossed into that designation during the war. Having lingered at peak elite for the last fifteen thousand years, she had been considerably farther down their list. She was a sound mage whose voice could disorient with just a whisper, but her screams could cause even heavily defended minds to crumble.

Fuji Morimichi, on the other hand, was an old Sect peak elite who mainly relied on an oversized bow paired with an ability to multiply his shots. That made him a very dangerous opponent in single combat and a decent shock trooper when fighting over besieged worlds.

Together with their mid and high level elite bodyguards the fight would be far from the slaughters they had enjoyed earlier. Still, it was nothing they couldn’t handle. It would just be an exercise of killing the lot of them as quickly as possible, while expending the least amount of energy.

Matt worked his jaw as he corrected himself mentally. It would be an exercise of capturing the lot of them while using the least amount of energy possible.

Capture.

***

Fuji Morimichi cursed Turner with every fiber of his being. The Republic elite was taking far too long, even gathering his men aboard his ship before being willing to leave.

Ever since Grand Orator Cao Yuhan had warned him of the deaths of a dozen pinnacle elites, he had felt the blade of death hovering over his neck. He hadn’t needed the order to group up with the nearest allied elites to retreat together. He knew his own capabilities, and Masters who could move that quickly spelled certain death should they choose to attack him. Allies would hopefully help buy time for him to flee if nothing else.

Not that he would truly flee. Such behavior would be unbecoming, though there was little shame in fleeing from not one but two sets of Masters. That face which he lost would be greatly offset from simply surviving the engagement. No, there was simply no point in fleeing from a Master capable of teleporting anywhere they wished. He would be tracked down and slain where he stood, and there was no honor in such a death.

Far better, to stand alongside a nominal ally and preserve his reputation until death. Of course, when he had arrived at this system and spoke of his knowledge to Turner, the everlasting fool refused to act on account of a lack of orders. He had dismissed Fuji Morimichi’s own concerns until his fellow Republican, Tracy, arrived.

Her arrival bearing the same news had finally convinced the other man. Mid-evacuation Raymond had redoubled his efforts as his own orders arrived—late and slow, slower by far than the rapid communication of the Sects—but Morimichi urged them to move faster still.

The cold edge of the blade felt like it was drawing nearer, whispering of his death.

Then it descended, and he knew it was too late.

Morimichi summoned and drew his bow before even the light of the Empire’s ship arrived. A [Seek The Heart Of The Enemy] appeared multiplied around him and he loosed his attacks without hesitation.

The walls of his own ship exploded outward from the force of the attack. Even as his team prepared themselves for a fighting retreat, his technique arrows sought to end the lives of the enemies or at least slow them down as they finished deploying.

A beam of mana an arm wide appeared for an instant. It punched through the rear half of his ship, destroying the engine before cutting off as abruptly as it had appeared. Two more beams targeted the other ships’ engines—a tank from Tracy’s team tried to intercept one, but it lanced through his technique, shield, and armor before doing the same to the man himself, uncaring for his efforts as it erased that ship’s engine as well.

The hole was so clean that the tank could have survived had frost not covered the man and entombed him in a mass of swirling snow.

With his opening volley splashing harmless upon a massive [Wall of The Mightiest Mountain], Morimichi sighted down his next arrow—this one not a magical construct but one of his elite-killing arrows. Carved from the heart of a ten-thousand-year-old tree, fletched with the plumage of a feathered serpent, its head was starforged bronze, worked in the volcanic forges of Mount Toluris, and radiated the might of the cosmos like a beacon. It would usurp the strength of any defenses it struck, layering them upon itself to further strengthen its own might, making the most-defended foes the most vulnerable to its deadly strike. All of that power, however, would be hidden perfectly by his [Legendary Sword, Laid to Rest and Rust] technique, masking its magic and causing it to be underestimated.

He loosed the arrow with enough force to shatter a small moon.

His arrow flew in silence as Tracy finally reacted, her screech traveling through the void and rattling all their equipment.

The ship flickered as they teleported half a dozen times in rapid succession, arriving at three ships flanked by four more that seemed like they were trying to enter the real space of a long-occupied system. A system that hadn’t had an elite in it according to their reports.

Three pinnacle elite and four more peak elites. A smaller harvest then Matt hoped for but not a bad one by any means.

It had been a clever idea. Hiding in an occupied system where no elite or Empire presence should be. If they hadn’t caught them in the act, they might have just believed they lost the trail in the mess that was chaotic space and flown right by this world.

If only it were so easy to run away from them.

The moment they were close enough, Matt threw himself out of the ship and right at the vessel High Command’s reports said was Alejandro’s. The fire mage was one of their highest target and Matt didn’t want to let him slip the net.

Cannon fire from the ships was quickly redirected from their ship to Matt but he let their power wash over him not bothering to contest or block the attacks and fully relying on his armor to protect him. Matt felt spatial magic start to build in the ship, reminiscent of Allie’s power, but didn’t stop or slow his advance.

He punched through the hull of the ship sword leading the charge right before the spell went off. He hadn’t been fast enough to completely stop the teleport but it was to interrupt the spell enough to stop the ship from doing more than teleporting into the planet they had been fleeing into. As they entered real space Matt noticed they were far away from the inhabited world and almost inside the local star. He didn’t know if that had been the intention of their enemies or if his interrupting the spell had caused them to travel further than they should have.

Matt felt spells, mostly flame based, hit him but he simply watched his sensors and paid attention to the feedback he got from [Cracked Phantom Armor]. Alejandro was well known for having incredibly strong flames that ate through magical armor like acid and Matt intended to identify him before striking.

Except the attack he was expecting never landed.

A [Mana Slash] both blew the attacks away and forced Alejandro’s teammates to defend themselves where it didn’t cut them down entirely. In that small moment of calm, Matt identified... Alejandro’s back.

He was a rapidly shrinking pinprick of darkness on the backdrop of the star’s magnificence.

Matt cursed. Alejandro surely had either [Fire Body] or a similar spell. Once he was close enough to activate it, he could enter the star and—like a fish in water—either vanish in its fiery depths or use its power to fight Matt.

No.

Matt wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

His prey was not allowed to slip the net like that.

Matt activated one of the enchantments he rarely had a need to use on his armor. Force plates expanded from his feet and gave him a secure foothold in space, and Matt used that to jump with all the power his armor and body could muster.

He nearly caught up with Alejandro. As fast as fire mages like him were, Matt was faster. But the headstart the Federation mage had on him was too large and he splashed into the mountains of flames that was the outer layer of the star.

Matt plunged in after him, letting [Cracked Phantom Armor] absorb the flames and adjust to the fire. As the stress on his armor lessened to something he could easily deal with, Matt activated his Concept to cancel out the gravity of the celestial body.

He did all of that without ever letting Alejandro slip from his perception. The mage had used half a dozen movement spells but between Matt’s spiritual perception, skills, and the suite of sensors in his armor, the Federation elite hadn’t managed to give him the slip.

Matt gave chase with grim determination, turning each time the mage used a fire movement spell. Matt had spent decades helping Aster perfect ice versions of such elemental movement spells and, thanks to the potent sensors in his armor, could easily track the admittedly small eddies that those spells caused even in the reaction of an essence fueled star.

It only took Alejandro a few attempted spells to realize Matt could track him. That was when he finally went on the offensive.

The fire around Matt came alive and the fire that had been easily blocked by [Cracked Phantom Armor] grew angry and twisted as Alejandro used his Talent to empower it.

Matt flared [Fire Manipulation] and shoved the fire away, but he wasn’t just contesting Alejandro. While Matt had increased his mana control in the last seventy of years of the war and he had made enough progress that his old self seemed like a clumsy child trying to juggle for the first time, he would never beat a dedicated fire mage at fine control manipulation; but he wasn’t trying to battle Alejandro in a contest of fine control. He was simply commanding the fire to stay away, a demand backed with a million mana a second behind it. What caused Matt to struggle was the weight of the Tier 8 star itself. Its gravity didn’t want even a small bubble in its gaseous form and sought to crush him for his impudence.

Matt repelled both powers and chased after Alejandro’s fire body that floated in the flames unharmed and unbothered.

Seeing that his tactics weren’t working, Alejandro changed course. Instead of trying to crush Matt he started sending jets of flames through Matt’s control to smash against him.

The flames were an unnaturally deep shade of red, nearly burgundy beneath the brilliant glow of his power but while they strained Matt’s power singular attacks had no chance to break through with him selectively reinforcing [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s second layer where the attacks were going to land.

Alejandro sent Matt something through [AI] but it wasn’t a surrender so he ignored it.

The fire mage darted deeper into the depths of the star but Matt chased right after him. Through the barrage of attacks, despite the attempts to sabotage his [Fire Manipulation], he closed the distance steadily.

“Surrender or die.”

There was no response which didn’t hurt Matt’s feelings in the slightest.

Just as he was getting close, he let Alejandro pick apart [Fire Manipulation]. He could almost feel the fire mage's elation as he turned and sent streams of burgundy flames out of his palms. The spell gathered strength from the body of the star, but Matt didn’t slow down for even a moment.

Instead, he called forth his Anchor right in front of his heart.

His Heart of a Black Hole.

The fist sized cultivation core of a Tier 14 black hole he dispelled in Minkalla was no longer a mere innocuous training aid. The moment it appeared, all the fire around them was sucked into the black hole—not just the star but also the attacks Alejandro sent towards Matt.

Alejandro turned to run again, but Matt flared his Intent. He made the man the center of the realm and decreed that the mage was not strong enough to move the entire realm. Alejandro tried to break his Intent, and with how low Matt was on willpower it was entirely possible he could manage that.

But that would take seconds at the fastest... and they were just feet apart.

Alejandro didn’t have seconds.

Matt grabbed the living flame even as a burgundy hand pressed itself against his helm.

Pulsing his anchor’s absorption Matt absorbed all the flame in a quarter mile sphere around himself.

All of it.

The vacuum tried to slam itself shut as the gravity of the star tried to reform itself into a sphere, but Matt had no problem resisting the weight of the star.

After all Alejandro had been in the mass of flame he absorbed and so his efforts to crush Matt had vanished.

Feeling overly stuffed, Matt dismissed his Anchor and breathed out the mass of essence from both the flames he had absorbed and the Tier 25 cultivator he had killed. Aster couldn’t blame him for this one. It was either let him go or end him and there was no way Matt was going to let him go.

Taking a moment to orient himself, Matt flew out of the star to find the rest of his team rounding up the remaining elites from Alejandro’s team.

His armor, thanks in part to [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s protection, was cherry red in the wake of the heat it had been subjected to. In the vacuum of space he would need to use ice spells to cool it, which he did as he flew back towards the rest of the fight. Matt used that time to note that the star’s magnetic fields were changing due to his actions.

He sent a report to the local authorities, recommending that they get a Tier 36 or higher fire mage to come inspect the star. Stars were so large their Tier always lagged behind the local inhabited planets but it was still prudent to make sure the star wouldn’t let out a bubble of gas that might send too much radiation to the inhabited planet.

Matt was doing this to protect those people, not harm them.

His musings were ended when he arrived back to the ship and Allie teleported them. They arrived back in the Capital, stopping just long enough to drop off the prisoners Aster had taken before teleporting to the next target on their list. They only found an abandoned system, and Matt inspected the blood running from Allie’s ears which were looking transparent instead of their normal night sky black.

Seeing him inspecting her, Allie grinned at him showing bloody teeth. It would have been threatening if he couldn’t just about see her spine through the back of her mouth.

Matt grinned in response. If Allie could push herself that hard he most certainly wouldn't be giving up.

It might be harder to find the prey now that they had started to flee but when they did find them their rewards would be even greater now that they had gathered.