C_Mantis
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Chapter 399
🕑 Added 2025-02-14 19:59:01 +0000 UTCChapter 399
Matt shot to his feet even as his mind and [AI] raced.
He found dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of news companies reporting on the incident. Currently, everything was limited to Tier 35 and higher broadcasts, but that just meant they could speculate more than the lower-Tier media stations were allowed to do.
That meant they had some time until the information was ‘confirmed’ to get ahead of it.
“What appears to be Ascender Legion performing unethical and disturbing techniques on hapless prisoners found in a hidden bloodline research facility that was just raided moments ago. According to the leaked reports, dozens of low Tiers were captured and illegally used to test various plagues and curses.”
The man's co-host nodded sagely. “If true, this would severely harm Ascender Legion’s reputation, which so far has been quite positive, and undo all her efforts to improve the reputation of blood magic.”
“This could be a government black site, Mitch.”
“A government black site that was capturing people off the street if the leaked identity reports are to be believed. These were low-Tier civilians, not criminals. If Ascender Legion took part in such actions, government involvement or not, it's a blow to the blood magic community and a disturbing look at one of our newest Ascenders.”
Matt flipped a dozen more stations to see most of them were keeping everything speculative, but most was not all.
He watched as one reporter decried the methods she had used to reach Ascender power, and speculated if Liz had performed atrocities like this before which had been swept under the rug by the Path or other sources. Said “other sources” were left up to the viewer's imagination, but it was clear they were implying Mara and Leon might have had a hand in the cover up.
It was so brazen, Matt was genuinely taken aback. How was any of that passing the various censorship and truthful reporting laws? Sure, as Dukes and Ascenders, there was a bit more wiggle room in the laws to ensure negative news about such individuals couldn’t be so easily covered up, but a few of the stations were being beyond brazen.
Thankfully, there were enough stations reporting that Matt was quickly able to get a fairly detailed picture.
Apparently, Liz had been in Kelispo at a secret blood mage research facility for plagues and curses. The recording had come to light when the facility had been raided and the recording leaked.
Matt immediately started looking at the provided information, but whoever set this up had picked a good time for the offence to occur. The recording was dated during a lull of the war when they had been delving via Allie’s teleportations and out of the public eye for months at a time, adding a layer of believability to the farce.
As he was watching, more information was leaked as someone on the raid team dumped the entire data log of the blood mage research facility.
The news stations, moving at Tier 35 if not higher speeds, took off with the information, giving reports while Matt still struggled to parse through the latest updates.
The hottest topic the news stations started to dig into were the fractured financials that had been recovered and where the research had been going.
The first was, from what Matt could tell, fairly well obfuscated. And the needs of his guild had led him to be well versed on money laundering techniques. Mostly, it came in the form of raw low-Tier mana stones or credits which had been moved through a dozen accounts. But the latter was more of a problem, as several data packets seemed to have gone to Liz’s bloodline facility in the Capital.
The fact that such information had been recovered at all, let alone so quickly, was incredibly suspicious, to the point that even some of the news stations pointed it out.
Matt wanted to say those stations weren’t being manipulated from behind the scenes, but they would have to see, as everyone was a suspect at this point.
Their hidden enemies were clearly wealthy and well-connected, which rarely meant stupid enough to burn their own assets in trying to force a narrative.
Still, even if completely faked, it looked bad for them. With the other evidence coming from the raided facility being seemingly legit, it made the accusations coming down on Liz look all the more damning.
Matt was searching for some kind of flaw they could use to prove his wife innocent when she barked a laugh and the flames and lightning that had been radiating off her vanished.
“Greedy fuckers overplayed their hand.”
Matt raised a questioning eyebrow and Liz flicked a finger at the screen, which then played back a spiritual recording of Liz performing the curses and plagues on the victim. Spiritual recordings weren’t perfect, but they could record the unique fluctuations that everyone’s spirit put out. They could be faked, but it was surprisingly hard to do so without specialized equipment, Talents, or time to forcefully change one's spirit.
“Fuckers thought they were smart providing all the data instead of scrubbing everything but the visuals.”
Matt watched for a moment before noticing what Liz meant and chuckling himself, a majority of the stress leaving him.
There was only one spiritual resonance in the video, which for anyone but Liz would have been correct.
Ever since Tier 25, Liz had replaced her circulatory blood with another clone of her in her blood form to increase her power. Normally, it was impossible to tell because of all of her shielding and wards, but the video Liz hadn’t been using anything but the most basic, easily-seen-through ones. Which itself was somewhat suspect, but not nearly enough on its own, so the recording could tell there was only one of Liz in her body.
That was… surprisingly sloppy.
Sure, not many people knew of Liz’s trick with her clones, but Liz was right. The fact that the video had not been better scrubbed had just given them an opportunity to stop this farce in its tracks. Part of information warfare was removing excess information, and that went both ways. Less information might make accusations harder to stick, but too much information in a set up could end up helping the enemy.
Which was just what happened here.
By trying to add too much detail to their ploy, they had overstepped and served them a way to derail this entire thing.
Matt caught himself. It was enough to cast doubt, but some people would just assume Liz hadn’t bothered to double herself up outside combat and it was still her. But those types would never change their minds. It was the best answer they had, as well as the only one right now, so it would have to be good enough.
The next most important question was if they wanted to reveal the information.
Looking at Liz and seeing just how mad she still was despite having an out, Matt decided that yes. They probably wanted to.
“Want me to portal us into a news station? We can blow the top off this right here and now.”
Liz chewed on her lip for a minute. “If we let them keep talking, they might reveal more, and I really want to find out who tried to set me up.”
Matt chose his next words carefully. “Are you sure? Might be better to kick the bucket over and see what, or rather who, tries to clean up.”
Liz opened her mouth to answer but nodded. “That’s a fair point. You brought your spies, let’s ask them for their thoughts?”
Calling a meeting with the spies and their seneschals was basically pointless, as both groups had come running the moment the information hit the news stations. So had nearly everyone else, in fact, which Matt took as a good sign that their people trusted them enough to not believe the information without more definitive proof.
Isabella, despite being the lowest Tier and not the first through the door, was the first to speak. “I would recommend we quash this immediately. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to remove this from the public perception of you, my lady. Reports are already citing blood mages as being a systemic problem if there is a cabal of blood mages working on plagues in secret.”
Matt felt Liz tighten up at that. He knew she was sensitive about blood mages' reputations with how she had been looked at for having the power when she was younger. It was all tied up in her own more personal issues, but blood mages who didn’t go down the healer route were looked on with mistrust.
Liz signaled that she had heard her seneschal but asked the rest of the room. “I’ll take the hit in the short term if I have to, especially if it means we can figure out who is behind this. What gets us to this goal best? Waiting? Or seeing who starts covering this up if we prove it's false?”
One of the spies that had come with them, Esmeralda, stepped forward. “Both could work, Ascender Legion. It's more a question of how prepared the team who set this up was for rebuttals. If they were prepared, this might be a trap in some way, where they will reveal more information that counters your counter, and just makes you look more guilty. However, if this was a genuine mistake, seeing who starts scurrying when the light gets shined on them would give us our best results.”
Matt wanted to ask a question, but let Liz take the lead. He knew how angry she was, and letting her lead would help her feel in control, which was about as much as he could do at the moment.
“What is your estimation on this? It is sloppy or is it a trap?”
Esmeralda winced. “I was never an analytical type, Ascender Legion. I did field work. But my gut tells me this was sloppy. With the timing being just a week after Ascender Titan’s reveal, it feels like this was rushed, but the question is how. Based off the initial reports, the research facility seems like it was running for a while. Maybe these enemies started with the sole purpose to frame you, Ascender Legion. That's the worst-case scenario, as it means everything will be centered around making you look guilty. On the other hand, our best-case scenario is that they just had a guy on the raid task force and planted the information when they saw the opportunity. It's also possible they had a spy inside the facility and used them to plant the evidence which means it might be far more thorough than we see. They then could have tipped off the local Count to make everything that follows seem more legitimate. This game is all about double and triple guessing and hoping you are right.”
Jericho, the other intelligence agent, stepped in. “I did back-end work for a while before I decided I just didn’t like it after I was tagged, so I have a bit more experience with this kind of stuff. That said, if this is a pretense at being sloppy, it's incredibly well done to the point I believe it was something quickly put together. Which I will note is entirely possible.”
Esmeralda agreed with him, leaving Matt stuck with the feeling of the unknown.
Isabella raised a finger and spoke when Liz nodded to her. “I just got confirmation that your research teams did have what seems to be legitimate correspondence with this hidden facility. Nine messages. The first one is when this team reached out to them shortly after our team was founded, looking to share what seemed to be mundane knowledge about bloodlines in general. As per your orders, the teams declined because of the secrecy clauses in the contracts. The teams were reached out to twice more, where a talk was held about clinical trials for this hidden team’s product, which is reportedly about boosting the power of blood-based potions. But when they couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, properly identify themselves or reveal the actual product, and more importantly what went into it, the correspondence died out. I would like to note that none of that is truly rare, and the facility gets at least a dozen such offers a year. Most are legit from various alchemical groups, bloodline research groups, and even enchantment or rune-based groups. They are all just trying to keep their secrets close to their chest before they launch a product, but want outside minds to look things over. Others are just trying to sound out what a competitor is working on.”
Liz finished Isabella’s statement herself. “And some are done by people with bad intentions like this.”
Cato took the momentary silence to ask. “While only a side profile was shown, I believe this constitutes impersonating an Ascender, which is a serious crime, as your likenesses are legally protected. Doubly so when impersonating an Ascender while committing a crime. The imperial government takes this very seriously. We could just sit back and wait for the government to dispel this farce.”
Liz shook her head. “Which they undoubtedly know and are prepared for. I’d put money that they are ready for that and at most, we’d find a disposable contractor who will take the fall but ultimately is a dead end. Let the government do their thing, but unless we specifically ask for this to escalate, they will just use regular investigators. And neither of us is interested in bringing a Royal or the Emperor into this. We aren’t children who need an adult to come clean up after us.”
That earned a wince all around, which was almost amusing enough to cause Matt’s mood to lighten.
The Emperor, like his father and grandmother before him, had taken a mostly hands-off approach to things beneath him, but when he was prompted to act, he usually did so with a hammer that splattered everyone involved. Not that Manny couldn’t act subtly, but when Matt had asked him about why he made such decisions, Manny had simply stated it kept people from coming to him for stupid things.
It was funny how much knowing the Emperor personally changed things. Everyone else in the room was probably worried Manny would be angry if he was drawn into such a small incident. When in reality the Emperor had already told them to just do whatever they wanted, damn the consequences.
That tidbit going public would give the various news agencies something real juicy to chew on. Just how much would they dare to speculate on that news? Probably a fair bit less than they were daring to do to his wife, Matt was sure of that.
Still he tried to calm himself down by reminding himself that the stations could be far worse.
Liz looked to him, silently asking for his opinion and bringing him back to the present. Matt made the choice that was best for his wife. Damn everything else, that was what mattered to him most.
“Let's show our proof and see what happens. I agree this was a rush job. Maybe it was something they were preparing for a long time and pulled the trigger on early. That would mean this is a trap, but the timing of this suggests this fiasco was an opportunity they saw when the Count hit the facility and someone jumped on it, but that's pure speculation. Either way, I think it's best we cut this off as quickly as possible.”
Liz grimaced as he said speculation. “I’m really growing to hate that word. But you're right. Let’s just go for it. I want to kick over that hornet's nest right damn now. Everyone, go do what you need to do. In two minutes we will go to a news station. If you need to come, be there. If not, do whatever you need to do.”
The moment they were alone, she took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry they are trying to ruin your moment.”
Matt melted and pulled Liz’s hands up to kiss them. “That's my line. I’m sorry they decided to attack you to try and get at me.”
Liz shook her head. “I don’t think that's necessarily true. Between our suspicions that Aster’s problems are this cabal messing with her and now this, I think it's pretty much confirmed they were always targeting all three of us. My instincts say this ploy was always being set up for me, they just fired it early to try and counter you too. Make it seem like your guild's achievements were also accomplished using unethical methods or some crap like that.”
Matt didn’t like that thought, but he pushed it down as he remembered something he thought of earlier. “That reminds me. Eyria said the training aids for self-made skills deserve to be sold at an exorbitant price, similar to what Aster’s bad actors were saying. It could be obvious bait or coincidence, but distracted with my discovery, I hadn't connected the dots right away.”
Liz growled. “I was already mad at these assholes, but now I’m furious. Hopefully this maneuver kicks up some response and we can drag whoever this is out into the light.”
Matt looked at Liz’s balled up hands, which started to shake and glow more brightly with how hard she was clenching them.
Anything that came to mind just felt like platitudes and he didn’t know what he could say that would make her feel better.
When she unclenched and sat back in the seat with a sigh, Matt pulled her into a side hug.
Together they just sat there in companionable silence until the others returned.
Once everyone who was coming had arrived back, Matt [Portal]ed everyone into one of the expanded buildings that housed a news agency. They didn’t care which it was, so he had simply chosen the closest one to their suite. Going to a more sympathetic station might have given them some small advantage, but for what they were about to do, they didn’t require anything more than a recording station and a licence to broadcast.
The moment they walked through the door, the station started to panic.
It wasn’t surprising with the still simmering anger on Liz’s face and stoney displeasure on Matt’s. People clearly thought they were about to start killing.
Not that they weren’t tempted, but random civilians at a random news station weren’t their targets.
Though, it was amusing to watch as the news anchors who were just discussing how monstrous blood mages guilty of such acts as the recording showed were, go through all five stages of grief live on air.
As they reached the sealed recording studio, Liz kicked the door off its hinges, causing the second anchor to relieve himself.
A quick spell from his cohost saved him from broadcasting that embarrassment to the entire Empire.
Liz growled at him and pointed off the set. “Move, piss pants.”
Or not.
The man scurried off and Liz looked at the vacated chair before kicking it off the set and pulling two chairs out of her spatial ring.
Matt just looked down at the remaining host until he scurried away.
Taking his seat, Matt glared at the director until she stopped hovering over the button that would have stopped the recording.
Using his [AI], he projected a message onto one of the dozen screens next to her.
Seeing it, she and the two aides started nodding frantically as they changed the projecting cameras and framed them better as well as pulling up the recordings he told them to find.
Liz tapped the table, causing the wood to splinter, for ten seconds or so until she growled. “That's enough time. Everyone else can play catch up, and frankly, I’m pretty fucking angry at all of you, so I’m not inclined to play nice. Which is funny, as I’ve been pretty fucking nice every time I went on one of these worm shit shows. I see that everyone is having a lot of fun flinging shit at me. Let me officially quash that.”
Liz paused as they waited until the director signaled they were ready. “What you should be seeing next to my angry talking head is a full spectrum broadcast of my Ascension. I don’t know or care about the source, but you can see there is me and my spiritual signature. Now, onto the next one sometime later, after we took out a supply depot deep inside Republic space. Let's look at the full spectrum recording. My spiritual fluctuations are way more chaotic and mixed. Strange. Did I learn some new veiling technique that disguises my spiritual signature? Now show my next public outing.”
Liz went through half a dozen more recordings pointing out the odd fluctuations in each, but Matt was flicking through the news stations who had universally stopped their discussions of the recording to broadcast Liz’s speech.
He took a smug satisfaction in their obvious nerves, fearing they might come visit their stations next.
“Now look at me.”
When the director started to panic because they were looking at Liz and didn’t know how to do more than they already were, Liz slapped the table hard enough to cause it to crack in half. “With a spiritual camera! Come on! What have I been spouting about for the last two minutes?”
Seeing her view had changed, Liz pointed at herself. “And look at that same distortion. What could it possibly be? What you fuckers forgot when you were tearing into blood mages was that I’m a fucking blood mage.”
Matt sent the director a message, and she quickly projected a real image and a spiritual image side by side on the screen.
Liz reached down and cut her arm, letting her golden blood rush in a wave out of her arm.
Except the ichor didn’t just pool around them, and instead formed into a second glaring Liz.
“I’m a fucking blood mage who uses clones. Of course, I amplified my own powers by using a clone in place of my own blood.”
Matt finally spoke. “And you did so well before this… recording’s purported date.”
He took great pleasure in watching the reaction spread across the news stations that had just been tearing into Liz as they immediately started publishing retractions. They didn’t forget to point out everything had been speculation based on what had seemed like credible evidence.
Cato and Isabella would be throwing the book at all of them. As much as was possible, at least, which was less than they would have liked but more than enough to make their displeasure felt.
The stations that hadn’t bothered to hold back would be hurting in the next few days. As for the stations that had been more analytical and waiting for more information, they weren’t free of sighs of relief or wiped brows, but they would at least escape the worst of his and Liz’s wrath.
“Crazy, that. Honey, how interesting is it that this information came a…”
All of them froze as the entire building lost power.
Matt grinned and ran at his best speed as emergency power came back online, only lasting for a second before it too went out.
Someone had just panicked and tried to shut them down. He was giddy with excitement as he flew down corridors and atriums hardly able to contain himself.
He arrived at the power link in only seconds, only to find the technicians panicking as they tried to close the connection to the mana conduit that ran throughout the city as backup power or disconnect the local backup battery
Matt ignored that and them, instead walking over to the malfunctioning mana battery and slapping a hand onto it.
One of the technicians shouted at him as if he didn’t understand just how much mana was contained inside it.
But he did, and it was nothing to what he generated every second.
Connecting to the battery, Matt found that someone had overridden safety protocols, causing the power regulator inside to think the mana gathering arrays had failed and the building was drawing an impossible large load. Forcing it to draw mana out of the mana stones inside it as fast as it safely could, far more than the building needed. It also reported externally that the battery was empty and needed support. This, in turn, meant the shunt to the public net had opened, adding even more power to the system and triggered every safety mechanism, thus causing a complete shutdown.
The one saving grace was that the mana gathering arrays didn’t care about what the backup measures said, and had gracefully shut down when they detected the system was already overloaded.
It was an interesting attack vector, and not one he would have considered normally viable, but it had worked with what was only a single bypass.
From what he could see, it seemed like a purely digital attack, but the investigators that would come and inspect it later would be able to tell if it was actually done remotely, through spiritual perception range, or locally by one of the technicians. But no matter the method, he was ecstatic.
They had caught someone in the act, and now there was evidence.
Keeping in contact, he wormed his own mana inside and used it to forcefully stop the flow of rampaging mana. His personally aspected mana caused serious damage to the battery bank, but he didn’t care or stop.
With a final thought, he flipped the control to block the battery, letting the backup systems take over.
The entire battery bank would need to be replaced, but that wasn’t his problem as mana was restored to the building.
Grinning, Matt informed everyone they were now in a crime scene, and to cooperate with the police and Imperial investigators, though he doubted they were guilty. This felt even more hasty than the initial attack, which had already seemed sloppy. It was unlikely anyone was turned against them with them in the building, or was already planted into the building before they arrived.
Both were possible, but incredibly unlikely.
Sitting back down next to Liz, he smiled at her. “All fixed. Someone sabotaged the building's local battery bank. I got power back online. Now what were you saying?”
Both Lizzes’ smiles were just as wide as his. “I was just talking about how wonderful my husband is.”
Matt played it up. He couldn’t help it. He understood why Mara and Leon did so, now that he had a taste.
“Oh, that's sweet of you. Please, start over so I can hear all of it.”
“I believe I was saying how interesting the timing of the attack was. Just a month and a half after your Realm-changing announcement. And then boom. Once more, another attack. A sloppy one this time, but I guess they expected us to have to move to a new building or something when they killed the power.”
As she paused, the other news stations immediately started speculating about the hidden entities who were foolish enough to target the Ascenders, as if they weren't part of their previous efforts.
Liz then turned a glare onto the nearest camera. “And I don’t appreciate the slander about blood mages. We get enough grief without assholes talking about how inherently evil our magic is. If a fire mage burns someone alive, no one calls all fire mages abominations. And to answer your earlier speculation which the video tried to paint me as… Yes, I have practiced the less palatable aspects of blood magic. I just did so far earlier than that video showed. I did so while still on the Path, and onto Imperial prisoners slated for death, just like everyone else who needs a human body to work on. I don’t pretend that the darker aspects of blood magic don’t exist, but don’t try to slander me or mine with it.”
Isabella flicked a finger and the second Liz added, “And as for the correspondence between my research facility and this blood magic team. Here. This is all of the correspondence between the two. They reached out in an attempt to get my teams to test things for them and we declined. They reached out a few more times, and we declined. For people who don’t interact with research teams, this is fairly normal and happens dozens of times a year. It's the equivalent of spam mail.”
Seeing Liz was done, he spoke. “To those who are threatening us or feel threatened by what we are doing… You had better hope your layers of secrecy are sufficient, because we are coming for you. You started this when you hit our duchy’s aura potions, but that was a small thing we could have overlooked. This, however, was a declaration of war. If you are smart, you’ll throw yourself on the Emperor's mercy, because if we get to you first, there will be none.”
Together, the three of them stood. The Lizzes merged back into a single entity as they walked away, with their people following at their heels.
The whole time, Matt was checking in with the other news stations and noting how they were reacting.
By now, even those who had taken the most adversarial stances had pivoted and blamed their former reporting on a mistake made in the moment, trying to get the most current information out.
His information people also noted that information bursts through micro portals had spiked once Liz revealed the flaw in the recording. Most of that could be explained away by the news stations sending out retractions to the nearest planets, which would have already gotten the news, but a suspicious amount of information had passed through as heavily encrypted packets.
Data security wasn’t inherently suspicious, but the degree of the encryption was telling, and some of the packets used absolute top-of-the-line encryptions that would be impossible to crack without specialized Talents. Even then, it would be iffy if the other side had their own Talented security.
More importantly, they were able to track the data packet that caused the power shut down. It originated from the neighboring system and bounced between at least five other systems before that, but Jericho was already tracking it down, and in a day or two, they would hopefully have a target.
At the same time, Esmeralda was digging through the initial information that had been found in the raid and forwarded to the Capital news stations. From what she could tell, the information had originated locally inside the bloodline facility, which meant their attackers had physical access to the facility, which was another lead.
For the first time since they had been hit, it felt like they were on the offensive, and it was a fantastic feeling.
It was time they went hunting.
Comments
Jonathan Simon
On the dollar a month, I'm not sure it's worth coming here versus RR. Still giving, of course.
KnightRider007
I dunno, it makes them *angry*, but they’re not supposed to be able to actually deal with this sort of thing (since it’s not direct combat). “Bored” wasn’t the target, “frustrated and unable to effectively act” is the target - and this could plausibly have achieved that if Liz didn’t have a decent counter-point with evidence.
KnightRider007
Yeah, the power shutdown feels very sloppy to me. It’s plausible as a panic reaction… but surely they predicted Liz going to a news station? It’s one of the most direct reactions possible.
KnightRider007
Yeah, that “we don’t need an adult” rant seemed *incredibly* short-sighted to me. This wasn’t an attack just on her personally, but on an *Imperial asset* and on the integrity of *the Path itself*. It’s all very well to say they need to stand on their own two feet, but this isn’t direct combat, and they’re facing Tier 40s who have tens of thousands of years of experience and have used those Millenia to stockpile assets, resources, contacts, and leverage. This is a completely unfair fight in an arena that MAL don’t even specialise in, with potential for massive collateral damage affecting people who depend on them. Pull your head in and ask for help - like a *mature adult* would.
KnightRider007
Yeah… that actually was a bit immersion breaking. These people are still *eight Tiers* higher than MAL. Their fear seems somewhat unjustified
KnightRider007
Bloody Hands didn’t guess the Talent, he found what he thought was a glitch in his simulation, and rejected the possibility himself. It was Gan Le who proposed that it might actually be real, and *specifically* a Talent, and everyone (including Bloody Hand) laughed him out of the argument.
Julie Smith
You have a lot of company in the English-speaking world. Perhaps 1% of people know what the word means.
Julie Smith
Oopsie! The cabal, probably the Senses cabal, made a horrible mistake--and then another one. Their one hope is that this was done through an intermediary who wON'T betray them to save their skin. I wouldn't bet on it.
HunterIV4
One fascinating thing about this story is the way the "no punching down" aspect creates real challenges not just for those weaker but also for those who are stronger. Could a tier 40 defeat Matt? Yes, absolutely, but if they actually tried to attack, someone higher tier would obliterate them before they could even finish the attack. With the ranges and talents involved the high tiers are just that fast; even the T19 lady that imprisoned the essence stone guy was almost killed by a higher tier and stopped immediately. So the tier 40s are limited by utilizing their lower tier allies to harm them unless they want to get obliterated by royals and those lower tier allies have no hope of defeating Ascenders in an outright fight. Organizations run at multiple levels, so if Matt simply obliterates their entire T27-T32 or so organization, they lose, as they are just as helpless at physically stopping Matt as he is to physically stop them. It's a unique type of world building and makes a lot of sense compared to stories where literal gods walk around avoiding to kill weaker people because they don't feel like it.
Drew Tunison
I personally want someone to crack cabal encryption similarly to how enigma was was cracked in ww2. Basically I want all message traffic within the cabal to end with 'glory the cabal' or some such nonsense.
Tom C
Yeah. Kinda hope Manny has plans ready to go if MLA can’t resolve it. Mara and Leon will be fuming
Jason Becker
Interesting! Got any hints you can share on the new series or do you want to hold off for the time being?
JM O'Hare
Blank skill shard use are not realm changing.
Preston
358 I believe
Darthnarciss
The Empire doesn't arrest for thought crimes. None of the actions taken previously amounted to more than armed theft (hiring pirates to steal the Aura potions), and pushing people to be greedy (the winter bloodlines items). This however has touched on two Imperial nonos. Using the likeness of an ascender, and messing with the power grid. At this point actual crimes have been committed, the powers that be will move if they haven't been already. And it just comes down to, will the cops get there before the ascenders? (Emps already said he ain't doing crap about crap unless asked or to prevent something worse. Emps would've known no lives would be lost to any actions so far so wouldn't have moved independently)
Darthnarciss
Not really, I mean, the amount of damage any T27 ascender can do to planets/corporations what have you is already mind boggling, I mean it mentioned in the last delve chapter how just pushing his concept would make an at tier planet uninhabitable. That's not even touching on the fact all the Empires ascenders are known to be at the very least work colleagues if not friends which means the teleporter that can go literally anywhere, the veritable God of Water, and the most powerful active ascender who happens to be a damn dragon known for...removing annoyances. Then you have the Royals and the Emperor. Yeah. The only feasible reason none of the royalty has gotten involved is dubious legality and plausible deniability. The cabal (or unknown agents) just shot themselves in the foot with this one, impersonating an ascender (or even using their legally protected likeness) is a big nono as stated, PLUS they messed with the power grid. Hiring some pirates, meh, kids stuff. This new crap? Real sh*t.
Justus Saucedo
So Emanuel domain is "I am not a tyrant" so he wouldn't just cush the cabal targeting MLA. On top of that thier are laws keeping people from attacking down. Manny being a T50 holds himself to that. Let's also not forget thier are laws stopping Manny from interfering with nobles with his future sight, it's also politics. Which makes it all complicated
Trevor Mergen
Thanks!
Alex
It may have been a month since Titan’s Torch released info on how to create skills in blank skill shards.
Isiah Debarros
Also, like the whole reason why they aren't getting involved because Matt and Liz and Aster could face like real world consequences if they don't actually live their life experience life on their own. Like Matt would of probably taking way longer to figure out his truth if no one was opposing his guild and he's probably not the only one that's gonna experience growth
Isiah Debarros
I mean, I doubt that it's exactly a secret for anybody who has authority. Like the only reason why Matt and the others are having a difficult time is because their new players whose power mostly comes from institutions and people they are not willing to use for this issue
Isiah Debarros
I mean, I think it's less that the empire was gonna react and more that the empire's reaction was tame because Liz and Matt we're going to handle it for the most part. Like if they didn't care about asking for help. This issue wouldn't exist in the first place.
Isiah Debarros
That would probably get him in legal trouble
Isiah Debarros
Yeah, this last one was particularly sloppy. Like the news station was suggesting that it might be a secret military facilities was gonna get them the hammer anyway
Isiah Debarros
I mean it's safe to assume they wouldn't know anything about any of their domains other than what people assume.
Isiah Debarros
I mean all of the higher tier people in the empire know who the top players that would be against them would be the only reason why the people who are against them is a secret is cuz Matt, Liz,aster are new and most of their power is from the Empire, which there are refusing to actually use
Kain
It’s been made pretty clear the empire’s high tiers are letting MLA do their thing and are not actively participating in these investigations/in this conflict, at least not seriously. Could manny look at the future to see who the cabal is, yes, has he already done that, almost certainly, is he going to tell MLA that, not unless they ask and they aren’t asking.
JM O'Hare
What chapter did the secret cabal meeting happen again? I want to reread it
Kain
I mean even during the war there was plenty of doubt about the mana stone thing. I think Blood hands even vaguely guessed his talent correctly , he was shot down of course, but it’s not like we ever got enemy pov of them buying the mana stone gambit hook line and sinker. There are also precogs in this world and Matt just doubled up his mana again I have to think that every tier up his “weight” in the realm gets heavier making it harder and harder to hide him and his mana from said precogs. And they don’t even have to identify his talent they just have to clock him as something they really really need to look into. As for it being too soon I’m not suggesting they will figure it out/confirm it quickly, if it is outside forces they’d have to be extremely careful and slow going about it to not alert Manny and the Empires real counter intelligence forces. Laying out small traps/opportunities for Matt to use immense amounts of mana and seeing what/how he does it each time hoping for a slip up or tell could take tens to hundreds of thousands of years to actually get any real results.
JM O'Hare
The chapter has an error about the timeline: first it says "With the timing being just a week after Ascender Titan’s reveal, it feels like this was rushed" and later on we get "Just a month and a half after your Realm-changing announcement."
Alex
Its good training for them. They gotta practice their specialty and stuff at some point anyway, may as well practice it on cases that relate to them. Besides, Ascenders aren't rational xD just cause letting Manny deal with it makes sense, doesn't mean they don't want to do it themselves.
Matt H
@Mantis I'm not going to say that MLA can't have triggers or character weaknesses, but Luna had 13 Tiers to address this issue after the outcome of Minkalla. The idea that Luna hasn't beaten the reticence out of MLA in asking/allowing assistance from people is utterly ridiculous. Any obvious weaknesses should've been prime targets for Luna. @Tristan Don't bother. This whole situation is going to end up as some sort whetstone for MLA so rationality gets thrown by the wayside. Either "the powers at be" were aware of everything all along and allowed things to progress as they did (i.e. the last war); or MLA will, somehow, be more effective than the Empire could've been against a group of individuals ~15 tiers higher than them.
Matt H
Please, correct me if i'm wrong, but this chapter seems to imply that MLA, at T27, will somehow discover/bring to light things that the entirety of the Empire's assets related to Ascenders are unable to in a similar timeframe. Are we going to pull the whole "the powers that be" were aware of everything all along and are planning a trap (again), or will the intelligence apparatus of the Empire continue to be incompetent?
fruit dragon
If the story ends at Ascension then it ends at Ascension. But if you could throw us One post Ascension chapter I think that'd be fun. Also very excited to see what you do next! Thank you for the story
Sean C Jackson
I imagine this mistake was made because they don't have the perspective that Manny's talent gives him on how fruitless it is to try to predict Ascenders.
Sean C Jackson
Yeah, for tier 26s to bring down a tier 30 boss without any of them having even part if thier Aspects yet is insane.
Sean C Jackson
Well it's common knowledge that his concept let's him boost the mana regeneration of others and they worked pretty hard to make it look like his talent let's him use a mana Stine to temporarily boost his maximum mana to the amount the stone holds which since even at Tier mana stones hold far more mana than most people could ever dream of even being their max I think it's too soon for this to be a problem.
Andyr98
If it's in the same universe have the pop up in background of hereing there tier 50+ exploits like hearing about Duke waters was before the wedding
C_Mantis
Current plan is to end the story at the ascension. There isnt really any plot points I can do there that I cant do here and I don't want to be one of those stories that drags the story out forever. Also I have other series I want to write.
Jason Hatter
Right. Let Ascenders be Ascenders, and while all eyes are on them, Harper's people are slipping in behind the glare.
Jason Becker
This is Matt. Just have him create them on all the surrounding world as public rifts.
CringeWorthyStudios
To be fair, there’s a very good chance that Manny is already acting, he’s just being subtle about it.
Preston
I think I'm most curious to see what form the retribution takes. The cabal is still much higher tier than MLA. So I feel like violent punishment is off the table unless they turn them in to Manny or Mara/Leon. I think it would be fun to see Matt conduct a full economic war on a collection of companies/groups. Make ten thousand Winter rifts, flood the immortal markets with ridiculously cheap materials that the cabal has a monopoly on, poach all their workers just for shits, etc. Not sure how much he can do though without tipping his hand with regards to mana regeneration, though. I'm always a bit surprised by the viciousness if they media given how much charity work Matt has contributed to the realm. I suppose they're all bought and paid for above a certain tier. It'd be funny to watch all the lower tiers rally around Matt and start boycotting goods produced by certain cabal factions. I feel like if Matt seriously began to monetize his products he would drive everyone it if business. I feel like we need some cabal reaction chapters to see how much they're sweating or if they're really arrogant enough to think they'll get away with it.
Mario Morales
The nuke theft is a very apt comparison. I can't see how a government could let an asset as important as an ascender be taken out in this fashion. I don't think they're at that point yet, but I fully expect there to be a ton of background support getting prepared for the just in case at this point.
Mario Morales
Yeah, publicly slandering (or whatever the proper term would be) folks that are super powerful and are your government's ultimate weapons of war seems phenomenally stupid and a great way to make more enemies than any gain you could get.
Kain
I feel a twist coming. Idk something about that secondary attack and its relation to large amounts of mana just feels off. The current assumption is that these attacks are from the cabal of hidden empire business people and interest holders that are conspiring against MLA, and that they are hurried/rushed because of Matt’s recent announcement. What if it’s not actually them what if it’s factions from outside the empire probing for information about Matt’s talent. Everyone knows he used a ton of mana it’s the how, and the true extent of the mana, that people don’t know. I just wonder if we will see other situations that require Matt to use or manipulate large quantities of mana in the coming chapters.
Martin Banks
I get the feeling they are brining it down by letting the team do what they want
Jsar
We also saw from Manny's POV that protecting them too much is likely to backfire. Gotta let them grow and mature to get the best results down the line.
Martin Banks
So glad they got to do the whole. We will find you and we will end you speech. These guys are not average even by ascended standards if they can impress luna the crazy perfectionist these people are toast... I can't wait to see some put down
Andyr98
Now we all know that eventually the true war is gonna happen but will the story continue to the next realm hopefully so
Owen Kaz
The last few ascender's led them to be hasty and overconfident. Matt alone is endless, even without Liz and Aster. And despite this, they assumed he wouldn't pursue this till the very end? Fools
Blake N.
It’s short for badasserynissitude
Aaron Hardin
Encryption Keys (which depending upon the encryption type, could be used to encrypt, decrypt, or both), are likely created using a talent where trying to create one from scratch as an outsider without a talent to crack the encryption is almost impossible without a similar talent, but that doesn't prevent the one creating the initial encryption from providing keys to other to use said encryption.
Havokk
yeah that was satisfying....... and the mere fact that Liz can make someone who immortal ( since they mentioned that it was only the high tier stations that were reporting at the time ) lose control of bodily functions enough to piss himself is FANTASTIC. I think we are all hoping that this actually leads to the Cabal and we get to see some heads start rolling
Alex
This all reminds me of something Manny said in his last PoV chapter. While he's contemplating the unique perspective he has with his father's precognition Talent, he talks about how Ascenders are inherently chaotic. They're virtually impossible to predict, and they have a much greater influence on the fate of things they interact with than they rightly should. I think a fundamental mistake the cabal have made is assuming that they can counter MAL by having plans in place for whatever they're going to do. What they've failed to understand is that you can't predict an Ascender; you can't be ten steps ahead of someone when you have no way of knowing what they're going to do next, and no way of measuring the ripple-effects of their actions before they've made them. Now the cabal are being caught flat-footed, reacting instead of acting, because their carefully orchestrated traps and contingencies have been rendered moot by circumstances they had no way of predicting, and it shows in how sloppy they're getting. Trying to shut down the broadcast was a mistake; they've as good as confirmed that there ARE bad actors trying to damage MAL's image, and it's going to make any future attempts to slander them much less effective.
fruit dragon
Isn't the way you're supposed to fight Asenders is to make them bored. This doesn't scream bored to me
Tom
So... anyone else want a quick PoV of Manny holding Leon and Mara back from going on a rampage the moment that 'scandal' hit?
fruit dragon
Just putting out ideas for how they're going to f*** over the cabal. Matt could go and destroy a planet's worth of winter riffs for the Winter wolves just to say f*** you
yannick schwende
I'm not a native speaker, so no I didn't know that word. Thank you for pointing out, that it was a real word and not a spelling mistake. Though I have to admit that I have never even used its translation in my mother tongue.
yannick schwende
Great chapter and well written. The mistake feels natural but not too obvious. I really like how Matt and Liz handled it. Thanks Mantis, thanks Dae.
Louise
Yeahhhh! I do so love it when they show their true badassery. (That's a word and you can't prove otherwise)
Dawson greene
Bro doesn't know what specious means
arsha
Lmao it’s funny cause at the end, when they do find the perpetrators, Matt and Liz don’t need to do anything. After the true war, Matt just needs to restrict his mana from being used by these people and their businesses that they felt were threatened will be destroyed economically. Time will do Matt and Liz’s job for them at that point.
C_Mantis
Fixed ty
yannick schwende
Spelling error: " specious" - " suspicious"
Burgismik
So good, I also like the exploration of this universes version of cybersecurity, how with magic it changes the scope that people can mess with tech.
C_Mantis
It's also very much Liz's sore spot.
Ray S.
Always fun when ascenders are being ascendery.
Tristan R Mitchell
"we need to show that we aren't children whining to daddy"? Really? This is LITERALLY what the channels to the Royals and Emperor are FOR. Slandering an Ascender, taking their likeness, and all that? That is like trying to steal a nuke from the US. They shouldn't NEED to go to Manny and such, because Manny and such should have ALREADY started moving. This is beyond politics, it is an attack on the strategic and military potential of the Empire, and that gets the hammer.
Discordian23
The final war is coming
Erriballon
Thanks for the chapter 😋
Tom C
This storyline is great! It’s got action AND mystery. And with Matt’s aspect truth revelation (sort of) and their levelling, it’s got progression too! TFTC
MikeL
I don’t think Piss Pants will lose that nickname easily. He may need to change the name of his show.
Captain the Red Beard
Noooo, I don't want to wait till Monday for vengeance, I want it now!!!
Bob Bryan
They always mess up don't they. Always. Though just once, just once I would love to see Manny and the rest of the royals just bring it down on people like that, just show all those "sneaky people" just how "brilliant" they are. Though matt,liz and aster going on a tear will be fun.
Kasamuri
Thanks for the chapter
nolan saylor
Thanks Mantis! Thanks Dae! specious: Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious. There will always be conspiracy theorists. So many times people have proved the Earth is round, even Flat Earth's have proved it and then been doubtful. Gotta love casual human experimentation to show who the bad guys are. It is good build up for feeling no remorse when the dominos start tumbling down on them though. I like that they are immortals as even the cliche layabout son is millennia old. So even if they were truly unaware It feels less like an ignorant arrogant teen being killed. Woohoo! We got a person actually pissing themself from fear. Extra embarrassing for an immortal with supposed body control and not actually needing to eat and drink. I do appreciate the note that there were news channels that held back to make sure they were having actual news and not gossip. I swear, if Matt's mana is revealed because of some dumb stunt like powering a news room I will be annoyed. I'd forgotten that most mana generators work best with inspected mana. The second attack really does feel too sloppy for the Cabal. And on second thought even the first one just involves an apparently simple spiritual camera seeing her having a weird aura, easy enough for T45s to have. I do love Liz becoming more like her Parents and not really thinking about it. I hope her siblings have taken note of it. Encryption Talents are interesting options. I wonder how the other half would decrypt it though, as Talents are relatively unique. Just a stronger Tier Talent or is it just made into gobbledygook to send out and a decryption Talent on the other side clears it up? I am intrigued by how you would track wormholes. Assumedly magic but still interesting. Always nice to feel yourself making progress. Hope everyone reading this is moving ahead in life and/or in happiness.
