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Chapter 317
🕑 Added 2024-03-25 19:01:07 +0000 UTCChapter 317
Matt was elbow-deep inside a Republic soldier when he felt the space near the inhabited planet ripple. His hairs rose up on the back of his neck as a giant ship appeared, a ship he had just seen three days ago. A swarm of smaller ships took off from its surface, racing towards the battlefield at top speed.
Growling, he wrenched his arm free from the chest of the soldier and waited for a moment as Darrow sent the soldiers an offer of surrender. It would allow them to sit out this upcoming fight, but the general in command of the army must have thought they could hold out until the elites arrived. That was a futile hope. Matt wasn’t kind enough to play with them, given that there was a larger threat approaching. He didn’t even bother with his mana cannon, just a sweep of his hand and an overpowered [Mana Beam] swept aside the stragglers. One of them survived, but he yanked a nearby corpse to his hand with [Gravity Manipulation], hypercharged it with [Tribulation Strike], and threw it at the survivor. The modified [Lightning Torrent] lashed out and finished his portion of the fight.
Around him, the rest of Team Zero likewise stopped pacing themselves and tore into their own assigned troops with renewed vigor. Mana levels dipped precipitously and willpower reserves tapped into to get the fight over now. Matt flared his Concept across the entire group, and Allie blinked Morgan and Sebastian in arm’s reach for him to more directly refill their mana pools.
It was a bit of a costly move, but the last thing they needed was more chaos as the dropship began to disgorge its inhabitants. Matt fired off a quick [Breach], more out of principle than anything, and was unsurprised when the ship twisted and avoided the attack given the range and small maneuver needed to do so. Joy picked up pursuit of the Sect-style ship, chasing it off with a few muttered curses leaking through their group comms.
Joy had very strong feelings about how spaceships ‘should’ look, and Matt knew very well her distaste for the Sect ‘wooden sailboat’ design. Unfortunately, her dogfight was interrupted by more Corporations-style ships, but Drifter effortlessly dodged their return fire and began engaging with them more directly.
His teammate would be fine. Matt turned to analyze the actual members of the Harmony Accords. They too were in remarkably good shape, and while Matt couldn’t tell at a glance, neither Bulwark nor Darrow saw any signs of lingering damage or even healing cooldown. That wasn’t a good sign, though it was even less of a good sign that they’d managed to get here so quickly. At least it seemed that they’d only just gotten here instead of lying in wait, but still.
Drifter was the first to articulate it through the mind-link. “They have to have Talented pilots flying that tub, or there is no way they could have gotten here that quickly. And how the fuck did they even know we were going to be here?”
Darrow interjected almost immediately. “Some seeker Talent no doubt but they shouldn’t have been able to get a read on us. And I don’t like that. We’ll pull back to Camp Lightfoot where we can reconvene.”
Matt didn’t even blink at the order.
Shadow on the other hand said what they were all thinking. “No, I don't think we will. Not yet, at least.”
Darrow must have sensed the mood, but he made a crucial mistake. Talking reason. “Drifter is correct in that they shouldn’t have been able to arrive so quickly. We only arrived here five hours ago and it's a week's travel from our last flight’s system. This could very well be a trap set by them via a seeker or future sight of some sort.”
Everything he said made perfect sense, but Matt didn’t care. And seemingly none of the other Ascenders cared either, as not a single one of them shifted from their places in space. They were Ascenders. They did not run just because the enemy showed up where they shouldn't.
Matt was determined to make sure that round two didn’t end up the same way as round one and he liked their odds when they weren’t caught flat footed.
Darrow, to his credit, the moment he saw that the Ascenders were refusing to follow orders, immediately changed tactics and started planning for a battle. “Prepare for swaps. Don’t let them entangle you with the counters we talked about. Prepare for spatial locks. Prepare for long-range bombardments. Prepar—”
Matt tuned him out as the first spells started flying.
Casting the largest [Bulwark] he could, he activated his Tier 25 Talent, strengthened it with [Reinforce Mana], and then dropped his connection to the spell, using just a touch of [Telekinesis] to hold the fifty foot tall and two hundred foot wide block of mana crystal in place as cracks webbed across it, then webbed together under the volley of spells. Of course, shieldbreaker skills quickly followed and the defense started to collapse, but that wasn’t the point.
Just before the entire construction was about to collapse, Matt broke the remnants into fragments and threw them. Not at the elites, but at the mercenary corps who had managed to approach the battlefield before Drifter had chased off their transports. The hail of mana stones didn’t hurt them, but it did make them wary and blocked a few spells that they got in the way of. It was a minor hindrance, but a hindrance nonetheless.
Light kicked their side off with an [Arc Lightning], whitish-green bolts traversing the distance instantaneously, then becoming an eerie red as he twisted the travel mana into armageddon mana the instant before it struck home. The explosion tossed away one of the Federation soldiers furthest from the center, and knocked Colton’s hat off his head while leaving a few blistering wounds on his face, but failed to leave any serious damage on anyone closer to the center, where Gan Le was. The man in question was, of course, completely unfazed.
That confirms Gan Le’s defensiveness wasn’t a fluke. Even if we can break through that, it’s not worth the effort. We just need to get them spread apart and test the limits of his shared defenses.
Matt nodded at Darrow’s observation. They were learning and that would enable them to pick through all of their enemies' tricks.
Lorlael countered Light’s follow-up, dispersing a bolt of prismatic flames with a purple mist.
They had drifted close enough to engage in melee by that point, but while Gan Le beelined straight for Matt, he was waylaid by the combination of Stick and Torment, who had Sorrow and Lost Love as his primary summons at the moment. Ensnaring strips of cloth entangled the tank, while the summons darted forward with apt ferocity.
Of course, they weren’t the only ones with a team, and the Federation rune soldiers swooped in, clearly intent on freeing their teammate.
***
Gan Le cursed internally as the Federation rune soldiers rushed over to free him from Stick’s cloth clutches. In an ideal world they would leave him to slowly work his way out of his entombment but no, they had to follow orders and come get him out post-haste.
Really, he was asking for too much and he knew it.
At least when he was being wrapped up he wasn’t protecting a dozen other people from Master-level lightning storms. They’d already blasted through his outermost defenses, including his amulets of protection.
He really needed to get some proper armor made, the kind that covered your entire body in metal. Sure, it may be inferior to a proper defensive Technique, but there was no reason he couldn’t use both. He could ask the Republic smiths when they returned to the ship, he decided. They knew the proper way to balance protection with form, but he was not coming back into battle unless he could have something that could keep the attacks he was taking away from [The Unseen Guardian Which Halts All Assault] for at least a few blows.
As the rune squad started hacking at the binding he struggled. He was trying to keep himself entangled but he had to make it look like he was doing the opposite.
With barely three days to recover since their last fight, his spirit felt sore from spreading himself so thin. He’d never had his own defenses so seriously tested, and his Technique had yet to properly adapt to all the new forms of assault he’d subjected it to. Even his Revelation-empowered refinement could only do so much so quickly, and he never wanted to get more than halfway past his personal protections ever again. It had even pushed through to the topmost layer of his skin. That was way too close.
If he could just sit this fight out… and maybe the next one, and if he was really lucky, the one after that, then he’d be able to be properly defended from that monster Titan’s ludicrously powerful attacks, and could focus on refining his defenses against Light’s own techniques. That would be preferable. What was less preferable was how his spirit got punched while his Talent intercepted an attack before it could blow a hole in the head of the rune squad. It was one of… Bolt’s bolts.
Such an inelegant and overly-generic name, it made thoughts and conversations so redundant.
Still, he did his job, even as he winced at the pain that radiated through his spirit as his Talent struggled to project itself outward and cover Clarisse.
A dagger came from nowhere, aimed directly at his eye. It managed to break through his primary defenses, and he fell the draw on his Second Revelation as it tried to remove him as a threat despite being bound in place. When that failed, it reinforced his defenses, stopping the dagger a hair’s-breadth before it could come into full contact with him. He tried to blink, but found his right eyelid stopped on the razor-edge of Ascender Shadow’s blade.
She withdrew, and Gan Le desperately focused his spirit at preventing that from happening again. The knife, and the inconsiderate woman using it, were gone the next moment.
Then the rune soldiers, barbarians that they were, decided their best option was to burn Stick’s cloth while he was wrapped in it. The fact that it ended up working only encouraged Charlie and Cynthia to keep at it, and Gan Le held very still to keep their burning light and raging lightning from hitting him as well as the enchanted cloth.
He had been hoping they didn’t think of that and just kept trying to cut him free. Shame that, considering how much work he went through to make sure that the spatial ring the Harmory Accords people had given him was right in the blast zone of Ascender Light's first attack. That had been so full of escape methods. He didn’t want to be captured, the Sects were far more comfortable than anywhere else, but maybe he could persuade them that he genuinely was out of his depth, and get transferred to somewhere else?
Maybe the Guild front? He’d heard there had been some upstart new cultivator there who fought with pillows and blankets, that sounded quite lovely to him. There was probably some horrible trick to it, but it was still better than here.
It had seemed like a really workable plan, too. Until the idiots freed him.
The moment he was free, he burst forward and resumed his job because he still needed his retirement fund if he wanted to find some higher Tier woman to mooch off of later in life.
Conan and Clarisse were busy dealing with a pair of nightmarish things, one a crying snake whose tears made its watery body keep getting bigger, and the other some horrid two-faced beautiful girl and shadow monster, but Gan Le was more than happy to leave them behind as Lorlael triggered some spell combination on him and teleported him…
Not directly in front of Titan, like was nominally the plan. Instead, he appeared in front of Shadow, who now tried to stab him in both eyes. He tried to block, but found that Shadow barely seemed hindered by that. Her arms phased through his techniques, bent around his arms at impossible angles, and struck like a mountain.
His head snapped back and he went tumbling through the battlefield. Gan Le managed to direct his headlong flight such that he nearly bowled into Queen as she tried to take Chase’s head off. She barely even looked his way, just summoned a second sword and, without even grabbing the blade, swung it and sent him flying once again.
He at least was close enough to Chase that blocking Queen’s stab of the Federation soldier didn’t hurt too much, and the man in question disengaged to grab Gan Le, right him, and in a blur of color, ran Gan Le up to where… Ascender Titan was fighting.
He still wasn’t sure the others appreciated just how hard the Ascender hit. He had talked about it in their debriefing but all they saw was that none of the attacks did any damage to him but they failed to realize while a dagger to the eye might kill you just as surely as a [Pillar Of Pure Annihilation And Destruction], the latter did more damage to get the same effect.
The first was a targeted blow that bypassed defenses in a small area. The second was an overwhelming amount of damage applied in an unfocused wave and to get the same effect it needed to destroy a lot more flesh and therefore did more damage. Gan Le could take a few dozen blows from the other Ascenders, even Light, for the others on the Harmony Accords but blocking Titan’s attacks was like trying to stop a train with his face.
And all of Titan’s attacks were like that.
Then they had the audacity to act like he was the crazy one for not wanting to throw himself in front of such a monster. Especially with an already stressed spirit like he was currently working with.
Right now, the man was a genuine titan, twice as tall as he normally was, a pillar of terrifying black metal. His sword blazed with so much lightning it nearly hurt to look at it, his arms kept bending in ways that shouldn’t have been possible with that much armor on, and he was seemingly effortlessly fending off a massive nightmare of metal and crystal that was probably Maven.
“Get moving and interfere with Titan, now!” Synoid snapped through their mental link, “Shadow’s running rampant and we can’t check her without you covering Titan!”
Gan Le hid the part of him that wanted to weep and dove into the fray with a roar.
***
Liz drifted through space. Or at least, the mind residing within a few scattered drops of blood did as they tried to think quiet thoughts. Her skills should help hide her from any sensory specialists the Corporations had, but she’d never really tested it against all their unique detection methods.
When Colton had riddled one of her clones with bullets, she used that opportunity to have a spare consciousness hitch a ride on the projectiles. The angle and distance was right enough… and there were a lot of Corporation mercenaries, just waiting for her to sacrifice them and use their blood as fuel to power her own army.
She just needed to get over to them without them figuring it out. As she had learned the hard way in her fight with Eliana, the combined Great Powers were ready for her blood tricks so she couldn’t just send a clone over and expect it to be fine.
Despite her personal perspective of the trip being that of a leisurely float through the inky abyss, she was moving quite quickly, and so she only had a moment to act as she neared the weapons platforms. Fortunately, most eyes were on either the main battle or Drifter, as she chased down several fleeing artillery groups. Nobody noticed a few errant drops of blood speeding by.
Nor did they notice that drop of blood expanding into a tiny scarlet miasma invisible to nearly all senses. Nobody saw as that miasma drifted towards one of the cultivators manning the mana cannon, nor as it slipped through solid steel armor and infected the man. He didn’t notice as his blood was rapidly assimilated and converted.
They did notice when she tripped some defensive system, and a protective shield sprang up around the platform. It wasn’t intended to defend, but to trap, and Liz mentally shrugged and cast aside her attempts at stealth. She shredded the man’s body, tried for a moment to usurp his power armor- it was, alas, keyed to his spirit- then burst out in a cloud of blood. She set upon another mercenary in phoenix form, only to have reality shudder around her, and a sudden detonation killed her.
Liz parried Long Zhiyuan’s attack with her spear and glared at nothing in particular. That was the third body she’d lost to the mana cannon’s self-destruct features. Well, she’d get one eventually, and she was technically succeeding at eliminating their artillery support.
There was, after all, plenty of her to go around.
***
Matt wanted to use those precious few moments to enter the backline and cut down Lorlael, or even better enter the Corporation mercenaries’ lines and find the sniper, but he was immediately blocked by Maven.
He had expected that. He also was ready for her incredible physical strength, thanks to the warnings from Shadow. Matt slashed down at her but she slipped to the side and brought a pair of massive claws down on his side, phasing them slightly out of reality in an attempt to bypass his armor. This time, he was ready, and he caught the attack with his off-hand. He flexed his body, puffed out his chest, and temporarily doubled in size. His armor followed along for the ride, its enchantments ensuring that his rubberfruit affected the steel construct just as surely, then met Maven’s follow-up strike with a backhand of his own.
Despite the fact her claw only skittered alongside the outermost layer of his armor, it still carried some form of curse-poison that dove eagerly into his body, the simple contact enough for its spread.
Already it began corroding his flesh but while [Regeneration] struggled to heal it at the low level he normally kept it at, ramping up the spell’s intake quickly overpowered and eliminated the effect. He wouldn’t be able to reduce the amount of mana he spent on the spell until after the fight ended, but even at this increased rate it didn’t take up that much of his mana generation.
He wasn’t surprised they were ready with counters to [Regeneration], it wasn’t like it would be hard to figure out he was using it after all, but most counters relied on being able to wear down the effect over time or outright overwhelming it. Neither of those mattered to him.
Maven reared up and slashed with a pair of wicked-looking natural scythes, leaving energy crescents in the air behind them, then sent those attacks flying at Matt. He tried to cut through the first one with [Dispelling Edge] but instead was forced to parry it off to the side. The second one, he contorted his body out of the way to avoid it, trying to hit someone behind him.
There.
Except he was wrong.
Ari Kai had targeted Aster instead of him.
She spun even as the blade was driven into her back, then her body shattered into ice, rapidly turning black. The destruction of her decoy came with an eruption of an iridescent aurora, limning the decaying ice, but also some unimportant person on the battlefield. Who had just attacked Aster, and Matt unleashed a [Barrage] of [Gravitic Bolt]s before Ari Kai could slink away again. Dozens of the projectiles lashed out even as Maven used that opportunity to tear at Matt’s back. His armor held, as did his body, but the attacks carried some kind of spiritual wounding effect that felt like they were carving furrows down the back of his head. It seemed really important, why wasn’t he doing something about that?
Who was he attacking?
Matt queried his [AI] but when even it was confused as to his last actions he started to turn but halted as something twisted and collapsed in an anti-spray of blood. Ari Kai. One of his [Gravitivic Bolt]’s had hit an arm and obliterated it along with a large chunk of his chest.
The [Mana Beam] Matt aimed at his head should have ended the man right then and there. If that didn’t work the [Icicle] Aster shot at him should have skewered him as well. But both attacks created little more than small scratches thanks to Gan Le, who was careening towards the Republic fighter.
Matt dropped his spell as Maven began to properly carve into his armor. Spinning, Matt let loose another [Tribulation Strike] and [Mana Slash] from his sword as it turned white and unleashed its own stored energy. The effects mixed and multiplied with each other, blowing the rabbit woman back.
Her burnt and charred metal-crystal body froze over a moment later as Aster cast a dozen area of effect spells in rapid succession slowing everyone from the Harmony Accords. Lorlael was immediately trying to dispel the effect, but Shadow interrupted her attacks by driving a dagger into her chest from behind.
Gan Le was too far away for his Talent to do any appreciable damage negation but that only emboldened the rest of Team Zero as for the second time they had drawn blood. Once might be luck but two was a pattern and they tasted vengeance. If Shadow had a few more moments she could have possibly finished the mage off but a bullet silently passed through the space her head would have been if she wanted to continue the attack.
The sniper. So they were still around.
Despite interrupting the mage it would only take a few moments for the others to break free from the debuffing spells and Matt wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to dish out some more damage.
He parried a slower-than-normal spell from Maven and then slashed at her neck. In a burst of green energy the debuffs sloughed off Maven allowing her to dodge his ink black blade. She carried through with a potent attack that Matt redirected much of his movable defenses to block, but despite there being no visible tells as to what he was doing, Long Zhiyuan moved with practiced ease to exploit it. He dodged a small [Mana Beam], sweeping behind Matt, and striking on the exact gouge Maven had left with her earlier attack. He broke through, cutting a furrow into Matt’s back and severing his spine.
Matt finished blasting Maven’s attack away and spun to meet Long Zhiyuan’s followup. [Regeneration] was already knitting his spine together, but his power armor made the damage essentially irrelevant regardless. Matt quickly aspected his armor to be force-based, stalled the Sect man’s hand with a blast of [Telekinesis], then swatted it away with his sword.
A moment of thought, and a query of strategy with Darrow confirmed it wasn’t worth it for Matt to call upon his Intent to massively concentrate his mana. If the attack hit, it would probably kill Long Zhiyuan, but the risk of Matt bottoming out on willpower was too high for the predicted kill chance.
Instead, he mercilessly split off a [Sword Twin], cleaving into Long Zhiyuan’s shoulder and sending a chunk of blood and bone away. Maven struck, twisting into something that looked like a giant pile of vines, and grabbed Matt’s sword arm. In response, he split off the rest of his [Sword Twin] copies and tried to cut into Maven’s binding ties. Frustratingly, they made no contact, instead just passing through her extremely tight bindings like they were an illusion.
She kept coiling up his arm though, cutting off multiple paths of escape as space hardened around him. He channeled his Concept repulsion as powerfully as he could, but while it slowed her tendrils' advance, she kept pushing against the force and climbed past his elbow.
Long Zhiyuan slammed his good arm into Matt’s chest, not quite denting it, but with enough time…
Matt made a snap decision and cut off his own arm.
Maven had just about reached his shoulder when Matt brought a [Sword Twin] down on his armor. He’d withdrawn most of its reinforcements and disengaged its connections to keep from damaging it too much, but there were still a few bindings he had to cleave through to get it to work.
Maven’s vines snapped back at high speed towards the rest of her mass, and Matt got to enjoy a moment of shock rippling through Long Zhiyuan’s spirit before Matt shot forward. Though his arm was only superficially regrown, and not enough to handle the full force of the spell anyway, Matt blew his own fist up with his [Tribulation Strike], made into a spiky gauntlet with his thrice-upgraded [Reinforce Mana].
Long Zhiyuan opened a hole in his chest with some skill in a way that reduced the impact to mere knockback, but he still spasmed as some aftershocks wracked his body.
Maven pounced on Matt once again, now with Gan Le for support, pushing him to retreat while he regrew his hand again, and filled out the rest of his appendage with [Regeneration]. After tanking a point-blank [Mana Beam], Maven’s grip loosened on Matt’s severed arm for him to recall its armor to his still-healing limb.
Now wholly armored once more, Matt kept on the retreat, extremely careful to avoid Gan Le’s glowing hands. He wasn’t about to actually get locked down again.
Maven tried to disengage and redirect to Torment as he swooped somewhat nearby, but Matt slowed her down with [Hail], then dragged her back with a [Cosmic Pressure]-empowered flicker of his Intent. Even controlling gravity with his attraction was a bit more draining than he’d wanted, so he cut it off, but it was enough to accomplish what he wanted, as Maven once again turned back to keep attacking.
Matt played defensively, accruing some damage under the Sect warriors’ relentless and reckless assault, but nothing terribly concerning. That he couldn’t dissuade their attacks with his own abilities was annoying, but he could at least appreciate watching Gan Le’s gray skin grow darker and darker from exertion as he protected his countrymen. It was a slow process, but still fun.
And besides, he wasn’t alone.
Shadow came in with a vengeance, blades flashing, tearing up Maven’s back.
Maven turned and lashed out while tentacles grew out of her back. Those fleshy appendages tried to entangle Matt’s blade but he didn’t care and simply hacked down, trying to push Gan Le to his limits, and right past them.
Long Zhiyuan didn’t sit idle and landed several attacks on Matt, but he blocked most of them with a combination of [Bulwark] and his armor’s inbuilt shields. The rest splashed against his armor, harmlessly. Only one attack landed, some kind of twisting black ball of thorns that weaseled into a crack in his armor while Matt parried an opportunistic shot from Colton, on the far side of the battlefield.
It set into his flesh like a chainsaw, rending his leg into clumps of meat, but it wasn’t lethal quite yet so Matt ignored it while he took aim at Maven tangling with Shadow.
Gan Le used that moment where he was occupied to land a blow on Matt’s head, and even though he was ready for it this time, Matt felt the tether snap into place.
“FUCKKKKKK!”, Matt lashed out but Maven and Long Zhiyuan were already moving away, relying on the pale and panting Gan Le to keep him occupied.
Unlike last time where Matt tried to just blast Gan Le away through pure physical strength, he instead moved into grappling the Sect fighter.
Once they were close, so close that Matt could feel the spell buzzing inside the other man, Matt started unleashing skills with abandon. Not at Gan Le but at everyone else around them.
A number of them were so weak as to be useless with the counter measures Gan Le was projecting but he didn’t care; that wasn’t the point of his attacks. No, he wanted to force Gan Le to use his Talent at range, always a fairly reliable counter for damage-stealers.
He was effective enough that Long Zhiyuan was already turning around, but after a brief pause, he hesitated, before flying away even faster, just before the world went blue with mana.
Matt’s armor dented, gaps opening between its plate, and then the shrapnel hit. Hundreds upon hundreds of shards of metal raced into the crevasses opened in Matt’s armor before they closed themselves up. Across from him, Gan Le was also bleeding in a few places, but all Matt could really focus on was that whoever had made that bomb needed to patch up their work. The detonation had definitely involved more mana than most of Matt’s attacks, but it was clearly approached from the angle of ship artillery.
Battlefield-scale munitions needed a very different approach to properly maximize their power.
Still, he couldn’t argue too much with the results given the thousands of enchanted metal slivers it had left in his body. Damage over time, healing, mana disruption, enchantment nullification, the whole set. Each one was simple in its design and execution, but there were just so many, with so many different techniques, that Matt’s comparative blunt-force methods wouldn’t do much of anything.
Hearing a message from Darrow, Matt pushed [Regeneration] as hard as he could. In a few places, the spell ran afoul of mana-disruption and only caused worse injuries, but it kept him alive… at the expense of empowering some of the needles stuck in his flesh. In a few minutes, if he didn’t get any additional attention, they’d detonate and rip his body to shreds. Or the rest of the way, at least. [Regeneration] kept his body running but it wasn’t putting him back together anymore.
He’d deal with it later. His muscles weren’t working quite right, and his armor kept malfunctioning, but he grabbed his own body with [Telekinesis], pushed himself with [Air Slide] past Gan Le and swung his sword, fully recombined with all of its [Sword Twin]s and blazing with [Tribulation Strike]. Long Zhiyuan loomed large in his vision, and Matt attacked. Not at the man’s core, but his still-injured shoulder. He was more vulnerable there… and it was easier to dodge.
Long Zhiyuan obliged, and the blade struck Matt’s true target..
An entirely unassuming man startled and began to fade from tangibility, but a storm of lightning wrenched through his body and tore the semi-corporeal man to pieces. Space rippled and fragmented, momentarily breaking through the spatial locks in the area, and Ari Kai vanished. No essence pulse which was a shame, but he was definitely out of commission.
Long Zhiyuan struck, but Matt teleported behind his attack and struck out with a [Wind Cutter] [Barrage]. The former young master spun and dodged them, striking Matt several times with his own attacks. Many of the attacks even made it through the still-damaged armor, but they hardly did anything to Matt’s still-ruined body.
Then Matt grabbed the man with his left hand- the only part of his body other than his head still fully functional- and crushed his arm. Bones snapped, Long Zhiyuan cried out, and Matt finished cutting off the man’s arm with a [Telekinesis]-wielded sword stroke.
The tide of battle wasn’t just shifting, it had turned.
They’d all been bloodied at some point or another, but Bulwark had kept their more fragile members upright. Stick had stopped screaming at some point, but her ferocity had yet to fall away. There was also a Liz flitting between them to provide patch healing where it was needed, but as a massive explosion sent a half-dozen federation soldiers away from Light, Matt felt the battle settle.
The Harmony Accords must have felt the same shift because just as Gan Le looked like he was going to vomit they all vanished in bursts of spatial mana just like Ari Kai had earlier. Shadow reached out like she was trying to snatch them out of space but her cursing told him whatever she had tried to do hadn’t worked.
A moment later, the ships vanished back into Chaotic Space.
Matt glared at where the oversized flagship had been. They were victorious but it wasn’t the overwhelming victory he had been hoping for. Still he couldn't linger on that thought, there was still a system to finish saving, and all of them were more injured than they should have been after a more normal fight. None of the Harmony Accords had been killed, with the possible exception of… Ari Kai, but he wasn’t going to count them as dead until he felt the burst of essence.
Eric had yet to be avenged.
There was more war to be fought.
It wasn’t over yet.
A pair of Liz flashed over to him, one of them resting her hands on his temples and casting, while the other became blood and dove into his body. With her aid, the metal shards came loose and [Regeneration] finally started doing its job. Even as his flesh knitted together, his spirit started complaining about soreness, and he’d probably have to be a bit careful about high-Tier skill overuse for a bit… but he was fine and could even go for round two. Though he might be the only one.
Flying over to where Dena floated in space listlessly he pulled her into Drifter's ship where Darrow had already gathered with most of the others.
Dena’s words brought him back to the present like a punch from Maven though. “I was trying so hard to join him, but I didn’t even manage it. I kind of hate myself for that.”
Matt rubbed her armored back ignoring the gashed in the metal which threatened to tear his flesh even more.
He wanted to say things would be ok but that was an outright lie. Instead he went with, “Eric wouldn’t want that, but you know that already. No one here wants that.”
“I do.”
Matt didn’t have an answer for that and let the silence linger.
Comments
RedEyeLordofFire
Why can't Matt use metal manipulation to move the shards out of his own body?
Sean Shivers
Every one of gan le's revelations is, "i dont wanna die"
Mario Morales
I think some of that is valid. I for one, don't think of Queen as less than the others even though she's not an Ascender. And it's easy to forget that each one of these people on the other side could be the Queen equivalent. It just feels like a lot of the explanation for why Ascender team is doing poorly is due to Gan Le out of nowhere and reasons so figure it out from context yourself. Someone made the point that Synoid and Castor are trioing up with Maven basically non-stop but I have seen very little indication in the story that that's the case. If true, awesome, and Maven's ability makes more sense but in my reading, it's basically a guess at this point.
John Carson
I think the frustration about T0 being countered is maybe a little misplaced. I have been reading from the beginning, and I very much understand the frustration. However: 1. Some of the extreme end of the hype around Ascenders was always predicated on the symbolic and political nature of ascenders. They are icons. Movies are made about them. Legends become myth and all that. We saw much of the world building from the perspective of those far outside the circles that ascenders walk in. You can contrast Matt's perspective of Duke Waters with Liz's to see how perspectivalism shifts the reality of what a person actually is. Ascenders are better, but that is still a relative statement. They are astronomically, unimaginably better than most people. They are just one step above near-ascender, peak-elites though. Mantis never gave us a "god's-eye" view comparing ascenders. Our world building view was almost always from the perspective of people who were, by tier and station, far below the world in which ascenders walked. 1 (TLDR): The world building is expanding to show the reality of the myth behind ascenders. They are better, but that is still relative. Other incredible teams can press them given the right circumstances. 2. It is still clear in the past few chapters that, 1-for-1, Ascenders are stronger and more competent than any near-ascenders. However, given enough time and the right counters, a larger group of near-ascenders can press a group of ascenders. This seems reasonable. Crossing the T25 mark in a certain amount of time does not itself confer powers. Thus, someone who made it (or could have made it) to T23 or T24 on the path would be only relatively weaker. 3. The near-ascenders of other GP were given the same "ascender treatment" as MLA and LS were. Their baseline isn't the same (hence near-ascender, peak elite), but the power-ups from GP funding were likely comparable. Also, the other GP's were able to aim that treatment specifically at preparing to defeat T0. While T0 had to prepare for any scenario, HA only had to prepare for this one fight. That includes the ability to study T0, plan a strategy, run simulations, practice against simulations, and select equipment specifically to counter T0. 4. In every military scenario I have ever read of, the raw strength of a force is rarely the most important factor. Proper planning and tactics always comes into play. HA built the best dream team they could from billions of possible fighters to counter T0. And it still only worker once, when they had a total surprise. And "worked" is a relative statement. They got one kill. After what probably amounts to more GDP expenditure across three GP's than any of us can fathom. 5. Myths are never realistic. We should have all known that the myths surrounding Ascenders were, at times, overblown. Myths always have a kernel of reality, but they lack scale and comparison, which this arc is providing. 6 (final point): It seems clear that, even in this arc, if Matt was thrown into an arena randomly with any other T25 person in the universe for a fight, he would win. Same with Liz (maybe Aster), not counting the other ascenders. This is what it means to be an ascender. They are still the best. They are basically unbeatable in an even fight. They are not, however, entirely unbeatable when the fight is unevenly tilted against him. And for that, I am thankful. All that to say, in the final drafting of this arc, perhaps Mantis should make the above points (which I read as implicit) more explicit in the build-up to the fights.
Kelly Bryan
That would be awesome, at this point the cast is so large and we are so focused on MAL's perspective that it's refreshing and useful for the wider picture it provides
Kelly Bryan
I really want her to have got that kill. Stupid space boat.
William Johnson
I'm pretty sure regarding Maven we're seeing her, Synoid and Castor working together based on all the references to her constantly using three techniques at once and this bit: “Get moving and interfere with Titan, now!” Synoid snapped through their mental link, “Shadow’s running rampant and we can’t check her without you covering Titan!” So when Matt's fighting her and Long Zhiyuan he's actually fighting four pinnacle elites at once. I think if the story's not working for you it's 100% reasonable to drop it, but keep in mind that this is three great powers pooling their resources to fight just the Empire. I'm personally okay with some struggle, and I feel like this chapter has done a pretty good job of showing that it's not a walk on the park for the Harmony folks. It would be nice to get some commentary that maybe things are easier for the Guilds because so many resources are focusing on the Empire. Gan Le is some nonsense though, best support hands down plz nerf.
Mario Morales
Except it's not just Gan. He's the biggest culprit but the moon cracking lady is a problem as well. She seems capable of going toe to toe with any of the Ascenders but she's not an Ascender and whatever was done to her to make her capable of that seems to have no drawbacks. It's not the end for me but it is very frustrating to see when the story has been so good up to here.
Mario Morales
I think there is a variety of tactics that are never brought up or thought of. Put all T0's cards on the table of a regular D&D group and you would get some wild solutions that might end up better than what they currently are trying.
Kain
Why doesn’t the empire have those teleport blockers? If they can exclude friendlies which is the only explanation for why the HA’s aren’t restricted while Shadow “feels a tickle” why wouldn’t they be standard to stop elites from escaping? Unless “the other great powers are just so much better their wards can’t be punched through while the empires might as well not exist so there’s no point in deploying them.” Which is again pathetic the “3v1” advantage, it’s actually a 3v2 and the empire is the largest GP in the war, is so overblown as an excuse imo. They don’t even need the god tier sh it they aren’t trying to stop Shadow none of the HA’s we know of have a teleportation specialty.
WierdWebLurker
I'd theorize that any teleportation device not backed by Talent and Intent is fairly easy to block, and Team Harmony is using a LOT of teleportation blockers on the off-chance that it'll counter Shadow. Any space used for such a device is probably better utilized on gear that'll enhance the Ascenders' lethality so that they don't get close to death in the first place.
Michael Olson
i get where eveyone is coming from but honestly the only issue i have is Gan Lee. If he was the sect version of an ascender we would grumble but not complain. Everything else is a highly specialized team that is only effective when fully healed and when team zero is being a bit sloppy. So not random mooks but definitely overpowered with seemingly no prep or training on team zero's side
Aaron Hardin
My point was that LS tier up, then both ascender groups target T26 battlefields, and either the Harmony accords don’t tier up at all and attack them, and likely get slaughtered with LS tiered up, or have some of their members tier up, and in doing so, may allow for MAL to then go on their own at T25 battlefields since a large chunk, maybe including the portion needed to counter MAL, have now tiered up and can no longer show up at T25 battlefields.
Matt H
The issue is that anything less than killing him is an actual failure. His predictions and modeling will only get more accurate over time. It would be better in the long run to never engage with him than to fight and injure him.
Matt H
Members of the Harmony Accords have the dubious honor of: being able to routinely use some sort of boost to match Ascenders in raw combat ability without being one themselves (Maven), being able to protect against the attacks of multiple Ascenders simultaneously including one who should be hitting unprecedentedly hard and frequently (Gan Le), and being able to advance and train at least as fast as Ascenders when provided with resources despite their counterpart failing to do as well (Long Zhiyuan and Queen, respectively). The characters on both sides are absolutely subject to the whims of plot instead of trying for any sort of internal consistency in the story. At this point the best course of action is to just stop thinking at all about the story, ignore the plot holes and inconsistencies, and try to enjoy the ride (if you can). And if you can't, enjoy the story for what it once was and move on to something better since there doesn't seem to be any interest in changing course, unfortunately.
Matt H
The reasonable explanation will be something along the lines of either: The Empire doesn't have the technology to do so, the resources required are better spent elsewhere since "Ascenders don't lose", or they have them but Mantis hasn't felt the need to mention them yet. If you're feeling less generous: Mantis either forgot or will be using the lack of them for some plot point in the future.
Kris
why doesn't team zero have a teleportation failsafe in there armor incase they are close to death? or do they have it?
Valter Anunciação
Went from unkillable top of the worlds to having their ass handed to them twice by random mooks +1. They're supposed to be able to beat anyone in their tier. Guess the author forgot that.
Bejan Bosc
? What’s wrong with the ascenders
Mario Morales
Exactly. They would only have to fight MLA then. Given what we've seen the last few chapters, that would be a slaughter that favors the HA.
Andre cook
Is it bad that I want a side book just for Wednesday chapters again maybe Queen time in the dragon ascenders realm or something
Valter Anunciação
I'm going to drop the patreon and the story over the last couple chapters. What ascenders were supposed to be was completely ruined for me and I see no future in this story that doesn't involve a complete retcon since the start of the first battle with the acords. Sad. I was so invested in this in previous arcs. . I'm actually sad how it turned out
AA
Leopold dont ask sensible logical questions, just accept that Mantis and the beta readers have totally nerfed the ascenders. And when you ask they will just reply with counter counters counters. Matt's mana doesn't mean anything, his intent giving free mana to his whole team doesn't do anything as HA never run out of mana, Matt gets spiritual strain using it once and bottoms out will power, but HA never get anything more than mild strain and don't run out of will power. They can match is 100% physical cultivation with skills and intent, but Matt can't do anything. It's like the story has gone from an OP MC to an underdog MC with zero logic and stick tape explanation. Then if we bring up the issue we get told to just ignore our logic. At this point it's becoming incredibly difficult to keep the engagement when the story has done total 180 and is causing such dissonance. As I said a few chapters ago, going to give it a few chapters, but if Mantis and beta readers either don't go back to the original premise and stop nerfing the ascenders then I will probably just drop the story as the level of frustration is just reaching crazy levels. If it wasn't for the time and emotional investment I would probably have walked. The thing is most people are just trying to get a proper explanation of how the hell we have ended up here after 5 books that were pretty consistent, but we just aren't getting any answers that's increasing the level of frustration. Looking at the comments I am not the only one wondering what the hell is going on...
Jeff Wells
Of that was sarcasm, what was your point? What did it even mean? It had nothing TY du with the comment you posted on. Ashley, by your comment is clear your not just an idiot, you're a bigot as well. Nice.
Kain
Sure they “have the potential to” but they don’t see Melinda not being allowed to heal in mass and Matt sticking around tier 25 instead of shooting up to tier 35 or above where he and Manny could actually destroy the mana economy. As they are being used right now they are equivalent. and what I’m really saying is that the path is still kinda dumb because pair up any elite on team HA with this guy and they stroll through the empires path the system just seems to break down for individually broken talents way too often when they can have team mates to cover their weaknesses. I’m honestly starting to buy the sects propaganda at this point solo ascenders, which all sect Masters are as far as we’ve seen, are just actually built different from “teams” of ascenders or at least it feels like they are
Angus Hamilton
I think it is an issue of scaling when you compare anyone to Matt or Malinda, they both have the power to affect an entire great power but Gan Lie can only really protect a small squad. He is only as effective as the person he is protecting.
AgentSquishy
Ah the design not the shell itself, that makes sense
Angus Hamilton
I think it means that the weapon design was approached from the angle of ship artillery.
LeapoldJKLOL
Matts Advantage in Physical Cultivation is hugely downplayed, Like his T25 Talen and Intent Most of the time it Just Might as well not exist. Just a simple example, following standard Leveling up Practice that seems to exist, simplistic but it shows the problem. Matt would get 100 Points in Physical Cultivation every Level, any other Physical Based Cultivator would get 70. At T25 this gives Matt 2500 Physical Cultivation, Most other have 1750. Matt then uses a crazy expensive Archmages Presence to Buff that, as a channeled spell it should be crazy good, but We never really see him outpower the Other Elites physically, especially since on top off all that other stuff wasn't his Armor supposed to make him even stronger? If Any Elite can get skills to overcome his physical cultivation advantage, then his Multipliers from the Buffs he runs, why isn't Matt using those skills instead of what look like incredibly sub par skills.
Frardowin
Not so much removing directions with the current batch, more asking what a direction is and if it tastes like purple.
Kain
I mean he was part of those wars yes but he’s also extremely lazy and more importantly risk averse so I doubt he was stressing his will to the max at any point he didn’t absolutely have to to survive. While Matt and the gang are constantly pushing further and harder with their wills. And if all it took was time, a few thousand years at most?, for an elite to catch up with ascenders again what’s the big deal with ascenders why are we fighting this war?
Tommy
100%. “steal Gan Le” should be their objective as they go into the next fight. Get him to tether to Matt, shadow sends them home, everyone else fights defensively till shadow reappears to portal them all away. Job done💪👍😂
AA
I guess you are American and don't get sarcasm.
Derek Walker
The harmony accords exist to 1) kill ascenders and if not 2) neutralize them. If LS tier up they win on 2 so why bother. Stay at T25 and kill one group and let the other group be ineffective
Erik Halberg
The chefs kiss was when Matt cut his own arm off and Long reeled back in shock. His clones apparently couldn't predict the absolute nutjobbery of what being an Ascender actually means. Beautiful and I can't wait for the HA fallout POVs
Bob Bryan
To be fair kind of how fights are. They begin and end abruptly snd then you deal with the aftermath
AgentSquishy
I think this was the best written fight set in space to date. Normally it's hard to conceptualize how the fights are interconnected in three dimensions but I thought this flowed very well.
AgentSquishy
Matt uses [Air Slide] here, but I believe he actually has [Cracked Air Slide] using more mana for more speed.
AgentSquishy
"but it was clearly approached from the angle of ship artillery." should likely be 'it had clearly approached'
Thomas Dyer
Honestly I was thinking throughout this fight that it would be REALLY funny if Shadow caught one of them lacking and teleported them both like halfway across the empire then left them there and teleported back.
alex bozdog
I think one massive part that is missed out on is how long did he work to build up that will. I think Gan Lie was part of two other wars as a Tier 25, he built he willpower up through wars like this always defending from people a tier above him until he became a pinnacle elite and is now tanking Ascenders.
LeapoldJKLOL
This Fight was better, but I agree there are still some huge issues with the Power Level of T0 as shown. If I were In T0 I'd be pretty pissed off that the other GPs are going all in with Life saving everything for all of their Non-Ascenders, all the stuff they could want and T0 get told deal with it, just win anyways. Resources only seem to be an issue for Matt and company. Other issues pointed out already, like the Fact that Matt does not have More Mana than T40's yet, but has already hit diminishing returns Hard. I mean, why would any T40 use 40 Million Mana in what amounts to a Trump Card attack when 25's Can tank that hit, and not just Gan Le we've seen Maven take a Hit like that, and there doesn't seem to be any strain. Gan Le can block Billions of Mana worth of attacks, takes some spiritual Strain. Matt uses his Intent Once a fight for a second or two at most and he's in danger of bottoming out and not being able to use it again for a decade. Also why can the HA teleport anyone anywhere during the fight? Does T0 not block space also? Why is the HA the only ones it actually works for? Did T0 just forget to Block Teleporting?
Bob Bryan
Read your first response as george takei saying it.
Pannath
Gan Le has his team mates teleporting him around, so he isn't teleport blocked. Shadow should just grab him and teleport him out of the fight. Then everyone else wouldn't have his defenses. Hell, I'd have places set up for all of the harmony accord people. Then teleport team zero in to finish them all individually. They could have a separate place for every one of the harmony accord inside empire space. Have them covered with every possible level of communication and seer jamming. No one would know what happened.
John Balman
Nice battle, I'm honestly enjoying them struggle with a battle I know that could be wrong of me but I'm enjoying this art so far
Adurna
I would love seeing Gan Le defect in return for a new nest egg.
Adurna
Yeah that's his deal, right? He does not want to be an ascender but his talent is amazing.
Jeff Wells
Why do you even read this novel? Everything you said was the exact opposite of what happened. And why is the Empire the only side that is allowed to have powerful people with bullshit skills and talents? I swear you're worse than the 12 year olds complaining on Xianxia forums.
Blightdad
King of Pirates at Tier 25? Impressive.
Kain
Yeah idk man. If Gan Lie’s ability is as strong as portrayed with 0 draw backs or limitations besides will strain, which seems negligible even when he’s using it on others especially when compared to Matt who seems to “risk will strain” from sneezing. Then I see him as Matt/Malinda tier broken ass talent that could have carried a team through The Path all he would have needed is a moderately motivated team backing him up to deal damage.
Kain
Still around she took a shot at shadow to prevent her from pushing the attack at one point
SodaBoBomb
Ehhhh....not really. They're Ascenders. And compared to the likes of Waters or that Sand Dragon, extremely cooperative with the military. Usually, the military has a much harder time with Ascenders.
Kain
It would presumably stop functioning when he died but I guess not necessarily.
CringeWorthyStudios
Unless his antimemetic thing stopped them from noticing the essence…
Phillip Hunsicker
I agree with AA. I will also point out some other "issues" 1) everyone in the Harmony Accords had a way to teleport out if they were hurt too bad but T0 never got something like that? WTF 2) what sort of logistics idiot put T0 together in the first place. According to the first 5 books ascenders were like impossible to beat chess pieces. Who thinks that I have 2 of these impossible to beat Chess Pieces so I'm going to put them on top of each other.... Especially in a defensive war where you have multiple battle fields that you need to cover. 3) The 100x the mana but only 2x the damage just fails the logic check ... critically. Why would anyone invest in more mana and mana regeneration then to kick off some of their skills(the whole 40/60 v 50/50 v 70/30 investment discussions for cultivation) If 100x the mana only does 2x the damage anyone with a tenth the brain would invest heavily in the physical side of cultivation. Especially when you have given out numbers for what a tier 50 should have for mana. Since matt is putting out mana in spells like that and only doing 2x the damage where does the rest of the damage a tier 50 do come from. Is their mana tier 50.? Are their skills better at concentrating mana(that would violate all the info on mana concentraion you have given)? Do they add essence to the spells somehow that doesn't hurt their cultivation(again something you've gone over)? Do their aspects or intent increase the damage a tier 50 would do with similar amounts of mana? Does their mana control increase it? What as there has been no real explanation of what is basically a GIGANTIC logic hole.
Aaron Hardin
That was not what I was referring to, LS tiering up makes them stronger, where if the Harmony Accords don’t respond, the next big fight between them and the Ascenders could have the Harmony Accords get destroyed. That puts the Harmony Accords in a bind, since their entire reason for existing is to wipe out the Ascenders, so it puts pressure on them to decided which of their group will tier up to T26 in response, and those that tier up can no longer respond to when MAL goes without LS to fight at a T25 battlefield. Normally, this would hurt the emperor in the long run, since the T25 battlefields are generally more important than T26, but the Empire is fighting this war for setting up the next one when Matt’s talent becomes known, so the strategic considerations for the empire are different than normal, and wiping out the elite of the Harmony Accords may be more strategically relevant than keeping the ascenders at the most beneficial tiers for battlefields.
Coorsbie
At its core, this whole series of matchups is boiling down to an endurance battle between Gan Le and Matt. Whoseever willpower gives out or concept shatters first will lose. In terms of willpower, the Ascenders have the advantage. The point of the Path is to forge that will.
AA
Nah our ascenders can't do anything, HA can negate all damage, have unlimited mana, don't suffer from spiritual strain, have over health healing and can all teleport out the moment they want to. And Matt is too weak to cause damage shadow cant stop or track the teleports, light can't do any damage, Liz can't get to any of the elites with her blood, aster can't lock down anyone...and the rest of T0 can't even cause a scratch
AA
Yeah but apparently HA do t have any willpower issues just the ascenders...HA also never run out of Mana, I guess they gave their own version of unlimited mana as well as over health...note the sarcasm
Tsorov
Not really. It would definetly have helped, but if Gan Le had taken more attacks from Matt he would have probably ruptured his spirit
Tsorov
Ney, he fried him with lightning a couple times, mut he didn't get any essence so he is probably alive
0x0F
Yes but no. Ari is hurt, not dead.
Orims
Ehh you could say that he was pacing himself more than his team would like, but even last fight he was on the verge of exhaustion, he probably could have tanked some more damage but even with that their team was not doing 100%. What I want to know where was the sniper the whole fight?
AA
Exactly that, Matt is supposed to be able to keep T0 filled up with mana, but HA never seen to have managed issues. GanLe can single handedly soak up all the damage from 5 Ascenders plus queen plus the rest on the whole of HA with only mild spiritual strain including attacks that can destroy planets. HA are back on the fight after 3 days with almost no negative effects. And Mantis just says they aren't nerfed. Either they are nerfed or the previous 5 books showing their abilities were wrong. This counter argument is an oxymoron, yes they can counter their fighting style, but what their skills are mana free? They don't suffer from any spiritual strain from fighting the ascenders? The reason so many of us are complaining is because you have totally and utterly nerfed the ascenders especially Matt. In the previous books it was about man concentration, in this one the amount of mana become irrelevant. 100 times the mana is like twice the power, that just makes no sense. Matt is putting out more mana per minute then all of HA have combined and yet it means nothing, if that isn't nerfed I gave no idea what is. If you compare mana powered attacks that GanLe has soaked up he could probably take a direct attack from a lvl 50 and it would have less mana, do he could be used as a tank for killing one of the lvl 50s? Honestly if you bother to look at it logically you can see it makes no sense, but it seems Mantis and the beta readers decided this was needed and just went full Nerf. At least admit it and say you decided to nerf the ascenders, look at the fights in Minkala for comparison and the nerfing becomes so obvious as Matt is now producing 2048x more mana and doing no damage, so obviously the same people they fought in Minkala have become 2048x or more stronger and ARENT ascenders...what utter rubbish and all we hear is counter, counter, counter. Sorry Mantis we aren't stupid, please stop treating us as we are...
Kelly Bryan
Ugh. I forgot how he doesnt have awesome HA made armor because he didnt ask for it not because they would have struggled to build it while building 19 others. So there is a possibly quite significant increase available to him that he doesnt have because hes just an idiot.
Sezra_
Thanks a bunch! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔゞ゛
Matt H
You seem to be forgetting about the part where one of the key elements of the Harmony Accords was actively sabotaging his own efforts and effectiveness. This fight would've gone differently if Gan Le were actually trying.
Kelly Bryan
They are human strategic assets with an established precedent as to how their brand of asset will be handled. Edit to add: Saziel did what again? And he was punished how? Sure different great power but also qualitatively different people.
John Smith
Hasn’t it also been talked about that while stats scale linearly, the effectiveness is log scale? So he could have a 1.5 or 5x multiplier and on the log scale it make like a 3% improvement
Bob of Doom
They kind of can. They're not supposed to, but every other ascender we see uses their orders as a thin vail to do what they want. Heck one walked in and demanded new orders. Waters continuously goes and does his orders before running around wild until he needs to heal. It was notable that Matt, Liz, and Aster followed orders starting off. So yeah, command could try to slap them down but command needs them more than they need the war. Because without it they would just push themselves some other way.
Authorii
Duke. Waters.
John Sanders
Maybe I misunderstood but didn't Matt make ari kai implode?
Kelly Bryan
But hes not fighting three elites that counter him, hes fighting one that does and spreads his counter over everyone he is close to, also hes a counter to the other 4 Ascenders as well. And of course he wanted months to recover from that, I would bet that T0 could have used months off too, that is just not their mindset, Matt mentions his above average spiritual strain. I think in the fights the Ascender's arent nerfed but overall impact is for sure, and the top elites are for sure buffed and aside from my just mathematical problems of a dude hard stopping 5 ascenders for 2 fights in a row I want to see the other smaller great powers straining to maintain this tempo and the allocation of so many resources to this project. Earlier while talking about top elites they say "Taking one out is important because of how much of an impact they have" 20 of them that have extremely powerful abilities (That would counter many people not just perfectly counter T0) are right here and ONLY focussing on T0, so does a single top elite make a difference on the battlefront or not? And how/why isnt T0 stalling advances? The trap that got them was them emergency returning to the same fortress they had just left afterall. And saying that the problem is in the format presumes people arent pulling examples from the previous chapters to illustrate the issues. Its fine if nothing you read irks you but its not worth your time to downplay my complaints. I voice this opinion to my cat, the only way to make it worth less would be to keep it silent.
Kacoo
I really feel that ending was very abrupt, one paragraph the fight is on then the next Matt is comforting Dena.
Kain
And regardless I wasn’t talking about the GP’s giving him things I was saying the only way I can square his ability being so strong with the world that’s been established is if his ability is like say “every day you get 10,000 points of damage negation these stack infinitely as long as they aren’t spent” and since he’s a paranoid hoarder who likes to stay low profile he’s gotten a hoard of these “points” built up over hundreds of years that he is burning through and that won’t be replenished any time soon. Obviously he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone, it would reveal a massive weakness which is anathema to said paranoid hoarder. It would also explain why he wants out so bad right now to the point of sand bagging.
Adam Andersson
He is rapidly becomming one of the characters I am rooting for most in this story. His perspective was a relatively non intrusive form of much needed comic relief. Well done, Mantis! That's really tricky to pull of well in such an emotionally heavy situation.
abowden
I fucking Love Gan Le, his concept is about keeping him alive and boy does he live up to it!
Kain
Thats just not true? The Empire pumped team 0 with rare skills, natural treasures, research and development, rare materials for armor etc. and HA’s would have gotten similar a single tier 45 would go bankrupt hundreds of times over trying to fund either team from my understanding they are actual noticeable drains on rare resources for the GP’s themselves let alone single tier 45’s.
Dylan Alexander
Ehh I can sort of see where you’re coming from but they’re also strategic assets . They can’t go off and do what they want when given a command.
DisgruntleFairy
Gan Le seems to be kinda integral to team Harmony. If he withdraws or is killed they are going to be in a much weaker position... From our reader's perspective, it looks to me that team Harmony is in an increasingly worse spot in general. The Ascenders know their powers and plan now. The advantage of surprise is gone. Team Harmony are going to get ground down and the Ascenders are going to find a weakness.
Ryan Naquin
Mat needs to grab Gan Le and just leave with him. Its not like the guy is anything other than a damage sponge. Abduct the guy, throw him in a cell. Win the next fight when they dont have damage nullifiation.
Patrick Brennan
They're not soldiers, they're Accenders. Darrow points in a direction and then the Accenders remove that direction from the map
Havokk
He would be smiling the entire time hes in captivity
Tom
That’s the problem with Patreon, a lot of the people are the ones who are too impatient to wait for the books (myself included) so of course they’re going to be impatient when waiting for chapters/arcs to resolve.
Clay Smith
Gan Le gonna get captured and is just gonna be all smiles in the cell.
Ryan Romano
I thought that orders to ascenders were mostly strongly worded suggestions, or that’s how it seemed when everyone was surprised that MLA went along with everything when they first showed up
Havokk
“I was trying so hard to join him, but I didn’t even manage it. I kind of hate myself for that.” yeah thats another gut punch
C_Mantis
oh worry not. I did my time and its coming.
Discordian23
I feel like the info is there but if it was mentioned it would feel bloated, Like on this one Matt checked in before making a choice, I think they're all doing that and he's also sending Info to them as much as possible
Discordian23
Give them to shadow and force a retreat only to blow up the ship later.
SunStar
Let it be known that Joy is 100% right.
zachery chase
Three not the before both GPs sorry that was confusing
zachery chase
The resource line is weird to me because yes they are using high tier expensive resources. However, they have the GP backing them plus one tier 45 could probably fund the HA on their own. So while they may be eating through resources the only shown resource that is very limited is mana. And with the GP that is much less of an issue than the empire.
Xarow
Great chapter. Really shows that once you take the surprise element away from Team Evil, they are not ascender quality! They got the jump on them the first time but it is the only time. They can send an army against them, but pig iron won’t match true steel!
Thomas Todd
I mean they weren't ambushed this time but the harmony accords still have a ton of counters prepared for them while Matt and co haven't had a chance to actually develop anything
Thomas Todd
Matt can already dominate most physical fighters apart from the elite, the true elites usually have some sort of talent that improves their physical cultivation more than a single skill which they'd have a version of
Dylan Alexander
They should be reprimanded for disobeying an order. They’re soldiers.
Xarow
There is a huge ship for his talismans to make their new debut on. That monstrosity needs a new one ripping into it.
JauPim
Actually, why is Matt struggling there? The mana-granting is a basic part of his Concept and I though that part of the Minkalla rewards was making the basic parts of the Concept almost cost-free. So he should be able to do that effortlessly right?
C_Mantis
Maven shapeshifing is what i mean about other people having their own str increases. Matt is still a top tier phy fighter but there are a few people who can out muscle him like maven when boosted. Ill try to make that more clear going forward. Matt might not be top 10 strongest people but its in the top 0.0001%
Derek Walker
Almost none at all. T26 battlefields aren’t that important. LS tiering up just leaves the rest of T0 out to dry. As most battles will be at T25 locations
Derek Walker
Prepared may be exaggerating. They knew what the general abilities are, but they did not expect ambush, they didn’t get any new counter measure natural treasures, skills, or gear yet. And they were still not fully recovered on will power
Rehoboth Okorie
this doesn't make sense since multipliers are well multiplicative but cultivation is meant to be exponential. So definitely there should be a tier where any cultivator that directly throws hands with matt should have a very bad day. I understand that with how other cultivators also get more powerful it should be in late tier 30s or early tier 40s but it should definitively be a point of no return where the gap is just outrageous. We see some of that from Gan le talking about how hard he hits. Only proper counter is from abilities by Maven where she takes on the form of a creature with much higher base stats.
Kelly Bryan
Gan le survived another round. Neat. Still not a single kill. Not a single mention of cost to the enemy. As far as we know the spiritual strain is equal between Matt and Gan le but one is just prone to complaining and is actually a coward. Not really my impression but I find I cant actually make the argument while referencing the text.
C_Mantis
where? darrow stuff should be italized but it might have gotten eaten by pateron
C_Mantis
Eh its more that the math means its not THAT large of an advantage. Hes he has higher base stats then others but other also have similar str multipliers and people who are talented in str can out muscle him when they have those same buffs. Matt vs a normal str solider he crushes them but we dont really see him fighting them because they arent a challenge. That said Ill try to show his physical stuff off more.
BagFullOfLizards
There’s a paragraph partway through that suddenly uses “We” instead of third person like the rest of the chapter. From context it looks like it’s supposed to maybe be Darrow saying something but it’s not written that way.
James Faulkner
Agreed, the effects of matt’s physical only cultivation feel like they’ve kinda fallen through the cracks
Ryan Brudnicki
I think people just have a problem with the format, in a normal book when the mc takes an L you can just keep reading up to the inevitable win, but when you have to wait for new chapters you just have to dwell on the loss and thats hard for some people
Kain
The Gan lie bit helps but idk I still find it wild he can tank that much damage without instant will strain while Matt struggles to fill up a few mana pools quickly. Maybe if his talent was a literal damage negation storage and he is running out of a resource that will take dozens or hundreds of years to build back up. But from his pov it seemed just normal will strain was his concern.
MissingP_rt
At which Tier can we expect Matt's purely physical cultivation to utterly dominate other physical fighters in his Tier? I believe it was mentioned very early on that investing 100% of your stats into physical stats was (usually) detrimental because one wouldn't have the mana to cast spells, so same tier enemies should at some point have less phys stats than Matt, right? Edit to add: Isn't he also amplifying his base stats constantly with [Archmage's Presence]?
Violet
> Matt was elbow-deep inside a Republic soldier Oh my... > Maybe the Guild front? He’d heard there had been some upstart new cultivator there who fought with pillows and blankets, that sounded quite lovely to him. They laugh now, but they will learn to fear Pillowfort soon enough! > “I do.” Sis, I feel you, but if they kill you, you can't kill any more of them and Eric is worth many, many more of them than you've killed so far.
Sean McClain
Should have gone with aster locking down the tank in a winter world strategy but maybe the opportunity didn't come up
Sanctum
Thanks for the chapter
Patrick Brennan
It's counters. They bring fighters to the field that are meant to counteract the ascenders. If matt was just a normal elite, he would get destroyed fighting 3 elites that 'counter' his style. Instead he comes out on top most of the time. And we saw in the chapter that Gan Le wanted months to recover from their last encounter while Matt wanted to start round 2 right away
Psyren1596
Damn, they didn’t even manage to kill one person in the harmony accords??? That’s very disappointing, considering they were prepared this time. Regardless, thanks for the chapter
C_Mantis
I tried to show the ascenders arent nerfed by showing them doing well vs everyone but Gan Le. THe man is pure tank and good at his job. Everyone else takes damage as they should san him.
JauPim
Honestly, that Bulwark spell at the start of the fight would have been the perfect time. If Matt had set up a load of runes on the back then he could have been throwing a wave of overpowered talismans at the mercenaries instead of a few shards of mana crystal.
Aaron Hardin
I wonder how much the Harmony Accords would get screwed up if Light and Shadow Tier up to 26, then tiering up would force some of the Harmony Accords to split up, but they may not be able to properly synergize two separate teams to counter both Ascender groups.
Ben Heggem
agreed, even if he doesn't have mana control he could make a few nuke talismans to really stress gan le
Patrick Brennan
Love how Long came into this fight feeling good and then proceeded to get absolutely destroyed and toyed with by Matt
MikeL
My biggest problem with last chapter was how little the general was doing, no solid intel or counter strategies, or in battle suggestions. This chapter, I felt the difference. 👍
Bob Bryan
So round 1 bad guys win, round 2 they retreat but still cause damage.
C_Mantis
good catch
Bob Bryan
It's not nerfed. If they fought matt one on one he would win. But it's not that. It's a scuffle with a bunch if high level elites and they are working together so matt can't just finish them off. Matt could break ganle but other would hit him in that time.
Kenneth Dennis
You can just feel her pain.
AA
Nice chapter, still doesn't fix the issue of the nerfed ascenders or the overly powerful GanLe...Matt's power has been nerfed down to almost an elite level at this point...
da Finnci
--Then the rune soldiers, barbarians that they were, decided their best option was to burn Stick’s cloth while he was wrapped in it.-- Gan Le is such a legend, best POV!
Mike
Thanks for the chapter ! I think there was a mistake when Matt mentionned going in the backline to find Valentina, he still doesn't know her identity i think
Kevin DD
I love how badass they were, going to 100 straight away and taking no prisoners. Great chapter
Sacchito22
Awesome chapter, if the Harmony Accords keep trying to push Gan Le too hard, he's going to break.
Mokuyobi
Tyftc!
C_Mantis
True on the taslimans. They keep getting shoved to the side and I need to catch myself in that. There are just so many moving parts I forget about them.
zachery chase
This chapter fixed like 90% of my problems simply by truly making how much Gan Le was stressed and damaged visible. Would still like to see Matt finally using talismans at least even if I don’t think they truly fit his character. Especially with 70 years to make them viable. Overall, my opinion, great save to the rough start of this arc
Poonam Desai
"I do." Oof. Gut punch.
Tim Johnson
"If they were as prepared " looks like you never finished this thought off, fairly early in.
Chakfor
Poor Dena :(
C_Mantis
'If they were as prepared' bit was fixed
Kasamuri
Thanks for the Chapter
