C_Mantis
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Chapter 312
🕑 Added 2024-03-11 18:58:01 +0000 UTCChapter 312
Matt forced out a weary smile as more of Team Zero trudged into the meeting room. He was the only one who did so, however. Even Aster and Allie dropped almost reluctantly into their seats, not even making a basic attempt to provide some amount of amusement to the group. They’d been on a bit of a trend lately of dressing up in unusual ways, starting with them coming into the meeting dressed as one another, and gradually shifting into other members of the group. They’d even ventured into some cartoon characters and so forth, always trying to one-up the previous ensemble. Last time, they’d come in wearing basically nothing- Aster had been more modestly dressed between the two of them, and the only thing she’d been wearing was her tiara- so he was kind of curious how they’d out-do that.
But it seemed that this time, they’d finally broken their streak. He couldn’t really blame them, though. It had only been ten hours since they got back from their last deployment, a far cry from the week they normally had during trips to the base.
The war… was the war. Once the novelty had worn off and they’d gotten the last shipments of their gear and skills, it had shifted from fun, to a bit tedious, to pure, unbridled monotony fast. And it stayed that way for nearly seventy years. It didn’t help that Command was having them stay out almost constantly, reinforcing and pushing back siege after siege, after siege… after siege.
The only times they got breaks were after a battle at or adjacent to a system which Allie already had a waypoint at, and even those were almost never more than a day real-time, after which they’d pack back up and get back to the front lines.
Once in a while, they’d get something a bit more exciting, if the alliance arrayed against the Empire decided to send a small group of elites for a push into Empire territory, but that was rare these days. Two sets of Ascenders was simply too much for any group of elites to handle, and they’d just stopped coming out to play.
By this point, most of the same Tier armies simply surrendered as they arrived, even the Sects. The prideful little part of Matt wanted to believe their enemies surrendered because of how strong they were. But in truth, they surrendered because it took longer to capture and secure that many troops than killing them did, which wasted more of their time.
The higher Tier armies still tried to resist, but Tier 26 or Tier 27 enemies just couldn’t stop them without a good number of at least low level elites. They couldn’t even go off-script or get in a good fight once in a while, only adding to the monotony. Fighting higher-Tier footsoldiers was just boring, trying to siege a planet was tedious, and there weren’t any proper same-Tier pinnacle elites for them to fight. At least, not on this side of the Empire.
Even Duke Waters was getting tired of the war. They hadn’t seen him in decades, but they’d all gotten exasperated reports from both him and their commanding officers. Their senior had clashed with Maya Embers and Yun Me twice each, with an even record versus each of them, which only seemed to irritate him further. He'd been explicitly told not to give chase to them if he caught wind of their presence. He disobeyed that order regularly, but they just kept melting away before he could properly confront them, and usually in a way that meant wherever he’d been heading or defending got reinforcements, worsening the overall war effort.
Allie had taken to aggressively slacking off in her spare time, with Aster doing similarly, albeit with fewer propositions. Meanwhile, Liz and Zack had been just as aggressively trying to get their projects done. Matt would like to think that he had just been doing what he was told, when he was told, like a perfect soldier… but he was definitely as irritable as the others.
His frustration was borne more from the complete lack of apparent progress they were making than anything else, but it was there nonetheless. No matter how many forts they took, sieges they broke, or convoys they sabotaged, it felt like trying to plug leaks in a dam with one's fingers.
The moment they left one area to repel attackers in another world, another army moved into the area they just liberated.
Intellectually, Matt knew that meant things would be that much worse without their assistance, but saying that didn’t change the fact that the war fronts were getting pushed in day by day, month by month, year by year. If the generals hadn’t pointed out all the ways in which the war would have already been lost without their constant intervention, there was a nonzero chance he would just go diving deep into the Sect backlines, wreck a few fortresses, have some actual fun. There was no way that Maven would stop avoiding them if he were closing in on their capitals, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so in good conscience.
The current projections said the enemies would reach King Rusty’s capital planet in seventy, or at most a hundred years if nothing changed. If that happened and the regional capital fell, it would be the first in any Great Power to fall in almost two hundred thousand years. The rumor mill said the fall of the local capital would signify the end of the war, but Matt didn’t know how true that was, and neither did anyone else. It was all just meaningless speculation at the end of the day.
It was hard to remember sometimes that this entire war, all the lives lost, and all the planets possibly changing ownership, was effectively a game to the Tier 50s, and the Emperor might very well cut his losses if Rusty’s capital fell. If that happened, it was expected the other Great Powers would take seven or eight planets deep on their shared borders. That meant hundreds of planets changing hands.
Matt really didn’t want to have such an outcome, but he didn’t have an answer of how to stop it. There was only so much they could do, even as Ascenders, without taking out the enemies’ elites.
That was why their fleeing instead of fighting was so frustrating. As callous as it was, the Great Powers cared more about a single pinnacle elite than they did a hundred armies. The armies could be replaced with time, as with enough training, any Tier 25 could reach the minimum standard. But each pinnacle elite was uniquely capable and nearly impossible to perfectly replace. If Team Zero could fight and kill or capture enough of them, the enemy Great Powers might be willing to come to the table sooner. If they had a Tier 40 world under their control, they would demand a correspondingly large ransom to give it back, which the populace of the border worlds would end up paying.
Arthur and Zack were the last to arrive, and as they took their seats, Matt tried to sit up a bit straighter, only to be dragged back into a slouch by Liz as she refused to stop leaning against him. Amusingly, Susanne loosely mirrored the action as Zack took his seat next to hers, resting her head on his shoulder.
It was the most public affection he’d seen between them since they’d started dating years ago, but he wasn’t too surprised. They probably hadn’t gotten any alone time before the emergency meeting had been called, considering they hadn’t come in together.
Darrow had a solid poker face, but Matt knew that their team leader was just as annoyed at the rest of them. Their current rest was being interrupted because… Well, it sounded like an army had been hiding out and had laid siege to the planet they’d left the literal second, if the timelines in Matt’s head were correct, they’d returned to the fort. They suspected some kind of abstract danger sense ability.
Regardless of the why, blah blah war, blah blah chase them out, blah blah take prisoners, blah blah… ooh, time off?
Everyone perked up at that, but Darrow held up his hands. “Don’t get too excited. It’s technically just a delayed enjoyment of your current break… but I was able to persuade them to give you an extra rest day, and not count what you just had as any kind of rest. So, sixteen rift-days off when we get back.”
That announcement led to actual cheers, mainly from Sebastian, and raised everyone’s spirits enough to actually start chatting again as they loaded up for deployment.
“I’m still stumped at how to get blood and fire to work together. Nothing is stable. Any mana type we try just falls apart. It seems literally impossible. Even the researchers are getting nowhere.”
Matt just nodded along as Liz complained. It was hardly the first time she’d vented about it, but it just didn’t feel like they were making progress. They’d even commandeered Erwin’s mana researchers after Zack finished creating his fast mana- these days called travel mana- but even with decades of progress and weeks of Matt’s mana generation, they had only really figured out that it would need a third element for stability. The current top contenders were emotion, lightning, spectral, and crystal, but it was slow going.
The big problem was that nobody was entirely certain what the end result would be. Liz was mainly hoping for either lightning or crystal, as those would most closely cleave to her current use of the element. Adding lightning hypercharged the mana, making it an incredibly potent shape for attack spells, while crystal stabilized it and made it better for solid constructs. Emotion helped out its more plague-like and contagious effects, while spectral weirdly made it better at healing.
It was the opposite problem compared to travel mana, which they had a singular effect in mind for, and all attempts were to orient everything to that goal. Personally, Matt felt that they were making good progress, especially compared to how long it had taken them to make travel mana; let alone the difficulties ongoing with making his crystals into talismans. But his wife was in a rush.
Still, it was nice to spend some time together and Matt didn’t mind Liz complaining for some of it.
Because of the fairly mundane nature of the fight, they didn’t bother giving themselves their full, maximum level of buffing. Sure, Darrow extended his Intent through all of them, Matt focused his Concept’s buffing effect on Liz, Stick and Stone’s domains settled over them, Bulwark cast his group buffs, and they all used their respective self-buffs, but most of their consumables were left in the war chest.
It was only a Tier 26 battleground, no known notable elites, and while that meant they couldn’t slack off, their innate abilities were more than enough should the army even decide to fight. Using the expensive potions, temporary buffing runes, and single-use blessing stones for something like this was just a waste, which made it even more boring.
They popped into existence in a hidden spaceport on the planet’s surface, blasting out by phasing directly through the still-closed ceiling, then into the atmosphere and the space beyond. As they did so, Matt overcharged his AI to access the civilian nets and pick up whatever he could about the ongoing battle, too early to have truly started swinging one way or another.
Strictly speaking, what he was doing was illegal, but it was also impossible to prove.
With the final checkpoint passed on the planet behind them, Drifter slammed her throttle all the way forward and flew towards the besieged war world.
A simple planet just barely inside the local star's stable gravity well, it served as a safe place for the Great Powers to wage wars with each other while not involving the many civilians whose lives would be lost if Tier 25s fought large scale battles among them.
Exiting the ship, Matt broadcast a message for surrender but stopped bothering as spells started flying at him.
With a wave he cast a [Bulwark] large enough to cover himself, the rest of the team, and the ship. Fifty years ago, he would have struggled to cast such a large spell, but now it was second nature.
Instead of immediately firing back, he waited to see what his allies did.
Liz’s phoenix body led the charge, riding a wave of blood-red flames with a triumphant screech. Shortly behind that body, her human form also changed into bird form and took off with a flap of her wings.
So that was how this would go.
Boosting his physical body, Matt darted forward alongside Susanne.
As part of their efforts to make the war less dull and repetitive, they had started fighting with limited kits or with abilities they rarely used. It was good training couched as a competition.
Liz frequently tried fighting in only a single form, or without using blood magic, or while only using her [Feather Armory] pseudoskill-weapon. She tried limiting herself to only puppetting the blood in her opponent’s bodies, or more recently to only using only bloodline abilities from her lemon tree. This time, it looked like it was going to be a combination of fire magic only while in phoenix form. Matt thought for a moment, then decided he was going to use skills as little as possible.
It was definitely enjoyable to fight alongside Susanne again. Since she’d joined Team Zero, she’d joined himself and Eric as the group’s primary frontliners, and it was fun reminiscing about Minkalla while tearing into higher-Tier fighters to everyone else's annoyance.
Spinning, Matt dodged a line of arrows before dashing through the rapid fire attack to stab a glowing Federation fighter in the chest.
His bones started glowing, but Matt had already dealt with the phenomenon enough that he wasn’t surprised. The Federation and their rune boosting program, while interesting, could only make the average soldier so much stronger than they were before, and it didn’t do anything for their training instincts or habits.
Ducking and then bobbing left, Matt dodged the [Fist Blast]s the man sent out.
Twisting his blade and pulling, Matt bisected the man. He was prepared to follow the move with a thrust, but the man sent his surrender, so Matt turned and caught a spear that was being thrust into his back.
At the same time, a wave of spells flew at him, but Matt didn’t cast any more defensive spells. He just flew forward, shoving the spearman into another group of Federation soldiers.
Matt cursed as he took a grazing hit along his right shoulder. His armor stopped it entirely cold, of course, but before he could even indicate it, a message from Allie’s [AI] gave him one demerit, which put him in last place.
Mildly irritated that he was now losing their bet, Matt flared his Concept. Repulsive force built in the blink of an eye, then released in a single overwhelming shockwave.
The soldiers near him were sent reeling as their weapons and armor were destroyed.
Susanne slid in front of him, trailing a silvery line in the wake of her sword, brimming with destructive energy. Her current restriction was that she couldn’t use her sword directly, but instead, could only use her Tier 25 Talent, the ability to write on anything, as her weapon. It wasn’t as impossible as it sounded, as she’d managed to get the sword-strokes to be just as sharp as her actual blade, but it still required creative maneuvering and positioning to really make work.
It wouldn’t break through his armor, but he still made sure to dodge out of the way of the stroke.
Matt was not going to lose another point.
Darrow passed along a request for a lot of fire mana from Zack, and Matt obliged. [Dragonflame] flooded out of his armor’s cannon, magical threads permeating it from Dena as her Domain helped weave the spell from Matt to Zack. His fellow Ascender swirled it counterclockwise, focusing it into a white-hot miniature sun, and he launched it so fast that it left afterimages.
Zack’s personal restriction was fairly simple. Any skill he personally used had to be exclusively travel mana-aspected, and he couldn’t request any non-energy spells from the rest of the group to compensate for that limit.
It was an amusingly subtle restriction. Back when he’d first started practicing with travel mana, Zack had won four competitions in a row through some variation of applying a maximum-speed travel spell to rocks and metal, or transforming a travel [Mana Bolt] to metal in the instant before it struck its target. Then they’d unanimously agreed that it was too boring, and Zack moved on to more challenging permutations.
Last battle, he’d used travel mana to rapidly accelerate random body parts, literally causing some of their opponents, mostly those with insufficient flexibility cultivation, to tear themselves apart. It was impressive, but impractical even by their standards, and he was working on a different application for travel mana today.
A non teleporting Allie flew past Matt, diving in and out of groups of combatants just long enough to stab a few in vital places, get a few surrenders, and leave to do it with another group of enemies.
Matt backhanded a lance of mana, the spell splintering against his Stygian Gossamer-enhanced hand and armor, and used the momentum it provided to dodge to the side, out of the way of a barrage of attacks that three commanders trying to pincer him had unleashed.
One lightning bolt came a bit close for comfort, and he needed to engage his repulsion in maximum deflection mode to avoid it, but he successfully managed to avoid losing another point. Right now, only he and Dena had a single unintended hit to their names, and if he was going to lose, he would make sure it was at least a tie.
With a flash of channeled mana through his Tier 25 talent and a few moments of intense concentration, a sculpture of mana stone in the shape of a small rune appeared. His Bifate Pair-Linker appeared in his hand for an instant, linking it with a pair of small metal plates tucked into a storage container in his armor. The talisman thus completed, he activated it and sent off a [Firebolt]-like spell the size of Joy’s ship.
Matt still hadn’t been able to instantaneously create an entire talisman, but he always did his best practice while fighting, so he’d been using his BPL more and more in combat to better refine his mana control, linking premade arrays to ever-more-complex sets of mana crystal. By and large, he could only change some of the less complex parameters on the fly, but manifesting a runic array in mere instants midfight, with no stabilization or tools beyond the absolute basics, was neat enough.
The efficiency was at least decent, though anything he created on the fly wasn’t the same quality as his own skills. Still, it was good enough that even a relatively small amount of mana could have some pretty massive effects.
Part of his ongoing improvements meant using the mana compressing formation any time his spirit was fully healed. In fact, he was almost ready for another round of condensing, and while the process still sucked, its improvements were indisputable.
The concentration array was another one of his projects that Matt didn’t have enough time to dedicate his AI to. It was absolutely invaluable, helping him bring his mana concentration to a point where it was more potent than a stiff breeze, but it still had its limits. Specifically, its efficiency kept going down. Instead of crunching his mana into a more compact form, he was just losing some of that mana, with it being shorn off from his spirit to no gain before the formation took affect. He could get it back no problem thanks to the nature of his Talent, but with every use, the amount that was lost for no gain kept increasing. Eventually, he would be getting essentially nothing from scouring his spirit, and the concentration array would be useless for him.
That wouldn’t happen for thousands of years and thousands of uses, but Matt was slowly learning to think like an immortal and planning for such far out eventualities. There were some models which suggested that the diminishing returns might reset, or at least loosen, when he Tiered up, but it wasn’t really possible to tell at this point. Fortunately, his Intent passively concentrated his mana entirely on its own. It was incredibly slow, but it meant that no matter what happened, he would keep growing stronger entirely on his own merits.
Compared to his fresh Tier 25 self, who could only make five million mana into a head sized sphere, Matt could now put that much mana into a fist sized sphere. That meant the talisman, which he had cast the simple [Fire Bolt], contained eight million mana, and he hadn’t even needed to stop casting his other spells to do it.
One of the things Matt had truly come to grips with over the last century-ish was that his Talent wasn’t a combat Talent. For all of its immense power, it only incidentally made him good at combat. It didn’t make his skills hit harder directly, it didn’t help him supernaturally bypass defenses, nor did it give him fantastic insight as to the perfect place to hit. Of course, he hit hard enough that it usually didn’t matter, but while going from 10 mana to 1,000 might increase its power by a factor of fifteen, going from 1,000 mana to 1,000,000 mana might only quadruple the power, while simultaneously making the spell thousands of times harder to actually cast and keep contained.
That was the entire reason mana concentration was so useful, despite the fact that investing in it lowered one's mana regen and max mana. Increasing mana concentration made the spell itself more efficient. Even Matt, who had more mana than he knew what to do with, found his own sweet spot with spell cost and efficiency. Sure his sweet spot was higher than everyone else's, but he wasn’t making use of all of his mana.
But spot-charged talismans helped change that.
So did his power armor.
It had been refined a few times in the intervening decades, small tweaks to the original design, usually in favor of giving him far, far more power in exchange for drastically less efficiency. Sometimes it felt like half the mana he put into it was just there to offset the fact that almost no Tier 25 materials could properly handle ten to twenty million mana per second.
In truth, it was probably more.
But while Matt’s talent wasn’t a combat talent, it was genuinely unparalleled when it came to making mana. That fed into his spirit both literally and metaphorically, empowering his Domain- especially his Concept- to a truly absurd degree. And in the past several decades, he’d taken that connection, and with the help of One Step Behind, refined it into something truly great. He wasn’t quite a sovereign of mana, but he had picked up a few tricks.
His favorite was making a trick he’d picked up in Minkalla useful after all these years.
Mana flowed out from him, but as he raised his hand, a small sphere of power began gathering above his open palm, a white hole running in reverse. It wasn’t a black hole; he was still working on adapting his Intent’s gravity manipulation to function with mana. And besides, calling on his Intent would cut Liz off from the buff he was providing with his Concept. But it still pulled in on all the mana in a wide area.
What once sought to steal mana directly from spirits now snaked out and attacked spells directly, almost intelligently seeking out weak points in their spells, their gear, even their implants, and pulling on it viciously.
Zack was the only mage he knew that could basically shrug off the effect, but for anyone without Luna for a tutor, spells collapsed and were swiftly devoured, their remnants collapsing violently within the spirits of the enemy casters. This being the Federation, plenty of those skills weren’t within their spirits, but within pseudoskill enchantments implanted into their bodies. It meant that several of the opposing soldiers found their cybernetics malfunctioning, and in one particularly dramatic instance, exploding and taking the woman’s hand it was implanted in with it.
Then, because he had a big ball of mana in his hand that needed something done with it, he threw it at a nearby defensive structure, blowing a massive hole in the side of it as the mana violently detonated.
Matt had several follow ups they had practiced, but he didn’t use any of them and instead resumed his melee attacks.
“Matt, that counts as using a spell.”
Allie's voice chirped into their group chat, but Matt already had his rebuttal ready. “And teleporting mid-fight to get a snack is teleporting. If we want to start cou—”
“It's very different. Getting a snack isn’t related to combat.”
Matt was concentrating on defeating a group of five melee soldiers who were less affected by his removing the mana in the area, but Liz backed him up. “I seem to remember someone saying they were powered by snacks and therefore snacks were a necessary part of all combat supplies.”
Caught by her own words, Allie lied through her teeth. “I only said that because Aster is a snacker and needs her treats. She's like a puppy and gets grumpy if she isn’t plied with snacks.”
“Excuse me! Are you calling me a dog?”
“No, I called you a puppy. It's different.”
“No it's not, you teleporting, backstabbing, bitch!”
Seeing that her mark on him was overwhelmingly rejected by the others, Matt stopped paying attention to her and instead looked to where Liz was fighting a group of Federation soldiers in phoenix form.
While there was little sign of the warpaint that his wife usually traced out on herself across her armored feathers, the multicolored flames surrounding her were a literally sure-fire way to tell that she was channeling... That looked like six different bloodlines at once, as well as Aster’s cold fire, an application of the fox’s Concept which Liz was borrowing thanks to a blood contract.
Really, Liz was terrifying in the best way, simply because of how unapproachable she was as a combatant. Trying to outnumber her was a losing proposition, as any body thrown at her was simply more fuel for her spells. Trying to outmatch her in physical combat was also a terrible idea, because she could outnumber, outmuscle, and outskill just about everyone. Trying to attack her with magic just meant she’d infect you with some terrible draining-slash-wasting blood curse that allowed her to form a clone within your veins, after which she’d assume human form, displacing the space that your body should have been taking up.
Even if she’d eased back a bit on the clones following a minor crisis of identity about fifty years ago, she still constantly had at least three distinct bodies active at any given time, and wouldn’t hesitate to push that up to a hundred and fifty in short doses. Even still, she was working on slowly trying to up that literal body count, specifically by seeing how possible it would be for her to act as Matt’s blood full-time.
Current status was an incredibly uncertain, “maybe.”
Her wings were iridescent with all the colors of the rainbow as white-hot, blood-red, icy-blue, and a particularly sickly shade of purple flames washed over her foes, leaving them burned, exsanguinated, frostbitten, and rapidly necrotizing. .
Those who survived that had to deal with flaming feathers being shot at them. Liz’s [Feather Armament] was doubly effective in phoenix form and she used them to great effect.
Someone managed to get in close to her and smashed her bird form with a massive hammer, but the blood that burst out like a squashed melon simply reformed into a phoenix. A now angry Liz flapped her wings and darted at the man, piercing a hole through his chest.
Happy he was no longer in last place, Matt pretended not to hear Liz’s complaining and instead turned to wrap up the battle as fast as possible.
Once they had defeated most of the officers, the general troops accepted the offer of surrender which ended the one sided fight, but forced them to sit around while the army stationed on the previously besieged planet came up and secured the prisoners.
Matt had once asked why they didn’t just keep all the prisoners until the enemy ran out of troops, which could end the war sooner than later, but he had been given an annoyingly hard to argue with answer. The wars had once been fought exactly like that, and wars had become far more brutal, with each Great Power unwilling to allow their soldiers to surrender. Things had eventually progressed until the point that the Great Powers were implanting their troops with curses that their officers could activate in case the lower ranking troops tried to mutiny. After several wars where the Great Powers had close to sixty percent casualties, they had changed the rules so that any surrendered troops were to be ransomed back to their respective Great Powers as soon as possible, while the individual troops couldn't fight for a mutually agreed upon time not longer than a decade.
That old ruling was in fact why the Sects rarely allowed their general troops to surrender. It had been a necessity, but now, it gave their troops an edge on the rest of the fighters despite leading to higher than normal casualties.
It was a trade-off they were willing to make.
Once the troops were shipped off, they made their way to the next system where they were met with immediate surrender. But the third, oddly enough, decided to fight.
As the Republic army was only Tier 25, it seemed like an odd choice. But sometimes a general got a bug and thought they could do what no one else had managed, thus refusing to surrender.
It took a couple hours, but just as they were clearing out the last of the space fortifications, a new ship appeared near the inhabited planet.
At first, Matt thought Joy's sensors must be wrong, as there was no way the ship could be that large, but as the details came in, the information was corroborated by secondary and tertiary sources removing any doubt.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Matt watched as the ship accelerated impossibly fast, which made Matt noticed just how far the ship had appeared away from the inhabited planet, indicating chaotic space engines leagues beyond what even Joy's ship had.
They didn’t need General Darrow to call them together to know something bad was about to happen.
Matt wasn’t afraid, but rather interested.
After decades of monotony, this was something new.
They floated there over the planet as the ship approached. As it flew stellar north it disgorged five companies of corporation mercenaries, one of which Matt recognized. The moment he did, he snarled at what it implied.
Just seconds later, he got his answer as Maven led fourteen people out of the ship.
Flexing his left hand, Matt couldn't help but smile.
It had been too long, and he had been saving [Mana Claw] especially for Maven. She had even brought the team of people who the Great Powers had been training to counter them.
But she wouldn’t be escaping today, no matter how many friends she brought with her.
Comments
Timothy phillips
I really think there should be an additional chapter to set up queen arriving and what the different groups are going to be doing during the time jump. some of it was setup 'like the liz bloodline tree and to a lesser extent her facepaint' but other things are just kinda hand waved and it is felt in future chapters. normally the time jumps have been greatly appreciated in the series but this one feels too sudden. Also feels like we made all that hubbub about luna training and then it just kinda was not relevant and shes only shown really hanging out after the initial domain training. so lots of little threads were setup and a bridge chapter showing the background work would probably really help smooth things out for the final published version of this arc.
Nicholas Grey
Yeah, that occurred to me too. Only thing I can think of is that their strategic effectiveness simply drops too low without Shadow deploying them.
Nicholas Grey
I feel that adding Susanne off-screen between books is a missed opportunity. She’s not some minor character with no history with the MCs, a small reunion scene wouldn’t go amiss. Ditto for having her hit Tier 25 and learn her new Talents. Going from “T23 and training with Lila” to “T25, joined Team Zero, started dating an Ascender”, all offscreen, is a big jump.
Alex
If they're so bored all the time, why are they still always fighting together? There's obviously no need for two sets of ascenders to work together all the time.
Mario Morales
I think the multiple armies and super ship will be a reason for them to pull out of this fight regardless of how good/bad it is going. Maybe one of Team Zero dies to the sniper or something similar that really pushes a retreat and reassess.
C_Mantis
I get what you are saying which is why I introduced people slowly. And I agree it takes a lot of effort to write these cahtpers as well
egondro
I’ll be honest, the character count is getting amazing large. Almost impossibly so to track as a reader. I get the back drop of an enemy but this is getting extremely difficult to keep up with. I’m forgetting names and dropping them gives me no context. Might want to dial it back. It’s getting absurd to ask everyone to have memorized every single item and numbers in their fridge and cupboard at this point. You’re handing us a grocery store not a high end restaurant with a small menu. I hope the analogy make sense. So many concepts of empowerment and also nuance of talents. I can only imagine how big it’s getting for you as the writer. I hope you dial it back a little and maybe to more training the focused in on the character and growth. This war with every concept under the sun and characters galore is turning this into a chore to read and not something that can be easily immersed in lest you miss all the facts. Point is it’s getting to expansive.
Amazon Shopper
why don't they start making rifts with "Travel Affinity". Get some Travel Affinity natural treasures, those sound pretty cool and useful for starships and stuff
Shmigit
If I'm remembering correctly, Aunt Helen has to fix her Domain before she can tier up to 25.
My prediction: They lose the fight, possibly losing a member of Team Zero. After the retreat, High command comes down with new orders. The ascenders are to set an ambush at Rusty's capital. The ambush is they hold the line while more and more of the ascenders are forced to retreat from injuries until its just Matt left. Matt keeps fighting until Team Zero uses Cracked Miasma from Melinda and becomes unkillable. They trap and kill most of the Elites, destroy the dreadnought, and capture the armies. This ends the war, but shows a trump card and the next war is coming soon.
Scout Mills
Because they are intentionally keeping themselves there for military purposes
Jeff Wells
By not collecting essence. They have to collect essence in rifts to tier up, and further they have to incorporate that essence into their spirit. So to start 25 they just don't collect essence and don't tier up. Aunt Helen has been tier 24 for millions of years doing exactly this.
Jeff Wells
To be fair, most of their opponents are smart enough and quick enough to surrender if they are about to die, and the surrender is honored. So it's only the people who really overestimate their abilities or the truly unlucky who are killed instantly (unusual for a tier 25+).
Alexander
Yeah, that put me off a bit too. I understand it wouldn't be as weird as for us but I feel like that's a bit too open for even a world such as theirs.
Aina_iv
Also, this really drove home for me just how vicious they've all gotten. Team 0 is literally playing with those soldiers. I think I understand the reason, you either joke about about it and find ways to make it fun or it breaks you, but I seriously am just getting vibes of them standing on a pile of bloody corpses playing with someone's skull making funny voices
Aina_iv
NGL, it woulda been funny if you had hyped up the enemy team, but Matt and co had fought and defeated them already but hadn't even noticed so it didn't get mentioned until another enemy pov
Cameron Kispert
I did for about half a second until I realized how fucking fluid their sense of body must be. Why would you give a shit when you and everybody you interact with can literally reshape themselves at will? It's not like it's anything private when you can and do help design and enhance the bodies of yourself and your allies. Sure from our perspective it's odd but even then not entirely unheard of.
Drakken17
Pretty sure they just used maven as bait to keep them there. They know all 5 of them want her head so between her and how easy things have been they are gonna lose. Wouldn't put it past the other great powers have used their age against them. They aren't used to going slow
Eskil
she's not an ascender.
Wes
How are they still only tier 25
Bob Bryan
Maven is there she is an ascender.
Kain
Well he knows this is a team built to counter them because that literally always happens whenever there is a war with ascenders involved great powers always build teams to counter the ascenders
DisgruntleFairy
Something jumps out at me. Matt knows who they are. He knows about the anti-ascender team. That will limit the effectiveness of the ambush a lot.
Kain
I’d say there’s a chance for scenario B if certain opponents make it out, namely blood hand and Sniper, with lots of intel. Blood hand more than any of the others has been set up as a long term antagonist/recurring character. I’d say there’s 0% chance anything permanent happens to him and a decent chance he can actually start modeling all of team 0 after this fight. Sniper also more info more danger. And while the others aren’t Jobers they just don’t have the same kinda set up, which could change with this fight of course. Another thing that I think points to team 0 actually winning this one is that we don’t have the peak rune soldiers here, pretty sure we are still seeing the B team if there is to be a “final” squad fight for the war it’ll have to have the A team runs soldiers imo. Edit reread chapters with Team Harmony and actually couldn’t find any of the rune soldiers names so maybe they are the A team idk.
MinE
The leader of the corps , tier 50 shiny enthusiast, said lightning would work, so I'm betting on lightning,
Neocorupt
Is there an update on the audio for Path 5?
Anthony Jenkins
isnt this the end of the war arc though? or did i miss the switch to the new one
Matt
If you have been alive for half a millennia, casual nudity probably doesn't have the same shock value. Plus they spent a whole bunch of time on the path getting their armour destroyed in various ways. This was not the first time they have been naked in front of each other.
J
Team Zero almost have to take the losing end of a tie or a loss here. It's the first chapter of a new arc. That doesn't mean it's guaranteed, but it's quite likely. I doubt they'll be completely trounced, but it'll probably be a setback that the arc focuses on righting.
J
Yeah, Zero kind of has to take either the losing end of a tie or a loss here. It's too early in the new arc for them to win. I'm guessing one significant character dies, and I'm also leaning towards Susanne or Zach due to the introduced relationship.
Tener
Hmm, I'm reading it differently: I think they are just super tired/bored. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure this is a deliberate tactic by their enemies.
Kain
I’d count them requiring Melinda’s healing as a “casualty” so if you think only team 0 is gonna take that type of damage or is gonna take 3-4x that amount of damage I’d say A is your option.
Coorsbie
100% will be they have lost their edge and are going in arrogant and underprepared.
Coorsbie
I think Queen or Zack are going to go down. Their relationship is a Chekov’s gun.
Sean McClain
I agree but I think they take out a few of the counter team permanently in the process
Sean McClain
Fire, Blood, and emotion sounds plausible and then hotblooded Mana that was blood that burned and made you very quick tempered.
WierdWebLurker
Susanne is presumably there, too. Blood Hand's about to get the full SLAM treatment
Daniel S
That social norm was established in like book one or two during the war with the golem relic castle. It's probably just forgotten at this point since it generally isn't a thing worth mentioning
David
I would say Shadow and Aster are gonna take significant damage for sure. This may be the trigger for them to take the war more seriously. They are too immature for my liking. I'm really curious as to how Aster hold her own.
David
@c.mantis I would argue that those societal norms have not been established and cannot reasonably be inferred by the reader. That scene made me cringe as well
JoshCalmick
Realistically, this is probably what will happen, but not in the first chapter of the book with the main cast.
Matt H
I believe it was a cracked skill that turned it void aspected. If I remember correctly Matt's saving it as a sort of finishing blow.
MikeL
I meant that so soon story wise, not timeline. I thought this chapter would be Queen joining team Zero.
Jason Hatter
Remember, 70 year time jump. Who knows how long it actually took.
Ryan Romano
Plus their forms are malleable, she could add a third boob like Total Recall and they’d probably be like “well that’s a new addition” and go about their day
Chioke Nelson
Anyone got the details on [Mana Claw]?
Silver
Finally!
C_Mantis
We well get more echos but they are a side story and I just havent really had the time to write extra word count with how much work these recent chapter need to get right.
C_Mantis
its two fold. One I try to make it clear this isnt earth and they dont have out sensibilities. Second the Empire dosent have a nudity taboo.
JauPim
So Lightning, Crystal, Emotion and Spectral mana combined into one, let's call it Soul mana, and then Fire, Blood and Soul mana combined into Bloodfire. Anyone else think that makes the most sense?
Derek Walker
I see them as getting normally crippling injuries which causes them to openly play the Melinda card to get T0 back out in normal time. I
Matt H
I'm not convinced that the enemies lack information. They lacked pieces of information 70 years of fighting ago, but many of those pieces of information haven't been kept hidden. Queen's clearly been fighting with them, Zack's been creating challenges for himself revolving around his new mana type, etc. This isn't to say that Team Zero still don't have some tricks and aces up their sleeves, but I think people are drastically underestimating how much information the enemies will have been able to gather about Team Zero by now.
Serran
Nice chapter, bad cliffhanger. There is a chance that Team zero is beaten and forced to retreat. I don't know how likely that is though. Team zero has 5 Ascenders, and we know that the Counter Team misses several very critical pieces of Information. The speed mana of Zack wasn't even a consideration, etc. The reason why I bring up Light in particular, since it is my guess that the Sniper will try to shot him first. Matt is a Tank, Liz is also a close quarter combatant with incredible durability, Aster has her Illusions and Shadow the Teleport. Since no one knows that Light is now probably fast enough to contend with Speedsters the first target should be clear. On the other hand that might not be enough to win. Waters has an even streak against the other Ascenders. It would be very interesting if the Counterforce team only barely survives due to the extensive efforts of the damage redirection and reduction dude. Though now we have to see if all of Team Zero has plot armor. I am actually hoping for it, though especially for the Ascenders and Queen. I am looking forward to the next chapter. I am also hoping we are getting Echo chapters again.
shadowfang
Queen I belive
James Trautwein
I think it would be great to see Liz take the sniper hit to her “main” body and having it die. Then we could see 12 Liz chase the sniper down and kill her.
Matt H
I think you're right, Violet, about how they can improve. My "issue" is that I don't think they'll be able to make meaningful progress in the time they have left before the war reaches a critical point/comes to a conclusion. Edit: And Bob, the other side doesn't actually have an Ascender (or whatever their name is) at this tier. They're all high or pinnacle elites.
Matt H
Something in between A and C. Not sure if anyone on Team Zero is going to die, but they are definitely going to lose and there are going to be some serious, perhaps crippling, injuries.
LazyF0x02
Nooo! The dreaded cliff returns. Tftc
Coorsbie
Allie is definitely going to get got. Taking her out is the key to the ambush.
Bob Bryan
I don't think they will lose. Draw maybe but not lose. Drawing would actually be really bad since their is only 1 ascender on the enemy side while theirs have 5.
Haikaiko
I understand that immortals view things differently, but is anyone else squicked out by Aster running around in "just a tiara" for a joke and Matt merely being curious what his baby sister will take off next to trump it? Like, if my brother showed up to a family reunion completely nude, I wouldn't laugh at how silly he was, I'd leave the house and find a nearby toilet to vomit in.
Kain
Alright people betting pools open. A. Team 0 gets washed- low odds B. Team Counter 0 gets washed - low odds C. Tie - boring but high odds D. Team 0 is about to get washed but bullship/cheating from high tiers happens.-low to mid odds E. Team counter 0 is about to get washed but bullshit/cheating from high tiers happens. - low to mid odds Getting washed means your side either takes the only causalities and is forced to retreat or you take 3-4x the casualties of the other team. Just being forced to retreat doesn’t count as a wash.
Greg Lambert
Great having Queen back in the mix.
Simon
Queen, who they teamed up with for a while on the path. She fell off the path in the last few tiers.
Violet
I think we probably know what the next vectors of non-Tier improvement available to MLA are: Liz -> Bloodfire, Matt -> Mana Density++ or Talisman Creation++, Aster -> Space Ice
Matt H
It'll be an interesting challenge, narratively, for sure. I think it's pretty clear that Team Zero is going to lose this first round. And I think the justification that's going to be used is that they weren't using their best buffs and consumables. What I'm really curious about is the second fight. Theoretically, Team Zero will be prepared and pull out all the stops for round 2. If they don't win then, I'm not sure how Mantis will be able to justify them ever winning again from that point on. MLA now have their armor completed, they've had hundreds of years (rift time) to perfect their skills, etc. There's no apparent way for them or any other members of Team Zero to get significantly stronger in a relatively short period of time. And Queen will already participate in this battle so her addition can't be the balance changer.
Owen Kaz
Sword lady, didn't finish the path. Friends with the gang.
BagFullOfLizards
Works out better for the troops though.
Jason Hardman
TYFTC! "their team leader was just as annoyed at the rest of them." that "at" near the end should probably be "as"?
Brukhalian
I was nervous that they were going to get ambushed and take a major casualty at the start. Of course, the sniper has probably been in the system for days and is lining up her shot, but I think the war is about to take a drastic swing in the other direction.
Blake Noyes
There was a 70 year time gap. This was introducing her as part of the team
Jana
I can see Matt starting the fight of by thanking Maven for finally showing up to the party and even bringing friends and that he and his Friends would make sure their stay was … memorable:-)
Discordian23
I mean they are the Apex Predators. That Liz line with the clone burst, Ain't no way in hell I'm fighting against that under any circumstances
AA
That's mean Mantis, a chapter this long shouldn't be just a warm up..
Tener
I'm worried there will be casualties next chapter...
Evan EJ
Queen, fellow mask at t10 tournie and minkalla diving buddy. Fell off path at 23 and got training from the sand dragon ascender.
Galaxyace1
"But she wouldn’t be escaping today, no matter how many friends she brought with her." Yeah ok Matt. I'll believe it when I read it.
John Smith
Adding the “nearly 70 years” line from Matt makes it clear the start of the war is at least 70 years back but how much of a timeskip is less automatically clear (at least to me)
Kevin DD
Excellent cliffhanger
Leander
At least in me it led to a frantic search if I somehow missed a chapter. Maybe just throw a paragraph in there at the beginning about how she joined a couple years back after her training.
John Smith
I like the time skip, but some clearer way of noting (comparatively) “massive time skip here” might help at the very start of the chapter. That might not be needed in the novel with the new book, but for us reading it as serialized, it’s ~3 weeks since a Matt chapter and that context is helpful
Havokk
Light and Queen.... didnt really see that one coming but damn I like it Reading how they were treating the fight I was thinking that they may be the apex predators in this story but are the getting too confident and is it going to come back to bite them but did not expect a big fight so early in the book. I suspect that means this book is going to be brutal on the fights and I cant wait
mitchell kaiser
Dang can’t believe we have to wait till Friday what a tease! Great chapter though!
JoshCalmick
Aww damn I was really hoping that one of them would take a surprise bullet from the sniper elite before the new ship showed up! Still, what a wonderful chapter. This was quite enjoyable.
Kenneth Dennis
Oh he'll yeah.
Patrick Brennan
*Rubbing hands together until Friday*
Jonathan Giffin
Thanks for the chapter! It should be interesting to see if and how team zeros compliance effects them in the up coming fight.
Eric M
Whoa a big fight so early in the new book! Looking forward to it.
C_Mantis
it just happened during the time skip. We already know her and it was pretty much the only thing of note so might as well add it to the time skip.
Abriel Blauer
"But in truth, they surrendered because it took longer to capture and secure that many troops than killing them did, which wasted more of their time." Okay That's just cold
Leander
I amend my question: When the hell did queen appear? The last we heard from her she was training with Lila and the next thing we know: She is on the team and dating Zach?
Bob Bryan
Thank you, wasn't sure.
MikeL
When Lila mentioned that Queen and Light can sit there in silence perfectly fine, I thought they would make a good couple. Wasn’t expecting it so soon. Thought this chapter would be her coming on the team.
Ido Pazi
ty for the chapter, can't wait for the big fight
Captain the Red Beard
Tyftc!!!
Thomas Brusilovsky
I assume this is going to be a very hard fight, but I don’t want to lose any of our main cast. Maybe we can do something fun with the shield guy who doesn’t want to be there
C_Mantis
68 outside.
Violet
Well now... This should be fun. I'm willing to bet this is only the first time we'll see this matchup, given that we wouldn't get a second full arc out of having this fight right now and then being done with things, but maybe I'm wrong.
James Faulkner
Tftc!
Bob Bryan
Is that in Rift 70 years or out of Rift 70 years? Also matt, Liz and aster vs maven and death hand, forget his old nickname, round 2 electric bugaloo
Dan
Sword companion from around the Minkalla arc
Dan
Queen
Dan
Friday is too far away
Leander
Who is Susanne again?
Kasamuri
Thanks for the Chapter
