C_Mantis
patreon
Chapter 102
🕑 Added 2021-12-10 20:01:02 +0000 UTCChapter 77 had a slight retcon because I'm stupid and didn't account for Matt being able to put [Cracked Breach] in his core spirit for a 30% discount. Easiest way to fix this was to make the skill not be able to be lowered in cost any more. Here is the passage that was changed. Sorry about this.
The second most expensive item was the Tier 20 skill, [Cracked Breach]. The Cracked effect drastically reduced the minimum cost for the skill, making it possible for someone even of Tier 6 to utilize it. But the cracking made it impossible to further lower the cost.
Sorry about this. I hate retcons but I went and goofed on this one hard.
Chapter 102
Liz paced around their shared living quarters. She was restless and irritable. Matt had been gone for so long, and she was stuck here. The days had passed agonizingly slowly, with nothing to do but observe.
She just hated being forced to sit around, unable to act.
At first she tried to lose herself in alchemy, but she could never keep focused long enough, and kept ruining her mixtures. Even Conor and Emily tried to keep her distracted in their own ways. The party’s healing cooldown was just over halfway done but she needed to start moving again. Now. But there was still a long way to go.
The situation outside wasn’t looking entirely awful, but it wasn’t anywhere near good.
It may have been self-centered or egotistical, but Liz believed she could make a real difference. She just needed the chance.
***
Albert was doing hanging crunches when his AI pinged.
He tried to ignore it as he concentrated on his form and aching abdominal muscles. Out of habit, he flicked his attention to the message to skim the subject at least.
In sudden shock, his legs slipped from the bar and he plummeted to the ground.
The impact didn’t even register as he started to laugh.
Sara was dead!
He smiled as he flexed his newly formed Concept from his time with the Shard of Reality.
Things were looking up. Now she would be in the same situation he had been in.
***
Sara cursed as she popped in the hospital above a bed. A cracker stacked high with cheese and meat half hovered an inch in front of her open mouth wiggled ominously.
“What the fuck!?” Realization hit, followed up quickly by, “How did I die!?”
The Healer pressed a hand to her arm before nodding a few times as his eyes flicked back and forth.
“Simulated poison in the cracker before that one.” Seeing her confusion, the Healer explained, “No one is going to risk actual death with something that dangerous. No actual damage done, so you’re free to go.”
Sara glared at the cracker in her hand before asking, “Simulated poison? So is this safe?”
At the Healers nod, she chomped down, making sure to savor the flavor. It was the only enjoyment she was going to get out of her day, after all.
Thankfully, she’d prepared for this scenario. Her subordinates knew what to do next. And while she couldn’t command her own people during her healing cooldown, bribing the Kingdom’s hierarchy was another matter.
Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
This inconvenience may slow her down even further, but she could recover. She had multiple layers of contingency in place for a reason.
She started at the bottom of the Pather and Kingdom personnel who weren't a part of the greater plan.
Sara only needed to stall for another week and a half.
Amber should already be making calls now that Sara’s death was reported. While she was on her cooldown, she might as well give her mother an update and see how the real war was progressing.
***
Matt was sitting in his command tent with half a dozen of his most influential officers, listening to a brief from their scouts. Suddenly, a message from Princess Sara’s right hand woman, Amber, came in, asking for a conversation.
He was going to dismiss it out of hand, but thought better of it. Making a quick excuse, he backed out of the room while everyone discussed the ramifications of this plan or that plan.
It was fairly moot. The Kingdom forces currently lacked the manpower to accomplish anything truly significant.
When he accepted the call, he found a smiling virtual head waiting for him.
“Hello, Matt. I know you’re busy and don’t appreciate the normal political wordplay, so I’ll cut to the chase. I want to talk with you about coming over to our side for the remainder of this war.”
Matt should have expected it, but he was still taken off guard by the request.
Amber seemed to take his speechlessness as permission to continue her pitch.
“I'll ensure you are well compensated. After your win in the duel arena, we noticed the [Side Slide] skill vanished. With your teammate Annie’s survival of the ambush, we can put two and two together.”
Matt nodded slightly at that. It was an easy enough deduction, so there was no point trying to hide it. But he wasn't sure how that related to him and the Queendom.
Amber continued, “Obviously you used your own duel winnings to help her get such a high value chase item. Which would mean, with your team's recent deaths, that you’re all rather low on points. So, I took the liberty of buying [Cracked Breach] myself.”
He internally panicked as he checked the points store to find the skill, along with several other high-cost items, gone.
“We would be quite willing to give you the skill. All we’re asking in return is that you use it to help us level the final cities. It would be a double win for you, since you’d earn a queen’s ransom of contribution points in the process.” Amber finished with a beaming smile.
Matt could feel the temptation bubbling up inside of him. It was an incredibly generous offer, and with a few notable exceptions, the Kingdom had not enamored itself to him. That skill was perfect for him. He honestly hadn't considered that anyone else would buy the skill. It was a cracked skill that needed massive amounts of mana to properly use.
Any normal mage would have to wait at least a few Tiers before they had enough mana to make it consistently useful. Technically, anyone could use the skill if they had enough mana to initially cast it, and others fed them converted mana afterwards. It was just that most people didn't have a spare 10,000 mana to throw away on a single shot of a skill, or a battalion of support mages to feed them more mana.
But that was the problem. Amber, and through her Princess Sara, wanted him to cast the spell now. Matt had a maximum mana of 80, and the 100 mana was needed upfront to cast it. Nothing he could do would allow him to cast the spell without Tiering up first to double his maximum mana again. But that wasn’t an option, since he’d be removed from the war the moment he became a Tier 7.
He was also afraid to try and brute force the skill to lower its cost, considering the skill’s additional cracked effect preventing the initial cost from being lowered further.. He wasn't sure if it was a hard limitation, or if it meant that the skill couldn't stabilize with less mana. An unstable siege skill would be like an unstable mana canon. Every shot came with the risk of just exploding instead of firing at the target, and he didn't want the equivalent of a mana cannon detonating inside of him.
Matt couldn’t accept the bribe, no matter how much he wanted to. When he couldn’t follow through on casting [Cracked Breach], it would reveal that his Concept wasn’t responsible for his insane mana generation. It would raise questions that Matt couldn’t afford to have people asking.
Fighting to keep the disappointment off his face, he decided to play it straight. “I’d never change sides for something as simple as a bribe. How would that look on me as a person to the Army watchers? A supposed ally any enemy can bribe away with a sufficient enough trinket? No, I’m sticking with the Kingdom.”
Amber raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem phased. “We’re willing to sell you the skill for half-price, on the condition that you don't absorb it until after the war. You just have to stall the counter-attacks on my sieges and let the two cities fall.” She smiled and continued, “Even if those two cities fall, the Kingdom will still have one left. It won't end the war.”
Matt was even more tempted, and regretted the excuse he’d chosen. Having made such a hardline stance about moral appearance, he couldn’t take this offer either without revealing his lie. Sabotaging the Kingdom from within would look even worse to the Army than openly switching sides. He shook his head. “That's another generous offer, but I’m unwilling to sell my morals.”
Amber seemed unbothered and just nodded. “Then best of luck to you. I know we don't need it.” The call ended with a grin on her part.
Curses started to flood from Matt’s lips, drawing widespread attention to him as he debated what to do.
Finally, he decided to report to Juni that Sara’s people contacted him in an attempt to bribe him away. This mess would look much worse if he didn’t get ahead of it now. Sara could send carefully edited recordings of everyone she messaged to Albert, and destroy any trust the Kingdom’s leadership had in him and the other top Pathers.
Even with AI proof, suspicion would fall on them, creating doubt.
Juni picked up nearly instantly. Matt rushed to explain the situation.
Juni only nodded along before saying, “With the restrictions in place, all I can say is that we trust you to do your job.”
With that, the connection cut out.
Matt’s mouth dropped open before shutting. Reflexively, he just shrugged. There was work to do.
***
Sara tisked as she listened to the call with Matt. She’d hoped at least one of the propositions would have enticed the man. Having Matt at her side would have given her an incredibly useful, not-at-all suspicious connection to Liz. With some subtle leveraging, she could have gotten closer to the woman in short order.
Tapping her fingers, Sara nodded at Amber, her second in command.
The woman was still engrossed in her pad. She didn't look up until Sara tossed the [Cracked Breach] skill shard onto the table, along with all the other failed bribe items. Even if she couldn’t bring the perfect matches for her plans over with these items, she could use them to motivate her own people.
Thankfully, the pile of accepted bribes dwarfed the discarded pile. That made things easier.
Sara pulled [Cracked Breach] from the reject pile and slid it towards her second in command. “Amber, for your years of loyal service, please accept this skill as a gift to absorb and use as you see fit.”
Sara immediately felt the weight of a higher Tier being pressing down on her spirit like a wet blanket. The army watchers were warning her. That barely disguised order pushed the boundaries of what she could do while on a healing cooldown.
Amber was smart, and understood her liege’s meaning as soon as she reread the skill’s description. Without another word exchanged, Amber bowed slightly and left. She'd be blasting holes in the cities’ walls. A bag full of mana crystals from the supplies should ensure that they could end the sieges quickly.
It was best to give such a dangerous skill to a loyal subordinate, rather than someone who might turn on them after acquiring that kind of power. By the time Sara’s own healing cooldown ended, the war would already be over.
Both of them.
***
Cori stood in front of the mirror and contemplated her actions for the millionth time.
She came to the same conclusion she always did.
Betraying the Kingdom that she grew up in didn’t bother her. They had done nothing for her and deserved nothing from her in return. She was pretty sure that the common people living under her few noble supporters would lead better lives under the Queendom’s rule.
Her motivations for this weren’t just personal.
Or, they weren’t only personal.
Personal grievances may have started her down this road, but she’d come upon a plethora of other reasons to continue along the way.
Cori traced the half-inch scar on her temple where her father had backhanded her.
An old rage simmered back to life, but she tamped it down as she thought of her childhood.
The daughter of the King from one of his many companions, she was the first possible heir he had produced.
Not the last. Nor the most valuable.
Just the first.
The testing bed for how he raised all of her other half-siblings.
A series of nannies brought her up, being rotated in and out as soon as they made the slightest error. Even the most minute slip ups sent the Tier 35 King rabid.
Her own mother abandoned her as soon as the agreed payment for birthing a child to the Kingdom’s ruler was transferred. Cori loathed her mother for that as a child. Now, she understood the choice, even if she refused to respect it.
The King offered a handsome reward to anyone who birthed him a child. No one could stand the man long enough to stick around for any significant amount of time after that, let alone consider marrying him. The same song and dance had played out for each of her younger siblings too.
Only one of the mothers had reconsidered and protested, trying to secure a better life for her child. But poor Maria simply vanished one night, never to be spoken of again.
Cori was certain that she’d been killed off, likely quite brutally. Her father didn’t tolerate people questioning or interfering with his affairs, particularly regarding how he chose to rear his children.
She had met her father only half a dozen times in as many years. He barged into her wing of the palace one day, shoved a miniature sword in her hand, and physically dragged her out to a training yard.
With the bastard’s cultivation pressing down on her, she was scared and confused. She didn’t react fast enough when he pointed at the training dummy and commanded ‘strike’.
Her ten-year-old self hadn't even properly heard the command. Only when he backhanded her and sent her sprawling did she realize exactly what their relationship was.
In the early months, she thought something was wrong with her, and repeatedly cried herself to sleep. At the same time, she just hoped that someone, anyone, would save her.
After the first year of training, she grew hard and realized that the only way to survive was to meet the madman's expectations.
So, Cori threw herself into martial training. With a Tier 1 Talent for balance and a Tier 3 Talent for proprioception, she dedicated herself to combat and Tiering up to advance. All for the sake of winning some sliver of her father's approval.
When she reached Tier 15 in record time, and was rewarded only with a dismissive sneer, she realized that she'd never make him happy.
He had called her to task for not creating a political base, and instead rushing through the Tiers. She had done exactly what he had taught her to do, and then he had called her an idiot for doing it.
Cori despised fighting; it had never resonated with her. But for him, she had forced herself into it when she could have had a more normal childhood, or at least a less horrific one.
She left that meeting with a drive to correct her mistake, but it was too late. Branch family members showing promise had been adopted into the main family, and had poisoned the well with most noble families. Their birth parents had given them the political lessons her own father had neglected.
Her noble peers wouldn't work with her, and she was cast off as an heir who would never ascend to the throne because all she cared about was fighting. So, she embraced that persona and entrenched herself into the Kingdom military.
It had taken decades, but she had worked her way up, and was now in the perfect position for revenge.
The original idea had been to just kill the bastard when she matched his Tier. But perspectives change. Once she was released from her sheltered life in the capital, and was no longer focused solely on delving to advance, she witnessed the rampant neglect and abuse in her Kingdom. The system was broken beyond repair. It needed to be shattered, melted down, and completely reforged if anything good was going to come out of it.
At the Kingdom’s outskirts, people didn’t even bother to hide their contempt for the heavy taxes, neglect, and disgusting privileges taken by some nobles.
That was where she found people who were desperate for change, but lacked the power to act against the higher Tier nobles pissing on them from above.
So, she made use of the political skills her father claimed she didn't have. Bit by bit, she gathered the disparate groups and few decent nobles under one banner. Like-minded individuals slowly rallied around her.
It wasn't easy or fast, but the right person noticed. A Queendom spy eventually contacted her. At that time, her plan had been a mass defection to create an independent splinter nation. When instead offered full membership into the Alliance of Allied Queens as a Queen herself, Cori could not refuse.
A deal was worked out.
Under her command, a large swath of border worlds would defect to the Queendom, stealing away 12% of the Kingdom's current territory. Centuries worth of expansion would disappear overnight in a single, devastating blow.
To give Cori leeway in winning over additional nobles in the targeted area, the deal included a provision that all Kingdom nobles that willingly defected would retain their titles in the annexed territory, so long as they fully adhered to Queendom law. The rules as such had been explicitly laid out in no uncertain terms.
Paired with a chance to escape the Kingdom’s inevitable war of succession among her siblings, that guarantee was all many of the nobles needed to hear. However, there were several nobles that no one believed would jump ship, and her people employed various methods to remove them from power in the area.
Some were just killed, but that tactic had to be used sparingly to avoid attracting notice. Only the most vile and pigheadedly loyal could be put in the ground where they belonged. A few even found themselves unexpectedly promoted to better territories on the other side of the Kingdom, after Cori and her supporters secretly cashed in all of their political favors. Most of the other potential holdouts were simply challenged, and quickly saw reason when they realized that they were surrounded and outnumbered by nobles intent on defecting by any means necessary.
Their actions caused some turbulence, but nothing that wasn't smoothed over easily enough with copious amounts of wealth. Bribes could get you nearly anything in the Kingdom. For all it made the ordinary citizen’s life a struggle, the very corruption she hoped to cure made planning the rebellion much easier.
So many people flocked to her side for a reason. It was why she was able to embed so many of her own troops in the war, despite the measures her father took to ensure that only soldiers loyal to him were under her command.
When the new, higher Tier planet had been found in the neighboring sector to her little rebellion haven, she had hardly believed the luck. It set them up to take an even larger portion of the Kingdom with them when they left. As she and the other Queens had hoped, the Emperor allowed them to declare war on the Kingdom for the land, which would let them cripple the remaining loyalists.
Careful planning ensured her own people suffered fewer losses than the most loyal regiments. The difference wasn’t enough to tip her hand, but enough to hobble a few critical assets in key areas. Her traitors knew the risk, and put their lives on the line for a better tomorrow.
Some died willingly for that. Unlike little Albie’s Pather war one planet over, this wasn’t a game. Death was all too real.
Cori traced her scar again. She kept it as a reminder for all these years.
With an effort of will, she convinced her spirit that the scar wasn’t a part of her true self anymore. Over the next hour, she watched the mark gradually vanish.
It had been a reminder of another life.
Today, she was free.
She withdrew her helmet from her spatial ring and strode out of her tent, into the bustling camp that her army had set up.
Assembled around her were 200,000 Tier 20’s and 75,000 Tier 21’s, along with a smattering of Tier 22’s.
Less than half were on her side. Most were loyalists from the personal armies of the Dukes, the most sycophantic of the King’s supporters. That was fine. Most of this army was destined to be slaughtered in the mass ambush that she had waiting.
She started sending orders to gather everyone up. Within half an hour, the tents were stored and everyone hovered in formation on their flying devices.
The army flew over the mountain range where the Queendom lay in wait. The scouts were some of the first to be infiltrated, and reported what she wanted. At her request, a token Queendom force had been moved a little too far out of position, leaving a supposed crack in their defenses. When her generals predictably clamored to attack, she let them gather the majority of their forces and led them to their doom.
Her countdown timer ticked down, and when it finally hit zero, she struck out with her true power. In an instant, she went from the apparent weakest leader, here only because of who her father was, to one of the strongest.
By law, the Queendom couldn't have a Tier 20 ruler, the Tier her peers had successfully stalled her at. As a sign of good faith, they had secretly given her resources and time slots in their own rifts to advance. At Tier 24, her power allowed her to cleave through the two strongest Kingdom generals highlighted. They were also Tier 24, but the element of surprise allowed her to slice clean through their heads. There was no surviving without a brain, and she ended her largest threats in an instant.
Two of her compatriots, highlighted blue, assaulted the nearest red generals. They weren’t overwhelmingly strong, so she gathered a bit of mana and sent out a [Mana Thrust] at each of them.
The strikes hit true. They slumped over on their flying devices before falling, with a mist of blood flowing from the holes in their heads and residual energy dissipating into the air.
Chaos surrounded her. A rainbow of spells and skills lit up the sky with flashes of light and death.
Kingdom loyalists fighting Kingdom traitors. Only she and her forces could see the difference, and more than one of her troops fought alongside their own brethren to integrate themselves into a group of Kingdom loyalists, before attacking from the inside.
They’d trained for this.
Her command channel sang with a chorus full of panicked and contradictory orders. Captain Michels was trying with mild success to reinstall order, so she found him in the melee and directed a free squad to gang up on the man.
Things would have looked bleak with the loyalist’s numbers advantage, but then a wave of Queendom troops arose from concealed locations in the mountains, and only now were they apparent to her spiritual sense. Like a tidal wave, a multitude of Queendom elites flooded up and around her men, even as entire battalions of snipers began felling their preselected targets.
In under ten minutes, the final Kingdom loyalist fell.
Milly soared up next to Cori where she hovered.
“I half thought you wouldn't go through with it.”
Cori met the younger woman's eyes. Milly held her gaze for longer than most were willing to, but she looked away and down. She was the third daughter of the sixth and newest Queen of the Alliance of Queens.
Or rather, her mother was the second newest of the current Queens. As of this moment, Cori was the latest, though she needed to push her cultivation to at least Tier 30 in a hurry. Her Intent was close, but she needed something else, even beyond her phrase and image. The Intent refused to crystalize like her Concept had.
That information was one of the many things she intended to ask from her peers at the first possible opportunity.
“I never break my word. Are your other troops taking the locations I specified?”
Milly nodded. “They made their move at the same time. The teleporter formation should be under our control as long as your people don't back down.”
Cori checked her AI and the reports. The situation looked acceptable so far, but there were a few pockets of resistance that she directed troops to. Controlling the Queendom troops as well as her own gave her a thrill of pleasure.
She didn't miss the voids in communication from certain locations. That signified some of the loyalist troops had already ditched the standard combination channels. It was smart of them to realize that the lines were compromised, but dumb of them to reveal that and make themselves high priority targets.
Looking to Milly, she sent her the locations. “Have troops check these locations.”
Before she could respond, Cori finished focusing her will, and ripped a hole through reality into chaotic space.
She was immediately buffeted by the energies that made up the realm between realms. It took most of her power to keep the corrosive energies at bay.
Without reality to help it travel, her spiritual sense didn't cover even half the distance it usually did. That was still enough for her to scan around the spark of light in the void that was the essence-full world. Seeing no one around her trying to escape, Cori changed the location of her focus, and punched back into the world, halfway across the planet.
That stunt had cost her nearly half her mana and most of her willpower, but she was still confident in her combat prowess.
Damien and Kristen came to a halt, sensing her presence as she entered real space and hovered behind them. To avoid breaking the rules of engagement, Cori needed them to attack first as she was the stronger party. The Tier 22 man and woman were her most significant problems. They were a Marquess and Marchioness, respectively, and die-hard loyalists.
They were also capable tacticians, which was why she was going to take them out herself. Or that was the excuse she had briefed the Queendom on.
In truth, she detested the pair. They were willing to sell anyone out for personal power. Starting as unlanded nobles, they had schemed their ways up the ranks. At every opportunity, these two sociopaths were held as shining examples of why her father's methods worked. They were loyal enough to have eagerly performed violent loyalty purges of their domains, often unprompted.
While they had officially only killed heads of state, they had taken out any political opposition they could get their hands on. More than a few people were executed on charges that were later revealed to be lazily fabricated. Her father adored the pair.
Everything they embodied, Cori abhorred. Wiping them from existence would be a public service.
They also took every opportunity to talk down to her, claiming that their power was only their own because they had earned it, and not squandered it. The unspoken ‘as Cori had’ was always hidden in their smirks and the glints in their eyes.
The tall, pale man summoned his waraxe, and the woman readied a staff that cracked with lighting, water, and eddies of air.
Kristen spat to the side. “You sold us out to the Queendom!? You fucking bitch! When the King hears of this, he’ll have your head on a platter!”
It was hardly a question, but Cori smiled under her helm in response.
She activated [Flexibility], [Endurance], and [Mana Strength]. Moving at full strength normally drained her rapidly. It was really a question of whether exhaustion would set in or she would tear a muscle first.
The buffs allowed her to fight with neither constraint nor worry. A Tier 26 mana stone was already being pumped into a rapid mana converter to slowly recover the mana from her trip through chaotic space. The expense was ruinously wasteful, but she had her own sources of wealth. The underground fighting arenas paid obscenely well for deathmatches. It was how she could afford her new weapon.
The rapier gleamed a glossy green in the setting sun.
It was an exceptional weapon that she had ordered from an Empire crafter. Most considered a plant mage weaker in the air, but Cori disagreed. You just needed a little ingenuity to make the spells work effectively.
There was little point in hiding her abilities anymore. It was time to put down the rabid dogs who thought themselves her rivals.
Damien lost his patience first, and used [Blink] to close the distance.
There it was. All the provocation that she needed to engage. They had attacked her first, after all.
Cori rushed forward to where she could feel the spell targeting. In the split second it took the spell to transport the man, Cori struck with a [Mana Thrust].
She was still too slow, and only grazed the man's chest armor, instead of timing the attack to land inside of him.
A disappointing failure, but nothing to worry about. She ignored him to rush the mage. Kristen was already summoning a storm. The entire horizon was being gorged with rapidly darkening clouds.
A bolt of lightning struck out at her, but she cast [Entangle]. The vines absorbed the energy. The electricity fried the plant life, but it let her close the distance.
Kristen wasn't stupid, and was already retreating on a gale of wind. But she was too slow. She wasn't a real storm mage. Not yet.
The enemy mage had yet to merge her three distinct mana types into a solid, unified whole. Instead, she was pulling from carefully portioned areas of her mana pool. Not only was the practice slower, it was dangerous. If the woman lost concentration, her unstable mana would mix, and the result wouldn’t be a storm, but an unusable mess which she would need to purge to fix.
That necessity made her slower, which ensured her death.
Cori, with her higher cultivation, was nearly on the Tier 22 mage. Her rapier was only feet away when she felt Damien close the distance with a [Shield Bash] used in conjunction with a [Lunge]. Interweaving skills required a delicate blend of magical control that he wasn't able to properly achieve. She could feel the mana spillage from the spell structure radiating around Damien. For it to be this bad indicated the shoddiness of his efforts.
Unfortunately, it still allowed him to close the remaining distance in an instant.
With her Talent and passive skills helping, Cori bent backward and under the chopping axe. Her bones and ligaments screamed with the sudden bend, but she hardly lost any momentum with the maneuver. Still, even that slight hesitation was enough for Kristen to cast [Tornado]. She was clearly mixing water mana with wind, and the funnel of wind quickly grew to monstrous size as it absorbed the clouds around them.
Kristan retreated into the cutting vortex of wind, a place where Cori would have to expend a lot of resources to reach, leaving her open to the couple's retaliation.
Instead, through her rapier, she cast [Spore] and [Seed]. Tiny motes of plant life flaked off from the green blade, and were sucked up into the tornado. If Kristen had been able to merge lightning with the skill, she wouldn't be able to pull this off. But as it was, Cori was free to pump the tiny plant life full of mana.
In seconds, the pinhead-sized motes of [Seed] swirling around Kristen were massive tendrils of greenery.
Suddenly, the defensive tornado became a trap.
Damien struggled to cut through the magically strengthened vines, but he was two Tiers below her, and a full three Tiers below her weapon.
Kristen scrambled to race up and escape out of the apex of the spell, but Cori was prepared, and she was faster. She had ensured that her spell spread out well above and below the mage.
Damien spun to attack her, hoping to break her concentration on her spell. To his growing alarm, she avoided each of his attacks simply by leaning on her training and physical advantage.
Finally, a vine wrapped around the Kristens's leg. Cori smiled. The woman was in her grip now.
The resistance stopped, and she paused to find that she no longer had a hold of the mage. Not all of her at least. Her growing vines searched to find the leg severed at the knee.
It was a shrewd move. One that may have worked if not for [Spore]. The spell was already in the air, and she could now feel Kristen's location. A Tier 15 or higher could keep the tracking spell out of their body as long as they concentrated. With a gaping wound to infect though, it was already too late. The skill was inside the woman.
With a mental effort, she bent around another heavy mana-infused axe strike and changed the skill that was still connected with her blade.
Through her rapier, she merged the still active [Spore] skill with [Toxin]. Combining an active skill was incredibly hard and painfully slow, but it had the desired effect.
In Kristen's body, the skill slowly turned poisonous. It was already hard to break through the mage’s Concept, willpower, and spirit. Dodging Damien’s attacks on top of that was taxing, and forced her to split her attention. Still, she managed it.
Long ago, Cori had learned that her Talent made it far easier to dodge a blow than to block the hit. She was a small woman. Dodging was easy, and only risked injury if she couldn't move out of the way fast enough.
As she felt Kristen abandon her active control of the weather, Damian finally earned both her full attention and a counter thrust into his chest.
[Phantom Armor] appeared, and for an instant helped his own armor resist the strike. The force of her attack sent him flying upward and out of the atmosphere.
Not letting the opportunity be wasted, she rushed towards Kristen, who sat shaking and vomiting. A bored slash took the woman's head off.
It was almost too easy.
In her spiritual senses, Cori felt Damian going utterly berzerk. Music to her ears. He unleashed his veil and shockingly started burning essence to empower his attacks.
A massive, twenty foot wide [Mana Chop] forced her to both activate her own [Phantom Armor], and wrap herself in a ball of vines to block it.
Using essence in your attacks was possible after Tier 15, but it had two major drawbacks. First off, it permanently damaged the skills used, and would destroy those skills if used too much. Using essence also permanently damaged your cultivation base as you ripped it away. As far as she knew, there was no way to use loose, non-allocated essence to attack. It had to come from one of your cores, which meant you lost that progress forever.
New essence didn't go to fill those voids, it went to advancing. All that power was just gone.
Most people weren't willing to sacrifice that much, even for a lover. For immortals, spouses were often temporary. Personal power was the only thing that couldn't betray you, after all. And it was the only thing that could drive you forward.
If the couple hadn’t been such vile pieces of shit, she might have almost found Damian’s dedication touching.
Cori was still rebuilding [Phantom Armor] in her spirit to charge it again, when another [Mana Chop] lashed out. Unlike last time, she was prepared, and got out of the way in time. She felt a mountain explode behind her from the impact of the spell.
She could now personally attest to the power of essence-fueled skills. Despite her two Tier advantage, that first strike had punched through two of her defensive skills. Her armor was still smoking from the impact.
Still, Cori’s confidence didn’t falter. At best, this put Damien at her level, and only until his diminishing cultivation and crumbling skills caught up with him. She had never had issues fighting people at her level.
Only stronger fighters ever provided a challenge worth enjoying. An equal was nothing to get excited about.
Cori unleashed a normal [Mana Slash], causing Damien to twist out of the way and interrupt his next attack. By her estimation, he probably had two more casts of [Mana Chop] before the skill fell apart.
She closed the distance and slashed out with a heavy blow. The haft of his axe rose to block it. The blow still sent the larger but weaker man flying into true space.
Cori refused to let him take advantage of the momentum she’d provided him and flee. She would keep close here; her higher cultivation gave her the flat advantage over the dedicated melee fighter.
They neared the planet's largest moon when she caught up with his larger form. In her brief but rapid approach, she felt someone watching.
She had an inkling of who it was. If she guessed right, she wasn't sure if she should be insulted or flattered. Either way, it was time to put on a show.
To show her worth.
Damien slammed into the moon with a crash, sending debris spraying everywhere. Right before impact, an essence-fueled [Flame Barrage] shot towards her. Two dozen person-sized fireballs exploded out and homed in on her.
Cori weaved her way through them without letting a single flame lick her. But she cut it close enough that her armor heated up, even through the vacuum of space.
Damien was ready, and had a [Mana Chop] charged with essence building on his blade. She met the attack with magic and steel, as her own full power [Mana Charge] flashed to meet it.
As their attacks clashed, a wash of energy surged out in all directions as the two opposing forces tried to overpower each other.
She had to use her Concept to brace herself in place with plant life on the moon, but soon, their attacks dissipated. When she saw Damien, she trusted the fight was over. He was bleeding from the backlash of their clash, and each drop was evaporating in the vacuum of space. Despite neither having nor needing air to breath, he wheezed with undeniable effort.
In contrast, she kept herself controlled and poised. Even if she wanted to vomit after the effort that repulsing that attack had required, she was a Queen now. And honestly, this was the most fun she’d had in decades, from the thrill of a fight that she actually believed in.
Plus, Cori loved to put on a good show.
To her surprise, Damien began to glow with the ominous crimson aura of [Berserker's Rage]. The red color was taken over with white as essence was cycled through the skill, and the aura became massive. She could feel how it skyrocketed with power. The increase was absurd, too much for even burning essence to explain. Shaking off the initial distraction, she took the whole of him in. With her own eyes and spirit, she could both see and feel the damage the skill was doing to the man.
More than just cultivation was being devoured. It was burning away his spirit.
That was mildly concerning. Best to end this in a hurry.
Damien lashed out with [Mana Slash]. It was empowered with essence, but it was far weaker than the [Mana Chop]s he had been using before. His weapon wasn't a great match for the skill, and he had clearly neither modified nor mastered [Mana Slash] as much as [Mana Chop].
Cori flexed like a tree in the wind, and dodged the arc of energy that tore across the moon's reddish surface.
Increasing her boosts to the maximum, she let her Talent fully take effect. With three rapid steps that tore at her bones and ligaments, she arrived next to Daemen. She reached up, grabbed his burning head, and yanked it back to where she could run her blade across his neck.
It was a pointless gesture. She felt his spine snap on the initial yank alone. But this was supposed to be a show.
Her watchers stepped out of chaotic space, clapping metal hands.
Verona, the fourth Queen in the alliance, strode over to where Cori stood. Through AI messaging, Cori received, “Well fought. I thought I'd have to step in when he started using essence to power his attacks.”
Cori just stared her newest peer down. “If you intervened, he would have had to be let go. No, I wanted him dead. So he died.”
Verona shrugged. “He already crippled himself, so it was no bother. Your life is more important, my newest sister.”
The ebony-skinned woman's smile was sincere.
Cori didn't trust it on principle. But she didn't show that. That would be rude.
Verona seemed to catch that regardless, and just silently laughed in the void.
“Worry not. We may never be the best of friends, but we are sisters of a purpose. That is something beyond mere friendship.” Still seeing Cori’s expression not soften, she added, “There is no rush. We have time. Speaking of which, we have an appointment to catch.”
That caught her attention. Something like that was distinctly not a part of the plan. Cori grew wary. “What do you mean?”
The Tier 31 shrugged one shoulder, “Our eldest sister was wounded severely when she tried to peek into the little vassal war. In retaliation, someone put their hand through her chest and around her heart. She's not exactly in the best shape to go up against your father, so we will all gather to support her.”
That caused Cori to pause. No sane person would tell their direct subordinates they were seriously wounded. That was begging to be stabbed in the back. But why else would they change their plans so suddenly?
And who could casually injure a Tier 35 like that?
Then Cori understood.
The Emperor had clearly sent a hidden powerhouse to watch over the war. If they were that strong and that trusted, the Queendom could use them as an official witness to the willing rebellion of her side.
An official treaty would prevent retaliation of any kind.
Cori nodded to Verona, who smiled and stuck out an arm. “Come, come. We have a turbulent path ahead. Something strange is happening in chaotic space. The currents are muddled; it makes travel slower and more unpredictable.”
It took a moment, but she realized that her new peer was offering to carry her there like a baby. Not thrilled at the prospect, she still recognized that this was the only way to get to the neighboring Tier 6 planet without using the teleport path. Cori reviewed the situation, sighed, and sent her orders to the troops still on the planet. She didn't miss Verona's grin widening at that.
Neither of them trusted official routes that her father set up. It was why the Queendom invaded using chaotic space vessels instead of using the established lanes. No one had missed the fact the Kingdom stopped using them too after the war was declared.
But even she wasn't sure if the lane was tampered with. They’d need to be thoroughly and carefully inspected later.
Gathering her power, Cori prepared for the trip. She thought of her father. She thought of the face he’d make when he lost a huge chunk of his kingdom. That put a smile on her face that just refused to leave.
Comments
Matt DiMeo
You keep using phased instead of fazed.
So you hype up a skill for an entire semi-war, dangling it in front of our main protagonist and us for seemingly most of the arc, only for Matt to throw away his points and largest opportunity to get it (though it's unknown if he'd have enough to get the skill even with the winnings plus points gained since then) then have the Queendom snatch the skill in an immensely contrived event and also in a way that violates the rules you set up. And rounded off that poorly written event with an uninteresting look at someone who we don't care about, depicting how shitty the kingdom is, which we already know. At any other time that second bit would have been fine but not after..... that. I could go on about how 'dead' people in the war shouldn't be able to interfere in *ANY* way since that pretty much invalidates the need for being dead but that's a loose rule that seems very plot convenient, and people have already said it better than I have so it's meh. I'll just say that it was a very poor writing choice in general, since that skill has been a *goal* of sorts for Matt during this war, in turn the readers goal. To have to snatched like that for seemingly no other reason than "lol that's happened now too bad" was very unsatisfying and could have been written far better. You've already received flak for not just that but the chapter in general on the patreon so expect to be dragged when this chapter goes live, you're a writer though so bad reviews should be nothing new. Maybe you've got a clever bait and switch planned or something better or equal for Matt coming up, rather I very much *hope* you have because that's the only thing that'd make this not just a pointless loss that didn't really need to be included since it didn't really impact his choice. Either way good story and thank you for the chapter. Looking back I've been a bit more negative in my comment than I meant since I do really enjoy this story, just really didn't enjoy this chapter.
Desidia
What happened to Liz's poker earnings? Did she win the lottery?
Kale Daley
This said most of the things I wanted to. Another thing most people seem to fail to grasp is that it was entirely possible for Albert to do exactly the same things he just had to deal with one glaring issue: his father. He couldn't spend points on something as frivolous as a possible bribe while under the scrutiny of daddy dearest. He also couldn't leave detailed plans in the hands of his subordinates because the only ones he could implicitly trust were the ones already on cooldown. The rest of the command was so throuroughly riddled with traitors that he wasn't even aware of the full extent as evidenced by Matt outing a few he didn't know of with his play. While this is a pretend "war", the level of disloyalty shown has to come from somewhere. From how we've seen the King treat his own blood it doesn't take much of a leap to extend that treatment or worse to any lesser vassals. So yes, Albert got shafted all around pretty badly due to circumstances beyond his control but it seems internally consistent with the information we have on hand.
Tjark
I liked the chapter and Cori's pov. Was a cool glimpse into future fighting. I think it was a good choice of pov because what happened here will probably be of significant importance even to our main characters. And in my opinion having someone we know better (Albert, Juni or Sara like others suggested) react to this wouldn't necessarily have made more impact. Sure we did know before this that the King is a bad person but it's never really outright been stated why, at least not with such specific examples besides maybe his treatment of Albert, so it's not really completely repetition. But all of the other commenters seem to completely ignore the things we've learned about the Queendom here which in my opinion are really interesting too. Like the Queens their treatment to each others and how a vassal kingdom/queendom could look like if it weren't lead by a psychopath. And regarding Sara giving the skill to Amber, I think isn't really a big issue at all. Complaining she shouldn't be allowed to give out orders when Albert wasn't allowed to give orders for his plan is complete nonsense because in contrast to him she prepared and shared those plans before being killed so it's totally reasonable. And the skill isn't really that big of an issue. People seem to completely ignore the fact only a few paragraphs earlier Matt spoke and got advice from Juni over a call. And however brief that was it was still technically against the healing cooldown. So all in all both sides seem to be allowed minor transgressions against this rule which makes it fair in the end. Besides who's to say some army individuals don't sometimes play personal favorites. Sometimes life doesn't have to make completely sense because we just don't know every single person's intentions.
Tjark
But Sara pre-planned all of this and did give the order. And we've seen this chapter Matt talking to Juni and checking about it. So it's completely fair imo.
ZaA
Hope you take people's comments in stride and don't let them change YOUR story. That being said, in my opinion, I'm not a huge fan on PoV changes when there's no investment or care for a character. If it pays off, cool, good job, but if not, why did I just spend time reading about a fight that I don't care about, y'know? Still not a fan of even introducing cracked breach in the first place, but what's done is done. People seem to think Matt's concept gives infinite mana anyway, and he couldn't have come up with any reason for not having mana? Mana concentration reduced it, haven't put any essence into it, found a way to sacrifice max mana for 'x' etc. Tons of excuses that people can't just deny because of how big you've made the world.
SwiftFate
A shame Matt didn't get the skill he wanted, but I always felt that it was a little bit too convenient for him and would have honestly become a bit of a crutch with how strong it would be at these tiers. Later on, not so much, and I bet he will be able to make way better use of the original version on the skill when he gets high enough anyway. That being said, I would like to see a bit more variety in his skillset leaning more towards magic soon. His sword skills improving is great, but I hope he doesn't just become a mana-slasher.. Me big mana, me swing sword and make big wave of mana go swoosh.. Kinda boring and overdone in my opinion 🤣 I like seeing more well thought out uses for abilities and his mana potential DOES make him the perfect mage. He's clearly leaning towards more of a sword-sorcerer, but that just means he can potentially make use of spells in different ways and not just in their original form. Imagine taking an ability like earthquake or something, and manipulating it to the point where it is contained in a single point of contact through his sword strike. Rather than an AOE spell, he uses it to crumble a shield into nothing when he attacks etc.. So much potential
Who said Sara's plan worked? We saw her for like, eight paragraphs during which she stated that this was unfortunate but not world ending. Sure, she managed to bribe some more pathers, but it's not impossible that the kingdom figured they would do so as soon as the items disappeared from the shops. Her planning is going better than Albert's, but she hasn't already completed it. On another note, normally I would complain that they had already gone through a group of traitors and that the rest should be more or less loyal. In this case, well, she just offered cracked breach to Matt; it makes sense. I'm assuming the extra half of points the queendome has because their rulers aren't idiots was how they managed to afford this.
Thaco4
!!! Thought just occurred to me.... Madame Renaissance could be who Victor and Luna are taking about. I bet she wouldn't appreciate one of the younger generation getting killed or threatened by his father for not winning the weapon she forged. Thus temper tantrum.
Azulmar
I enjoy the behind the scenes stuff but something feels off to me. Sara thinks the whole war is set up just for Liz and that cracked breech was placed there just for Mat. But she still buys it and tried to bribe him with it and only it, revealing her knowledge of how valuable it is to him. Isn't she worried at all someone who would set up an entire war for their daughter may take some sort of revenge ?
Ernie 3
The whole Sara giving items and orders isn't such a big deal if it applied both ways. Junni and Albert aren't allowed to give the spie/trator kill order or city attack order but Sara is allowed to give both orders and items? That's completely unfair. It's even stated that Albert pre-planned everything and is just waiting to be revived so he's allowed to give the order but Sara is allowed to do so directly after dying.
Mario Morales
The thing I enjoyed most about the Cori POV was just getting to see some higher tier fights. It seemed like it was written in, at least partially, to let us glimpse that level of action. And for that, I like it.
Alex R
She is about growth, but Matt getting that power trivializes his fights. It doesn't make him that must stronger and lets him walk through rifts without trying. You are functionally giving someone a nuke while everyone else is walking around with fists. What happens if they run into someone who can ignore the nuke. They just die.
wanderer117
Ruff. I found the chapter a little boring. I get that Matt couldn't be allowed to get that skill for balance reasons and that part was handled ok. The rest of the chapter just didn't engage with me. Cori is a fine character but I don't care about her build or the battle / build / backstory with/ of two random evil cultivators who die the same chapter they are introduced. The Kingdom is a bad place run by prominently bad people. This has been well established. Bumping the two obviously evil shmucks up to T24 and have them be two of the people Cori sucker punches then skip the fight. Show me more about Matt, Liz, Astor or even side characters like Juni Albert and Sara. How is Sara planning on extracting Albert alive? That's not part of the pretend war so it should be something she can work on while recovering. Just some thoughts
Pixelblade
The Cori part felt kind of bland to me. The king is an asshole, but as readers we don't really have anything invested in who wins this conflict.
Dragebar
Error-suggestion: but Cori was f prepared --> i will take it as a meme-F but it shouldn't be here^^
Pyrefiend
It may not be for a long time, but eventually Matt can buy a normal Breach skill. He is not missing out on it forever, just losing the early access version.
antitankcat
love the chapter, love the wider perspective of the ongoing wars, looking forward to the absolute shitstorm that's about to be dropped on the pather war
JoBo12
I did not like the chapter. Along with points mentioned in other comments, Sara's plan simply working out and the Queendom not being bothered by her death all that much also diminishes Annie's accomplishments in the previous chapter. Currently it also seems as if Matt, Aster and Liz would have been better of if they had simply been more selfish. I think Cori's story would have had much more impact through Albert's pov. Tbh: I expected Matt to gain CB and have more impact in the war to afterwards be told by Luna to not become reliant on one skill alone, therefor limiting it's usage. I feel like the next this chapter made it a lot harder to satisfyingly resolve this war arc for a big part of the audience. The next few chapters have to do a lot of work. Btw: What would happen if Amber died while trying to absorb the skill? Could it be taken from her by the killer?
Kapelteta
I'm not saying I hate it or anything, but the army letting the "dead" people and alive people communicate with eachother has always struck me as... odd. As far as Cori I don't really see a reason for her to be part of the story as is? She doesn't really add anything by being a pov, and I didn't really connect to her as a reader. We already knew the kingdom king was a pos. We already know from other povs that the wider war was going to be shaken up. The big reveal of the kingdom war leader turning traitor would probably be better if discovered while in either Matt's or Albert's povs. Honestly, the only reason I could see to include her would be if she personally shows up on the mock war planet and personally turns either Albert and/or Matt to the queendom's side, but it doesn't feel like there has been enough setup for that. You would think she would at least allude to such plans since her part was in first person. Side note I would be extremely ok if she does turn Albert to the queen's side, but again it feels like it would need more setup. Either Cori's pov showing up erlier in story and/or an offhand thought while in Albert's pov about his sister holding up her end of the deal or similar. Otherwise I think it would feel forced. Just my op.
Austin
I feel like we still haven't seen who victor and Luna were referencing. The queen wouldn't disregard the emperor and I doubt she'd throw a tantrum when her side is winning.
TerrestrialOverlord
Agreed and the fact that she was also able to "give orders" is bs.. she should have been punished by "seizing" the skill and putting it back in the store... Also Matt is dumb, he should have taken the second offer... why would the army think less of him, it's a game which is why they can "resurrect", and are able to go and murder people for points... its really no different..except one is offered rewards by the army and the other by another participant.. and their side is only really looking out for themselves at the expenseof everyoneelse, which is basically receiving rewards while being the gifter as well...yeah dumb Matt..
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
M van Dongen
What would Luna think of him not switching sides ? She's all about power growth.....and with him missing that skill...
Gerald Morris
It bothers me they let her give the skills away at that time. Dead people can't give presents so they should have made her wait till her cool down was up.
MagicWafflez
yanno, I'm glad he lost cracked breach. it's only perfect for him in that it can be overcharged, honesty in a couple tiers regular breach would be more useful if he could get a 500 mana stone. it's stronger and more worth it. It also raises the stakes in all subsequent goals of he fails to get something he was trying for. too often in cultivation novels the MC getting the trinket is a forgone conclusion
Thomas Brusilovsky
Very sad since it seems more and more that Matt and co should have switched sides, not that it matters much to them. King seems like a total a-hole. A shame to not have that cracked breach but i know you said ages ago it was never gonna happen :(
C_Mantis
IMO Sara didn't really break the rules because she already had the items bought and plans ready. She was just holding onto them.
Yannick Scheer
For me this Chapter kind of fell flat. The again reiterated telling of the "King" being a damn psychopath felt particularly glaring as we have been told so quite often and rather recently too iirc. Sara gets "shown" that she is skirting the line while being definitely over the line is form me a definite error, but then again there might be an explanation for why she was allowed to do so. The whole part about Cori's story didn't engage me at all. But that might be more due to the fact that the what happened before in the chapter kind of killed the mood for me.
C_Mantis
no essence there to use sadly.
C_Mantis
Sara used her points from all of her contributions to buy the stuff. She also made a butt load from killing Albert. She also gets personal points when cities fall and such. She's also a princess and needs little the shop has. Her mother can get her most things.
hmDrake
There have been a few, but nothing overly major. I think the last one was monsters with concepts, lowering the percentage.
Luciaron
Nice look into the behind the scenes of the kingdom and Queendom. Culture starts from the top
M van Dongen
I have to agree with fleetpanda. Should be exempt from kingdom points ...
Adurna
Woah that was a great chapter! Thanks aplenty!
Lictor Magnus
I just went back to reread it, but Sara did use her personal points to buy the skill. I do agree that passing out assets seems like a bigger breach of the rules than just saying use this.
Zy
Will Matt be able to attack with essence of his magic core since it will not criple his core? Or he couldn allocate there at all wich would prevent him of doing it?
Enzo Elacqua
This was one long chapter, loved every bit of it. Kind of sad that Matt didn’t actually defect, but I can understand why not. Would be disastrous if people found out about his talent. If I heard about someone who could print money that somehow didn’t affect inflation I’d lose my mind to
Fleetpanda
Hmm I can understand not giving the cracked skill to Matt. I am a bit shocked though that Sara was able to distribute it to her subordinate. It was WAY over just 'skirting the line' as far as giving instructions is involved. You don't need to speak to give instructions. If me and a buddy are trying to get through a door (in this case the city walls) and I give them an axe (cracked siege) then I'm indisputably contributing... which she's not allowed to do. EDIT: She didn't use kingdom points the buy the resource. Still, she contributed to the war through instructions, and did so in arguably an even worse way as she gave resources along with the instructions. Also I'm surprised that there wasn't a restriction on the top tier items that prevented them from being bought for bribes. It completely goes against the spirit of the competition set by the emperor. Those rewards in particular were supposed to be for the ones who could earn them. Instead the Queendom showed that they could just buy all the top tier items and hand them out to subordinates, completely skirting the intended purpose of the rewards.
Andrew
Thank you!
Martin Toder
Seeing as it's the first retcon that I've found, I shall forgive you for it
