Chapter 300

Chapter 300

Matt was almost disappointed at the order to return to Guild space that Mercury passed along to them. There was a thrill about waltzing into an enemys territory, taking over a position, and then having those same enemies fail to take back their space. It was the kind of feat that Lila and Aiden boasted of when talking about their own missions.

Still, they were here on a job. And now that the job had been completed, it was time for them to move onto the next one. The war hadnt ended just because they had taken over one shipyard.

It just felt wrong to leave, having worked so hard to take the system.

To that end, he had wanted to destroy the shipyard, but he had been dissuaded by the Guild General. She was right, even if he didnt like it. Agent Gloomwood had worked too hard setting traps and viruses in the station's enchantments for them to blow it all up.

Matt had tried to argue that leaving the station intact was obviously a trap, so they should blow it up anyway, but he had once more been shot down. If they destroyed the shipyard, the Federation would just recycle the metal like scrap. And while they could blow it up and recycle it themselves, their supply of new shipyards was basically nonexistent, as they were built on demand and not pipelined. So unless the Federation was willing to be permanently set back on a shipyard, they would fix this one, which would take decades. Eventually, they would get the shipyard back up and running, but leaving it intact while covered in ice and riddled with viruses inconvenienced them more.

It was almost funny to see General Casos carefully tip toe around his requests to blow up the station, but after his first two reasons were shot down, he gave up. Half the reason he wanted to blow the station up was to see if he could cast [Shatter] on that much ice, and how big of an explosion it would cause.Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

Aster had been just as eager as he was, but they had to settle with testing their idea once they were back in the Camp Lightfoot rift.

While Matt didnt put up a fight with that order, he and Aster backed Liz up when she insisted that they take a more wandering route back to Guild space that just so happened to take them through a few Tier 25 and Tier 26 battlefields.

General Casos objected to the delay, but her resistance melted the first time they showed a united front. Matt assumed the resistance was little more than a formality so she could say she did her best to keep the Ascenders on their stated mission, but relieving Guild territory was something few leaders would refuse. The longer trip didnt even cost them too much time, as they only needed to actually fight once. The Tier 25 sieges just surrendered the moment they saw an Ascender was there. The only instance of resistance was a Tier 26 siege where the enemy army thought they could retreat instead of surrendering.

They quickly learned the futility of such a ploy, but they thankfully surrendered when it became clear that they were not going to escape intact.

When they finally arrived back at the Guild Forward Operating Base, they were able to relax a little.

It wasnt the same as being back in Camp Lightfoot, but they were given the best lodgings the Guild had to offer. They were nice, but it wasnt home. Which was irritating, considering he had a portable house, but that would have been too much mass for Allie to teleport them to Guilds space with.

Matt went to put spatial mass reduction on his list of things to do when he got a few decades of free time, but found it was already there. In fact, it was there twice, and he most definitely hadnt made those entries. At least, he didnt remember doing so. He thought he was going crazy, but when he checked the logs he saw both Aster and Liz had made the entries just a few seconds before he had.

They were all missing home.

Still, settling in was easy enough, as they had little in the way of personal items thanks to their limited spatial rings. They spent a good half of their day off relaxing before going out to see what the planet under them had to offer.

They were all sure they were being watched, but they didnt really mind or care.

The briefing the day after they came back was interesting though.

Everyone there was a familiar face, but they were noticeably more polite than they had been in the first meeting. Unlike last time, they actively asked for their input when discussing possible deployment operations instead of just assuming they knew what they could do.

Liz reciprocated the friendliness and offered her own suggestions about their future deployments. That was an interesting conversation, as instead of immediately sending them into combat with the five anti-speedsters to free up that section of Guild space, they flatly rejected Lizs offer.

They have built up the system, and with our latest territorial gains, we have them firmly surrounded. While it's unlikely, we are hoping they voluntarily retreat. If they choose to stay and defend that system we will send you in, but that's more likely to be in a year or two. As you have shown you have the combat power to single handedly push out Tier 25 and Tier 26 armies, we actually want to use that. See this stretch of worlds?

At their nods, the cape continued, A Tier 15 nexus world was taken early in the war, but before we can take it back, we need to push through three worlds. A Tier 25, a Tier 26, and a Tier 27. The next mission we want you to undertake is leading the assaults on the Tier 25 and Tier 26 worlds so we can just send two offensive armies, a Tier 27, and a Tier 15. That frees up more personnel for other operations. You can help fight in a Tier 27 battlefield, correct?

Liz nodded in response to the question. We wont be clearing out the army ourselves, but we can assist as elites at that Tier, which should still be useful.

It's more than enough. The flexibility of your Tier and combat power is what is allowing us to redirect only two armies. While you are there, there is a secondary objective we want you to complete. Those systems have been occupied by the enemy for almost a century now, and as a show of force, we want to know if you are willing to do a little charity. Help the people, show your faces alongside Mercury, give them some hope.

None of them liked such blatant public relation moves, but even Matt wouldnt deny the citizens of the Guilds a little relief from the knowledge of possibly being given over to the enemy if the war went badly.

He was about to say exactly that when a soft voice cut him off from the row of chairs behind him. Dont reject our offer too soon.

Matt flinched.

Aster flinched.

Liz flinched.

His sword came out of its ring while he flared [Archmages Presence] and [Cracked Phantom Armor]. Aster created a flurry of ice that covered the room and the occupants while Liz split in three. Bird Liz flew up and out of immediate danger, blood blob Liz flowed forward like an evil tide, and Lizs main body drove a spear at the man who suddenly appeared behind them. He wouldnt have been so surprised, but the reactions of everyone else in the room wasnt one of seeing an expected guest. No, their eyes widened and their heartbeats accelerated even as they reached for their own weapons.

That spelled nothing good.

Attacks flew and landed where the man had been, and Matt swept his [Mana Beam] across every spot he thought the newcomer might have been.

Touchy, touchy, arent we? the voice asked again, this time from behind Matt in a spot that just previously his spiritual sense had said was empty.

The three of them whirled around, magic flaring, but the mans spirit and face finally coalesced into recognizable forms. A pair of metal batons stuck out from their holster behind his back, and his hands were clasped behind his head while his feet were propped up on a table that definitely hadnt been there a moment earlier.

Come on now kids, full-power attacks? How is that polite? One Step Behind asked

Aster didnt hesitate as she sniped back, It's less rude than appearing behind someone in a mask. I could have frozen your nose off if you were a little slower.

The fastest speedster in the realm even without accounting for the sixteen-Tier difference snorted and went cross-eyed as he studied his nose Nope! Still there. But thats a good one. Nice to meet you all, the names Ezra. You should be proud. So proud that you accept the idea of doing some people work!

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Ezra held up his hand as his nose fell off. I have a better idea. Oh nose! It's gone. Now you owe me for freezing my nose off. I nee

Rolling his eyes at the older Ascenders antics, he spoke over him, We were going toaccept.

That statement seemed to catch everyone off guard, and Ezra blinked at Matt like he wasnt sure what he was looking at. You arent mad at doing that kinda stuff? Aiden said you guys would hate it.

Bird Liz shrugged even as human Liz worked on reabsorbing the Liz that acted as her blood. We arent going to volunteer to go on talk shows or anything, but come on, we arent assholes. Some of the people living on those planets have only lived under enemy occupation. Us doing a little PR work is nothing in comparison.

Ezra grumbled as he listened. Well, damn it. I had several layers of bribes ready to get you to agree. What am I going to do with them now?

Aster grinned as she elbowed the older Hero. Give it to us as gifts?

But that's no funnnnn. Eh, whatever. I cant be bothered to think about it that much. As part of you helping with the sieges and doing some public works, we carved out some time for you to delve. The Tier 27 system should be perfect for you guys to pop in and do a quick rift clear, right?

Matt nodded, which seemed to catch Ezras attention. Everyone else can leave. I want to talk to the kids alone for a moment. Once they were gone, he gave Matt an appreciative glance, Thats some serious Power synergy youve got there. You didnt happen to come across any Guild trainers at Tier four? Yeah, thats a native.

Note that Shadows teleports are constantly half an instant before I predict them to be. Unknown if it's a part of her Talent, Domain, or armor.

Acknowledged.

He physically wrote the information down, as they couldn't risk using any mana. They may have been days worth of flying away from the closest star, the one Light and Shadow were fighting in, giving them distance and protection, but they were deep in the emptiness between planets. That meant almost zero ambient mana. While using something as simple as [AI] should be undetectable at those kinds of ranges, Valentina hadnt lived long enough to become a renowned sniper by taking stupid risks. So, they would be using zero spells and she made sure that none of their items had spirits, and therefore mana signatures, except her rifle and Oskars telescope. But both of those items were built for situations like this, so they were safe.

The only bit of magic they were even using was when Valentina carefully tapped into her Talents and Domain, but she didnt dare to do more than feather light touches to check with them.

Her Talent allowed her to identify weaknesses. A vague definition, but one that had turned her into a careful ambush predator.

Most with such a Talent would have turned to a life of wetwork, killing for hire, but her father was career military and had steered her into a different path. Not that the actual work was that much different; she had no illusions about that. She was just an assassin who worked on battlefields instead of cities. Careful scouting let her Talent to identify any possible weaknesses, combined with her Domain, which allowed her to amplify a minor flaw into a fatal one or create small weaknesses where there were none.

Valentina had expected such a mission the moment Light and Shadow had entered the war, but it had never come, and for that she was grateful. Instead, she had spent most of her time carefully getting into position to take out pinnacle elites for most of the war, and with a kill rate approaching twenty percent, she was the most successful elite killer in the war.

Through some off the books scuttlebutt she had heard a between storage moon had been not just hit and destroyed, but raided by both sets of Tier 25 Ascenders. If that wasnt bad enough, Maven, the Sects counter to Light and Shadow, had been unable to stop the Ascenders and their little gaggle despite springing an ambush on them.

That same source of scuttlebutt had then told her to expect the Sects, the Federation, and the Republic to create their own team of pinnacle elites to prevent such a occurance from happening again, and that her name was on the shortlist. Being considered for a joint operation of pinnacle elites would normally be an honor she would brag of, but in this situation, she wasnt sure it was an honor she would survive.

Valentina was damn good at what she did, but she wasnt sure she could take out a teleporter like Shadow. Teleporters were always a pain to kill, but they usually had cooldown periods she could take advantage of which meant if Valentina was really, really careful the kills were just barely possible. In fact, most teleporters were lazy fighters who relied on their single skill to kill people from an unexpected angle. If any of those factors applied to Shadow, Valentina would be fairly confident in killing her, but the teleporter was an Ascender for a reason.

She had no tells, monstrous close combat capabilities, and something, Valentina suspected a Domain, that made her slippery and impossible to pin down long enough to line up a shot. And if worse came to worse, and Valentina failed to take the teleporter out in a single shot, she wasnt sure that even Oskar and his tanking abilities would be able to save them.

Light was another matter, and she suspected that with a proper ambush and with the help of an army or two to distract him, she could take him out no problem. Mages werent her speciality, she wasnt so limited as to only be able to target one archetype of fighter, but control mages like Light were hard pressed to stop a solid rod of high-Tier mana-depleted tungsten going through their head the same way they dispelled spells.

His being an Ascender made it a harder kill, but one she was confident in.

That raised the main question she had that no one could answer.

Where were the other three Ascenders?

With them being so new, she had been excited to get a good look at Quill, Torch, and Scoop. Reports and [AI] dumps were only so useful to someone like Valentina, who needed to see and observe on her own. What weakness did they have? They surely had some, and once she knew that, she could relay it to the Republic Council of War, where they would decide what to do with the information.

If nothing else, it would be good information to know when they formed their own team to counter the Ascenders. And she had no doubt the Republic would be leading the team. It wasnt a matter of honor or pride, but one of power.

Frankly, this war would have never started if the Republic hadnt spearheaded the operation.

Valentina had been in the army a long time, and had learned how things really worked a long time ago. Beyond that, she could count beyond ten, or twenty if she took off her shoes, which seemed to be a skill a lot of others seemed to lack.

The Empire was massive and their population had been exploding. It was to such an extent that if the Republic, as the third strongest Great Power, hadnt been willing to go to war, the Sects might not have been willing to take the plunge. And the Federation wouldnt have dared to declare a full-scale war without backup, thanks to just how many bodies the Empire had to throw at the warfront.

That didnt mean the Federation wasnt playing a vital role. Without a third ally, the Republic and Sects would have only matched the Guild and Empires troop counts, which would have made this war that much harder.

Personally, she wasnt sure why they bothered to work with the Federation. She had seen what kind of scum they were in the war where they had been cut down and had taken great pleasure in doing so. But no one asked her and she didnt get to choose the Republic's war allies.

The Council of War had rightly pointed out that one didnt get to choose allies when facing a stronger force, but Valentina hoped that whoever the Federation sent to them wasnt a member of the younger generation. The Federation cultivators born after the split were off.

Shadow blipped, and Valentina mentally ticked a box in her mind. Note that Shadow teleported at exactly one one millionth of a second after her last teleport, taking a glancing blow instead of avoiding it. Thats the third time she had taken a hit instead of dodging it. Possible lower limit of her teleportation abilitys cooldown.

Noted.

Oskar shifted slightly as his pencil scratched silently in the vacuum.

Running her finger along her scope, Valentina zoomed out further and looked for Shadow, but when she couldn't find her in a few moments, she started paying attention to Light.

The man was a mage she wouldn't want to get close to, and that idea was reinforced as she watched him turn a man's magical armor into mist and skewer him with a rapier.

Zooming back in, she kept him on the edge of her scope, watching the book he held in his left hand. A spell came in from an oblique angle, and instead of being dissipated, turned into something harmless, or being redirected all things she had seen Light do plenty of the spell vanished. If she wasnt watching the book in particular, she would have missed the page flutter as it absorbed the spell.

Note that Lights book seems to be able to absorb spells. Unknown if it is purely a defensive measure or able to spit them back out.

Material? Oskars question was a good one, and Valentina watched the book and waited for it to eat another spell. If it could eat spells with physical components, like earth or water spells, and not just energy based spells, her idea of putting a mundane physical round through his head might not work.

Despite watching the fight for another few exchanges, she wasnt able to see the book eat any more spells so she wasnt able to verify, but it had been a good observation.

Note that as a possibility for deeper review of the recorded battles. Also note that anytime he takes control of a spell theres a period of time between disruption and usurpation. A sufficient interruption at that moment could cause backlash.

Valentina had done her homework about the abilities of Light and Shadow, but it was deliberately surface level. If she knew too much, she might make assumptions and overlook something important that would be obvious to someone with less preconceived notions.

That was why this was purely a reconnaissance mission, and she hadnt even brought physical ammunition for her rifle. While her skills still meant she wasnt entirely unarmed, intent mattered and being as unarmed as she could be made it that much less likely that any danger senses would trigger.

As Shadow teleported back in, Valentina shifted her focus to the teleporter, hoping to understand her and how she fought. In spite of her best efforts, any time Valentina thought shed gotten a handle on when the other woman would teleport, she would inevitably be a fraction of a second late.

It was clearly the work of some ability, but despite trying several mental tricks, all that she could do without her [AI], Valentina couldn't overcome it. She was sure she could find some way to beat the compulsion, but doing so while not giving away her position would be damn hard and take testing.

Thankfully, Ari Kai was usually willing to work with her when dealing with those types of antimemetics. He was the master of such arts, and with exposure, Valentina was sure she could overcome such a weak effect. To that end, she had Oskar make a dozen more notes. But as the fight came to a close they stilled, not daring to even let their cells divide lest it bring unwanted attention to them.

Only once the Ascenders vanished did Valentina and Oskar make their own move to leave.

Hopefully someone in her chain of command would know where the other Ascenders had gone and she could get some observation of them done before the scuttlebutt was proven true, and there was a team assembled to counter the Ascenders. The moment that happened, the Empire would start even more measures to block such information gathering.

Valentina had a reputation after all. Anyone with a brain would know she was part of any anti-Ascender team.

Meeting eyes with Oskar, Valentina waited. Soon a mystical energy, not mana, not essence, but something In Between gathered before them, and after fifteen minutes they were in a misty plane of semi light.

Gathering her bearing, Valentina pointed to her left and kept her unwavering finger pointed in that direction. The borders of the In Between were a dangerous place. No one knew what happened to those who wandered past the stable areas, and Valentina didnt want to find out.

No, it was too soon for her to die.

Not when there was fresh prey, prey like she had never been able to hunt before, right in front of her.