The Path of Ascension

Chapter 319

Matt wished he could say they immediately sprang into action, fighting the Harmony Accords to a standstill before crushing them, but that was the opposite of what they did. Instead, the mission they were given was exactly what Darrow said they would receive, finding the limit of the Harmony Accords response times.

Before anything else could happen, they needed to know the limits of their enemies powers. Each and every one of their follow up plans depended on what they found out. They might not have come up with any war changing ideas in their planning session, but they did come up with a few ideas that would hurt their enemies if they were able to pull them off.

A lot of what was possible would come down to the exact capabilities of the Harmony Accords ship and its crew's ability to move. The analyst had already been able to gather some data from the Harmony Accord's response time in their second engagement, where they covered a distance that should have taken weeks in days, but it was a single data point and in no way definitive of their actual limits.

Drifter wasnt the only Talented pilot in the Great Powers by any margin, but even the best known pilots couldnt move a ship that large, that quickly. Talents had limits, and ship Talents usually had cut offs in size or at least heavily diminishing returns. That could, at least to a degree, be countered by formations and Talented pilots working together, but neither of those methods were perfect. There were always flaws and limits.

Their next expedition would be about testing those limits. Once they had a few more data points, they could enact their own plans.

Thankfully, they knew where the Harmony Accords were just hours ago, and it was downright impossible for a ship that large to teleport large distances. Even Allie, with the best teleportation skill as an innate free skill, had limits that were magnitudes lower than that behemoth of a ship.

With the Belview system as a center point, they started teleporting to nearby Tier 25 through Tier 27 systems, staying just long enough to crush the besieging armies while hoping to provoke a response from the Harmony Accords. That many teleports in rapid succession paired with short bursts of all out combat pushed Allie to her limits. She never complained though; she just seemed to revel in being given free reign with her Talent for the first time.

That change, if nothing else worked, would help them turn the tide of the war.

Instead of teleporting to an out of the way system near where they should be if they only traveled in normal space, they teleported directly into a star system under siege. The moment they arrived, they didnt bother with flying the distance from the inhabited planet, but instead made a dozen shorter jumps to arrive next to the fortress world in seconds.

They were attacking before the attackers even knew they had arrived.

The results were devastating.

The moment they arrived at Ciccra, just two jumps from Belview, Shadow started teleporting them forward. From Matts perspective, it was like watching a sped up slideshow as the local gas giants grew larger before vanishing by, until they arrived at the fortress planet just barely inside the local stars gravity well.

Matt and Light unleashed their largest spells the moment they arrived next to the troop transport ships, holding nothing back. The first of the [Barrage]d [Breach]s smashed into and through the unprepared ships like they were toys being swept away by a hurricane.

They were mostly empty, so the losses were few, but direct casualties wasnt why Matt attacked them first. No, he just wanted to make retreat harder. If they wanted to run away they would need to run through chaotic space, with their bodies exposed to the corrosive energy. High Command suggested the idea, as even if the Harmony Accords didnt care about individual planets being sieged down, they would need to consider the survival of the actual fighters if they wanted to win the war. Elites might take a planet, but if there was no one there to occupy the planet for them, they would become tied down as they were forced to personally protect any system they helped conquer. Taking out the easy methods of retreat would hopefully force the Harmony Accords hands sooner then them just running around relieving sieges would.

The second and third [Breach]s flew directly to the rear of the fortifications the Republic attackers were using to siege down the planetary shields. Hitting the weaker walls, the projectiles exploded the two fortifications they hit, causing mass damage and chaos.

The enemies were just beginning to turn to face them when Light unleashed his own attack. He hadnt directly attacked the moment they arrived, but instead he focused on corralling a strand of lightning so thin, it nearly looked like gossamer between his hands. The moment the armies turned to face them, Light opened the cage that was his hand and the strand of lightning darted off.

It crossed the distance fast enough to seem like it teleported, but that was the power of travel mana. It was fast. It had almost no damaging properties, but Light, with his Tier 25 Talent, didnt care about such limitations.

Right before the gossamer lightning landed, the spell turned to actual lightning. From a finger wide and two feet long thread snake of translucent mana, the spell turned into a torrent of lightning dozens of feet wide and hundreds of feet long. The spell crackled with so much energy, the ambient mana started to react and take on its properties.

The first man the spell hit just vanished, but his sacrifice wasnt in vain, as the spell used him to redirect itself from one person to the next. Light grunted as he spent considerable energy to control the spells jumps and keep it from splashing onto any of the fortifications still lingering near the edges of the battlefield.

Just moments after they arrived, half the army attacking Ciccra was either dead or seriously wounded.

Throughout the fight they had been watching for the arrival of the Harmony Accords, but when they didnt arrive to intercept them, they were simply left to wonder why.

It was almost a certainty that the Harmony Accords was using some kind of future sight Talent to predict where they would be arriving, but knowing that particular detail didnt give them any insight as to what information the Talent specifically gave out, or the Talents of the ships pilots.

While they had spent three days inside the Camp Lightfoot rift, that had only been nine real world hours, and the Harmony Accords hadnt escaped battle unscathed while they were, at least physically, in perfect shape thanks to Melinda. The Harmony Accords might know they would arrive here, and could possibly even arrive in time to stop them, but they could have chosen not to take the bait so soon. Or, they might not even know they were attacking so close to their former location. It was impossible to tell, but this was still an important data point to be added to the collection.

And it wasnt like relieving a siege wasnt helping the war effort. Another army would soon take its place, but these losses still represented a reduction of the total number of troops on the enemy's side.

They stopped attacking as the surrenders started to roll in, but they didnt move out to accept them.

Even in their group chat, Matt could hear Darrows smile. Mission completed. Back in the ship and we are out.

Pulling Light in with him, Matt grinned as everyone looked at the damage they had done in just seconds.

Shadow whooped loud enough to be audible from the rear, where Matt and Light were. And that's how we fucking do it. None of this hiding my powers bull shit. Grab your tits because this train doesn't stop.

Matt felt the ripple of space around him even as Light moved to sit down and Liz moved to take his place.

She was up next, and in preparation for his next attack, Matt pulled an item out of a box that had been loaded into the ship before they left. It needed time to warm up.

The moment he physically came in contact with the oversized mana cannon, he couldn't help but smile as a dozen tendrils snaked out and connected to his armor.

Connected to the cannon, he flared his mana by sending his entire mana pool inside it. The connectors, despite being designed around this very level of mana output, started to glow blue as they began to leak, but that was how they were designed. Once his mana had flooded through all of the cannons circuitry, he activated his Tier 25 mana Talent, turning the mana into mana stone. While it had been seventy years outside the rift, inside it had been over five hundred years, and members of Project Breach had learned a few things. One of them was that while no Tier 25 material could handle 41 million mana per second, his Talent-made mana crystal handled the mana throughput with little wear and tear.

The issue was translating mana circuitry to a physical form. Interacting with a Talent was never easy, but with centuries of research in the rift, theyd made some working models and then improvements on top of them. Unfortunately, it wasnt compatible with his armor, but they had been able to work it into a mana cannon. It had to be semi-stationary but that was workable.

It had initially been made as a proof-of-concept and prototype, something that they would save until Tier 35, when they would have Shadow teleport it from place to place, but that was the tactic of a soldier who needed to save a trump card for when they ran out of ways to grow.

Not an Ascender.

As they arrived in the second system, Liz split into a dozen Lizzes, all of whom rushed out and intermingled into the army. Each death added another clone to the collective, and in just fifteen minutes, Liz had decimated the attacking army.

Then just like before, they teleported out when it was clear the Harmony Accords wasnt going to confront them.

Aster and Bolt took care of the third battlefield, with Bolt sniping the generals while Aster flooded the battlefield with her ice before detonating it.

It took a little longer to pull off than the other two attacks, but that was part of their calculations.

If they took long enough, they hoped that their enemies would feel forced to choose this location to defend. The Harmony Accords still didnt chase them down, but they had another tactic to force their hand.

Shadow teleported them once more, but this wasnt part of their official mission. This was part of the plan they had discussed in their own little planning session.

Instead of teleporting to another nearby besieged world, they teleported halfway across the warfront, far enough away from the Harmony Accords last location that even with Talented pilots, there was no chance they could catch up. Even if they had immediately headed to this location the moment they left Camp Lightfoot.

As they arrived, Matt felt Shadow sag to the ground as Drifter pulled them into chaotic space, where they immediately left the tethers that connected the planets of the Great Powers for the swirling depths.

There, they went hunting. After all, you didnt catch the largest prey in the shallows.

When the team went over the battlefield reports, they had noticed the other Great Powers were redirecting a large portion of their troops from the Guild battlefields to the Empire warfront. Instead of moving those troops back into their original territory, they stayed inside occupied space, keeping close to the active war front. While the ships they moved in were heavily armored and armed, the armies inside were still more vulnerable than when deployed and on guard for attacks.

On their own, with the normal speeds even Talented pilots traveled at, ships could see each other well before engagements could be forced, so there was little risk in moving inside occupied territories rather than their own space lanes. This time, the enemies' desires to save time came back to bite them. Thanks to Shadows waypoint being near the old borders, borders that were now deep inside occupied territories, they could arrive behind the war front on the side the enemies wouldnt be as wary of.

It didnt take long for them to find their first target, just three short hours. The moment their sensors found a convoy of Tier 25 ships, Drifter opened up the back hatch and Matt activated the mana cannon.

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He felt the cannon vibrate as his mana pulsed through it. Most of his attention was on the aiming telemetry coming from the ships sensors. It only took him a heartbeat to lock on, even through the obscuring energies.

The beam of mana lanced out and carved a path of pure annihilation through chaotic space, spending enough energy to turn the swirling chaotic energies light blue. The cannon punched right through the forward facing shields of the lead ship without even struggling. Matt immediately shifted his aim to the next ship in line, which also went down in an explosion of fire, mana, and expended essence, all of which reacted with the chaotic energies. The other five ships in the convoy had enough time to activate their full powered shields, but that only meant the ships lasted a few brief moments before their shields were torn through.

When Matt finished destroying the last ship, they shut the rear hatch and slipped back into the swirls of energy that was chaotic space. Like fish in water, they moved up and down the convey lines, picking off any Tier 25, Tier 26, or Tier 27 convoys they could find.

It took almost a week, but they had managed to take out eleven full armies. Thanks to the warnings of the other ships, most of the troop transport ships in their Tier range either diverted onto other routes, or their troops were ready and able to evacuate the ships the moment they arrived. That allowed them to flee to the nearest world, but that was an acceptable outcome, even if the actual losses were low in some of their latest ambushes.

Attacking a fortified world for average troops was more than throwing bodies at the shields until they broke. If a commander didnt want crippling losses even before they engaged in a melee, they needed fortification to protect their troops, mana cannons to batter the shields, replacement arms and armor, and consumables. All of those supplies were invaluable but took up a large amount of space. Even with prepared convoys, a portion of that equipment would be lost as the ships were destroyed.

The only stuff that escaped was what the soldier's spatial rings could hold, and that wasn't much. Like their own rings, all soldiers had fortified spatial rings which were more protected, but came with far more limited spaces which were usually full with the soldiers own unique required items.

They were about to attack their twelfth army, when the energies of chaotic space started to rush at them like a surging tide and they all readied themselves for battle. This had happened a few times before, but they had all been false alarms. Not this time though. They had finally forced the Harmony Accords into action.

With a rush of air as Drifter dropped the rear hatch in a hurry, Matt opened up with his mana cannon, letting a stream of mana splash on the oversized ships shields. When the shields only turned slightly opaque and didnt crack or show any other signs of strain, Matt cut off the stream of mana. He was sure that eventually hed cut through whatever mana reserves the ship had backing its shields, but this wasnt the time for that.

Despite them pursuing their own objectives their goal had still been the same as High Commands. To provoke a reaction from the Harmony Accords, and now they had, they had another data point. It was only a single extra data point, but they now knew how long it took the ship to move from its last known location to this area of space. That gave a lower bound of the ship's speed and possibly an upper bound if this was the fastest the ship could move, though the latter was unlikely. It was much more reasonable to assume that the ship had been chasing after them as they teleported around. Part of their plans had involved them not actually planning which region they were going to hit in the hopes of confounding the future sight cultivators Talent.

Shadow made a rude gesture out of the rear hatch before she teleported them across the war front once more. Just like last time, they were still near the supply lines that the ships were using to traverse chaotic space, just on the other side of the war front.

The spread of information hadnt reached this region of space, which allowed them another devastating strike on the unsuspecting armies, but like before, the ships quickly spread the information through the higher and lower Tier convoys. A part of Matt wanted to complain about the rules of engagement and how they werent allowed to strike out at the plethora of lower Tier ships, but if they had been allowed to do that, they would have been prey to the few Tier 35 armies they did encounter.

They spent another two weeks hunting ships until the Harmony Accords ship arrived near them once more. Instead of fighting, they immediately teleported out with more information on just how fast their response and travel times were. Better yet, they were almost certain the Harmony Accords had rushed right after them, which made the data point far more valuable, as it let them get a feeling how long they could act with impunity before they were confronted.

Floating in a distant corner of the Empire, Darrow gathered everyone in the strategy room of the ship.

We only have two data points, but I suspect the Harmony Accords will stop chasing our tails now that they know we can move faster than them. If I were them, I would go on the offensive and force us to respond. Darrow paused and looked around at the rest of them, weighing their reactions, but he must have seen what he wanted as he continued. To prevent that, I say we follow plan C and do it first. Push deep into the Great Powers heartlands and strike out at the softer targets we considered. We wont have waypoints to teleport to, which leaves us more vulnerable to being intercepted, but we can always retreat without issue so long as we keep our distance from the ship and its spatial locking. The Harmony Accords will be unable to ignore our actions, even if we are smashing things the enemy Great Powers thought well beyond our reach.

None of them had forgotten about the interference Maven had been equipped with. If the ship had some stronger version of that, they would find themselves vulnerable behind enemy lines, prime for being encircled and ambushed.

That was the risk of such a mission, but all of them felt it was worth it. Once the Harmony Accords changed tactics and went on the offensive, they would be forced to respond to their movements, which would keep them inside the Empire's borders and on the defensive.

Their information was over a month out of date, but large scale operations couldnt move so easily, and this was an opportunity to really hurt their enemies. Even if it came at the cost of them not slowing the enemy advance. They could only hope their act of flipping the board would be worth it in the end.

Frankly, Matt didnt know if this was the smart play. But it was also the most destructive thing they could do that would not only affect the war, but force the Harmony Accords to react to them instead of being proactive.

They discussed a few more things, but once the meeting ended, Shadow teleported them to the farthest waypoint she had. It was on the old border with the Republic, and from there, they slipped past the picket line ships which guarded the official border via means of Shadow teleporting them across said picket line.

Normally, teleporting inside chaotic space was incredibly dangerous, as once one lost the reference points of the planetary teleport tethers, it was all too easy to get lost inside the swirling energies of chaotic space. Inside said energies, the destructive power would slowly drain ones mana reserves from repelling the energies, until the shields failed and everything was destroyed as the essence of all matter was destroyed by chaotic space.

For them though, it wasnt too much of an issue. Drifters Talent already meant all ship related functions were free, but even if the shields werent free, Matt could ensure they could survive forever. And if they got lost, Shadow could teleport them back to any of her waypoints with a thought.

Thankfully, they didnt need any of those back up plans. Once they found a planet, they used it to orientate themselves and started teleporting through enemy space as fast as Shadow could sustain.

Shadow made quite a few comments about how she wished she could spend a few months inside one of the worlds to set a teleport waypoint. Thanks to their repeated teleports in the last months, her spirit was already stressed, and she couldnt rapidly force the creation of one without needing months, if not years of recovery.

Still, they didnt necessarily need a waypoint to do what they were about to do, though it would have made any follow up attacks easier.

It took them almost a week to travel deep enough inside Republic space, but they arrived at system BQAZ-201555, otherwise known as Khans Retreat in Republic. It was a Tier 25 shipyard which pumped out new ships along with repairing battle damaged ships.

After their attacks into the Federation when they destroyed their shipyard and when they raided the Republics supply depot, all three Great Powers had buffed up their internal defenses near the borders, but that shouldn't matter to them. First, they werent here to steal anything. Secondly, from their spies reports, this system hadnt gotten such increased security thanks to it being so deep inside enemy space.

When they entered the system, their ship was instantly washed with dozens of spiritual senses strong enough to crush them with a thought, along with various scanning equipment, but no one made a move. It had been unlikely, but there was always a chance someone would react before actually thinking about the consequences of their actions. Now that the higher Tiers hadnt done anything stupid, they had a plan to execute.

They had contemplated coming in hot and just instantly attacked the orbiting station. Shadow, Sebastian, and Stick pushed for it, but the rest of them wanted to offer the workers enough time to flee. Technically, they were soldiers and therefore fair game, and taking them out would hurt the republic war effort, but the rest of them wanted to avoid escalation as much as possible. Matt was still angry at Erics death, but killing a lot of what amounted to construction workers wasnt the right answer.

Darrow projected their demands even as Shadow teleported them next to the massive shipyard.

You have two minutes to evacuate. Anyone who hasnt evacuated in time will have to deal with the consequences.

They probably didnt need it, but Matt had already ensured his mana cannon was charged up and put a shot past the shipyard's central pillar to give their threat some teeth. Anyone working in the shipyard should have been able to feel the massive amounts of energy in that shot, even if they were far away.

The attack or the threat of two teams of Ascenders worked, and in two minutes, the shipyard and its ships were empty. Or at least, mostly empty. Even with Shadow bringing them in close, they were far enough away that they couldnt scan the shipyard with their spiritual perceptions. That didnt mean they hesitated though. The workers were still enemy combatants, and anyone who didnt take their good will only had themselves to blame.

Matt activated the mana cannon at full power and slowly walked it around the edges of the spinning shipard, destroying all docked ships as his first action. Unlike last time they had done this, the enemy didnt have time to take any ships and flee thanks to them abusing Shadows Talent. Each ship which exploded caused more damage from the shrapnel, but all of that damage paled in comparison to when Matt turned his mana cannon to the main pillar of the shipyard.

Similar in general construction to the Federation shipyard, Matt knew how important that central pillar was and slowly burned through it, letting his mana cannon cut through the thick metal. As he reached the halfway point, the internal rotation caused the station's top half to twist and bend. His [AI] pointed out a few bits of debris that, if not taken care of, could enter orbit. Matt was going to target them, but before he could shift his aim, the entire shipyard crumpled and careened out of its orbit deeper into space.

An overwhelming presence settled over them for the briefest of moments, and Matt felt a message transfer to his AI. Your jobs are now done. Please take your leave.

The level of power was strong enough that Matt couldn't identify the Tier. That only narrowed down the gap to over Tier 40, but that was still more than strong enough to give weight to their words.

Darrow seemed unfazed and simply looked to Shadow, who teleported them out without saying a word.

The person in question had at best, almost broken several laws as they interfered with an active battlefield below their Tier, but Matt knew nothing would come of it. First he didnt think any of them would be lodging an official complaint, and the cultivator in question had the excuse of debris potentially entering the orbit of the planet, which meant he had wiggle room to interfere in how he protected the civilians living nearby. The fact that Matt could have taken care of it would have only been relevant if he had been given the opportunity to do so, and the person in question had destroyed the shipyard, so they couldn't even charge them with positive interference. Even if Matt had taken another half hour, he wouldnt have been able to destroy the shipyard so thoroughly, and who complained about their enemies being hampered to such a high degree.

They were quiet as they moved through chaotic space to their next target, but the move served as a reminder of just how deep behind enemy lines they were.

When they arrived at a depot, they gave the same demand. But unlike the shipyard, the moon simply closed its metaphorical doors as it closed the entrance.

Matt didnt particularly care. He had brought his lockpick and hammer.

Origami and he had worked on moon cracking bombs a few decades ago as a side project, and this was the perfect time to use them. The horse sized mana stone was covered in formations which Matt activated before tossing the bomb into the moon with all his strength.

The instant it left his hand, Shadow teleported them away, but that only gave them a better view of the resulting explosion.

The bomb didn't explode with the impact, but instead the power behind Matts throw had turned it into a penetrating round which dug almost a mile into the moon's surface before detonating.

The explosion vaporized a quarter of the Tier 15 moon outright, even as the rest of the satellite cracked and started to drift apart. Continent-sized rubble floated through space, but that wasnt enough for Matt. A followup pulse of [Telekinesis] reached into the satellite's cracked core and expanded, sending nearly another quarter of the moon flying out in the depths of space, away from the nearby inhabited planet. They didnt want to give any high Tiers a reason to step in again.

Such thorough destruction of the moon meant this supply depot should be cut off from the Between until it could be carefully rebuilt and enchanted. Technically, the higher Tiers could rebuild the moon in a few minutes, but the damage was publicly done, and was obvious enough from the planet below that if it was repaired too soon, it would be all over Republic news. This being a high Tier world, there were enough cultivators that Matt was sure at least one of the Great Powers had a spy on the planet. A single report from them would cause heads to roll if a higher Tier interfered, and everyone would love to jab one and another.

It was a bit of a shame that they couldnt destroy the actual supply depot and the supplies inside like they had last time, but cutting off a node was worth the few minutes the attack had taken.

They struck two more supply depot entrances, two more shipyards, and three Tier 25 weapon and armor crafting facilities before they saw the billowing shape of the Harmony Accords ship moving through chaotic space.

The moment they had confirmation of its location, they teleported back to the rift content with the knowledge that the Harmony Accords ship would take at least three weeks to cover the distance to the frontlines. That was still faster than any single ship should be able to move, let alone one of its size, but even that prodigious speed couldnt keep up with true teleportation.

They returned to the rift with the knowledge that they had caused serious damage to the Republic's Tier 25 war effort. Beyond that, they reentered the rift armed with information about the Harmony Accords capabilities that they could use going forward.

They still intended to make repeated incursions to each Great Power, but that would become hard when the Harmony Accords went on the offensive. Hard didnt mean impossible though. A good win against the Harmony Accords was all the opportunity they needed to go back on the offensive.

Future sight was hard to deal with, and Team Zero was still needed to help blunt the offensive. Destroying shipyards and supply depots hurt the enemies long term war capabilities, but did little in the short term. Battles and blood spilt were the best ways to slow them, and Team Zero was nothing if not proficient in fighting.