Dark Matter Ascension

Jace plummeted, activated a Dark Energy Mine, and then used the integrated Sliver Arc to propel himself down to the canopy. "Ollie, area scan."

Yup! Doing it now, his Wayfinder replied in his thoughts.

The world pulsed in Jace's vision for a moment, and he saw the various tagged targets show up. More of those Zifrans, he thought as he pulled his weapon out. "Ollie…Void Blade. I know it eats matter as a form of damage over time. But is that matter lost forever?"

Sadly, yup.

"Then I'm stuck with just having my Void Shield (Rank 6), and Void Stalker (Rank 1)." Jace became incredibly hard to detect as all traces of his existence were wiped out a split second after he left a branch, jumping down to a lower one. He made a beeline for the Zifran.

Game plan, he thought, I'm going to do ambush strikes. Drop down, decapitate, run off. Wait for it to use one of those cheat death skills. Then, I do it again. Until it runs out of lives.

He landed on a tree branch above one of the creatures – not an advanced one like he had previously fought, but a basic one like the two first he had fought.

Dropping down from above, he chopped with the momentum of the fall, severing cleanly through the neck as the thing collapsed to the ground. Jace rolled as he landed, and used his grapple to attach to a tree, pulled himself up, and dashed around the canopy to prevent the Zifran from tracking his position.

The creature's head flew back to the neck, reattached, and it let out a braying neigh as the air ignited with crimson fury. Sparks flew up in all directions, and it wheeled about looking for him.

But he was already dropping down again. He repeated his feat, slicing through the neck with ease before dashing into the undergrowth, ascending a tree, and getting into position again. It took more time, but the creature was utterly helpless against his assault as he killed it right after it recovered.

He was not doing as much damage to it as he had with the first three he had fought, and so those extra lives seemed to last longer. It must be that they have some set store of reversible damage, Ollie theorized. The more damage you deal before, during, or right after their death causes their next life to use up more energy, or something akin to that.

Jace had to decapitate the thing ten times before it finally stilled, and he could harvest the components. Without the Void Shield, he would have been singed or burned a few times. Gathering up the chunks into the TPSB, he made for the next Zifran outline he saw.

Greg landed the kite at the edge of the lake they had been flying above. Well, lake was the wrong word. It was a lake, but the water was completely clear, and he could see down to the depths, the bottom of the lake was not supported by anything. It was floating in the sky, just like the mountain. "Weird place," he stated aloud.

Dee and Priam got off the kite, before Priam tapped his forearm to the object and it zipped into his TPSB. "Yeah," Priam replied. "Flying mountains is super weird. Lake with no bottom is even weirder. And look at those fish."

Greg was eyeing them – large, striped koi that were the size of a large dog breed. And the fish were staring at the group. "Are they looking at us?" Greg asked as he glanced at his allies.

Dee nodded and went to the edge of the water, dipping her hand in as the fish darted away. "They are just curious little things." She pulled her hand out, "Why land here?"

"It stands out," Greg replied as he scanned the edge of the lake, taking in the floating landmass as he kept his eyes peeled for anything that looked out of the ordinary, which was quite difficult, given that this was an alien world to him. "I mean, the rest of the floating islands we saw were big rocks with bunches of plants on them. These Delves would probably stand out in some way."

Priam joined Dee at the edge of the pool and touched it. But his hand did not penetrate down. "Huh. Weird." He put his hand to the pool, and it flattened into a disc as the surface hardened. "Okay…odd." He pulled his hand away, and the lake returned to normal.

"What are you doing?" Dee asked.

Priam touched the lake again, it firmed up, and then he pulled away and it returned to liquid. "This might respond to someone with high spiritual energy coefficient. I'm maxed out, I think, at two hundred percent." He put a foot out and began testing his weight on the surface. "Dee? Try touching it."

Dee reached out, her hand touched, and it went right through the solid surface. "Weird," she stated as she pulled her hand back and flicked off the water.

Greg spotted a glimmering dot in the center of the lake, "What is that?" he asked aloud as he pointed.

Priam looked over there, "Want me to look?"

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"First, Skills," Greg replied. He closed his eyes and ran through his new set of Skills. Aggravating Presence (Rank 10), Bulwark's Defenses (Rank 20), Eternal Guardian (Rank 10). He felt invincible as he knew, at that moment, he was a tough bastard to kill. The new armor had a HUD in the top corner, and he could see an energy meter along with a list of his Skills. Over 99% damage reduction in total.

Priam's body was enveloped in his barrier, and the same effect popped onto Dee and Greg. "Alright, I'm going to go see what it is." Priam walked out, two-hundred feet onto the water, and grabbed the shimmer Greg had seen. "Oh! Neat! It's a metal eye!"

Greg saw movement under Priam. All of the fish had swum to a single point underneath him, and stared up through the solid surface. "Priam! Get back here quickly!" Greg shouted.

Priam looked over and began hustling to Greg. The water began to waver slightly from its solid surface state, and then in an instant it became fully liquid. The fish all darted to Priam and swarmed around the now-floundering Aspirant.

"I've got you!" Dee shouted as she held up her hands. "Demolisher's Devastation (Rank 40) [Broadside]!" Globes of lightning arced out faster than Greg could track, slammed into all of the fish…and then they began to crackle with the same energy. "Oh, that's not good!" she shouted.

Priam seemed unaffected by the electricity, but he could not make any progress as the fish kept him from swimming. "Guys!" he shouted in between breaths as he tried to keep above the surface. "Help!"

Damnit, Greg thought as he glanced down at his armor. This stuff is going to make me sink instantly. "Quinn," he said to her over the comms, "I need one of those Common (Variable) sent my way as an (Augmentation) Boon."

Her voice came back, "You got it! Sending now!"

Greg thought to Darrin, who was currently merged into his mind with Verge Protocol, As soon as it gets here, I need you to use it and push it to make the armor water-capable.

Right! The spider replied in his head.

-----

[Using Boon: Common (Augmentation).]

[Target Equipment: Exo-planet Power Armor.]

[Augmenting.]

[Result: (Aquatic) Exo-planet Power Armor.]

[Description: The Aquatic (Augmentation) enables the armor to shift into a water-traversal mode.]

-----

Greg dove into the water and saw that the armor's readout showed the legs shifting and changing. The metal on the boots warped into propellers that made him surge forward in the water, about as fast as he could run.

The fish were massed up before him – dozens of them – and they were not only crackling with electricity, but glowing with a faint, blue light. Priam's shield was cracking, but then refilled to full and became solid as the bunny boy re-used his Skill. "None of my Skills are hurting them!" Priam shouted into the comms, panic rising in his voice.

Greg saw arcing blasts of acid slam into the water, into the fish, and they swapped from being charged with lightning to glowing with an acidic green. "What the heck?" Dee said. "Can they adapt to anything we throw at them?"

Greg pulled out the Beamblade emitter, activated it, and saw the water around it boil and hiss. Getting to the mass of fish, he stabbed forward, impaling one of them. The thing writhed around, wriggling off of the blade before darting off into the deeper part of the lake.

Other fish began turning to Greg, and they swarmed him; battering into the barrier Priam had established. Thankfully, that meant they left Priam alone – and the fellow Signer was able to get to the shore with Dee. Now that he's clear, Greg thought, I can make my way back.

The fish kept pounding into him, but his Skills improving his damage reduction were too much for their assault to overcome. Like an impossible to divert boulder, he was unstoppable in his movement. Getting to the shore, and striding out of the water, he breathed a sigh of relief and glanced down at his two allies. "Not really close, but definitely scary."

Priam shook his head, "They just attacked out of nowhere!"

"Protecting the thing?" Dee asked. "When I put my hand into the water they swam off the first time. And how were they attacking you? Trying to eat you?"

"No!" Priam replied. "They were bumping me a lot. They had…weird spines on their top? Those looked sharp, but I kept my barriers up!"

Greg looked back at the fish, who were now just barely underwater near the shallows they stood nearby. "Let's just take off on the kite and find the next one," Greg stated.

Priam nodded, pulled the kite out of the TPSB, and the Signers group up before launching into the skies, putting the weird pool of water behind them.

Or so they thought. Greg heard a whistling noise, and glancing back, saw the fish had sprouted ethereal wings, were flying after the trio on the kite, and their bodies had transformed; multiple appendages like fins with wriggling fingers extended from their top and sides. The mouths distended and elongated to that of an eel. And, most frightening to Greg, torrents of green-colored lightning crackled about them.

"Hold on!" Greg shouted as he shifted the controls with his foot, sending the kite on a downward dive. "Quinn, find Jace relative to us."

"Confirmed, sending location."

Greg saw a map show up in his HUD. Jace was below them and a few miles off. Glancing back at the creatures following, he knew he could maintain the pace and keep them at even distance. "Tell him we have company."

*

Jace took several deep breaths as he finished dispatching the twelfth of the Zifran. He'd made a few return trips to the portal, and Quinn was still working on buyers for the products he had harvested from the creatures.

"Jace, you have allies coming your way," Quinn stated.

Jace looked around the clearing, "Where?"

"Up. Greg, Dee, and Priam are being chased by flying fish."

"Really? They can't handle some fish?"

Greg's voice came over the comms, and he began to speak, but Dee's voice was louder as she yelled, "They can absorb Skills! Lightning, acid – nothing worked!"

Jace frowned, "And you didn't use weapons? Greg's got a beam sword thing!"

Greg replied, "There's a lot of them. And if you're close, why not help?"

"Fair," Jace replied. He began scanning the skies. Clambering up a tree with his grapple, he poked his head out of the canopy. Thankfully, the clearing he had just fought the Zifran had the mist above cleared away by some bullshit cheat death Skill sending a column of flames into the sky. He could see the kite in the distance, and behind it, the orange glow around the fish.

Stardust, Ollie said in his mind. Remember, you can just dust the orange outlined ones.

Jace nodded, "But no Void, since that will eat away at the matter." He gripped his sword and spoke into the comms, "Greg, land in the clearing. I'll cover you."