Dark Matter Ascension

Priam felt refreshed as he came out of his meditative trance. The waters in the fountain were no longer a vibrant pink hue like the surrounding flowers. Instead, they were a normal, clear blue. A female voice spoke behind him. "Ah, I see you have collected all of the ambient Stardust."

Priam looked down to his hand and saw the sphere of Stardust pooled in his palm. "Oh yeah. I got a lot." He squeezed it, and his symbol absorbed it. "Bloopa, make sure we're splitting it!"

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[Stardust Acquired: 10,000]

[Stardust Split: 2,000]

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Hualong dipped her head slightly, "You should visit the other Divine Beasts and their temples. I will notify them you are headed their way." She gestured with one of her enormous claws down the temple steps, "Go into The Cosmic Corridor, and when you return, set your destination as Cragspire Summit. My compatriot will ensure you are protected whilst you meditate."

Priam activated his comms, "Quinn? How's the group doing?"

"Fine," she replied. "They got one of the arms and are moving onto the other limbs. You're good to keep meditating and gathering up that Stardust – it should be a lot more in these other places."

"Right!" Priam looked at Hualong and bowed, "Thanks for letting me meditate!"

She gestured once more to the stairs and as Priam walked, she spoke, "Gu Ruogang is who you will meet at the Summit. He is quite friendly and affable. I think you will get along with him."

"This meditation to gain Stardust is neat. And this place is very pretty when you get down to that spiritual level." He looked around at all of the flowers covering the mountain and saw they had lost a bit of their luster. "Did my meditation hurt the plants? The fountain was a different color as well."

Hualong shook her head, "They are fine. You did not suck in the environment to excess." She frowned, "That is what several cultivators did. They drained the world of life to empower themselves. It is why Anathema developed his various implements and limbs. A means to counter those powerful cultivators to keep them from consuming the world."

"What happened to him?"

"He died," Hualong stated. "His battles took a toll on him. Our Arbiter, the beacon of justice for our world who kept the balance between strength and nature's thriving growth…" she went quiet and looked out towards the shrouded forest below. "He was a kind soul. He did not deserve death. But he willingly gave his life to protect the balance."

Priam nodded, "Sounds like a great man."

"You remind me of him, slightly. The spiritual – sorry, you refer to it as "soul energy coefficient" – attunement you have is like his. If the System had the proper framework to allow for cultivation, you could become quite powerful."

"Our faction leader is working on it," Priam replied. "Well, once we beat Troxanir and make sure the universe is safe."

Hualong laughed, "Defeating the dread entity who is the manifestation of a literal supermassive black hole? How do you propose you accomplish such a feat."

Priam grinned, "With my friends."

The trio landed on a very high in the sky floating mountain. Jace felt the crisp, cool air with every inhalation and the snowy terrain reminded him of Poltor Six and the glacier tile on Nihilethelea. "Right. We are going to have to get down into the ice and snow to get this next piece."

Dee put the kite away in her TPSB and strode over. "I can melt our way down no problem!" she began to pour her goop onto the ice, and it sizzled as gouts of steam escaped. She began to bore a hole down and quickly vanished from sight as she had to go deeper into the tube she was forming.

Greg was looking off to the side of the mountain. "Jace, you got some zoom function on those eyes, right?"

"I do," Jace replied. "Why?"

Greg pointed, "What is that?"

Jace looked at where Greg's finger was aimed, and his All-Seeing Dragon's Eyes zoomed in. It looks like a giant cat. With wings? Jace thought. It was surrounded with the orange glow of 'kill for Stardust, don't harvest.' It was white with black stripes, and its claws glowed with a silver light. Jace turned to Greg, "Big flying cat. Ollie, what am I looking at?"

Ollie, who had merged once more, spoke in Jace's mind. It is a Fentlai. One of the apex predators of this world's skies. Given the distance, it is approximately twenty feet from foot to top of head, and twice as long.

Jace looked to Greg, "Time to use some Skills. Just in case its heading for us."

Greg nodded, and Jace watched the visual effects of the other man's Skills being activated. His armor turned into a shimmering silver color, with streaks of brown coating it. He could see a sparkling radius around the man that expanded out to the horizon, and symbols appear over him and Dee – a deep, brown shield that was then sucked up by Quinn's Celestial Observers overhead. "I'm good."

Jace activated his own suite of Skills by thought alone. Void Blade (Rank 17) [Rending], Void Shield (Rank 6), Void Stalker (Rank 1) [Group], Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). He placed the mine on his chest, and the grey-white aura surrounding him blazed to life. Nethaldrim was surging with the same energy, but it was far brighter than it used to be, and the crimson nebula dripping from it was almost lost in the grey-white hue. "I can grapple to any point in space," Jace stated, "So I'll fight it in the air if you're okay with that."

Greg shook his head, "I want to get some action also. Let it come to us." He sighed, "Wish I could use this gun on this world. Get some shots in."

Jace handed him Nethaldrim, sliding the weapon into his friend's hand as it was invisible to him. "Give it a throw. I'll recall it."

Greg chuckled, "No clue how this will work – but let's find out. Series of Strikes (Rank 10), Power Strike (Rank 10)." He cocked back his arm and waited. As the Fentlai got closer, within two hundred feet, he threw the weapon. To Jace's astonishment, the weapon duplicated mid-air so that there were ten phantom versions of the weapon – with the weapon imbuement of Void Blade – all traveling in a cluster. The invisible weapons slammed into the tiger, and it let out a roar of pain as it began to fall.

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Greg let out a whoop, "That was awesome!"

"It's not dead yet," Jace replied as he recalled his weapon with the (Returning) Augmentation.

"What's that now?"

"They can cheat death," Jace replied. He saw the tiger explode with gold light as the white fur became gold, and its wings took on a sharper, cleaner definition as they became literal blades. "And break through their limits."

"Bullshit!" Greg shouted as he dual-wielded his two swords: the Beamblade and Anathema's Straight Sword. "You've been dealing with that this whole time?"

Jace chuckled, "Annoying, isn't it?"

Dee sighed, and her voice came over the comms, "Will you two just kill the thing already? I'm almost through to the chamber. The ice is all gone, I'm working on the stone now."

Jace took up a ready stance as the tiger monstrosity flew up to the mountain and landed. It began to circle the two men, letting out a growl as it did so. Jace turned to keep facing it, while Greg began to move to the side, his weapons seeming to have phantasmal copies appear alongside them as he activated Series of Strikes once more.

The tiger's shoulder muscles tensed, and Jace knew it was about to pounce. He timed his dodge perfectly, grappling space above the creature's charge as he yanked himself out of the way. Detonate, he thought as he passed with feet of the creature – affecting it and him with the weightlessness.

The thing's momentum was arrested, and Jace let the Skill fade from him alone, releasing the phantasmal grapple line as he landed atop the thing and began stabbing down into it. The white-grey of the Void energy spread rapidly, and he had to shut it off or else risk losing a lot more Stardust from the kill itself.

Greg ran in underneath the now flailing, floating cat. He sliced up into its underbelly, and Jace felt the thing go limp as it floated. "Greg, back off!" he shouted as he kicked off the thing and landed on the icy once more.

Greg backed away, "What's going to happen?"

"It's going to break its limits again."

The creature's body repaired itself, and the gold became a burnished bronze, the black stripes becoming a deep, dark green. The thing let out an ear-piercing screech that made Greg, but Jace was able to ignore thanks to Void Shield. The thing began to emit a silver lightning that slammed into both men.

Greg let out a barking laugh. "That's all you got?" he charged forward and began hacking away with both weapons – the tiger creature used its large claws to parry as the two engaged in a duel of man versus beast. Every time the tiger hit Greg; lightning would arc through him. But Greg was a juggernaut and seemingly unkillable to Jace's eyes, as he shrugged off the blows with ease.

Jace, meanwhile, used his grapple line to maneuver around the creature at speed. He got behind it and began slashing at the hind legs. The electricity arced from the thing's tail, zapping his Void Shield but doing nothing against the ultimate defense. The two men kept hacking away until the creature finally went down.

Greg laughed, "That was…something else." He looked past the corpse and to Jace, "You've been fighting these things?"

"Not these specifically," Jace replied as he sheathed his weapon and let his Skills fade. "Now, to dust it."

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[Stardust Acquired: 4,000]

[Stardust Split: 800]

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Greg sheathed his sword and deactivated the Beamblade, the foil retracting into the hilt. "Let's see how Dee's doing."

"Fine," she replied. "I wish I could've blown the thing up…but nooo I had to bore a hole through ice and stone."

Jace walked over to the hole and looked down to see Dee crouched over a bowl in a stone surface. He dug his arm into the ice and slid down just above her. "Want some help?"

She shook her head, "Nope. We're through." The stone under her fell away, and she dropped into the chamber below – right into some type of black-grey sludge. "Eww! That's gross!"

Jace grappled to space right above her and reached down, gripping her chitinous shoulder, and lifting her up out of the goop with ease. "That stuff looks nasty," he stated as he looked down at the bubbling black pool.

Dee let out a disgusted groan, "This is nasty! Bleh." She shook herself, and the goop slid off back into the miasma below. "Oh, it's very acidic. Don't drop in it."

Jace looked around the room. It was an enormous, hollow chamber – a cavern – filled with the black goop. Several stone platforms were scattered throughout the space, and he swung himself over to one, setting Dee down. "Greg, be careful coming dow-"

The enormous man plummeted into the goop. He stood up and clambered atop another rock, the acid eating away at his armor little by little. "I'm good. Super defensive."

"But your equipment isn't," Jace replied.

Greg shrugged, "I can always get new stuff."

Jace kept scanning the room and couldn't spot anything like a pedestal or even another exit or entrance. "Is this a dead end? Why is there a random cave full of bubbling, black acid in a floating mountain?"

Dee shrugged, "I can look inside the acid itself – but that's going to be nasty." She shuddered, and her goop rippled in her chitinous shell. "But…if we need to."

Jace shook his head, "I'll look around." He shot his grapple line to a fixed point in space over the acid and began scanning for anything that was a Skill – or magic, given the world – thanks to his All-Seeing Dragon's Eyes. After moving about the room for a bit, he saw the metal leg. "Found it!" he pointed down to it. "Dee, I know it's gross, but mind grabbing it?"

She sighed and leaped from platform to platform until she was near Jace. Extracting herself from her chitinous shell, she submerged her green goopy form into the black morass and vanished beneath the surface. A minute passed, and Jace kept watch of her as she made her way – slowly – through the sludge. She sucked the leg into her goop and then scooted her way back to the stone platform – emerging from the gunk and sliding back into her chitinous shell. She pulled the leg out of her TPSB, "Here you go! One leg."

Jace put it into his TPSB, knowing from an earlier conversation with Ollie that he'd need to attach both legs at the same time to have his (Augmentations) carry over, since they required a set. "Right, that's one leg down."

"It could be the left one!" Greg shouted.

Jace looked at the feet and shook his head, "Nope, right leg. These ones have toes." He offered an arm to Dee, she took it, and then he shot his grapple over to the tunnel leading to the surface. "Greg, hop on."

Greg leaped over and grabbed Jace's legs. He shot his grapple once more, higher up out of the hole, and retracted the line as the trio were pulled to the surface. "One more place," he said as Dee hopped off and pulled out the kite. The trio took off into the skies once more.

Priam emerged from the black "choose your destination" room of The Cosmic Corridor and arrived on Harkon Secundus once more. He activated Exarch's Ward as the air was quite cool up here.

He was atop a mountain. The tallest in the world, according to Hualong. And up on the heights of the mountain, up several stone steps, was an enormous, silver bear with deep, purple lines crossing through its fur – forming spiral shapes that wound in upon themselves.

The creature raised its head and yawned. "Ah…you must be this Priam my friend Hualong told me about." The voice was booming, and exuded authority, but was relaxed.

Priam ascended the steps, and at the top, bowed to the entity. "You are Gu Ruogang?"

"I am."

"My name is Priam Westerfold. I ask permission to meditate here on your mountain to draw in Stardust."

Gu Ruogang dipped his head down to Priam's eye level, and the rabbit man felt his heart quicken its beating in his chest as his prey instinct told him to flee from this massive predator. But he stood his ground as the bear spoke. "I will allow this. I can sense your potential, and I would not be doing my duty if I did not attempt to foster it." The bear lifted its head up and gestured with a paw to a series of ancient stone seats at the highest point of the summit. "That is where they used to sit. Please, meditate."

Priam walked up the stone steps to the highest point of the world and sat down on the stone seat, crossing his legs as he fell deep into his meditative trance. The world ceased to be, and he descended down into his deepest part of his being. Everything grew dim and numb – he could feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. But then he arrived at the spiritual level of the world, and opening his eyes he saw the vast expanse of the world before him. A world shrouded in mist, with flying mountains and a vibrant, vermillion sun rising.

Taking more calming breaths, he began to absorb the ambient spiritual energy, turning it into Stardust.