Dark Matter Ascension

Jace stepped through the portal and was immediately greeted by a blast of hot wind. The skies above were crackling with veridian lightning that cascaded across the empty skies. An enormous, green sun was off in the distant horizon as evening descended upon that location of the world.

He looked out across a blasted landscape. Badlands, with cracked ground and decimated, smoking craters. Occasionally, blasts of lighting surged from above and slammed into the ground, leaving even more smoking craters.

Jace looked back and saw the portal to The Cosmic Corridor snap shut. Ollie's voice spoke in his head, I can activate it at any time using your energy and with about five minutes. We can take breaks whenever you need them, use the tent in the Cosmic Corridor's sealed section we were just in, and then return to where we left off.

Jace heard an enormous screeching noise and glanced back, behind him and up. He recognized the creature; it was like the dragon he had fought back on Nihilethelea but was far larger – easily the size of an apartment building. It let out a terrifying roar. The mouth was covered in serrated teeth like a shark's mouth – which at that point Jace was quite familiar with thanks to Shhiv's smile.

Void Shield (Rank 6), Void Blade (Rank 17) [Rending]. He raised the sword and took up a ready stance as the creature descended, its mouth opening and unleashing a devastating wave of thunderous, sonic energy that vibrated the ground all around him. Thanks to his defensive Skill, nothing happened save he had to shuffle his feet to maintain his footing.

The creature flew by, doubtless going for another pass, but Jace shot out his grapple in a rapid series of chained launch-and-retract movements, getting onto the thing's leg. He stabbed up and into the hide, sawing the blade back and forth as he cut one of the tendons, some of the muscle, and the back leg went limp.

The creature began a barrel roll, and Jace was easily able to cling to it. But he did lose his sense of where he was thanks to the dizzying movement, and then the draconic enemy lurched downward towards the ground. Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). Detonate. Jace let go as the dragon was slammed into the ground by another creature.

A weird, flying insect creature had impacted the dragon from above, which caused the fall. Its stinger darted down and into the beast and delivered some sort of venom as the dragon's body began to go limp. Some combination of a cockroach body, scorpion stinger, and a weird, fungal protrusion sticking out of the top of its carapace. Jace used his Sliver Arc integrated into the armor to push himself down to the bug creature, and he slashed at it.

The thing raised one of its many legs, blocking the blade with the thick, chitin-covered appendage. It spun to face him, and the stinger lanced out. Jace easily deflected the stabbing point and countered with a riposte – but the blade bounced off the carapace. I thought Nethaldrim could cut through the strongest metal in existence!

Ollie thought back to him, Metal. This chitin must be stronger. Tier 10 world, and Starheart Steel is Tier 9.

Jace backed away, still atop the dragon that weakly tried to move against the paralytic venom spreading through its body. The insect creature's two forelegs shifted into wicked, scything blades, and Jace was pressed back onto the defense as it kept shoving forward. The hail of blows from left and right was difficult to keep up with, but thankfully Jace's Void Shield took any blows that went through with ease.

However, he did notice that each strike that went by his defenses drained his energy. Ollie?

The venom it carries on its natural weaponry seems to siphon energy. Since Void Shield functions off your energy, it is drawing that forth with each successful hit. This is unlike anything I have ever seen in the System!

Xera's voice snapped over the comms, "You are gathering valuable data while you are there. Just don't push yourself too hard."

Not like I have a choice! Jace thought as he had to focus all of his attention on the creature before him. He had scored a few strikes, but they bounced off the chitin. Still, the [Rending] and Void Blade effects slowly spread. Not as quickly as if he had actually injured it, but a slow spread, nonetheless. And where the Void Blade spread, the chitinous shell was broken down and left vulnerable spots.

Jace chose to take a slight gamble, letting one of the scything blades slam onto his shoulder. But in exchange, he was able to get a stab into a spot where the Void Blade had gone all the way through the chitin.

And yet the creature kept fighting with the same fury. Jace slid down the hide of the dragon and jumped backward, gaining some distance. "Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4) [Exploding]!" The shafts of black-and-purple energy surged forth and slammed into the creature's weak spot before exploding and sending goopy chunks of chitin and the inner flesh in all directions.

And yet the bottom part of the creature, the legs and claws, kept moving forward. "Ollie?"

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The fungus on its head is controlling it. The creature is now dead, but the fungus is still manipulating the body. You need to destroy it with intense cold, acid, or something else like that.

Which I don't have, Jace thought as he kept backing away to keep his distance from the insect. "Void Removal (Rank 10)," Jace stated, willing all fungus and fungal spores to be eliminated from the surrounding space.

The pile of gunk, along with all the spores inside the creature's body, were flung to the farthest edge of Jace's zone. The insect creature collapsed and was finally dead. Jace walked over and dusted it, before moving to the dragon and finishing it off with a stab to the side that he then ran along the body.

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[Stardust Acquired: 25,000]

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Jace looked around for any sign of danger but saw none. "So we have fungus that can puppet insects, those insects have chitin harder than my sword can get past, dragons whose scales are, for some reason, weaker than insect chitin…the hell is this place?"

A death world, Ollie replied. Only the strong survive, and they feed on the weak.

He looked around the wasteland. Off in the distance, he saw swarms of the insects flying through the sky. Easily a hundred, who were heading his direction. Well…that is going to suck. He raised his hand, "Obliterate the entire swarm. Archmage's Admixture." The once per day Skill activated, and Jace saw a swirling torrent of pure, white energy form in his hand before the sphere launched out.

It traveled the miles in the blink of an eye before erupting in a blinding sphere of white that expanded until it consumed the entire swarm. The bodies began falling from the sky; seared, smashed, blasted, and frozen as every elemental energy possible combined into the single devastating explosion.

Jace began running, the integrated Sliver Arc enabling him to run extremely fast over the landscape, and he began dusting the swarm. They were all heavily damaged, so he did not get as much as he thought he would.

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[Stardust Acquired: 24,000]

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"The dragons look like they are worth a lot more Stardust," Jace commented. "But I'm halfway to the 300,000 Stardust I need."

A roar echoed out from Jace's left, and he scanned the horizon in that direction…but saw nothing. "Ollie, what was that-" His words were cut off as something entered into his [Danger-Sense] radius, and he raised his sword to block. Something huge slammed into him. His Void Shield stopped the damage, but he went sailing through the air and expertly used his Sliver Arc and his grapnel to land upright.

Some type of stealthed predator. It is a higher Tier than your All-Seeing Dragon's Eyes, hence why you cannot see it.

It moves fast, Jace thought. I barely picked it up with my Edge's Intuition before it hit me. Glancing at his energy bar, he saw that he was about halfway through his current reserves. He had more stored up in his Primal Hide, but he wanted to save that for an emergency.

And this wasn't an emergency. Just annoying. He sensed the presence of the unseen assailant once more, and this time instead of raising his weapon to block, he pointed the tip at the incoming strike. The creature impaled its weaponized appendage on the blade and pulled back with a tremendous, air-vibrating growl.

Jace locked onto that sound, "Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4) [Exploding]!" The darts shot out and impacted the invisible creature, boring holes into it before detonating. The thing let out a hiss as it began to bleed – giving Jace a visual indicator of where it was. The appendage he had impaled was also glowing with the power of the Void and [Rending] bleeding nebula. The creature began to back away, making to retreat.

It was fast. Even at a full sprint, Jace could barely keep pace with it. Using his grapple line, he tethered it to the creature instead of a fixed point in space and pulled himself to it. He felt thick, dense fur under his hand as he gripped it with the left and stabbed down with the right. The creature let out a deep growth and the hide turned into an incredibly sharp shell that would have skewered any other assailant.

But Jace's Void Shield negated the injurious needles, and he kept stabbing as he spread the Void Blade and [Rending] further and further throughout the creature's insides. It jumped up and down, tried to shake him off, spun in circles to fling him off – but Jace's grip was unbreakable and he kept his near-mechanical stabbing at an even pace. The creature eventually expired, and Jace dusted it.

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[Stardust Acquired: 5,000]

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"Easy enough," Jace muttered as he looked around. "But the fact that these things can be that stealthed is concerning…this is a really dangerous place."

Mhmm. Just remember, you can take a breather any time.

Jace glanced at his energy, just under half, with a fully stocked up Primal Hide. "I'm good for now. Let's find something big worth a lot of Stardust."

Priam settled into a comfortable seat. They were up on an enormous mountaintop, far above the sea level for the world. He closed his eyes and began meditating, whilst Greg and Dee looked on.

"This is going to be boring," Dee muttered.

Greg chuckled, "Not if you don't want it to be." He pointed down the mountain to the temple they had ascended past on the Everfall Kite. "Those warriors look like they are having fun sparring."

The trio had been sent to a magic world called Osciaia. It was only Tier 6, but they were limited in how many cultivation-based, soul-magic worlds were along The Cosmic Corridor. This one was connected to The Cosmic System fully, with a species that had both Civilians and Aspirants, along with a handful of Ascendants. A monastic people that divided themselves into weird organizations known as "sects", they were above the Heavenly Cloud Temple.

Dee sighed, "I'm not good at fighting up close like that."

"No time like the present to learn," Greg commented. "I've got my damage redirect Skill on you, so it will be harmless training. I don't mind watching the bunny-boy."

Dee nodded, "It's better than standing around guarding him." She began walking down the stone steps carved into the mountainside.

Greg sat down next to Priam on another one of the cushions. The world was beautiful, from a traditional sense. Seemingly endless blue skies dotted with clouds. People flying off in the distance through use of soul-magic-based Skills, cities dotting the landscape out to the horizon where the world curved away.

I don't mind guard duty, he thought as he recalled his military career. It's not boring if you don't let it get boring. He glanced down the mountain at the warriors training on a plateau below. Maybe Dee will learn something useful from them.