Dark Matter Ascension

Jace sprinted across the landscape. Nothing approached him, but he was all-eyes on the enormous figure in the distance. What he initially thought was a large, rounded mountain range with little peaks was in fact an enormous turtle creature. There were dozens of dragons attacking the thing, trying to kill it; but they were doing nothing to the shell.

After being attacked, the armored plates loosed out globules of fiery energy that took up animalistic shapes that duplicated the attacker, and those duplicates killed the assailant before scurrying back to the shell and being absorbed back into it.

That is a Titan Tortoise, Ollie informed. One of the longest-lived creatures on this world. It is a predator, but relies on appearing as a slow, vulnerable target to lure in prey before its natural defenses kick in. It scans the entity attacking it, then creates a duplicate to deal with the problem.

Jace slowed his run down to a jog, "If I hit it, I'll be fighting a duplicate of myself?"

Possibly. But you still have Void Counter. Just use that, get some hits in, then back off once the ten seconds have elapsed.

"Smart," Jace replied as he made sure to refresh his Void Shield, which he had let lapse during his run. His energy had recovered due to that, and as he kept running towards the mountain, he activated Void Stalker (Rank 1) to keep his approach hidden.

The thing was quite literally the size of a mountain, towering thousands of feet overhead. The best way to kill it is going to be trying to find its weakest spot, a vital component. But we have no interior scans of the creature, or really any of the wildlife here.

Jace kept sprinting forward and when he began to approach the massive, hind-left leg that was just being set down, he shot out his grapple line and began arcing into the sky. Since he could affix himself to a point in space, he elected to ascend alongside the creature, instead of along its body. Up into the skies, hundreds of feet, and he was ignored by these predatory creatures that flew all about, attacking the tortoise.

Dragons who were unleashing blasts of energy that spread harmlessly across its enormous shell that was a landscape in and of itself. Those beasts themselves varied in size from houses to skyscrapers, and when a duplicate oozed out of the tortoise's shell and launched to fight them…Jace had an idea. I don't have to kill the tortoise, even though it'll probably be more than enough Stardust. I can just wait until these dragons are on their breath, and then swoop in to steal the kill.

A valid ploy, Ollie replied. I do not know what the tortoise will do in response.

Jace saw other creatures flying about, but the big dragon the size of the Empire State Tower drew his attention more than the rest. It was clawing and flying circles around a goopy, bloody duplicate that appeared to be made of the dripping ichor, but burned with some inner flame that illuminated it to a deep, cherry red color like heated steel. The creatures clashed, and Jace could feel the shockwave in the air from the massive dragon's claw impacting the duplicate's head, sending it spiraling down before it recovered and swooped back up.

Jace grappled closer to the living one, but it must have had some means of extrasensory capability as it swung its head to him, opened its mouth, and unleashed a blast of energy. Time to try this out. Void Counter (Rank 10) [Storing]. He saw the torrent of prismatic, crackling and burning green flame vanished. His palm burned, and as he looked down at the Cosmic and Ascended Power symbols, he could see a green flame burning in the center of the Void dot in the middle of his palm.

Ten seconds to use it, he thought as he pointed his palm at the creature. How do I-

The blast surged out and he was pushed back into an arc from the grapple by the force of the blast. It exploded outward, and the enormous dragon roared as its own power consumed it. But, the creature had resistance to its own offensive ability, and as the green torrent faded, it let out a roar that shook the entire landscape.

The duplicate form slammed into it from below, wrapping its gigantic jaws around the dragon's neck and wrenching back and forth. That's my kill to steal, Jace thought as he used his grapple to move through the skies over to the dragon and the duplicate. Raising his hand, he activated Void Beam (Rank 3) [Piercing], and the cylinder of white-grey surged out, drilled through the head of the duplicate, into the neck of the dragon it was holding, and then into the tortoise who stopped moving mid-step.

Uh oh, Ollie said in Jace's mind. You used the [Piercing] Evolution.

How far does it pierce? Jace thought back.

Until you tell it to stop.

Turn it off then!

You did it just now when you thought that. I thought that you knew this from the incident with Deckard's tower. Did you forg-

I forgot, okay? A lot has happened in a very short amount of time.

The tortoise began to turn as the dragons fell. The duplicate with the huge hole bored through its head was stilling holding tight onto the real dragon's neck, but its motions were less vigorous. The larger dragon was able to shake the duplicate off, and tried to fly up, but must have passed out from the blood loss as it began to fall. Jace stopped grappling and let gravity take over, pointing his body head-first to increase speed as he reached the form that crashed into the ground, killing the tower-sized dragon on impact.

He used Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1) to negate his fall and used his grapple to pull to the dragon. Dusting now.

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[Stardust Acquired: 100,000]

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A little under 40,000 short, Jace thought as his Stardust total flickered across his vision. He stood up and faced the tortoise, who had finished turning its enormous body to face him. His Void Beam might have been a tiny, near-insignificant fraction of its mass…but it had to have hurt the creature, which meant that it knew there was a threat.

The creature looked exactly like a tortoise. Four enormous legs that were the size of small mountains all on their own. A massive head that jutted forward on a short neck from a shell which it could retract into. Its eyes were dark, black orbs that were soulless and completely alien. Its mouth opened, and a massive sphere as big as a warehouse coalesced before blasting forth.

Void Counter (Rank 10) [Storing], Jace thought as he drew on his energy reserves in the Primal Hide, filling himself up to about two-thirds of his energy. The blast headed toward him did not stop. "Ollie?!"

Void Counter only works on a Tier creature equal to its Rank or lower. This is considered more powerful than Tier 10!

Jace activated Void Shield (Rank 6) [Reflecting] and Hope's Edge.

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[Foe that is vastly superior detected.]

[Shattered Limits enabled.]

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Shattered Limits (Rank 4) [Single-Minded Fury], Ruination Razor (Rank 3), Raging Cleave (Rank 10) [Echoing Cleave], Aura of Wrath (Rank 11) [Voidflame Vestment]. Jace's body exploded with a white-grey aura of energy that cascaded off of him in waves, tinged crackling with black sparks that coalesced around his body in a billowing shroud. Arcing lines of white-grey void crackled from his body.

Everything slowed down as all of his physical, sensory, and cognitive traits were increased by x37 thanks to the 50% increase from Single-Minded Fury. He could feel every single particle on the air that went through his armor's ventilation system, the taste and texture of each breath setting off a firestorm of system reactions as his capabilities were enhanced beyond anything he had experienced before.

Quinn's voice came over the comms, but it was slow and ponderous – Ollie must have done something after she began speaking, as her voice became normal. "Activating my full suite on you. And for my Tactician's Orders (Rank 2) – hit the weak spot highlighted by my Coordinator's Critical Gaze (Rank 10)."

Jace saw the sphere approaching, but behind it, through it, he could see a golden glow near the center of the creature's mass. He began running forward, the integrated Sliver Arc combined with his movement speed upgrades allowing him to blitz across the landscape. He saw the orb coming and let it slam into him, fully refilling his energy and the Primal Hide's reserves as Hope's Edge turned the incoming damage into energy. At the same time, the [Reflecting] property launched the sphere back at the tortoise, and the orb slammed into it; knocking it back a few staggering steps.

But those steps took a long, long time thanks to its bulk and Jace's enhanced perception. He had crossed the miles in seconds, blitzing forward with speed he could never have dreamed of having back on Earth. He let out an exhilarated laugh as he got to the foot and leaped up. With his legs alone he was able to propel himself hundreds of feet into the sky, and he used his grapple to ascend higher.

The hide of the tortoise began to split open in places, and globules of fiery, volcanic energy slammed into Jace – but his Void Shield with its [Reflecting] Evolution was still active, and he altered course to get to one of the legs. He was a speck compared to it, and he could see a single one of the leather scales of the skin was as large as a semi-truck. Nonetheless, he swung Nethaldrim at it, cutting down a few feet. But the extended reach from his Raging Cleave allowed him to cut deeper. Not close to halfway through – heck, not even a tenth of the way through the enormous, mountain-sized appendage.

But it had to hurt. And the [Echoing Cleave] that followed had to help as well. It also had the primary effect Jace wanted it to impart; the [Rending] bleed, and the Void Blade's inherent damage-over-time effect.

As expected, Ruination Razor did nothing, as the creature was not a structure. But, Jace thought, it was worth a shot given its size.

The blood that oozed down from the wound began to take shape, and Jace activated Void Counter (Rank 10) to try and negate the effect. It did not work, and he saw hundreds of duplicates of himself that manifested…but did not have his Equipment. They were torsos and heads that fell down to the ground far below, splattering as droplets of blood onto the surface.

Huh, would you look at that. Neat.

Jace kept using his grapple to ascend towards the underside of the tortoise. The shell up above him had a single hole that dripped goopy, flaming blood. Turning [Reflecting] off, he thought as he knew Hope's Edge had run out. He made for the hole through the tortoise, and it was about that time that the front legs came back down as the initial sphere energy attack finished having its effect of knocking the thing off-balance.

He got to the hole and made his way into the creature. The interior was squishy and damp, which is what he expected. What he did not expect was the heat. It was extremely hot. So much so that every breath hurt, and his armor turned on oxygen recycling so that he didn't have to suck in the burning air.

The globules of lava began to take shape and form. They shifted into facsimiles of Jace, but again they were just wiggling torso and heads that were vaguely humanoid shaped. They fell down the hole, past Jace, or harmlessly exploded against his Void Shield. That's really messed up, he thought. But it's weird. Why would something this big not have some defense against smaller creatures? Like the insects. If they got into a wound or something, they could probably do some real damage.

The blood globules from it being injured seem to take on the physical, natural form of the creature assaulting it. So those bugs would be facing doppelgangers of themselves. Since your prosthetics are not natural, they cannot be duplicated it seems.

Almost makes this too easy.

It is built for its environment. Not built to fight something completely foreign to its world. Nothing like you has existed on this planet.

Using his grapple, he moved up into the creature's body until he was on the same level as the weak point Quinn had highlighted for him. Cutting through the flesh with Nethaldrim, he got himself a handhold, sheathed his sword, and then placed his palm against the slick surface. "Void Beam (Rank 3)."

The line of white and grey shot out, boring a hole through the tortoise, obliterating the heart, and Jace willed the beam to stop its travel. The enormous creature began to topple, but Jace dusted it and was falling through the skies as its body turned to glimmering, glittering starlight.

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Stardust Acquired: 1,000,000

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[Batch Quest: Gather 300,000 Stardust.]

[Current Progress: 100%]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Astral System Integration]

[Sender: Dark Between Stars]

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[Astral System Integration pending.]

[Return to Khrox and notify your Wayfinder when you are ready.]

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Jace grinned, knowing that he was finally, finally, after months of harvesting Stardust, fighting…he was at the end of the capabilities of The Cosmic System. "I only need 300,000, Ollie. Give the rest to my allies."

On it! Want me to just zero you out?

"Sure." Jace looked around at the flying creatures who had been attacking the tortoise that vanished before their eyes. And all their gazes fell on him. "Well…shit."