Dark Matter Ascension

Jace was sucked through the door and appeared inside the large, stone chamber. It was just like the ones he had seen before, with the reliquary at the center. The space next to him shimmered, and he turned to it with sword at the ready, but lowered it to a relaxed position as the two Ancients he had spoken to before manifested their hooded figures. "Going to watch again?"

The talkative one replied, "Yeah. You are going between Vaults fast. There are quite literally endless Vaults on these Layers – but you are limited to five on a single Layer for Relics – after that, you will just get a cache of Essence as a Dreamer, or Souls as an Astral Demon."

"Seems arbitrary," Ollie said through Jace's external speakers on the armor. "Not more Relics past five from one Layer?"

The quieter one shrugged, "This is how it is."

Jace nodded and looked back to the reliquary, "Well, bring it on. Let's see what you've got in store for me."

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[Vault Challenge – Activated.]

[Defeat The Unmade.]

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The two figures vanished as Jace's awareness of them flickered out of existence. The room began to shift, distort, and warp. The walls fell away, and Jace found himself standing in an endless lake. It was shallow – the water barely coming up an inch – but the whole place was placid and calm. The skies were a deep, cream white, and expanded endlessly.

Far above, a single solitary object floated. A pulsating orb of sickly grey, brown, and white. It flashed crimson, and then began to almost beat like a heart. Jace raised his hand and was about to use Void Beam, but the quieter Ancient spoke. "No Void powers, Dreamer. We wish to see your prowess with Psykinetics."

Jace frowned and instead pulled back the Hero's Blade, flinging it forward. The blade rocketed forward, piercing through and out the back of the fleshy bulb. Thick, viscous, brown blood seeped down from the wound, and the pulse quickened even further. Jace recalled the blade and threw again, scoring another hit that went through the object. Explosions of golden flame surged with each strike, as the Heart of Valor thrummed alongside Jace's beating heart.

It is coming. Get ready, Ollie stated with deadly seriousness. I will have Shattered Limits ready to go.

The orb flared with an umber light and tendrils of grey flesh began to extend down to the lake. Jace threw the sword at each of them – severing the tendrils which fell to the lake surface before sinking below. How does that work? He thought. It's an inch deep-

His Edge's Intuition [Danger Sense] notified him of incoming harm, and Jace took a few steps to his left and brought his shield to bear. The grey tentacles that had hit the water and began to sink below the surface had re-emerged, and whipped out at him. Closer up, he could see they were covered in wickedly sharp spikes, barbs, and hooks. He caught them on his shield and whipped the sword around, cutting the protruding appendages off as they fell, wriggling. The golden flames burned along them, incinerating until it touched the water. The same golden burst of flames cascaded from the impact, and Jace could sense that the specific threat was dealt with.

Looking back up to the flesh orb, dozens of tendrils were just making their impact with the water, going into the lake. His [Danger Sense] kicked off again – but all around him. Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). Detonate. He activated the Skill and launched himself up right before tendrils exploded from all around where he had been standing. The tendrils then launched themselves skyward at him.

Raging Cleave (Rank 11), Jace thought as he activated the Skill. The phantasmal, crimson blade extended past his sword's reach, and he spun in a tight circle on his upward ascent – a blender that cut through the tendrils with ease. Explosions of gold echoed out from where the holy weapon sliced through and burned away the attacking appendages.

The orb surged once more, a deep, heaving beat that caused the air to vibrate. Jace turned and used his Soul Tether to stop his upward momentum. Throwing his sword once more, he was shocked as the orb shot out a tendril that gripped the weapon. Warping it back to his hand, Jace swung to his left as more tendrils shot up from the lake below.

Get to the core, Ollie stated.

I'm trying! Jace thought back as he kept having to redirect his aerial travel as the whipping, spiked tendrils popped up in his way, forcing him to a different direction. The aura of Hero's Arena was not very wide – only a few feet from him – and he had no other area-of-effect options other than Void.

Wait, no, I do, Jace thought as he tapped into the Cosmic System in him. "Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4) [Exploding]." The arcing projectiles, all nine of them, shot forth – limned with the golden flames of his Psykinetic power. The purple and gold flickering darts beelined for the center mass of the huge, fleshy orb – slamming into it, drilling deep, and exploding. The dim-purple and bright gold shockwaves erupted and the sphere blew apart into meaty, grey chunks. All of the tendrils lost their tension and fell into the water below, laying on the surface and twitching weakly before stilling.

"Is that it?" Jace asked. "Honestly, that was easy compared to the other Vaults."

"That's not it!" the chattier Ancient said from somewhere. "Phase two is coming up!"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Phase 2? Jace thought. He descended to the lake and watched as a fleshy mass of grey flesh that was in the center of the orb stirred. Something moved inside the bulk of flesh, and what stood up caused Jace's heart to beat quickly as he felt a deep, primal fear.

"What do you think?" The Ancient asked his quiet fellow as the two watched the display unfold from above.

The quieter one grunted, "I think this Dreamer, this Wraith…a potent possible weapon."

The louder one hummed in agreement, "Mhmm. But one who admitted they desire to isolate their existence."

The quieter one sighed, "An interesting route that none have taken so far. I am curious to see how it develops…" the faintest of smiles crossed his visage, "Now shush, I want to see how he handles the Unmade."

The grotesque abomination and facsimile of grey flesh, white sinew, and bright pink muscles let out a screech as it birthed itself from the fleshy sack. Tendrils of white webbing clung to its figure as it stood up on spindly, thin legs. It was an emaciated corpse with a hollow, sunken, human-like face. It let out a screech of pain, of agony, and lifted one of the tentacles from the water. The tendril straightened out, becoming a wicked club covered with spikes, hooks, and serrations that pulsated with an inner life – something dead struggling to return to the living.

Jace felt his Emotion Source thrum in his chest. The golden aura surrounding him surged to its full distance, filling the environment with shining flames. This thing was an abomination. A perversion of the highest order. It needed to be destroyed. Cleansed. Purged from existence with righteous fire. Jace ran forward and slashed diagonally; but this thing caught the sword strike, the explosion of flame ringing out around them and yet not hurting the creature in the slightest.

It let out an ear-piercing shriek and punched forward. Jace felt the chest plate crush in, felt his ribs crushed as his sternum cracked down the center. His lungs, exploding as air escaped in a gasp – and he went flying backward, tumbling end over end before he rolled to a stop in the water.

Shattered Limits (Rank 19) [Single-Minded Fury] active! Also activating your Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric]! Ollie sounded quite panicked. Get up and move now!

Jace rolled to the side and felt the impact of the club in the water next to him. His organs and bones mended as he kicked up to his feet and brought his shield to bear, getting it in the way of the next overhand swing. The entity screamed; a ghoulish, hollow-sounding sound. Yet it was full of rage despite the hollow nature of its screech.

Jace brought his sword in a horizontal slash across the creature, and it simply held its hand out – grabbed the blade despite the burning explosion, and then held firm. Fulmination, Jace thought as he activated the stored damage, releasing a shockwave of gold energy that scored a deep wound on the thing's arm – near severing it as it dangled by a piece of stringy sinew. Jumping back out of its reach, Jace ducked under the club swung in a flailing charge. He was able to interpose the shield, and with each block, a geysery of flaming, golden energy burst out from the [Retaliating] Infusion.

The torso writhed and a scything arm of bone shot out right at Jace's torso. He ducked the blow, but then felt it twist and turn into his back, digging down into the armor and finding purchase enough to keep him held in place as it brought the mace down on his lower back. Jace felt the crunching pain, but he could still move. Digging his feet into the ground, he pushed forward, dropping the sword, moving his hand directly below him, and re-summoning it so that it was tip-first, stabbing into the thing's torso.

He lanced through it, and his momentum carried the two back several feet as bony protrusions lashed out of its back to hold it steady. The bursting, golden flames continued to eat at the creature's torso, and it let out a howl of agony and rage. Jace didn't let up, and kept pushing forward, wrenching the sword up until it was in the thing's neck. With a final wrench as he pushed up with his legs, he bisected the thing from the chin up through the top of the head.

The creature fell back, and Jace was sucking in deep breaths as the pain receded, his Dark Matter Mending soothing his wounds and fixing his broken and splintered bones. "It…It's dead," he growled.

If it was, then the room would return, Ollie advised. Back away, and we have to wait and see what happens next.

Jace did as he was instructed, and stood there. Energy slowly draining at about three-quarters full capacity. He stood there, with bated breath, as the corpse before him stayed perfectly put.

Hmm. Odd.

Jace's [Danger Sense] activated from directly below him, and he jumped straight up as a bony, toothy mouth shot out of the ground. He was fast enough to avoid the clamping jaws, and using his Soul Tether, he pulled himself higher until he hit the invisible roof of this odd demiplane. The waters beneath tore asunder as a pulsating, grey-white fleshy mouth with a deep, crimson, spiked-bone lined throat swirled like a blender waiting to chew Jace up. Outer teeth are what he had just dodged, and those were also spiked with those bony protrusions.

Whipping tentacles lashed up, and Jace swung back and forth, re-shooting his grapple line at fixed points in space as he dashed through the skies, taking aim and throwing his sword over and over at the formless mass. He chopped at them, cutting them off as they came – but they were endless, and a few gripped around his legs and began to pull. He tried kicking them off, slashing them away – but they were joined by more and kept pulling.

It's either let the tether go and get dragged to it, or lose my leg. Jace was in hostile territory in the middle of the Astral Verge…but, he also had his means to travel back to his universe ready-to-go. The issue was if there was more to this Vault than this single challenge – handling them single-legged would be very difficult. All of these thoughts processed in a single flash of insight, and Jace let the Soul Tether fade as he allowed himself to be dragged to the bone-shard blender.

As he drew closer, he fired off another Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4) [Exploding] into the center of the circling spines. All nine sank in, traveled into the depths, and exploded with deep, purple and bright gold shockwaves. The creature let out a roar of pain, and Jace fired off a volley of another ten waves – each time draining his energy a bit more as he was dragged to the creature's center. Come on! He shouted in his thoughts, hoping that the barrage would deal enough damage to kill the creature.

Dart after dart shot in, and like a machine gun with explosive ammunition, burst once within the creature. After a full ninety darts had shot into the creature, Jace was finally at the edge of the now-much-slower-spinning teeth. Void Step (Rank 10).

He vanished from its grip and appeared fifty feet above it. Re-latching his Soul Tether to the sky, he continued to throw his weapon and recall it, unleashing [Fulmination] in golden explosions that finally killed the creature. It let out a pained wail before sinking beneath the surface of the water.

The room reformed around Jace, and he dropped down to the stone as the two Ancients reappeared. "Interesting," the quieter one commented with a curious tone.