Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

Lucian bumped Glenn's shoulder, whispering. "Are you sure about this?"

Glenn looked at him and whispered back through his teeth. "Absolutely not. But it's our only chance, so might as well check that."

The whole group, even Pebble and Whitey, were hiding behind a dune a short distance away from the spot where Glenn detected traces of teleportation. Milena cloaked them in illusion magic, rendering them as stealthy as possible. If a Newborn Ruler came here, there was a good chance they'd be spotted, but then the opportunity to take one down was something that could turn the war upside down as much as destroying the Orc factories.

So it was all good, really.

And if things really devolved too much, with, for example, multiple Newborn Rulers, they still had the Milena's Grandfather card.

'I really like the idea of calling a tactical Exan to the battlefield,' commented Diamanes. Glenn's lips twitched, but he restrained his smile from showing up. Only the wind whistled through the dunes into a soft song. The twin moons hung high in the sky, watching over their covert operation.

"I don't think they're going to show up," Sahro said simply, breaking the silence.

"Be a little optimistic, won't you?" Milena murmured, sweat beading on her face from concentration. The way she wove her Mana to maintain the illusion was breathtaking, in Glenn's eyes. It was as if she were cutting fabrics out of the air with graceful movements, then overlapping the layers around them to build a kind of invisible shelter. A true demonstration of expertise and mastery of her magic.

"Wait! I can feel it!" Liara suddenly said, tensing up on the sand. The rest of them reacted similarly, ready to grab their weapons at a moment's notice.

The same spot where Glenn detected traces of teleportation earlier trembled, reality warping out with a light-disturbing movement. For an instant, there was nothing, and the other five hundred grumbling Orcs, their weapons raised and their officers clamoring orders.

"Holy fuck, I was right...!" Glenn gasped in disbelief, a smile drawing up on his face despite him.

"No, I was right," corrected Diamanes, but nobody cared. They were all concentrated on the enemy troop, and most of all, the one who brought them here. A human mage hidden under a lavish cloak with a symbol they could have recognized anywhere by now. A circle wrapped in thorns with a cross in its center.

The Thorn's Church.

Glenn almost spat blood when he saw the symbol. The cultists should have been eradicated from this world after Glenn and Harriet the King's Blade destroyed the religion's pope, but no.

"They're still there, putting their filthy hands in every place they can, huh?" Sahro hissed, his prosthesis smoking with angry steam.

"He's about to return to the place he came from!" Liara warned, pointing at the Thorn's Church mage. An Archmagi, from what Glenn could see. They had a very short time to decide on what they should do.

Lucian cursed. "Fuck it, capture the mage!"

Milena dismissed the illusion and gasped in relief as everyone else charged with spells and swords. Pebble roared and catapulted himself into the Orcs in a similar manner to when he was still just a small rock dragon. Aura blades crashed against his scales, but they could barely scratch him. The dragon slaughtered the Orcs, biting down heads and ripping bodies with its claws.

Liara had jumped on Whitey's back, a pair of wings of light growing out of her back. Her sword flew next to her, piercing through necks and hearts, while she used her spear to pierce violently through the enemy ranks. She looked like a Valkyrie descended from Asgard, flying up and down on her griffin. A Saint Orc tried to take her out, but Sahro appeared out of nowhere in a red thunder, his Primal Aura crashing against his opponent's blade.

Lucian was already weaving his royal spells, twilight and shadows mixing to swallow enemies and restrain them. Glenn ignored everything and headed straight for the most important goal: the Thorn's Church Archmagi.

"Capture him! We might be able to take his Teleportation ability!" Diamanes screamed excitedly. Glenn pushed that thought away for now and used his Gravity Manipulation to pull himself through the chaotic battlefield. Orc limbs and guts flew past him, failing to stain his clothes. His Saturn Rings were firing on all cylinders, deflecting any projectiles, be they flying Aura blades or spells. With his power as an Archmagi, it would take at the very least a Saint to break through his defenses. And even then, that was only one spell among many others.

The teleportation cultist's eyes widened as he watched Glenn approach at a ridiculously fast speed. He interrupted his casting and slammed his hands together, suddenly warping out. Glenn cursed, stopping dead in his tracks.

"Shit!"

"No, focus!" Diamanes shouted. Glenn jumped in the air, searching through the battlefield with his Mana Sight.

"This fucker!" The cultist was doing multiple short-range teleportations, moving through the chaos like a fly.

Glenn aimed with his finger, his eyes bloodshot. "Polaris' Hand."

Everything between him and his target vanished instantly, pulverized into a bloody fog. One Orc Crusader stumbled to the side, half his body vaporized. And just as the spell ended, the cultist was captured. He flew like a cannonball to Glenn's left hand, whose fingers wrapped around his throat.

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"K-Kugh, Blasphemer!" The Archmagi grunted, beating down helplessly on Glenn's arm. A spell began to take shape around his hand, but it shattered as Glenn exerted his Gravity Manipulation on him.

"Why don't you go to sleep, hmm?" Glenn said with a fake smile, using his powers to create an area with no air around the cultist's head. He quickly turned pale, gasping for oxygen that didn't exist. The cultist soon fainted, his body turning as loose as a rag.

"I got the Archmagi!" Glenn shouted, jumping high in the sky and soaring above the bloody mess. Half of the Orcs had already been eradicated, their corpses sinking into the black sand. Sahro's opponent had been turned into a fuming, mangled mess, while Lucian and Liara kept on reaping the lives of dozens of Orcs with every spell. Lucian could probably take them down faster if he wanted, but it was evident he was keeping his strength for later.

Pebble roared and extricated himself out of a pile of Orcs that desperately tried to harm him, flying straight toward Glenn.

"Solar Flare." The latter flicked his finger in his pet's direction, a torrent of flames washing off all the filth that'd been stuck on his scales. The dragon came out with his scales heated red, his one eye staring at Glenn excitedly.

"Yeah, I'm coming up as soon as you're done cooling off," Glenn said as he turned his attention to the rest of the fight. In not even ten minutes, the detachment of Orcs had been annihilated, and the Archmagi that teleported them there captured.

Lucian cleaned himself up with a quick Mundare and smiled. "Excellent work, everyone."

Sahro scoffed. "The minimum from us. We still have yet to fight anyone truly dangerous. Heh, how powerful have we become that only Newborn Rulers or entire teams of rank six are threatening?"

"Speak for yourself," Milena muttered as she walked up to Glenn. "Put him down, I'll start scouring his mind right away. We can't waste even a second."

Glenn complied and watched with his hands on his waist as the woman grabbed the cultist's head and closed her eyes. Half a minute later, she reopened her eyes and scowled.

"Oh, this is going to be complicated." She kicked the cultist's leg. "You. Wake up."

The cultist rose silently, his eyes dull. Milena pointed at him with a grimace. "From what I could glean from this guy's memories, there's going to be a hell of a mess as soon as we go in. And we don't have the time to prepare a plan, because the teleportation point moves at all times. If he doesn't return as soon as he's done bringing in the reinforcements, the safety measures will activate, and they'll run away."

Glenn slapped the cultist's back. "Okay, don't say more. Teleport us all, moron, so we can put an end to whatever warcrime is going on at the Celestial Gods."

"Your existence is a warcrime, Glenn."

"Yeah, but I'm on the nice guys' side, so it's fine. Milena?"

Milena sketched a smile, amused by Glenn and Diamanes' exchange. "On it. In ten seconds. Get ready."

The world trembled as Pebble turned into his tiny form and jumped on Glenn's shoulder, while Whitey simply pressed his beak against Liara's back. Sahro and Lucian exchanged a nod, and Liara steeled her resolve, her sword and spear ready to cut and pierce. Glenn's grin grew wider, his purple eyes gleaming with a wicked light.

"Three, two, one... Hold on, everyone!" Milena shouted as reality warped.

'Teleportation is so unpleasant,' thought Glenn as he felt his guts being wrenched and squeezed like a wet sponge.

'But it's very convenient, isn't it?' Diamanes' mocking laughter did nothing to help stop his stomach from churning.

The world suddenly returned to normal, and Glenn prepared himself for a fight, a Black Hole in one hand and a Sun in the other, but—

"Damn it!" He heard Sahro spat in frustration, a few meters to his right. Glenn clenched his teeth and cursed inwardly as he used Gravity Manipulation to keep himself from diving straight for the ground. They were high in the sky, above even the clouds. The air was sparse, freezing, and the sun was incredibly bright. It was so cold that the sweat turned to ice on his skin.

The others were all in similar position, Liara, Sahro and Milena grabbing on Whitey's for dear life while the teleporting mage fell to the ground without moving.

"Oh no, you won't die that easily," Glenn stated as he used Gravity Manipulation to pull the mind-controlled Archmagi back to them. Pebble turned into his massive, draconic form, allowing Lucian and Glenn to land. The Archmagi was thrown on the dragon's back without a care.

"An air base, then," Glenn concluded. "Where are we?"

Lucian looked at his Observer, frowning. "Hmm... Looks like the edge of the Ink Dunes... wait, no, we're on the northwestern coast of the Eastern Continent. Near the Dead Lands, if my memory is correct."

Liara perked up, her expression somber. "The Dead Lands? That's where we ended up back then with Nelg and Glenn, when we came out of the Horizon Gates!"

"Is it really far away from the Ink Dunes?" Sahro asked, clueless.

Milena grimaced. "On feet, that's six months of travel. And the Dead Lands are supposed to be infested with necromancers, Rifts, and all the monsters that come with those."

"Nasty place for sure," Lucian rubbed the tip of his nose and leaned over Pebble, staring down at the ground. "Well, that sucks. Uhh, what do we do?"

Glenn squinted, checking the surroundings with his Mana Sight. The area was definitely rich in Mana, explaining the abundance of Rifts, but he couldn't see the tracks of the Orc air base. If it were an air base. But then, what else could it be when it's literally kilometers high in the sky?

"How high are we?" Liara asked curiously, more to herself than to anyone, but Sahro still answered.

"I'd say ten... fifteen kilometers." He shrugged when he saw her looking at him strangely. "I had to test how far I could go with my Primal Aura before tiring out. My limit is twice that, when it starts to get hotter again. This place is the coldest, by the way. I'll be fine, but you mages should put on something warm," he mocked as Aura flared around him.

Glenn rolled his eyes, but shivered from head to toe when his adrenaline levels went down. Indeed, it was absolutely freezing here! Milena and Liara had already put on some warm clothes from their dimensional pouches. Lucian shrugged, unbothered.

"I've got a nice, six-hundred-year-old artifact from the time of Julius Magnus the Second. It regulates temperature perfectly." He scoffed and shook his head. "As if I would let the cold dare bother me."

"Well, this is all nice and fun, and the view is... not so great, considering Glenn doesn't give a shit about it. But do I need to remind everyone that we have some green piggies to slaughter? The air base is probably not that far, just find it for the love of me!" Diamanes clamored, annoyed.

Milena turned to Glenn and whispered. "Don't you still have that spell to shut people up?"

Glenn winced. "I sealed it, but... oh well, I'm sure Gundam would understand."

"Wait—!"

The team flew through the sky, searching for their target on Pebble and Whitey's back, safe from Diamanes' ramblings. Surprisingly, it wasn't the air base that they found, but a castle.

A very, very, very tall castle.

Absurdly tall.