The Path of Ascension

Matt knew he shouldn't be surprised by a monster attacking them the second they landed, but he was still annoyed.

When he actually got a glimpse of said monster, that annoyance turned into surprise.

Where earlier they had been attacked by frogmen, this was a more human-looking Fishman.

It was bipedal with generally human proportions, but the humanoid features ceased at its silhouette. It had scale-covered skin, webbed hands, and fins protruding from its elbows and knees. To top it off, its face looked like someone merged a shark's head with a human one.

The monster was a hundred feet away and sprinting at them when it started to shriek.

The attack immediately popped Matt's eardrums and nearly made him stagger to the ground from the pain and disorientation, but he remained on his feet and moved to intercept the monster.

Susanne had blood running down her own neck and shoulders, but she stood next to him.

A dozen feet away from them, the Fishman pushed out a hand and emitted a blast of water that Matt suspected was [Water Jet], an equivalent of [Flamethrower].

He didn’t want to spend the needed Genesis Energy to deflect or block the blow, so he sidestepped and circled the monster, trying to draw its attention so his team could attack it from behind.

It almost seemed to work. His flanking maneuver grabbed its attention, and the monster turned to face him, allowing Susanne to rush forward. Matt thought they would be able to kill the monster without spending any Genesis Energy, but just as Susanne was reaching blade range, the Fishman jumped.

Seeing that, Susanne started moving to intercept it where it would land, but the Fishman kicked its legs and swam through the air as if it was water.

It reached a height of fifty feet in an instant, then opened its mouth to scream again.

This time, Matt’s spiritual sense screamed that he was in danger. Just a second later, several fish came out of the barrier that protected them from the ocean water. Like the Fishman, they floated in the air as if it was water.

Liz sent through their AI’s, “Aster, kill the Fishman. Everyone else, keep the fish away from him and buy her the time she needs.”

Matt was aghast at the six oversized fish swimming through the air.

Two looked like a variation of tuna, but they each had a bright orange stripe down their flank, and their bodies flickered as if not entirely in reality.

The next fish to come out was a shark of some kind, and its teeth and fins glowed with Genesis Energy in some reinforcing spell.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth fish were minnow-looking creatures, but they were beyond fast, and Matt could only see them in the brief moments that they stopped before darting off again. Despite being smaller than the other fish that had answered the call of the Fishman, they were still as big as his hand.

Matt was still confident in dealing with them, and was flying towards the shark when a shadow passed the barrier of water.

Seeing the size of that monster, his mouth went dry.

It only got worse when the monster broke through the water and entered the air.

A one-hundred-foot long eel swimming through the air was a truly horrifying sight.

Matt called over his AI. “I'll hold off the eel and try to keep the shark's attention.”

Without hesitation, he activated [Cracked Phantom Armor] at a low setting, but was ready to flare it at a moment’s notice. With his spiritual sense tuned to the slightest hint of danger, he bounded forward towards the shark.

The instant before he reached it he cast [Mana Slash], which lashed out in a golden arc and opened a gash in the shark's rough flesh. Having hurt it, Matt became the focus of its attention, but that was exactly what he wanted.

Pushing his Concept to the limit, he flew at the massive eel and repeated his actions.

The Genesis Energy was nothing when compared to their lives.

Still, the attack that opened the shark's side up left little more than a scratch on the eel's flank. Matt wasn’t disheartened by the lack of damage and flew at the eel's body, trying to impede its charge towards where Aster was trying to kill the Fishman.

With his spiritual perception spread, Matt watched the shark dart at him from behind and waited until the last second to move backwards and towards the side, cutting out with his sword at its open mouth.

The blow landed with a satisfying impact and cut a grave wound in the shark's mouth and flank.

Blood flowed, but before he was able to capitalize, Matt was forced to activate [Willow In The Wind] to dodge the open mouth of the eel as it tried to bite him in half.

As the body of the beast flew just feet past Matt, he activated his new gloves.

Gravity came under his control, yet it did nothing to stop the massive beast or even change its direction.

But that wasn’t his goal.

When the wound on its side passed him, he flared the gravity, and flesh ripped as the eel’s weakened armor was attracted to his gloves.

The eel screamed in pain, but even as it tried to swim away, it tore more of its flesh off its side.

Before he could follow up, the shark returned, and he was forced to deactivate his gloves and fly away in an evasive maneuver.

He was just gaining distance between himself and the shark when its tail began glowing with Genesis Energy, and its speed increased to a level that even his enhanced mind couldn’t follow.

Trusting decades of battle instincts, he put his blade in a defensive position between his chest and the shark. It was a good thing, too, as the shark seemed to teleport at him with its jaws wide open, trying to shred him to pieces.

His sword got caught in its mouth, preventing the monster from landing the hit, but it seemed unbothered, biting down with everything its spell-enforced teeth could muster.

Matt concentrated and cast [Flamethrower] from his head. Casting a spell didn’t have to come from the hands, but it was humanity’s instinctive nature to do so. It just came more naturally to cast from there.

But at the same time, every kid, deep down, wanted to be a dragon. Matt was no exception, and it had made Luna’s lessons on casting from the rest of his body all the easier to grasp.

He didn’t need to actually exhale to ‘breathe’ fire, but a torrent of golden fire flooded from his mouth into the sea creature's open jaws that were still trying to bite through his sword.

The shark tried to flinch away in pain, but Matt reactivated his gravity gauntlets and kept it from retreating.

As the shark wiggled, sending them tumbling through the air, Matt cast [Firebolt]. The Tier 14 spell punched through the monster's weakened mouth and carved a hole through its entire body.

The shark fell as whatever spell that allowed it to fly in the air ended, along with its life. The rush of Genesis Energy was substantial, and more than paid for what he had spent in killing it.

He turned to fight the eel, but Liz came in like a wrecking ball of blood in her golem form.

Seeing that she had the eel well in hand, Matt turned to Aster and saw that she was currently tearing the Fishman apart with a volley of ice shards.

Susanne seemed to be having the hardest time, as the minnows darted in near-instant movements.

One of their bodies lay on the ground, cut in half, but the other two seem to have learned from their companions' mistakes.

Matt landed next to her and spent the Genesis Energy to message her, “I’ll block. You hit.” They both still had busted eardrums, after all.

She nodded her understanding, and he sent a strand of Genesis Energy into his gloves while staying ready to max out his energy throughput to his armor.

The minnows paused and oriented themselves opposite of him, and then disappeared.

Matt felt both impacts breaking [Cracked Phantom Armor] before he could register anything else. He didn’t let that pain stop him, and he flared his gauntlet's power.

That increase in gravity stopped the fish's movements long enough for Susanna’s two swords to cut them apart.

As the bodies fell to the ground, Matt was amazed by the fact they broke [Cracked Phantom Armor]. At first, he had thought they only broke the skill, but they had bored holes straight through his body.

They hadn’t hit anything vital, but he now needed to spend Genesis Energy on healing.

He and Susanne flew over to where Liz fought the giant eel with Aster's help. The two of them were there in an instant, and the four against one bout quickly spelled the end of the monster's life.

The Genesis Energy they got was like a wave, and easily reimbursed them for their troubles.

Matt, with his channels, spent more than the others during each fight, but even he was able to earn back his investment.

When they landed, he deactivated [Cracked Phantom Armor] and cast [Ranged Heal] to close up the wounds on his chest where the minnows had punched through his body.

[Lesser Regeneration] was efficient, but to prevent himself from bleeding more, he'd need to spend Genesis Energy to keep either [Cracked Phantom Armor] going or cast [Bandage]. Either way, he needed to spend Genesis Energy, and preferred to heal.

[Lesser Regeneration] was more efficient with a slow trickle of energy, so healing the external wounds put him ahead.

It also helped heal his burst eardrums from the Fishman's attack.

Susanne walked over and picked up the minnow's corpse and inspected it. He saw what she did almost immediately.

Now that the fish weren’t flickering all over the place, they could see a bone ridge that ran up their heads like a blade. It explained how they were able to punch through both his magical and physical armor without seeming to even slow down.

Matt wasn’t sure that even the second layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor] would have stopped the fish's charge after inspecting the other two bodies.

The monsters seemed built around the ability to punch through armor and thick skin, which was probably how they fed in the ocean.

Liz came over with Aster, who had grabbed the two giant tuna with her Concept and gave Matt a pleading look.

He knew exactly what she wanted, and rolled his eyes.

They had nearly been fish food, and she wanted him to make her a tuna sandwich with the half-disappeared monsters.

Still, some good food sounded nice, so Matt inspected the cuts that Liz had made, and after determining that the monster’s flesh wasn’t poisoned or anything, he filleted it before throwing it in his spatial ring. The ring wasn't able to completely stop time like the higher Tier rings could, but the fish would keep for the few hours it would take them to find a safe place to set down.

They were all wounded, and needed a break sooner rather than later.

With the monsters dead and the Fishman also torn apart, they brought their chest of goods off the beach and onto the rocky area they could hide in.

There wasn't enough room for their house, but Matt was able to purify the fish for himself and Susanne so it was palatable to eat for their human bodies, before cooking everyone a small feast.

Aster kept stealing bits of the tuna, so he tossed her a strip with a glare.

She knew better than to steal too many scraps from the chef. He had uses for them, after all.

By the time they were munching on food, their ears were all healed thanks to a combination of healing spells and potions, predominantly provided by Liz.

Potions, unlike Matt’s talismans, seemed to be fine to Minkalla, as they continued to work like normal.

It was a good thing, too, since they had each sustained injuries and needed to make up for nearly a week of inactivity that the first island had forced upon them.

With their ears healed, they started reviewing the last fight.

“I think it was a tamer, not a summoner.” Liz said between mouthfuls of grilled fish.

Matt didn’t disagree, but he wasn’t quite sure that it was the answer. “I think it was a skill, yes, but notice that it wasn’t able to actually control the fish. If it had been able to tame them, we wouldn’t have been able to block them from defending the Fishman.” Matt ran his fish through a sauce he had made before, saying, “If it's not a skill, but rather some innate ability, it's probably much more limited than we would normally plan around.”

Susanne and Aster said nothing as Liz and Matt tried to dissect the Fishman’s ability, but that discussion only lasted so long.

After they were mostly healed, Matt spent a few minutes to make a quick and dirty enchantment that he hoped would stop their eardrums from being ruptured any time they fought a Fishman. He suspected that the enchantment would only work once before they needed to fuel it with Genesis Energy, but it was simple enough, and could be fueled for hours on what they had decided was a single unit of Genesis Energy.

With their bodies healed up, they started to plan for going further up the island.

Before they left, they remembered the stupidly heavy chest they had lugged around, as well as the voice that had spoken to them when they had first discovered it.

They opened it now they were on the island, expecting another clue.

As the lid creaked apart, they found an odd assortment of items inside its depths.

Some of it seemed useful, like the enchantment detection wand that Matt intended to keep, and the mirror that had no reflection, but rather runes that he figured would break illusions.

Along with those trinkets, there were some items that seemed little more than trash. What good a dried duck's foot and peach stone were was a mystery to them.

Storing everything, they were going to leave the chest when Susanne kicked it to release her irritation at having to carry the damn thing around for so long.

Except, she nearly broke a toe when she kicked it. The chest hadn’t become any lighter now that they had arrived.

That caused them to give the chest another look.

It still had engravings on its surface where the compass had come out of, but none of them seemed useful.

Aster asked the question Matt was trying to avoid. “Are we supposed to drag this thing up the mountain?”

Liz betrayed him as she nodded. “I bet it's one of those things where we can complete the ruin with just the items inside, but we need the chest itself for the greatest rewards.”

“I’m not going to be able to carry it the whole time, not without mana. Susanne, could I get a hand putting it on the elephant?”

Liz raised an eyebrow as they manhandled the chest onto her summon, but when Matt shot her a good-hearted glare, she laughed and gave the two of them a hand in fastening the treasure to the pachyderm’s back. It didn’t take that long in the end, but the summon wouldn’t be helping them fight in this section at all. Hopefully, Minkalla would consider that enough of a cost, so it wouldn’t add some Genesis Energy cost to the elephant beyond the reserve to summon it, or block the item from working altogether for bypassing the ‘challenge’ of carrying the treasure chest.

Their compass pointed inward, which was a good enough direction for them to push forward.

They were mildly shocked when they found a proper city at the base of the mountain after they climbed off the beach. But that surprise was nothing when they saw that the mountain wasn’t a mountain at all.

It was a palace.

It was at least a hundred stories tall, and they lost the ability to count as the top levels of the palace were shrouded in mist at the top of the bubble.

Spreading his spiritual perception through the city, Matt found a perfectly normal city, if a low-tech one. There were oddities that couldn’t be easily explained.

The houses had perfectly cut glass windows that were all identical, with fine metal latches, but those same houses had hand-carved wooden utensils and rough wooden furniture.

That was only one of the oddities they discovered as they made their way through the seemingly empty city towards the mountain.

They were around five blocks in when Liz halted; Matt and Susanne didn’t need any more prompting to ready their weapons.

Liz whispered. “I sense a half dozen Fishmen tearing into an octopus thing. North-northwest.”

Matt stretched his spiritual perception and was just able to find it at the farthest edge of his vision.

And Liz was right, not that he expected anything else.

The Fishmen were tearing at the octopus like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. It almost reminded Matt of zombies.

He paused at that thought and shared it. “They look like zombies. Look at the jerky movements and ravenous hunger. It's like the Fishmen are possessed.”

Susanne shrugged. “At least that's the story the ruin is trying to tell. They’re still rift monsters.” She corrected herself quickly. “Ruin monsters. But the point still stands. They’re monsters.”

Matt nodded at her point. It was a valid one. These weren't people they could save if they were strong enough, or anything of the sort.

Aster flicked an ear as she offered. “Let's still skirt them. Something feels weird.”

No one had any issue with that. Still, no matter how careful they were, they were forced to fight another Fishman that seemed more under control of its movements, like the one on the beach.

It started the fight by screaming, but with the enchantment Matt made, their eardrums were able to hold up under the stress, and all four of them rushed the Fishman in retaliation.

This one raised its hand, but instead of casting [Water Jet], it cast [Water Bubble], and Susanne's first attack bounced off the shield.

Matt redirected his slash into a thrust, punching through and popping the shield.

He was ready to block the monster's next swipe, and sidestepped as Susanne came in for a second attack.

The Fishman tried to take to the air, but a shard of ice nearly took its head off, and it fell back to the ground.

Matt and Susanne attacked from different directions, but were blocked by another cast of [Water Bubble].

Thankfully, Liz rushed forward and thrust her spear through the bubble, skewering the monster in the process.

With her weapon in its chest, it was a sitting duck for Matt and Susanne's blades to scissor across its neck.

As its body disappeared, causing a rush of Genesis Energy, a skill shard formed where its remains were.

Matt picked it up and looked it over, before tossing it into his storage ring. He’d inspect it later.

It took them another four hours to make their way up to the base of the palace. They only had to fight two more Fishmen, but only one dropped anything, an item that would allow them to breath water.

Not an exactly useful item, as they had Matt’s enchantments, but it was a good backup if nothing else. It did look cool with its intricate design, but that was only desirable for a collector.

At the wall of the palace, they attempted to fly over it, but discovered there was a barrier activated.

Liz looked at Matt and asked, “Do we break it?”

Matt walked over to the wall and sent his spiritual perception into it to inspect the runes inside.

Luna had given them a year-long lesson about breaking and entering, but this was a ruin. It might or might not be something he could disable.

After seeing the runes that made the barrier, he nodded. “Yeah, I can take it down if you give me some time.”

Aster shook her head from where she was floating in the air at the top of the wall. “Don't bother. We attracted attention with our attempt.”

And she was right. With his spiritual perception pulled away from the wall, he could sense eight guards.

These were well armored and armed, unlike the Fishmen they had fought through the city.

They each had full plate armor paired with weapons glowing with Genesis Energy. They kept their distance and maintained a loose formation; close enough to coordinate, but too far to wipe them all out at once.

It was surprisingly well planned.

Liz shook her head. “Let's retreat and try to find an entrance.”

They ended up finding a shuffling mass of Fishmen and followed them as they gathered more of their kind before rushing off.

Following the horde, they were led to the front gate, where sixteen guards defended it.

Seeing similar monsters fighting each other would have been interesting enough, but one of the Fishmen in the attacking horde cast [Water Jet] at the empty air.

Except, the attack hit a floating octopus that had been previously invisible.

Seeing it floating in the air was shocking, but the deactivated camouflage revealed tentacles that stretched down and burrowed into the guards’ heads.

The guards were being puppeted by the octopodes.

As this particular octopus was injured it became visible, but it slowly started to fade back into invisibility.

Matt looked to the others and saw that they agreed with him.

The normal Fishmen were going to be beaten back, but they could change the game with a surprise attack.

Matt took a deep breath and jumped to a nearby roof, and just as the wounded octopus was about to vanish, he cast [Cracked Mana Spear]. The octopus he could barely see was instantly punctured, and gore and brain matter leaked out of its deflating head.

He waved the beam of mana around and found the other octopus. It suffered a similar fate to its dead brethren, and fell down when his golden attack struck it.

Seeing how easily the octopodes went down, he felt a twinge of pain at the wasted Genesis Energy, but it had been worth the cost to ensure that they were killed instantly.

The guards were quickly set upon by the remaining Fishmen, torn apart, and eaten.

Susanne stepped forward and cut the remaining Fishmen down, thus ending the fight.

Matt walked over and inspected the carnage.

He paused by Liz, who was looking at the underwater breathing necklace they had gotten as a drop.

Before, he had thought it was just an intricate design, but looking closer, the chain was made from a pair of octopus tentacles linking in the back.

Seeing the fate of the guard Fishmen, Matt didn’t want that thing anywhere near his body.

“It's a good thing we have my enchantments.” He tried to make a joke, but it wasn’t funny, so he added, “I’ll make us a few more underwater breathing enchantments and something to prevent us from getting a tentacle shoved into our brains.”

Liz nodded, and then a stream of blood rose from the ground and formed an umbrella over their heads and a few feet wider to the side.

None of them blamed her for the possible waste of Genesis Energy.

Matt would spend all the Genesis Energy they had gathered to save himself from the guards' fate.

Still, they needed to loot the bodies as they started to vanish.

They found four skill shards and two essence stones, which was a good haul, but worryingly, both the octopodes dropped the underwater breathing necklaces.

Not sure if they were cursed, they put them away and moved to one of the buildings in the city with an intact roof.

Once inside, Matt burnt Genesis Energy to have his AI create an enchantment to protect them from possession.

Thankfully, it was simple, and something already existed in the rune depository that he had.

He even suspected it would work better with the Genesis Energy needed to power it.

Matt paused at that thought.

If it worked like other enchantments, it would run off mana until they tried to use it in a way that trivialized a challenge, usually combat. If the enchantment suddenly changed to need Genesis Energy, they would know for a fact that one of the octopodes had tried to possess them.

That actually gave Matt a sense of comfort.

If this was a typical rift, he wouldn't be too worried, as this kind of possession was so rare, he could only think of two times in history it had happened.

It was almost instantly recognized by higher Tier cultivators, and the rifts were destroyed and people freed from the monster's control.

Just as items in rifts couldn't be used by people, most possessions weren’t able to bridge that gap.

Ruins didn’t have either restriction, and Travis and Keith, Liz’s brother and brother-in-law, explored distant and unsettled worlds, so they encountered more than their fair share of the things. More than a few of their stories were about dangerous items and monsters that only worked because they were in a ruin, and not a proper rift.

And Minkalla was made of thousands of ruins.

Not rifts.

It was entirely possible for them to be enthralled by one of the creatures inside its depths.

Luna hadn’t said anything about that, but then again, no one who was possessed would be able to leave.

All of them were a little freaked out, and they only started to relax when Matt handed out the disks.

They were a two-part enchantment. One was to detect anything approaching their heads that was alive, and a shield rune to activate if the first was triggered.

Matt made each of them ten copies of the discs before feeling satisfied, and then created more underwater breathing enchantments.

If the ruin tried to drown them and force them to use the possibly cursed items, it wouldn’t be so easy now.

They had backups to their backups.

He even created a few sets of the enchantments with a different methodology, just in case the ruin could learn. It wouldn’t stop Minkalla if it decided to break the enchantment, but if it actually wanted them dead, they’d just be dead.

It took a few hours, but they were as prepared as they could be, and gathered their things to start pushing deeper into the palace.

New guards had replaced the fallen ones by the time they returned to the gate. Seeing that there were a total of sixteen guards, the four of them looked at each other, then to above the guards heads where they suspected the octopodes to be hiding.

Now that they knew the monsters were practically defenseless, Susanne sent out two [Mana Thrust]s where they suspected the octopodes to be hiding, and scored direct hits.

Knowing the monsters were connected by tentacles, their AI were able to calculate their positions fairly accurately. Or rather, everyone but Matt could. Their AI reserved Genesis Energy, while he needed to spend the precious energy to get any information.

The guards fell down, dazed with their puppet masters dead, making them easy pickings for the four of them.

Blades descended, and blood flew.

Soon afterwards, all of the monsters were dead, and they were able to enter the palace grounds.

As Liz’s elephant lumbered past him, the treasure chest heavy on its back, Matt couldn't help but marvel at the inside of the palace.

There was intricate topiary lining the path they traversed. He expected the bushes grown to look like animals to rise up and attack them, but they remained simple bushes.

Aster halted them with her tail poofing up and warned them. “Another set of guards are coming this way.”

They quickly moved off the path and hid behind a shrub grown to look like a whale belly-flopping.

The guards passed by without issue, but Matt was less worried about them and more about the octopodes that floated above them, invisible. His attention never left the threats, but he was hyper focused on his enchanted anti-possession formation that hung around his neck and under his armor.

Nothing happened, but his nerves were still on high alert until the guards were well outside the mile range of his spiritual perception. They didn’t want to risk the fact killing the guards would set off another alarm like when they had tried to climb the outer wall.

The palace entrance was a door fifty feet high and glowing with enchantments that Matt had no hope of breaking without bringing every guard towards their location. During his inspection of the runes, Liz herself found an oddity.

“Do you see this? Read the story of the mural.” She pointed to the bottom where Fishmen were being harassed and eaten by the monsters of the sea, before the octopodes came and uplifted them.

After their possession, they started to grow and prosper, but the mural grew dark and brutal.

The Fishmen were nothing more than food and hands for the octopodes, if the carvings on the mural were to be believed. Them being sacrificed and eaten to satiate the octopodes’s hunger was a normal end for the Fishmen. The scene was repeated a dozen times before a Fishman rose up and with a horn, taking a prominent spot in the center of the mural.

It blew that horn, and the octopodes exploded.

The mural then told the story of how the Fishmen became more prosperous and took the things that the octopodes taught them and used them for their own advantage.

The creation and raising of this island was one of their crowning achievements.

The mural finally ended with the Fishmen and their island rising out of the ocean and into the sky, where it joined the clouds.

It was an interesting story, but he wasn’t sure what the ruin meant by it. Were the Fishmen possessed because of an event that happened after this door was made, or was it just using the history of this place as a way to set the theme of the ruin?

There was no way to know, but he still found it interesting. Wanting to potentially reference back to it later, he set his AI to record the mural. After a few seconds of waiting, Matt frowned, then closed his eyes in embarrassment. Right, Minkalla blocked AI recording. Still, while it was analyzing the mural, his AI had noticed something that he’d missed in his studying. Inside the chest they had been carrying around, a portion of the carvings had started to gather Genesis Energy at some point.

Checking the compass that had led them this far, Matt found it pointing at the palace doors, so stored it away before alerting the others to the change in the treasure chest.

Hiding around a craggy part of the cliff-like palace wall, they inspected the chest to find that Matt’s AI was correct. The engraving of a key was starting to gather Genesis Energy.

Susanne was the first to speak. “Anyone want to take odds we need to feed this Genesis Energy?”

Liz scoffed. “No way. That's clearly what this is. Question is, do we go killing or give up what we have? It's the same thing, after all.”

Matt looked at Aster and shrugged, not caring. Killing the octopodes and their puppets earned them a good deal of Genesis Energy.

In the end, they decided to spend the Genesis Energy they had gathered. Or, at least a portion of it.

They had gathered a lot but they also refused to go down to empty on what was essentially their mana.

But as they poured their accumulated Genesis Energy into the chest, a key popped out almost instantly.

Taking it near the door, the enchantments that caused the door to glow with power vanished as if they had never existed.

Matt almost expected the door to open to a troop of octopus-controlled guards, but nothing of the like happened.

As he and Susanne replaced the chest on their elephant, following Liz and Aster into the chamber, the door closed behind them with a slam.