Dark Matter Ascension

[I love you.]

[Come back safe.]

[I'll have a very special surprise for you.]

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Jace smiled as he closed out the message to Shhiv. Ollie had merged with him via Verge Protocol, as they did not know what to expect with Troxanir. And instead of using Dark Energy Mine, Jace had Void Removal active at (Rank 1), eliminating gravity for him and anything in a five-foot radius. Thanks to the way the Skill worked, it did not constantly cost energy to maintain. Instead, it kept a sliver of his energy in reserve to power the effect – lowering his maximum capacity, but ensuring that he kept the Skill active constantly.

He was in the missile bay when Zzorth's voice came over the ship's communication system. "We are finishing our reverse thrust and about to come to a near-stop. All hands to stations. This is it. Our defining moment, the whole reason I built the Pulsar Coalition from the ground up millennia ago. We will not lose here! We will destroy Troxanir and his Conclave once and for all!"

Jace could hear some cheers echoing down the halls of the ship, and he activated Void Shield (Rank 6) as he slipped into the custom torpedo tube. It was like a coffin, and when it sealed shut above him, he could hear in fill with air from some hidden source as it became pressurized. Ollie spoke in his mind, I have control over the thrusters and the guidance system. Filling your HUD and activating the stealth protocols.

His HUD filled up with a view that was staggering in scope. In front of the torpedo tube, visible thanks to the camera, was an enormous black hole. Larger than anything Jace had ever seen. The huge, pure black sphere drew in his gaze, and thanks to his All-Seeing Dragon's Eyes, he could see the entity trapped within.

Troxanir. His physical form. A huge, pink-hued-marred-black blob. It had limbs; long, spindly legs like a spider that were chained by silver and gold to the edges of the event horizon. He could see the swirl of light-blue inside the center of the slightly-transparent mass. The exterior was almost like a carapace. The large, gaping mouth emitted a silent roar that caused Jace to feel a primal rush of fear. No sound reached him, but he could feel the oppressive weight of raw, unbridled rage projected towards their ship.

"Stand fast!" Zzorth shouted over the comm network. "It is a Skill, nothing more!"

Arbiter's Anathema, Jace thought as he used one of his five charges. The oppressive force vanished, and the salvo began. Jace saw lasers, torpedoes, and magnetically accelerated shells rocket towards the enormous ring world that was off far in the distance. The dropships and fighters rocketed out a moment after the barrage, and Jace's torpedo fired with them.

Here we go! Ollie shouted in his mind. The ride of a lifetime!

Troxanir stood upon his partially finished ring world. He glanced back at his body in the abyss, Oblivion's Maw. Damnit, he thought. I am so close to having enough souls. Again, he cursed X's meddling and stopping his suicide bombers. And now, the Pulsar Coalition – at least, he assumed it was them based upon their ship's insignia – was assaulting his stronghold.

They will have to fight across the ring world to reach the event horizon, he thought. And then I can deal with them personally. Once more he glanced down at the shackle around his ankle, limiting his avatar-form to this farthest edge of his domain. I had hoped to break this tether before this day came…but we are prepared.

He had every one of his Signers present. Hundreds upon thousands who were sworn to his cause and signed a pact with him. Even now, they manned the defensive emplacements, tracking the dropships hidden between the various incoming shots. They are desperate, he thought. The Pulsar Coalition coming after me in my base of power…they must be desperate. Whatever tore my tethered form apart must have warned them about how close I was to breaching Khrox.

He chuckled, then laughed, and that laugh became a manic cackle as he knew he was about to get quite a few souls from the coming onslaught. Just get into range, and you are mine!

Priam, Greg, and Dee were all standing in a white cube-shaped room. Xera's voice came over the comms, "Okay you three. This is it. I'm going to be sending you into the sector of The Cosmic System that I have partitioned off. Troxanir's tethered form is there, but other anomalous readings have been coming from that section. You'll be going in blind, since any sensors I send that deep into the framework will give him warning of the approach."

"We've got this!" Dee shouted as she practically buzzed with excitement. "I can't wait to blow up the biggest Astral Demon around!"

"Not blowing it up," Greg replied. "We just have to keep it from leaving until Jace beats its Avatar and pushes it out of the black hole…then we can drag it here and kill it."

"Correct," Quinn replied. "All my Skills are active."

"As are mine," Priam chimed in. "We are protected, healing is ready to go…all set here!"

Greg activated his full suite of defensive Skills, preparing for whatever was going to come. "Okay…let's go. Hit it, Xera."

"Activating," she replied.

Greg felt a suction feeling at the bottom of his gut, and he saw the white space of the room fall away. The trio were descending down through the Starlit Sea, and deeper into a silver, and then grey space. The various Cosmic and Ascended Power symbols were far, far off in the distance of this dull, muted place. Greg saw all color wash away as everything went into greyscale. Then, color began to return.

They were in a vast, enormous, cavernous chamber. Far off in the distance he saw a pink blob. "Must be Troxanir," he muttered.

Between them and the form of the Astral Demon was darkness. A blackness that had texture, and Greg knew he could walk on it. There were no walls or ceilings, only a black that slowly vanished into a grey void.

"Something is here!" Priam shouted. "I can see soul energy coefficient numbers floating! Thousands – no, hundreds of thousands of them!"

Greg strode to the front of the group, "I don't see anything-" he was cut off as a bolt of flaming, red energy splashed against him. "Okay, he's got some defenses."

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Quinn's voice came over the comms, "I'm trying to outline and define them now."

Greg tapped his foot impatiently as blasts continued to pelt him. Priam's new Unyielding Bastion Skill was very effective in keeping them safe, and Greg saw the golden barrier barely begin to fleck and chip.

"Got it!" Quinn shouted.

Before Greg, millions of people appeared. Outlines, shadowy outlines, of Signers long dead. Priam whispered, only hearable over the comms. "Souls…they are all souls that served Troxanir…he's using them as a defense!"

Greg brought his gun to bear, "Then we start blasting. Dee? Do the honors." Greg cycled through his ammunition to a buckshot style round, and began charging the device with his Ascended Power.

Dee let out a cackle, "I thought you'd never ask!"

Troxanir felt a call, and he turned his attention away from the battle across the burning stars that approached his ring world. Sending his consciousness to his true form, he witnessed a peculiar sight.

Three individuals, all bearing Cosmic and Ascended power symbols were attacking his arrayed forces. One in the front was covered in heavy armor, swinging two swords as he tried to make a path through the assaulting deceased Signers and Pact-holders. The other two, further back, were being attacked by a variety of hostile Skills – but were unharmed, and Troxanir could see the slight trace of energy as the harm was redirected to the juggernaut on the frontline. A robe-wearing figure, shimmering with a golden, radiant light, was holding something above his head, and before Troxanir's eyes, a few hundred of his Signers vanished. And yet another glowed with a brilliant, green line before thousands were obliterated in an enormous, cone-shaped blast.

Yet more of his Signers kept coming. Rushing to fill the breach, firing off countless Skills. The entire battlefield erupted in a mixture of white light from the countless Skills that burst out into the area. The souls of those who served him, and were protecting his Astral Demon, bound form. It almost filled him with a sense of pride.

Really, do they think- He felt someone touch his avatar, and knowing that he had plenty of guardians protecting his Astral Demon form, he returned his consciousness. "What?" he asked.

"My lord! They are landing!"

"And we killed quite a few, I see," Troxanir commented as he saw the flow of light-blue Souls that traveled through space and went into Oblivion.

"Your orders?"

"Kill them all," Troxanir stated. "The shield will refresh in a timely enough fashion to keep the ring world mostly intact. This is a nuisance, nothing more."

As he turned to face the expanse, he raised his hand and pointed it at the enormous starship far, far away. "Oblivion's Embrace (Rank 40)." An event horizon appeared in the center of the ship, and a black hole appeared, swallowing the vessel whole and completely crushing it into a tiny orb before the singularity vanished. And without a capital ship to assault the ring world, we just have to root out these ground troops.

Jace saw the ring world fast approaching. It was easily a few hundred miles across: an enormous, barren desert of metal. Various shapes poked up out of the expanse, but they were few and far between. The exception were the weapon emplacements. Huge cannons, turrets, and bunker complexes with all manner of vehicles at the ready, manned, and mobile.

His torpedo tube impacted, skidding across the metal and gouging a groove before he came to a stop. The cover above him popped off. Void Stalker (Rank 1), he thought as he began sprinting across the terrain. If he did not have his Void Removal active, he would surely have begun to spaghettify. He had no clue what type of technology enabled all of the terrain and the ring itself to stay put and not fall into the black hole.

The assault craft began to land behind him, and glancing back, he saw the Pulsar Coalition in their squadrons exit their carriers and begin their assault. Vehicles dropped from the undersides as tanks and armored personnel carriers bristling with armaments began to roll, hover, or slide across the terrain.

And the cannons began to fire. Jace kept his attention focused forward, watching as the enormous weapon emplacements started to shoot at his current allies. The shots were not aimed at him, and Jace kept moving forward one foot in front of the other. The longest sprint he would ever have to make. The integrated Sliver Arc in his armor's feet enabled him to travel far faster than any vehicle save the starfighters above.

Those vehicles began to fire upon the weapon emplacements and bunkers…but the assault was fruitless. The Conclave's weapons continued to fire out, but the starfighters' weapons failed to reach their targets – the singularity took hold of the lasers, missiles, and other weapons – sucking the damaging projections into the black hole's center.

The capital ship is gone, Ollie said softly in Jace's mind. Zzorth and the Pulsar Coalition pilots and crew are dead. It's just you and their ground forces.

The vehicles behind Jace fired upon the defensive emplacements, but the same effect that was on the starfighter's weapons was also affecting the vehicle weapons. Aspirants and Ascendants began to bail out and took up the charge on foot. And they were getting shredded. Jace saw a huge shell roil out past him, and glancing back saw it take out a handful of Pulsar Coalition members.

One of them in a squadron must have been keeping the effects of the singularity's gravity at bay, as the whole group began to stretch, distort, and be ripped apart. Jace grit his teeth and turned to face the front. Ignore them. Get to Troxanir. Kill him. Jace got past the emplacements, past the Conclave's vehicles, and past the turrets. I can't do anything without giving away my position, he thought.

No. This is rough, but you are doing what is needed. The Coalition knew what they were going up against.

Why didn't any of their weapons work? Jace asked his Wayfinder in his thoughts.

The anti-gravity fields only affected the vehicles. And in the case of the capital ship, the singularity was formed inside it and was large enough to completely encompass it. That level of gravitic strength was far more than the ship was capable of resisting. If it is any consolation, the Aspirant and Ascendant Skills will work as intended.

Jace kept running, sprinting at his top speed. For the first time in a long time, he began to feel his breath come in shorter and shorter bursts. There was still such a large distance to run, and he felt himself starting to struggle. His steps grew heavier and he felt his muscles connecting the prosthetic legs to his torso start to burn from the exertion.

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[You can do this!]

[We're diverting more NICIF to your extremities.]

[Let's go save the universe!]

-----

The burning faded and he got a second wind as he saw his energy bar slightly decrease, the NICIF drawing on his power to fuel his body with their wondrous, unknown-to-him machinations. Jace's steps grew sure once more, and he accelerated to an even faster speed.

A figure stood before him. In the distance, he could zoom in and see it with his eyes. A ten-foot-tall figure. It looked just like Xera's four-armed form. That has to be Troxanir, he thought. Taking on the form of The Architects when he first met them. Like the Astral Demons that ripped their way through on Velenar Prime taking after a Vyrknadine.

Troxanir's form was shrouded in black that drifted off of him in wafts and bursts of smoke, and his head was slightly angular, sloped backward. But the shroud surrounding the avatar was horrifying, and without Ollie in his mind reinforcing his will, Jace was sure he would have been paralyzed by fear and fled. He vividly recalled the tentacle, gaping maw that he saw possess the woman at Pheracorp Industries. There was a chain around his ankle. A phantasmal, green chain.

Ollie, is he stronger than me? Jace asked.

In The Cosmic System? No. But with the Astral System included? Possibly.

Enough of a gap for Shattered Limits?

We won't know until we engage and he reveals his powers.

Void Blade (Rank 17) [Rending], Void Shield (Rank 6), Voidsoul (Rank 3), Void Brand (Rank 1). Jace's Skills all flared to life as he drew his sword and kept sprinting forward. Troxanir did not seem to notice his approach, and Jace stopped thirty feet away, raising his sword. Void Beam (Rank 3) [Limited Range].

The line of grey-white energy shot outward, impacted Troxanir's avatar, and then consumed it wholly. But the shackle remained on the ground, and a split-second later Troxanir reappeared. "Ah, the mercenary. Wraith, was it? We meet at last."