Dark Matter Ascension

Jace kept his mouth shut and threw his sword. Troxanir's hands all flashed with a deep, green and crackling pink energy as a series of weapons manifested in the avatar's grip. A sword, a mace, a gun, and a spear. "Not the talkative type? As expected of an assassin. Wraith." His voice dripped with malice and there was a cackle behind those words.

Throwing my sword isn't going to get me anywhere, Jace thought. Unless I can duplicate it, but I don't have something like Greg's Series of Strikes. He had to focus wholly on defense as Troxanir crossed the distance between them at a near-incalculable speed.

Quinn's voice came over the comms, "Skills are active and I'm manually triggering them: Coordinator's Critical Gaze (Rank 10), Coordinator's Warning System (Rank 9), Stratagem (Rank 63) [All Evolutions], Tactician's Orders (Rank 5), Advanced Tactics (Rank 10). Kill Troxanir's avatar!"

Jace saw the Skills overlay the very corner of his HUD, and the almost-impossible-to-keep-up-with assault slowed to his perception, and he was able to readily engage in a flurry of exchanged hits. His Void Shield took the blows that slipped by with ease, and he scored some touches of his own – setting the Void Brand off and also spreading the dripping, white-grey and crimson miasma of his damage-over-time Skills.

Troxanir swung down with the hammer, and Jace dodged to his left. The dread entity stabbed forth with his spear, and Jace deflected before sliding his blade down the length of the shaft and scoring a slice along the hand – a hand which rapidly mended. In fact, every single blow that Jace was able to sneak in between the hits was healed over – the grey-white of Void and the crimson of [Rending] still lingering, but suppressed.

"I recognize your soul," Troxanir growled out as he backed away. But Jace did not give any quarter, and ran in to press his assault and the advantage. "I recognize you!" Troxanir shouted. "You died!"

Jace couldn't help but grin as he slashed over and over, and Troxanir barely kept up with the furious series of blows. Left, right, cross-slash, uppercut, Jace even began integrating his Anathema Legs as the feet manifested claws through the manipulations of the NICIF, warping and distorting as the metal shifted.

"Astral Purge!" Troxanir shouted.

Arbiter's Anathema, Jace thought. But the Skill – no, the Talent that Troxanir used still activated, and Jace saw the white-grey of his Void Shield vanish.

"Aha! It was some invisible shield. You are Flicker! The Dark Matter user! Impressive trick with the symbols shifting. Must be someone helping you cheat the Cosmic System!"

Xera's voice came out of Jace's armor's speakers, "Troxanir, you are going to die here."

That caused the entity to let out a scream of hatred; a rage built up over the millennia and countless eons he had been trapped. His body exploded with pink, crackling lightning and miasmic, deep green that flickered off of him like waves. "I'll kill you!" Troxanir shouted as he began to move faster, hit harder, and Jace suffered injury. But he also made mistakes, leaving himself open to counter attacks, and Jace took advantage of those opportunities.

The spear stabbed into his midsection, and Jace felt the pain lance through him. A hammer was brought down onto his shoulder, crushing the armor and the arm underneath. Time Lock, Jace thought as he willed Quinn's Stratagem Evolution to activate. It made him invulnerable, and he stood there, frozen, as Troxanir went into a frenzied rage. He screamed, raining down blows upon blows – and all of them appeared to strike Jace but in actuality did nothing.

"That will only last for another few seconds," Quinn stated. "I hope you've got a plan."

Ollie?

Not yet. Shattered Limits isn't available yet.

Jace nodded and the second he let the Time Lock fade, he whispered, "Void Step (Rank 1) [Burst]." He warped behind Troxanir, and the shockwave of Void energy emanated from both where he was standing and where he now stood. He jumped onto Troxanir's back and began to stab into the midsection of the entity with his sword.

"Gah! You insect! You dare?!" Troxanir's head turned on his body a full one-hundred-eighty degrees, and the phantasmal, tentacle and spiked floating mouth behind his head lunged forward at Jace. Jace let go, dropping to the ground, and activated another Void Step at (Rank 1) with the [Burst] Evolution.

Troxanir stabbed into the ground, and Jace appeared behind him again, slashing him across the midsection before pivoting and unleashing a vicious upward-diagonal-slash that severed one of the arms; the spear clattering to the floor. Troxanir turned around and a look of sheer hatred was writ across his visage. His body's muscles bulked, and he grew another foot in height and width as he became much stronger in an instant. Pink and green energy crackled from his body, and the enormous, true form of the Astral Demon trapped inside Oblivion was growling as well. "Oblivion Awaits!"

Arbiter's Anathema, Jace thought as he disabled the Skill. Troxanir screamed, "Annihilation's Grasp!" Reality tore asunder behind Jace, and he felt himself sucked backward towards the rift.

Reaper's Shadowstep, Jace thought as he vanished through the shadows and got behind Troxanir. He gave the entity a shove, sending the figure wheeling into his own attack. Troxanir screamed out in pain as his body impacted the rift, and he fell to his knees as the rift closed.

"That's it!" Troxanir's body began to distort and wobble, phasing in and out of existence before vanishing entirely. Then, Jace heard a roar. How he could hear it in the void of space, he had no clue, but he looked back at the Astral Demon form of Troxanir, and saw a new avatar take shape. A duplicate of himself. Troxanir landed on the ring world with his new avatar and brandished a blade similar to Jace's. "I should have done this at the start. The Architects were not fighters…but you are." He blitzed forward and Jace re-engaged with the dread entity. "Come at me!" Troxanir growled out, a sense of joy, fear, and anger all intermingled.

I want to obliterate him with all the elements I can pull up. Archmage's Admixture. Jace activated the once-per-day Skill, and Troxanir was consumed in a pillar of pure, white light as every element possible consumed his body. He screamed out in pain and rage, and Jace used the opening to continue slicing into the Astral Demon. Is this really all he has?

Dee was sucking in deep breaths. She was running low on energy, and Greg ordered her and Priam to get next to him. "What's the plan?" she asked.

Priam chuckled, despite the thousands of Skills hitting his barriers. They had hit about half capability, thanks to Greg's enormous suite of defensive Skills, and his damage reduction applying before the barriers. "My time to shine! Let's bring the power of Earth's dead god to them! Ishtar's Embrace!"

A shockwave of luminous gold-tinged-white energy surged out in all directions, and Black Hole Conclave Signers stood still. One of them let out a barking laugh that Dee could barely make out, "Troxanir's pleasure is far greater than anything you can affect us with!"

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Greg looked back at Dee, "Got more juice?"

"Nope. I got goop!" She pulled up her goop from her body, using it to fuel her next blast of power rather than energy. "Oblivion Bolt (Rank 1) [Cone][Cloud]!" A bead of pure, white energy coalesced in her palms, and she began shaking with the accumulation of power. She fueled every bit of spare goop she could pull up, and all of her remaining energy. "Troxanir's body will be up to you two! I'm going all out!"

"Get her!"

"Stop her!"

"It's not hitting her!"

The various Black Hole Signers redoubled their assault, and Priam's barriers began to fragment. "Will you be okay?" Priam asked.

"I've got my defensive Skill from an item. I'll be good! Here we go!" Dee had drained all but the smallest bit of her goop, and her chitinous shell was barely holding itself up. Her energy was almost fully gone, and she released the blast, "Hyah!"

The world erupted in white which flared between the colors of the rainbow as every single possible Nebula and Flux power. The Signers were obliterated, and the cone of energy surged out and consumed all within sight. A glowing, ominous cloud persisted and hung there, constantly shifting colors as the effect persisted.

Dee sagged and leaned against Priam, "Leave my chitin," she said as she pulled her goop around her core, dragging her various items along with her, and pushed herself into Priam's sleeve.

"You don't need it?" Greg asked as he began running forward, followed by Priam.

"I'll make more," Dee replied. "Come on! We have to get up next to the real body and wait for Jace's signal!"

Troxanir's body shifted and split as clones of his stolen, duplicate form of Jace appeared, forming a half circle around him. That's not good, Ollie thought in Jace's head.

Void Shield-

Disabled from Troxanir's earlier Skill.

Shit. Fine. Hope's Edge. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric]. Aura of Wrath (Rank 11) [Voidflame Vestment], Raging Cleave (Rank 10) [Echoing Cleave]. The white-grey of Void exploded into existence around Jace, as the crackling crimson sparked over his body and he unleashed a savage, horizontal swing. It slashed clean through the arrayed clones, and then the echoing cleave cut into their slowly-mending wounds.

Troxanir's duplicates all unleashed beams of arcing, coursing energy that Jace tried to dodge, but there were so many coming from different directions that he was hit by several. And as he was struck, he received a System message.

-----

[Soul-harming effect detected.]

[Voidsoul has negated all hostile effects.]

[Absorbed two instances of a single Talent – Dreadlord Devastation Cannon.]

[Do you wish to use?]

-----

"Yes," Jace said. He raised his hand by instinct, and the beams of energy arced out from his hand and into the central figure of Troxanir, the original avatar form. Two of the clones vanished, and the entity let out a curse-laden tirade – words that Jace barely understood.

"How?!" the creature shouted. "How are you so strong?"

"I'm Tier 10," Jace replied as he brandished his sword and charged in. Troxanir's clones all rushed towards Jace, and he sliced left and right, meeting their blows as he engaged his legs into the mix, planting his hand on the ground and spinning in a tight circle – the slashing appendages swapping to blades of their own as the NICIF molded his prosthetics for the unexpected spinning sweep.

Each clone struck vanished, and within a few seconds only Troxanir remained. "I will kill you, Flicker, Wraith, or whatever the fuck you call yourself!" His form began to blur, shift, and distort as the armored shell cracked and multiple tentacles, thrashing, whipping spikes, and ooze began to seep out from him. His body began to vibrate, then blur, and Jace could not track his movement.

Something stabbed him from behind, and looking back he saw that the Astral Form of Troxanir's true body had lobbed some type of pink, crackling sphere of lightning that surged a deep green. It knocked Jace over, and as he struggled to his feet, the bolt exploded and sent a shockwave of pain through his body.

Quinn's voice was distant, but filtered through to his dulled senses as his body began to go numb. "Manually activating [Skip]!"

Jace was teleported one-hundred feet away, right as another pink spike of energy stabbed into where he was standing. At the same time, Troxanir's stolen, copied body stabbed down into where Jace's body was a second earlier.

Shattered Limits threshold met!

Jace felt the Dark Matter Mending kick in, watched his energy drain, and then refill from the Primal Hide's stored reserves. Shattered Limits (Rank 19) [Single-Minded Fury]. His body exploded with raw, unbridled power as an aura of shimmering white coalesced around him Jace shoved himself to his feet, and with the one-hundred times amplifier to his traits, he could track the lancing projectile.

It was traveling, to his perception, at the speed of one of Dee's energy bolts, and Jace was able to deflect it. The arcing energy stabbed into the ground before exploding – but Jace was already gone. He was sprinting at Troxanir, feeling every ounce of hatred for the person. I'm getting you back Chroma!

Troxanir's avatar was moving slow. As if in slow motion. And Jace got close up, wrenched the sword from Troxanir's hand, and began cutting into him with strike upon slash upon stab. Every conceivable angle he could strike from, he attacked from.

And the whole time he danced around the slow-moving body that tried to keep up with his relentless assault. He dodged the pink lances of energy that exploded, not seeming to harm Troxanir. He even saw the enormous, green sphere of energy that rocketed towards him and threatened to utterly obliterate the both of them. Jace simply raised his hand, activated Arbiter's Anathema, and saw the orb vanish.

Troxanir began to move faster, but the damage was done as the grey-white and crimson spread along his body. He let out a shriek, then vanished in a glimmer of deep green.

Jace looked around for him, but did not see any sight of the entity. Looking at the Astral Demon form, he saw it manifesting an enormous sphere of energy.

Definitely not a Cosmic System Skill! Ollie shouted in a panic.

Then Arbiter's Anathema won't work. Neither will Void Counter. Which leaves me with one option. Jace took a deep breath and sheathed his weapon. "Quinn! I need another Critical Gaze!"

"On it!" Jace saw the golden bead of light signaling a weak spot appear behind the sphere.

Xera's voice came through the comms a split-second later, "You need to save enough energy to seal the gap!"

Jace cursed under his breath as Troxanir's attack grew in size until it eclipsed all within sight before him. "I need more energy!"

You've got that [Siphoning] Evolution on the Energy Cost Reduction. We just need a willing creature to transfer it by touch!

Jace looked behind himself and saw the Pulsar Coalition's forces still fighting the Conclave. "They aren't close enough!"

Xera's voice came through once more, "Okay. Plan B!"

"What's Plan B?" Jace asked. But his question was answered a split-second later. Reality warped next to him and a figure appeared.

Xera stood next to him and adjusted her glasses, "You have to beat him. Now. Permission to access your personal System?"

Given! Ollie shouted over the speakers.

Xera touched Jace's back, "I may not be an Aspirant or Ascendant, but I have the most energy out of anything in the universe at my disposal. Access Code E56745-XY-5R3. System Technician, Xera'tal Pen'arkon. Accessing hidden reservoir. Directing to appropriate vessel." She shouted, "Here we go! TPS emergency reserves authorized!"

Jace saw his energy bar fill up fully, and the NICIF in him was practically buzzing.

-----

[Gotta spend this energy boss!]

[It's a lot!]

-----

Jace cupped his hands together in front of him, pouring his energy into Skill he wanted to use. Every little drop of it, and the vast quantities that Xera was feeding into him. "Here we go! Void Beam (Rank 1) [Piercing]!"

The beam of white-grey light grew to a gargantuan size, rivaling the sphere of Troxanir's creation. The ray of nothingness, pure Void, lanced out, consumed the sphere, consumed the Astral Demon form, and left nothing but a black hole. A singularity, with a deep, impossibly black center.

And Jace saw beyond. He glimpsed the swirling mists and depths of the Astral Verge. Xera shouted in his ear, "Now! Seal it!"

"Right. The Architect's Gate (Rank 1)!" Jace's energy drained, refilled, drained again, and went through Xera, through him, and into a square, cubic shape that took form in his hands. Dark Matter, interwoven with Void, creating a lattice that he felt compelled to push forward. And so he did, letting it loose.

The lattice expanded in size, covering the entirety of the singularity at the center of the universe, Oblivion, with a mesh cover. Jace could still glimpse the Astral Verge beyond the intertwined Dark Matter and Void, and he saw the odd movement of something lurking in the depths of the next layer of reality…but as it tried to come up, it touched the cover, and vanished. Utterly annihilated by Void. Dark Matter and Dark Energy kept the gravitic effects suppressed, and what was once a hungering cosmic phenomena was a harmless, enormous, fixed point in space.

"It's done," Xera said, out of breath. "It's sealed." Jace felt reality warp around him, and stood next to Greg, Priam, and Dee. Xera's voice came over the comms, "I'm back in Khrox, the Pulsar Coalition Signers are safe – the survivors. Now comes the hard part."

"That wasn't the hard part?" Priam asked, almost shouting.