Dark Matter Ascension

Jace raised his sword, "Void Beam (Rank 1) [Horizon-Splitter]." Reality tore asunder before him as he made sure the beam did not go below the line of his sword as it devoured existence. The vessels – wiped out in a flash of white-grey to him, followed by an explosion of gold that would doubtless be visible to others.

He was fully drained, and his eyelids fluttered shut. But the Primal Hide's stored energy refilled him to half capacity, and he saw the golden glow suffusing his arms, legs, shield, and the area around him burning even brighter. He heard cheers from the Astral Demons on the walls who must have put two-and-two together, discerning that the figure who was coated in gold that left their defensive structure was the one responsible for wiping out the fleet.

But there were still thousands of the rock-men who were fighting in the city. Jace could hear the sounds of combat. The clang of weapons on armor, the cries of pain and curses of those fighting for their very existence. The zip and kszt of Psykinetics being brought to bear by the assaulting force.

Jace dropped down, activating a Dark Energy Mine before he hit the ground. After negating the fall, he released it, and sprinted. The golden glow became bright, and he was akin to a blazing sphere of light that surged across the fields beyond the city. He heard the enormous crash and felt the ground vibrating as the ship he had disabled at first finally hit the ground somewhere behind him.

But he did not stop. Jace was being driven onward by the desire to save others. That overwhelming need to be valorous in the face of danger. To be the hero. Save others. Destroy invaders. He felt his heart pumping a frantic pace as he arrived at the blasted-apart and melted walls. Getting into the city he deactivated the Beacon infusion on his armor, and the Hero's Arena, along with Aura of Wrath [Voidflame Vestment]. I don't want collateral damage, he thought.

Reaching the first group of Astral Demons fighting against the rock men, he came up behind the Astral Demon's line. They were hiding behind bits and pieces of rubble blown apart from the walls, slowly making their way toward the lined-up rock men who were shooting in formation. Jace stepped forward and the fire focused on him – the now-visible target who was not bothering hiding.

"A Dreamer? On our side?"

"The thing that blew up gold. Stopped the fleet."

"Here to help?"

"I'll take it!"

The Astral Demons seemed to find a second wind with Jace's arrival, and they began growing bolder with their return fire, killing some of the boulder-men as their Psykinetic bolts hit their mark. Jace had to keep his shield raised and facing the front, as the small-arms weapons of the hostile forces were capable of going through his Void Shield.

The Crusader's Bastion cracked as Jace got to the line of fire. They had begun to move back, but he did not let them fleet. Instead, he rushed in and released a devastating, horizontal blow that bisected all of them in the midsection. He saw the light, pale-blue Souls ascend skyward, only to be pulled back down.

Into Jace's arm. The hell is happening? He thought as he felt some panic. A pink-on-black box appeared in his vision.

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[Consume Souls to become Dreamer Demon?]

[Yes / No.]

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"No!" Jace instinctively shouted. The box went away, and the Souls began ascending into the skies above, leaving his body behind. He shook his arm like he was shaking off some type of residue that left a coating behind. His skin was almost crawling with the weird "limb-falling-asleep" sensation.

Interesting, Ollie stated. We'll have to ask about that.

Jace heard one of the Astral Demons behind him speaking, and turning to face the figure, was able to hear what they were saying since his focus was on them. "Help us save the city!" the demon said almost pleadingly.

The golden aura flared to life even brighter, and Jace felt that resolve settle over him. "Let's go deal with these invaders." He sprinted to a ruined part of the wall, jumping up from rock to cracked stone edifice as he got atop the barricade and could quickly scan the city. The crashed ship had thousands of rock-men who were bailing out and beginning to form ranks around the vessel. Jace had no clue whether they would stay there to protect their transport or if they would engage with the defenders. Looking the opposite direction, he could see the laser-fire cascading through the streets.

He heard the screaming, cries of panic, and his ears picked up a specific sound – children crying and screaming before being silenced. He grit his teeth in rage as that boiling flame in his chest exploded into an inferno. The golden aura surrounding him crackled to flaming anger and began to spark with white-grey of Void and the purple of Dark Matter. Leaping out over the city and using his grapple line to affix to points in space, he traversed the distance and landed in front of a house.

He saw the rock-men inside who were tearing the place apart and scanning the ground with some type of device. Jace saw the corpses to the side. Astral Demons – men and women…and children. Focusing his vision on the figures in front of him he felt his muscles tensing to near bursting and did not hold back. That innate urge to protect, to be a hero, to be valiant, coursed through his body and almost by instinct he began carving into the assailants.

They turned and fired at Jace, lasers infused with Psykinetics arcing through the air around him, impacting him and causing slight discomfort and twinges of pain. Void Removal (Rank 10), he thought as he removed all of the atmosphere within fifty feet. The rock-men began to grip at their throats – entirely focused on suddenly being unable to breathe despite whatever artificial environment their armored shells gave them.

Jace used that moment to carve through them with ruthless efficiency. The Souls from those he slew flew over to him, and once more he got the Astral System message. Before answering, "No", he looked around and grabbed one of the glass vials he had seen storing Souls from one of the dead demons. Once he refused the System offer, the Souls were sucked into the vial. Twelve of them.

He stowed the vial in his TPSB and ran outside. The golden flames of righteous vengeance still burned in his chest and looking down the street he spotted a large column of these soldiers seeming to move slowly and with purpose, hefting circular platforms with them. Jace began sprinting, activating Hero's Arena as he did so.

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"Hurry up, Yanik! We need to scan faster!"

"I'm going as fast as I can," Yanik rumbled back. He had slung his rifle and was working on the ground penetrating scanner, trying to set it up. Surrounded by a group of soldiers from his home universe, the Trax engineer efficiently finished setting up the device and clicked the button for the radar to pulse. "Yes!" he shouted, getting a ping on the monitor. "We need to move a kilometer to the east to be right over it!"

The commander of the unit came over, "Ships are lost."

"Wha?" Yanik started to ask, only to be cut off.

The commander looked at him, "The mission is all that matters. We move for the vault. Now!"

Yanik began packing up the scanner for transport, but a golden glint caught his eye. Standing up, he looked past the ranks of troops who were part of the initial expeditionary force that got to the city first. They were pointing outward in all directions, engaging in small arms fire with Astral Demons behind cover. A guerilla force, almost, fighting against an unstoppable tide.

But the golden ball got closer, and it approached very quickly. It was then that Yanik realized what it was. Psykinetics. Gold in color, which he did not know the Emotion Source correlation for. "Commander?!" he shouted as he pointed.

The commander looked over and frowned, "Men! Open fire!"

The troops began unloading hell on the figure, but the lasers slammed into a golden shield the figure held up as they ran. That was when Yanik saw the fishtail behind the running bipedal Dreamer; huge chunks of the street were being ripped up as they ran due to the sheer, brute force of their footfalls. They are strong, he thought.

Yanik focused on his task, packing up the mobile scanner with his fellow Trax engineer. But then he felt it. A heat. As if he was standing far too close to a plasma core. Turning back, he felt fear rise up in him and tried to scream but nothing would come out. That black-armored figure, glowing with purple streams of energy and cloaked in an aura of gold radiance crackled with crimson energy. Multiple Psykinetics? That's not possible!

Yanik turned and ran. He was not a fighter, and he knew it. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, and once he cleared the line of defenders who had now turned to face the new threat, he curled up into a ball and began to roll away as fast as he could.

But something grabbed him. And no matter how much he tried to roll forward, he could not. Pulling out of his ball, he was yanked back and submerged into a sphere of flaming, golden heat that seared him. His armor was cracking and boiling, and thanks to his species' intense robustness he was able to survive.

But that searing pain forced him to curl in on himself, and he did not see the sword strike that cleaved through him and ended his suffering.

Jace finished dispatching the one that had tried to roll away. Having made it to the center of the formation, he continued his path of holy, divine carnage as he slaughtered the Trax soldiers and kept their weird device intact – willing his Psykinetic aura to leave it be. The handful of Trax who fled, he focused on; yanking them back with his grapple line and dispatching them immediately. The formations began to break and run, and it was only then that Jace noticed the intense headache he was dealing with. A migraine that threatened to split his brain in half.

Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4), he thought as his energy drained down to only a small portion left – ten percent. A sliver.

The migraine vanished and he felt very relaxed as Ollie spoke in his head, You took a ton of Psykinetic damage in that rampage. Gotta remember, Void Shield does not protect you from Psykinetics of your Potency or higher.

Right, Jace thought back as he finished dispatching the group and the Astral Demons came out of their various bits and pieces of cover, finishing off the survivors. It was then that Jace felt the weird, sticky, ooze-covered feeling as light-blue energy stuck to his arm. Glancing at one of the Astral Demons nearby, he deactivated his Hero's Arena and jogged over to them, "Vial?" he asked bluntly.

They looked at him, nodded, and handed him a vial with a few Souls within. Jace rejected the System message and the Souls filled up the bottle to full. By my count, Ollie said, that puts you at sixty Souls. Each vial looks like it holds thirty.

Jace nodded to the demon, "Clear the city of the rest. I'm focusing on that crashed ship." He let his Skill all fade and his energy slowly began to regenerate as he jogged towards the walls. "Ollie, you mentioned in your scan of the ship's system and logs that they were here for some type of buried treasure?"

Close, Ollie replied. It is not treasure. Well, it could be. It's something called a vault. No more information beyond that, though.

Jace reached the city walls within a few minutes, his energy having refilled a bit more. Around fifteen percent, he thought. Enough for most of my go-to combat Skills and Talents for a few minutes. Thankfully, Quinn's buffs still had plenty of time left to go on them and he doubted the whole affair would take too long.

The Astral Demons had retaken their walls and despite the blown apart defenses had begun to move rocks, stone, rubble, and metal, spiked triangles into the breaches. Jace ascended to the top of the walls and saw that the Trax from the crashed ship had taken up a defensive perimeter and stood arrayed in battle lines.

"Must be out of range," he muttered. Glancing at the Astral Demons nearby, he walked over to them at the ballistae, "Report," he stated.

The trio looked at him, then one of them pointed to the ship, "They are preparing defenses. Digging in. Repairing ship, maybe?"

Jace looked out, "That makes this easy. I'll dispatch all of them in one fell swoop…in about an hour. Go get your superiors."

The demons looked between themselves, shrugged, and one of them ran down the stairs towards another section of the city.

Fifteen minutes passed and Jace stood up as a large, male Astral Demon clambered up the stairs. He was a few feet taller than Jace, wiry in build, had digitigrade, backwards legs that bent behind him as he ascended the top of the wall, and a near-orca head atop his neck. But the snout was long, pronounced, with rows of teeth. "You're the golden boy?" he asked haughtily.

Jace cleared his throat, "I'm Wraith. And yes, I'm the Valiant [Crusader] who saved you lot."

The figure before him took a cautious step back and took up a slightly defensive stance – putting all the Astral Demons on edge. "A [Crusader]? Helping demons? That's rich. You're lying…but not about the Valiant part. I've seen that color before."

Jace sat back down, let his helmet recede, and reached into his TPSB to pull out some food, and began snacking on one of the survival meals. "You know," he said in between bites. "I could just leave. Let you all deal with this army before your walls, and their being-repaired ship."

"Now, let's not be rash-"

Jace kept speaking over the tall demon, "But, they royally pissed me off…they killed kids. People who are just…trying to live their lives." He shook his head and took another bite of the peach-flavored slurry. Swallowing it down, he stared into the beady, black eyes of the lead demon. "I won't let innocents be hurt. You can't help that you lot were born as what you are. And it would be wrong of me to harm you just because of that."

Jace gestured to the city behind the demon, and felt a sense of determination that imbued his words with a force he wasn't expecting. Encouragement. "You have done something remarkable here. I've only ever had negative experiences with Astral Demons – both here and in my home universe. But this place…sure, the trade of Souls is…revolting." He held up the two vials of Souls he had snatched from his TPSB in a swift move. "But I understand it is the way of things." He tossed the vials to the Astral Demon.

The figure snatched the vials from the air and quickly uncapped them, scarfing down the light-blue energy that vanished down the gullet and glowed briefly, shining through the muscled torso before fading. "Interesting…well, [Crusader], you said that you could deal with this whole army?"

Jace kept snacking and nodded, "Mhmm." Swallowing down, he threw the pouch over the side of the wall, "Give me another thirty minutes, and I'll wipe them all out."

"You…must be a powerful Dreamer," the demon replied with curiosity filling their voice. Curiosity and fear.

Jace smiled and willed his helmet to re-emerge, "Not really."