Dark Matter Ascension

Jace went up to the topmost deck of the vessel as it lifted off and left the city of Richter's Repose behind. The skies above were a pitch black, and he saw small clusters of Astral Demons off in the distance.

The crew he had paid for passage with ran hands along the hull of the vessel, and thanks to his All-Seeing Dragon's Eyes, Jace could tell that they were using magic. Some type of pure magic; not divine or soul in origin – as they muttered various phrases and arcane symbols illuminated under their fingertips.

"How did you all get through the funnel at your singularity?" Jace asked the captain.

"Our whatnow?" the captain replied from his position next to the navigator.

"Oh, you lot just ripped your way through?" Jace asked.

"We used a realm-slip spell, yes." The captain looked slightly confused, "What do you mean "funnel"?"

Jace pointed to one of the far-off mountains and the funnel that led up from the mountain top to it. "That."

"Too far for my eyes," the man said with a chuckle. He pulled out a spyglass from his jacket and extended it. "Oh, you mean the abyss spires. We don't go near those. Too dangerous for our ships."

Makes sense that they call it something else, Jace thought as he leaned on one of the railings. The vessel raced up into the sky and began arcing towards the east.

The landscape below rippled as the cycle changed, the whole landmass aside from where those stakes he had seen surrounding the city warped instantaneously. No more a vast forest, the terrain shifted and became a vast archipelago. Deep, purple waters that were impossible to see down through thanks to the murkiness, a variety of island landmasses that were jutting up through the liquid expanse – some rocky, some sandy, some covered with vegetation and yet others bubbling with volcanic activity, spewing yellow goop up that then simmered and boiled like lava.

He also saw Astral Demons take to the skies. Far off in the distance, in all directions thanks to his eyes, he saw armies of the creatures flapping to safety atop the islands or going into the air. "It's really a unique place," he mused aloud.

The captain nearby chuckled, "You been around here a while?"

"Relatively new," Jace replied as he looked ahead to where they were headed. "How about you lot?"

The captain joined him at the rail, turned around, and leaned back against it. "Well, can't speak for the whole crew. But for me? My family has been coming here to the Verge for centuries. The ship," he rapped his knuckles on the wooden hull, "has been in the family for almost one-hundred-thousand cycles."

That's about two-hundred and seventy years, Ollie clarified.

Jace nodded, "Generational industry. Very neat. That must be fulfilling."

The captain reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, metal disc. "That it is. First jump is almost done."

Jace glanced down to the ocean below that was racing by. "I still have no clue how far that is."

The captain shrugged, "Distances change depending on the Verge."

Think of it like a malleable object, Ollie stated. It can crumple inward, making the distance between two points small or even crushing non-stabilized areas together. It can expand and stretch – which is what it did with this whole ocean thing. A constantly shifting layer of reality!

Uryoshk glanced sideways, "Any detection?"

His companion Myrnx sighed, "Slight signals from the west. But we don't know if it is the Valiant user we seek or if it is just a user. I need more to go on. Like a sudden burst of Psykinetic energy."

Uryoshk gripped the haft of his polearm and grit his teeth in frustration. "We have to find him and flay him before the others. I want that Infusion."

His female companion shifted her gaze to him – the seven, piercing yellow eyes looking through him and across the vastness of the Astral Verge. Seeking, searching, as the used a Talent to pierce any distance. "I will keep watching." She spread her wings and flexed them slightly, gripping her enormous, rune-covered war bow that was as big as her wingspan and could only be fired gripped horizontally.

Uryoshk felt the blood frenzy rising in him. He had to kill. Destroy. Rip and tear something to bits. Utterly destroy something. The thought of ripping apart his temporary ally crossed his mind, but he needed her – for now. Their contract only extended until they found and killed their prey. He manifested his own wings and lifted off – the two beginning to fly to the west in their search.

Xera finished decompiling the black box of The Architect's vessel. The results were shocking, to say the least. A vessel that was designed to travel in between layers of reality was brought down by a simple malfunction. A single miscalculation.

The ship was too heavy.

The vehicle was designed to be a mobile fortress – an impenetrable bulwark that could be used as a home base with research vessels sent out to gather data. It should have been able to keep itself aloft, but thanks to the changing nature of the Astral Verge, one of the cycles increased gravity by orders of magnitude, and only affected non-living things. The ship was immediately grounded and when the cycle shifted, and the ship should have been able to lift off – it was instead buried.

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She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "Doctor Restra," she asked into her microphone, "how goes progress with Xero?"

"It is going well enough," she replied. "Centuries of being trapped in their stacks takes a long, long time to recover from. I would anticipate a few decades before he is ready to talk to you."

Xera rubbed her bleary eyes with her knuckles, "Right," she muttered. "Thanks for the update. Quinn? How's Shhiv and Greg doing?"

"Survived just fine," Quinn replied. "Greg helped her get to a portal back to Khrox, and she's back in the apartment waiting out the timer. She did lament not being able to use her muscles."

Xera chuckled slightly at that, "She could always go somewhere dangerous – with an escort. But even if she did pass away, she has the backup body."

Quinn's voice came back filled with a melancholic undertone, "When are you going to make the fix?"

"Soon," Xera replied as she glanced over to one of her monitors which had a readout of Astral Demon activity at the bottom of their universes' singularity funnel. "I just need a bit more energy stored in the TPS and I can do it."

"Yes!" Quinn replied, ecstatic. "Good, make sure I'm first in line."

"Already underway," Xera replied as she shut off the comms. By default, The Cosmic System prevented any re-sleeving of consciousness for Aspirants and Ascendants…unless they had the technology implanted before choosing that route. In Shhiv and Missy's case, they had existing implants courtesy of Xera, and backups ready to go. But Quinn, Greg, Priam, and Dee did not. One of the changes that Xera wanted to make but had to put on the back-burner was to change that.

It won't fix rampancy due to overt re-sleeving, she thought. But it can stave off the need for the tunnel to the afterlife for now, and having the backup will be handy.

Xera was at the end of her rope, figuratively speaking. She had been re-sleeving her consciousness for tens of millions of years by this point, and the only way she kept it together was by routine memory compression and defragging. Eventually, the consciousness needed to die.

But death scared her. She did not know what waited in these afterlives…and to achieve her vision of her perfect universe, she had to ensure those who died had a means of return.

The flying boat came to a stop over an island, "That's all we'll take you given the souls you spent," the captain stated.

Jace hopped over the side rail and waved up at the captain, "Fly safe."

"Travel well," the captain replied as the ship lifted off to the skies.

Jace looked out over the ocean. Well, he thought, I can easily enough traverse the terrain with my Soul Tether. He launched the grapple line to a fixed point in space over the water, retracted the line, and as he did so activated and detonated a Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). The momentum sent him sailing across the sky, and he activated Void Stalker (Rank 1) to ensure optimal stealth capability.

Repeating the Soul Tether over and over, he chained together several Dark Energy Mines until he was racing across the black sky. Clusters of demons he sailed over did not notice his passage in the slightest.

"Stop!" Myrnx shouted.

Uryoshk came to a stop, "What is it?"

"I see a flying, black-armored figure with a glimmer of gold on its hip."

Uryoshk let out a growl of frustration, "Where?!"

Myrnx looked to him, licking her chops as she drew a massive arrow the size of her arm, set it to the bow she gripped horizontally, and pulled back. "Follow my arrow."

Yes! Uryoshk tapped the arrow with his palm and merged with it.

Something fast and large crossed the twenty-five foot radius of Jace's Edge's Intuition [Danger Sense]. He dropped the Dark Energy Mine and began a downward arc. An enormous arrow the size of his torso ripped through the air where he had just been. Tracking the trajectory, he saw a female Astral Demon who was holding a ridiculously oversized weapon-

Jace sensed danger behind him, and instinctively activated Void Shield (Rank 6), Void Blade (Rank 17) [Rending], Aura of Wrath (Rank 11) [Voidflame Vestment], Crusader's Bastion, and drew his weapon.

The arrow behind him had shifted into a large-sized demon. Two muscular, bulging arms held an enormous axe. Leathery wings were folded behind them as they crashed down into Jace with a mighty swing fueled by gravity. Jace got his shield into the way and saw the flaring crimson light of the axe head bite into his shield as the two plummeted.

Void Brand (Rank 1), Void Step (Rank 4) [Burst]. Jace vanished with an explosion of grey-white Void, and appeared above and behind the figure with the axe. Throwing his sword down a split-second later, the weapon slammed into the back covered with rippling muscle. It barely left a nick and bounced off before he summoned it back.

Incoming, Ollie stated. Another arrow.

Jace glanced the direction of the archer and saw another arrow coming his way. This one crackled with vermillion light, and he used his Soul Tether to pull himself skyward, dodging the shot with a rapid ascent. And yet once more the arrow went past him, then shifted. A mass of slashing, tearing, shadowy claws that crackled with the same vermillion glow reached toward Jace.

Void Step (Rank 17), he thought as he teleported away from the clasping hands and went toward the archer. Chaining together Soul Tethers he closed the distance rapidly. But the demon bore a wicked grin, and Jace felt a deep sense of unease as every instinct screamed at him that the island she was standing on was a trap.

His [Danger Sense] picked up the hostile coming at him from behind, and Jace waited until the last possible second before using Void Step (Rank 1) to get behind the aerial charge. The demon stopped on a dime and turned to face him.

"Your flesh will adorn my walls!" the male wielding the enormous axe shouted out.

Jace did not reply, instead just raising his hand. I don't have time for this. Void Beam (Rank 3) [Piercing]. The white-grey blasted through both of the demons, utterly annihilating them as it encompassed their whole form. Their bodies left behind the white whisps of Essence, and Jace made sure not to land on that little island as he swung over to collect the substance.

That puts you at one-thousand eight-hundred. You could level up again if you wanted.

"Sounds good," Jace replied as he dismissed all of his Skills save for Void Stalker to at least avoid the Potency 1 and lower demons. He began swinging away over to the east.

Those idiots, Moltrinoch thought with a chuckle. Attacking such a foe without a true element of surprise? He withdrew his spyglass and jetted through the waters, keeping up with the figure who zipped along the skies on invisible lines; some type of swinging, for sure.

Keep attacking him, my rivals, and let me observe. Once I have all the data, I can then analyze the best path to the Dreamer's destruction.

He cackled with delight as he activated his psy-speaker and informed his fellow hunters of the location.