Exploration (Welcome to the Multiverse Book 10), page 66
He stopped to pick up Tad, as the attention of everyone still alive had turned toward the ascendant attack. This was his time to escape.
Chapter Seventy-Four: Unleashed
I ached all over. That attack from Kalix had occurred on more than just a physical level. Without Urg, Halo of the Immortal would have activated, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if my soul would have survived the damage enough to reform. I glanced over at my fiancée. Selena had minor injuries but had already downed a healing potion.
Celestial Restoration was normally quick to heal almost anything, but the damage Urg had taken was somehow resistant to any regeneration I threw at it. I didn’t know whether to be concerned about the princess, but at the moment, I couldn’t muster the emotional bandwidth for it.
Notifications were pouring in, telling me about progress on the quest. It seemed as though the ploy to distract Kalix had worked wonders, because the Order members were dropping like flies. Now that there wasn’t a roof over my head, I could see Azuria and Samvek circling high above. Dragons were truly a terrifying sight.
Most of the notifications I just pushed away, but there was one that seemed to be fighting for my attention.
Your eidolon, Urg, has not been resummoned since you upgraded your spell Summon Eidolon to Summon Eidolon—Pocket Dimension. Upon Urg’s next summoning, his stats will be updated to 300% of your current stats, but with your stat effectiveness bonuses applied.
Do you wish to resummon your Eidolon?
I almost jumped at the confirmation, but I was worried that Urg wouldn’t be able to be summoned back here. He must have felt my concern because he put one of his hands on my shoulder. “Remember upgrade. Trust Urg. Will not be kept from you again. Silas is not only one who is growing.”
With his encouragement, I dismissed him. Before I could recast the spell, I was distracted, noticing that even wounded, the princess was able to keep Kalix busy. They were locked in a battle that looked like nothing more than shimmering air, but I could feel how their fight was taking place across a spread of times and dimensions.
I looked at Selena. “Do we help her?”
“She’s not an ally.”
I nodded. “But we did use her as a distraction.”
“You’re too soft-hearted for your own good. Let what happens happen. Even if he kills her, this is clearly taking a lot out of him. Make sure your people are okay. I know that matters to you, even if they’re really Tad’s people. Then trust that we can finish off a wounded ascendant.”
I wasn’t entirely confident, but she was right. I wanted to make sure the rest of the team was okay. I found that I wasn’t able to warp space here without a huge amount of effort, so I cast Area Flight instead, and soon we were streaking through the air. At the speed at which we could fly, reaching the center of the action was nigh on instantaneous.
I took in the totality of the battlefield, picking out Violet among a contingent of adventurers. It looked like a couple of their number had died, but to me that had all of the emotional weight of a red shirt dying. Sad, certainly, but in the scope of this battle, better than I could have hoped for. Mirren and Crynane were busy healing the elves. I didn’t see any moving members of the Order, although there was a pile of them next to where Oliver and Clay stood with the golems.
Things were looking surprisingly promising. I checked the quest tracker. As I suspected, all of the Order had been slain, except for Kalix. That only ignited a fire under me. It was time to regroup. I could feel Urg, and knew he’d be back any minute now.
Before I could call to Samvek on group chat, though, Fara suddenly appeared close to me. “Something’s wrong. I can’t find Tad or Lexa.”
Now that she mentioned it, I realized I hadn’t seen either of them anywhere. My breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t known Tad very long, but he was already a friend. I didn’t want to think he had fallen.
I let my Perception spread out, trying to sense him. Spirit Sight, normal physical sensations, none of it picked up on his location. I used group chat to ask Samvek if he’d spotted Tad recently.
“No, I haven’t seen him. Lost track of him while we were fighting. Wait. Azuria says she felt the presence of the Void around him.”
I activated System Sight. I hadn’t thought about using it to find a person, since it was used for seeing into the inner workings of systems. But sure enough, as soon as I did, I could see a winged figure in black robes standing over a body at the far end of the clearing. Lexa was a short distance away, lying on the ground. According to the information I was getting from System Sight, something was wrong with her, deep in her core.
I warped space and tried to get to them, but bounced off some sort of force shield, laced with the unmistakable smell of the Void. Whatever the barrier was, it was keeping this figure—who I now realized must be a void fey—trapped in there with Tad, who appeared to be unconscious. For a moment, I dared to hope this might be Tad’s father, but I quickly realized that couldn’t be right.
The black-robed figure turned to stare at me as I unleashed a barrage of lightning against the sphere that surrounded them. He held up his hand. “Step back and stop attacking, or I’ll have no choice but to kill the prince.”
“Do what you gotta do. I’ll resurrect him after I kill you.”
As if to reinforce my words, Azuria landed next to the sphere, and I saw the dark figure inside quake with genuine fear. Samvek and Selena stood to either side of me, and soon Tad’s people began to reach us. I recalled I still needed to resummon Urg. I decided I’d play that ace later, if the situation deemed it necessary.
Then I saw Tad’s hand twitch. Whatever he’d been hit with, he was starting to come to. We needed a distraction to give him time.
“What is it you want, then?” I asked the figure, whose name I still did not know.
“To be left alone by the Courts and the Lawgiver. I want to rule my own world. I understand that it won’t be this one, given its significance, but I’ve served too long. It’s time for me to rule.”
It struck me then what we were dealing with. This figure, whoever he was, had to be the stupid smart guy. Judging by the power of the sphere, he had a level of control over magic that was admirable. I was getting all sorts of interesting tidbits from studying it. Part of me said it wasn’t there at all, yet I knew it was. I’d smacked into it. This type of barrier would be worth learning to master.
Despite his power, at some point along the way, he’d ended up feeling unappreciated. It had given him this childish need to take what he wanted no matter who he hurt along the way. I bit back a smile, resisting the urge to call him Gargamel.
Selena was having none of it, telling him how many ways we had at our disposal to creatively end him, and that his only way out of it was to drop the sphere now and flee, leaving Tad behind.
He grew angry enough that he started spouting his feelings of entitlement by talking about how none of us were smart enough to recognize his brilliance. I would have thought that it was too stereotypical to be real, but then I remembered that stereotypes were always based on something.
Besides, his ranting gave Tad the time he needed. He was moving, albeit slowly and deliberately. I expected him to attack this figure, who’d identified himself as Rathmar the Wise, by draining—make that eating—his mana. It was clearly the strongest of his abilities from what I’d seen, but instead he produced something from spatial storage. I recognized it instantly—the scepter which held the demon, Decimus.
It was a risky ploy, but maybe his assessment of Rathmar was better than mine, since I couldn’t get a feel for how powerful he was with the sphere blocking my senses. Tad must have channeled mana into the scepter to activate it, because a massive demon began to form inside the sphere. The problem was, there wasn’t enough room for all three of them.
“You fool!” Rathmar shrieked, actually waving a fist.
An instant later, the sphere began to expand, and the battle inside commenced in what would be the ultimate cage match. That was when I felt another presence approaching us. It appeared that Kalix had prevailed over Allanna, but his aura and guise were now the equivalent of an old man, limping along with a cane. I could still sense the inherent power, but it was shriveled, injured, and only a fraction of what it had been before. I was positive he’d recover, but we couldn’t give him the chance.
“Fara!” I shouted, “Stay here with your people in case Tad needs you. We’ll take on the ascendant.”
With that, I cast Summon Eidolon and felt Urg rushing to come to my aid. When he appeared, he was a full foot taller than he had been before. His white wings were now half white and half gold, creating a scintillating pattern. The gold extended to inch-wide stripes that ran down the back of each of his four arms. Otherwise, his form was the same. When he smiled at me, I felt greater strength emanating from him than ever before, but he was still my Urg.
Urg: Legendary (86%)—Guide of the Pack, The Way Forward, an unbound primordial echo
(300% of Silas’ base stats after his stat effectiveness bonuses have been applied)
Ability Imitation (Legendary 6/7):
The Majesty of Space
Blood is Life
Hunter’s Tether
Force Projection Mastery
Spirit Singing
Lightning Arc Mastery
Spell Imitation (Legendary 4/5):
Celestial Restoration
Cloud of Mana Disruption
Primordial Surge
Diversity of Cold
Abilities:
Thunderous Taunt
Bastion of Sound
Protective Encasement
Astral Ideation
Blip
Stats: 879,081 (Effective x 300%)
Strength: 100,000
Dexterity: 40,000
Agility: 100,000
Vitality: 120,000
Durability: 120,000
Endurance: 40,000
Mind: 120,000
Will: 120,000
Charisma: 19,081
Perception: 100,000
I only had a second to admire the changes in Urg. His shared spells and abilities had updated to match my upgrades, although Diversity of Cold had been added to his list to replace Line of Sight Teleportation.
It was the stats that were the true shocker. The numbers were large enough to seem insane even to me, but I knew it was all a matter of perspective. Most of my stats after the effectiveness bonus was added were in the high 20,000s or even 30,000s, and he was now three or four times higher than me in every stat except Dexterity, Endurance, and Charisma. What that would mean in this battle was yet to be seen, but I did notice that his priorities had shifted, and both Mind and Will had received sharper upgrades than most of the other stats.
All those concerns were driven from me when Kalix appeared in front of the sphere. He waved his hand, and a wall of light rushed out, splitting when it hit the sphere as though it were a rock in a river. Maybe he could wear it down over time, but he didn’t seem to be able to do anything with the odd dimensional barrier.
Meanwhile, inside the sphere, the demon and the void fey continued to battle, while Tad concentrated on… something. Without being able to talk to him, I could only guess, and I was coming up empty.
On the outside, Azuria had had enough. “One does not ignore a dragon without consequences,” she growled.
She opened her mouth, and rings of lightning launched outward to encircle the now-ragged-looking Kalix. Then, she began to squeeze. He screamed, but whatever pain he felt must have been fleeting, because he extinguished the lightning rings with a flex of his will.
“So this is a dragon? Nothing at all like I’d heard in the legends. I have to say, I’m not impressed.”
I don’t know if he intended to trigger her, but his statement elicited an immediate response from Azuria. Kalix flew straight upward, propelled by little more than thought as far as I could tell. She pounced on the spot where he’d been, then shot upward after him. Samvek called to her, but she didn’t answer, so he warped space, reappearing on her back. Talia cast something on both rider and dragon—probably some sort of buff, but I wasn’t sure.
I extended Area Flight to Talia, Selena, Urg, and the two golems. “They can’t beat him on their own,” I said.
I didn’t know what was about to happen, but we were willingly choosing to fight an ascendant. I reminded myself to check my Mind stat for debuffs when I had a moment.
Chapter Seventy-Five: Ascendant Battle
The battle took place more than a mile above the city, air screaming around us as space, magic, and raw will collided in violent pulses. Clouds shredded and reformed as if the atmosphere was being kneaded by invisible hands. Below us, the city looked small and fragile in a way that made my jaw clench. The extent of the damage from Kalix’s earlier attack became readily apparent this high up. It was going to take the city a long time to recover from this.
There was so much more to the battle than what the human eye could see. Kalix hurled volleys of spiritual energy at us with an efficiency only an ascendant could achieve. I tried to shield my team from the brunt of the damage, although ultimately it was only me and Selena I had to protect. Azuria was effectively immune, shielding Samvek from the worst of it, and Urg brushed it off as if it were a speck of dirt on his shoulder.
But that wasn’t even the start of it. This battle would play out in phase and out of phase, across various dimensions and times. It was impossible to describe exactly, but with the growth of my temporal affinity, I got a better sense of how Kalix could exist in more than a single moment.
The Arbiter hovered at the center of it all, his wounded form radiating authority that bent reality before it ever touched him. Every time one of us struck, his aura responded first, diverting attacks like they were inconvenient suggestions rather than killing intent. Lightning split toward him and curved away at the last instant, firestorms unraveled into harmless heat hazes, and spatial compressions slid off his presence like water off the back of a duck. Even diminished, he was still an ascendant, and the difference between us was brutally clear.
We hit him anyway.
Selena warped reality in sharp, surgical distortions. Air became poison, up became down, and all of it worked against his will. Samvek shifted space so that Azuria’s massive bulk could strike from impossible directions, all while hammering our foe with lightning-infused spear thrusts that cracked the sound barrier, each blow landing with the force of a falling building. I layered Psi constructs and spatial traps around Kalix, trying to limit his movements long enough for something to stick. But every time we got close, his aura flared, and space simply refused to cooperate. My mastery might have grown, but I was painfully learning my own limits.
Urg and Azuria were making the most impact. Urg moved like a living echo of something older than the system, his strikes carrying a conceptual weight that didn’t rely on mana alone. Azuria was impossible to ignore, her blue scales catching the light as she tore through the sky, lightning pouring from her jaws in a torrent wide enough to engulf city blocks. Kalix took those hits head-on, his form flickering as attacks landed across multiple dimensions.
Then, for the first time, I saw him forced to react.
The Mercury Mirror Golems surged up from below, liquid metal bodies flowing through the air as if gravity were optional. They split apart mid-flight, reforming with bladed limbs and crushing mauls, their adaptive matrices responding instantly to Kalix’s movements. For a heartbeat, hope flared in my chest, until Kalix turned his attention to them.
He reached out with a casual motion, and space around the golems folded inward. Their liquid forms twisted, surfaces warping as if the concept of cohesion had been rewritten. One golem tried to reassemble and was crushed into itself, its mirror-metal body collapsing into a writhing knot before being hurled downward like a wadded-up ball of aluminum foil.
The second golem attempted to counter, blades flashing, only for Kalix to shear its limbs away with a spatial distortion. The golem followed its brother, tumbling end over end toward the city, broken and inert before it ever hit the ground. I hoped they were still functional, but I knew that repairs were going to be in order before they could resume the fight.
Rage surged through me, hot and focused. I split my presence with Blip and The Majesty of Space, striking Kalix from overlapping angles, my lightning riding compressed folds of space to hit him from behind and below at the same time. He snarled and twisted, one blow clipping his shoulder hard enough to draw blood that burned gold in the air. It wasn’t much, but it was real, and that mattered more than anything.
Kalix answered with a gesture that felt like a verdict. His aura pulsed outward, a layered wave of authority that struck all of us at once, and suddenly the sky was full of pressure. I felt my force constructs implode, spatial anchors tearing free as if they had never existed. Selena cried out as reality buckled around her, Samvek was flung sideways, trailing lightning, and even Azuria roared as the force hammered into her bulk.
Urg caught the brunt of it with me, his body shielding mine instinctively as his wings flared wide. We were still moving, still fighting, but the rhythm had shifted. Kalix was pressing now, exploiting the cracks his aura had opened, striking across time and distance in ways that made my Precognition scream warnings faster than I could act on them.
I threw everything I had into defense and offense at the same time, juggling force shields, spatial redirection, and lightning until my mana flow burned like a live wire. Every exchange cost more than the last, and Kalix seemed to sense it. His blows landed fast and heavy, each one carrying layered intent that made my teeth rattle and my vision blur.
Then he found his opening.
I felt it a fraction of a second too late, the way space around me went thin and wrong. Kalix struck with a compressed burst of force that bypassed my shields entirely, catching me square in the chest. The impact was catastrophic, folding air and space together as I was ripped out of formation and hurled downward. As my vision started to darken, I saw Azuria and Urg surging toward Kalix, trailing lightning and fury in their wake.
