The Path of Ascension

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 527

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:00:19 GMT

Chapter 527

Matt, Liz, and Aster flew out of Collective Space, feeling as if they stood on top of the Realm. They’d strolled into one Great Power and ravaged two of their most important worlds, and immediately gone to another to do a repeat, where they’d been bribed to go home.

Liz had already idly wondered if they could manage a three-peat, but they’d run out of legal war targets. As much as the three of them had fun, they didn’t need or want another war thrown on their plates, which was why such musings were kept limited to the Ascender Chat.

The three of them lost a lot of that levity as they floated back through the frontline, but the crew didn’t. If the three of them felt on top of the Realm, the crew’s mood was in the next and living luxuriously. While they were happy to have survived the jaunt into the Federation, even if they’d collected a few new things to haunt their nightmares thanks to Brian's frog, Liz had made it clear the Tier 38 upgrade orb was a ship prize, not their personal loot.

No one, from the freshest Tier 15 enlisted to the most seasoned Tier 35 general, would have said a word if they’d claimed it as their own, but that was exactly why they didn’t. Ignoring the fact it was unlikely to be allocated to anyone except them, the crew had been in greater danger than the three of them.

If their ship had been damaged or destroyed, the three of them had enough combat prowess to fight their way out, but the rest of the crew wouldn’t have been so lucky.

They reentered Empire space and finally let their ship link back into the greater information networks. The moment they did, they were bombarded by messages from their time off the grid, but most went directly into the trash. They were questions, inquiries, and orders that were too old to be applicable after several years of time.

Matt only found their latest orders after he’d scanned and discarded all of the reprimands, but he didn’t mind. (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 526

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:00:19 GMT

Chapter 526

Lawrence winced as Esther slurped up an escaping noodle while they watched the video Maya had reshared in the war chat.

Apparently, one of the higher Tier Gladiators had put together a highlights montage of their peers’ raid in the Federation. They'd have thought the act of sharing the video was a provocation from their fellow Republic Gladiator until Matt and Ellen had reacted to the message positively a moment later.

When they’d gotten over the shock of such casual sharing, they’d had to deal with the shock of the recording itself.

Their peers were worryingly impressive in ways they couldn’t easily counter.

Esther grumbled something around a mouthful of food, that, if he was being generous, could almost resemble the question, “What’s our plan for that?” in relation to the ichor spells homing in on essence sources.

“Maybe we can shift our cores forward in time? If we can remove them from the present, I bet the homing loses all of its effect.”

After she finished chewing, she shook her head. “We’d probably need to do a full shift, not a veil, and that’s way too much to do mid-combat. She can be a hundred fully independent entities, even if she doesn't have that much blood, we’ve never seen her fight with a single body in any information. And—” She paused to shove more noodles into her mouth, continuing to talk while she chewed. “She likes to cover the gaps and play at all three ranges. Better to not get targeted in the first place. Besides, I bet an essence suppression band does the trick.”

That would be risky but he agreed it might just work. Most tracking spells didn’t have ways to reacquire their locks, so if you could slip it for a moment you were as good as free.

“What about Wraith’s Spirit Space?” He tossed back.

Instead of responding, Esther shook her head as he felt her fiddling with time.

He realized why as he saw her bowl was empty at the same time she (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 525

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:00:12 GMT

Chapter 525

Aster was mildly surprised to find herself enjoying their jaunt through the Federation’s heartlands while they crushed any piecemeal resistance under foot. It wasn’t the novelty of traveling with an Ascender team that wasn’t Zack and Allie that stood out to her, so much as it was fighting with two other backline fighters.

Krodag was a pure support, while Brian waffled between offence and defence exactly like her. Being able to see not only their own dynamic between the two of them, themselves and their frontliners, and how they interacted and incorporated her was mildly eye opening.

She’d expected to step into Brian’s defensive role while he focused purely on the offensive. She’d seen hints of what he could do with his legions of undead, and an army on demand had a lot of uses during a war. However, with her arrival he’d stepped further into the backline, where he threw curses and assisted the other two while letting her take the offensive when she wanted.

At first, she believed he wanted to keep a low profile, but she later realized it had more to do with how Brian and Krodag typically worked. One of them pushed their teammates forward while the other tripped up their enemies.

While Krodag belted out spell laden obscenities to keep the frontline fighters in perfect condition, Brian used both his curses and undead to prevent their enemies from rallying or coordinating. With Aster there to cover the middle, they polarized farther than usual.

It was also in those fights that Aster realized she didn’t need to copy either of their styles, because their roles on their team weren't hers.

Both teams were strong in elite fights, but they differed when it came to numbers. Matt and Liz had zero problems taking care of themselves against armies, where On The Last Line struggled.

Moe could take out any single opposition if he was fully buffed, and the same thing could be said about Ellen, who easily (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 524

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 19:00:20 GMT

Chapter 524

With Tick and Tock’s return to the battlefield, they captured everyone's full attention. Each Great Power wanted to see how the newly returned Ascenders would fare, and when their first battle happened, there was a brief moment where the tight surveillance that all the other Ascenders were subject to loosened.

It wasn't much, and it wasn’t long, hardly a blip on the total coverage. However, On The Last Line, along with Matt, Liz, and Aster, were ready and waiting for exactly that instant where attention wavered.

The three of them had to use a combination of their ship's defensive equipment, a strange realm reward, and two of their crew’s Talents to break contact, but they managed it cleanly.

In the end, it was only the Ascender Chat that made coordinating their plan feasible as three teams kept in contact.

Matt was sure no one expected their move, even if they weren't surprised. In preparation for this moment, both Ascender teams had been playing nice with their Generals’ orders for the last thirty years.

As they’d told Esther and Lawrence, they needed the distraction for what they wanted to do. All of them had hated the current stalemate, and they’d all been pushing hard for some kind of way to break the status quo that wasn’t a detriment to their own sides.

He’d initially tossed the idea of raiding the Federation’s Dankor system as something closer to a joke than a real suggestion, but the other six had jumped on the idea. It had started as idle chatter about how mad the Federation would be, but the more they discussed it, the more they realized how good of an idea it was.

It wouldn’t be easy, all of the Great Powers kept their Dankor systems deep in their heartlands and they were always defended by several teams of Tier 35 high elites. Long standing policy meant they knew the Federation would retract their frontlines rather than let them strike that deep inside their heartland. (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 523

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:00:13 GMT

Chapter 523

It only took thirty-five years for Lawrence and Esther to return to the war. Originally, they’d been scheduled to take a full forty years for recovery, with the last ten dedicated to time spent outside their rift-based prison, but they hadn’t made it that far. Things hadn’t been too bad when Maya was there, but when she left, their time in the base had turned cold and sterile, as the only thing to do was heal or dwell on the numerous questions they had.

Ultimately, while the healers and their assistants were nice people, far too many were star struck and neither of them had the energy to deal with them. Their escape to reality hadn’t been all that better, despite their hopes.

In fact, it had, more than anything else, made them confront the passage of time. They’d both thought they were ready for that, but when it happened, some small things still managed to take their metaphorical legs out from under them.

Everything could feel normal for an entire morning, but then one of them would overhear a comment they weren’t expecting and everything would taste like ash.

Each time that happened they were forced to confront the reality that many of the people they had known, grown up with, fought with, and fought against were gone. Washed away by a hundred thousand years of growth and experiences they’d avoided by way of an exploding star.

Even the friends who were still around were reminders. They were the worst of it all.

Seeing their brash and immature friends as old Tier 45s was hard. Seeing the weight of those years heavy on their shoulders was even worse.

So many years gone in what had felt like hours to them.

And then there was Linda.

Lawrence still didn’t quite know how to feel about that and her. He knew what the therapists wanted him to think, he knew what Esther thought, though she hadn’t said anything, he knew what seemingly everyone but he himself thought.

Inside (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 522

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 19:00:22 GMT

Chapter 522

Johannes looked on in awe as the final manifestation obscured and consumed Dankor Three. The satellites seemed to drink in all energy, which made Dankor Three nearly invisible to his magical senses.

His scientific side even noted and appreciated the realism that the rear sides of the satellites had a measure of absorption capabilities, as was evident by the shadowy image that was his only method of observing Dankor Three.

Combined with the eerie feeling that the moon wanted to jump its orbit, but never doing so, he knew he’d remember Ascender Titan’s Aspect formation for the rest of his life.

His feelings morphed into dread as the satellites vanished and he saw three large sections of the moon jettisoning themselves from the planet's surface.

Johannes mind snapped and then went blank as he saw subsurface Delta along with two others rising out of poor Dankor Three.

The only question he could ask was, how?

They weren’t even magically connected to the main formation and were simple support structures. It didn’t make any sense how they’d been… exploded.

As the base's leadership moved to meet the apologetic Ascender Titan, Johannes wanted to cry, but knew he didn’t have time for tears. They’d just lost Dankor Three for the time being, which meant getting Dankor One back into circulation as quickly as possible.

***

Liz stood with Aster as they watched a sheepish Matt apologize for the sixth time about the damage his Domain’s final manifestation had caused. The manager assured him that the damage wasn’t too bad and that he shouldn’t worry, but he might as well have saved his breath for all the good their words did.

They could all see with their own eyes how bad things were.

If there was a good side, it was that the damage was concentrated in three main areas. It was just that those areas happened to be entire regions of the moon's delicate outer layer.

(...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 521

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:00:20 GMT

Chapter 521

No matter how much Matt wanted to return to Empire space after losing a team member, he and the others knew their duty.

Having not just broken free from the Federation’s trap, but causing serious casualties and dispersing their pursuers, they were suddenly free to go on a rampage. There was no one near them with enough power to stop them anymore. So, while the Federation scrambled to rebuild and repair their elite strike force, the three of them destroyed four primary war targets.

The two shipyards’ losses were more of an inconvenience, but were still useful in the short term. Their loss meant that the Federation would have to send their ships deeper into their territory for repairs for the next several decades.

And those decades would matter. Everything mattered on the scale that the Great Powers operated in. Doubly so when they were hitting less hardened targets, being away from the expected frontlines.

Where other units would be swarmed by armies until they were worn down, they’d spent the first part of the war proving why that wouldn’t work. The three of them were experts at widescale destruction, and any armies sent their way were being thrown away.

In the lower Tiers that was the goal, but it was very much not in the higher Tiers, and the Federation leadership wasn’t about to waste entire armies that had no chance of successfully repelling them.

The only chance to force them out was to send an overwhelming number of peak and pinnacle elites, but that meant they couldn’t be used anywhere else on the warfront, weakening their overall effectiveness.

Matt knew the value in one unit being able to effectively neutralize so many just by being on the field. It was a role only Ascenders could play because only they had a chance of surviving.

Not that being deep in enemy space didn’t have its own advantages.

In their efforts to create distance between raids, they (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 520

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 19:00:10 GMT

Chapter 520

They spent three years and destroyed almost a hundred secondary targets before the Federation pinnacle elite trap snapped shut around them. They’d been allowed almost free reign in Federation space, and they knowingly dug deeper at every opportunity handed to them.

It was the role that only Ascenders could play. They could become a thorn impossible to ignore that came with an incredible price to even temporarily extract. As such, when the response was an array of small, three man scout ships blanketing the area they were operating in, they didn’t flee back to Empire space seeing the trap appear.

They did the same thing they did every other time. They pushed the knife deeper and twisted. They pushed their ship to its Talent-backed limits, making the Federation’s patience as costly as possible.

The first ship arrived after only four months. It wasn’t a known vessel, which made it a clear response to them. All and all, it was an interesting approach. One he wanted to study in detail, but he knew they’d never let him capture such a valuable ship intact. While the ship did have massive dual engines, letting them raise their maximum speed beyond the norm for short bursts, that wasn’t where the designers had focused their efforts.

They’d correctly realized they’d never catch up in raw speed. Instead, they’d gone the other way to cover distance fast: teleporting.

Matt paused as he realized the ships were most likely an attempt to replicate Allie, that had been repurposed to fight them. Once his Insight had the idea, it devoured it.

The ships were tiny for the troop transports that they were. It was only a tenth of their ship’s size, with far more of its tonnage dedicated to its crew, which would make things cramped to the extreme. But all of that was to make teleporting the ship easier.

The first time they saw it, Matt had given the order to pursue. He’d been interested in testing just (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 519

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:18:02 GMT

Chapter 519

The return of Tick and Tock changed everything overnight. Not because of them directly, rather the Empire high command decided to use their news shock to launch the assault they’d been rumor mongering for the last few years.

However rather than rally themselves into Collective space, their weapons were finally turned to the Federation. The entire border moved as armies that had been ‘avoiding the Clans’ fighting’ were coincidentally on the border with the Federation.

On top of the general troops, a dozen more specialized armies in each of the three core Tiers, Tier 15, 25, and 35, pushed deeper and assaulted strategic waypoints in Federation space. Under the umbrella of their attack, smaller units split off and made targeted incursions wherever they could cause damage. Others acted at the farthest reaches of the border drawing attention afield.

Matt didn’t need his Insight to see from the initial push the Empire was trying to drive a spike into the heart of the Federations supply lines that fed their frontline with the Clans. It was a good plan. One that would show instant results on the frontline as reinforcements were rerouted to the new incursion or delayed as they circled around the large spike of enemy controlled territory.

From the troop movements he gave even odds of the move being a tactical feint or a true attempt to cut the Federation’s war efforts off at the knees.

Ultimately Matt suspected the end result would be the former even if they intended the latter. There was no way the Federation would allow such a vulnerable overextension to remain unassaulted in their territory. However such pushes had turned into stubborn thorns in the sides of Great Powers more than once in the long river of history.

Rarer yet were the times when such a minor breach turned into true conquest as the defenders failed to extract the thorn.

The three of them weren’t left out of the new orders either (...)

The Path of Ascension - The Path of Ascension Chapter 518

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 19:00:19 GMT

Chapter 518

Aoife watched Legend Maya race off with Tick and Tock clutched in her arms with a flat expression carefully welded onto her face.

It wouldn’t do to let her anger show. Not right now. Not in front of the other Tier 50s.

At most other times, giving away so much would have made her stand out amongst the taciturn Great Power leaders, but today was an exception. Most of them were wearing similar expressions, though for undoubtedly different reasons.

She wasn’t particularly angry at the Legends’ sudden revival like the others, but she wasn’t about to advertise that fact. In fact, the only one outwardly happy was Janet.

The President of the Everlasting Republic smiled harder than when she’d ascended to Tier 50, which made her stand out in stark contrast to everyone else. None of the others were happy to see a possible enemy get a Legend team out of nowhere.

Winter Hornet, while clearly happy for the duo in question, didn’t extend that pleasure to their leader and gave her a snort before vanishing in a puff of snow and ice.

Aoife didn’t bother trying to find him, instead she turned her attention to the true recipient of her ire before he could slip out. Emmanuel.

The Emperor’s expression was carefully flat, if slightly befuddled. She didn’t trust it. What she did trust were the ever glowing eyes that never stopped darting around.

They needed to have a talk, and soon.

JR broke everyone out of their reverie by speaking. “I still feel like I could make an argument that they aren’t a part of this war. They most certainly don’t fall under the new Chosen clause. Tier 35 assets must be registered and all that.”

“The time for such arguments has long since passed. Besides that's a foolish argument anyway—”

Janet then launched into a well reasoned defense so fast, Aoife would have thought she’d been prepared for this exact situation, but she didn’t care (...)