The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

5

Etienne looked down at his newly-repaired arm.

A Corp mercenary had blown it off in the last fight, but he had taken the man’s head; a fair trade.

While replacing your flesh was less than pleasant without Minkalla, there were ways. Ones at which the CyberForce Guild excelled at, though they were more painful.

Still, the power was tangible.

As his [AI] beeped, he shot to his feet and ran.

With his mechanical legs and Power boosting his speed, he crossed the miles required to reach the perimeter wall in less than a thousandth of a second.

He was the only member of CyberForce here, and it was his duty to prevent the base from being raided. This was a break assignment for his efforts in the last century. A break for his good deeds.

Normally, it would be an easy task, but a Corp mercenary team had set up shop while raiding their military installations in this area, which turned a mission that was meant to be a minor vacation into a dangerous assignment.

With two hundred Tier 25s, they outnumbered his own Tier 25 assets three to one, and that was a gap he couldn’t cover himself.

If he wanted, he could kill most of them in a single engagement, but that would mean massive casualties for the men protecting this base.

Unacceptable.

He was no true Hero, but he wasn’t a callous asshole, either. Each normal soldier had their own life they valued as much as he valued his. All of which meant he needed to beat down this mercenary team slowly.

And they were here again.

Activating his command channel, he said, “Prepare to repel boarders once again.”

The moon they were on didn’t have an atmosphere, but that only helped him and increased his top speed without needing to use his Domain.

As the soldiers started casting spells and firing their defensive weapons, Etienne flexed his legs and launched himself into the air as he started running.

Using his Concept as a ground, his Power started increasing his speed to levels even a Tier 29 would struggle to keep up with as he weaved between projectiles, cutting out at the mercenaries while he ran forward.

This was the third raid, and he had a plan.

As their ship spat out another volley of attacks, he increased his speed to his limit and dashed inside the port before the weapons hatch closed.

Now that he was inside the ship, he started doing what he did best.

Killing people.

His integrated [AI] kept track of everyone’s position even as his shoulder rockets unleashed a barrage of [Fireblast]s.

He dodged a blade and projected an [Energy Sword] from his wrist, bisecting the woman guarding the hatch.

Two kicks later, the door fell, and he was free to run once more.

In the close quarters of the ship’s halls, he took mostly cosmetic damage to his cybernetics, and in a short two minutes, he had entered the helm and had the captain held up by the neck.

“Call off the raids or die.”

The man smiled.

“I’d like to discuss your surrender. We have the helm rigged with explosives. We knew you would do this, Mercury. You were our target from the start.”

Etienne wasn’t surprised and smiled as liquid metal seeped out of his pores.

Crushing the captain’s neck, the last thing he saw was the man’s surprised expression as the ship exploded.

Thankfully, his liquid metal module was more than enough to protect him from an explosion of this Tier.

With their leader exploding, the rest of the mercenaries tore through real space into chaotic space, but Etienne followed. He kept up a steady harassment until they were well away from the flickering light that was his planet, but not beyond.

He was only Tier 25 and couldn’t entirely protect himself from the degradation of chaotic space with his own power, but seeing the mercenary group leave, he knew his job was completed.

Now, there would come the paperwork and funerals.

Etienne needed a break from this break.

Kar’Tan stalked the halls of his laboratory, a vial clutched in his paw. Around him, tubes filled with all manner of liquids slowly bubbled, the tiny, misshapen creatures within them pulsing like they were alive.

For they were. Mostly, at least.

The Chimera Program had, in the days of the Federation, been one of the countless abominations their hated enslavers had subjected them to. They were, however, far less interested in actual results than simply stitching flesh and bone together in the most painful ways imaginable. Their attempts to add bloodlines to humans, to add bloodlines to beasts, to create new bloodlines… They all failed, save for a single instance.

Kar’Tan himself.

His parents, if he could call the genetic donors spliced together in a test tube and grown within an incubator ‘parents’, had been a Golden Eagle and a Solar Lion, but he was no griffin. He was a winged lion instead, a carnivorous mockery of a pegasus, yet a vicious predator with two mighty bloodlines, nonetheless.

Many of his compatriots from the war had sought to distance themselves from those running the Federation and anything they worked on as much as they possibly could, which he understood. He had done the same for the first few thousand years of their independence, but they soon learned.

Independence wasn’t easy to maintain with all the other Great Powers breathing down their necks.

After a devastating loss twenty thousand years after their independence, Kar’Tan had seen the value within himself, so when the Monster Collective higher ups started making inquiries about restarting the program, he had been the first to offer his services.

He had been party to the true horrors of the old Project Chimera, and thus was trusted to not stray too far into the abject depravity that haunted the program’s past.

That he actually produced results, rather than creatively spliced corpses, certainly helped.

Kar’Tan stopped in front of an incubation tube slightly larger than his already-impressive size, injecting the serum he had recently concocted into the intake membrane at the device’s base. The crimson fluid stood out in stark contrast to the faintly-green liquid currently surrounding a feathered dragon in embryo, yet sought out its target like so many snakes, diving into the lab-grown creature.

Failures were frequent and catastrophic.

It had taken him almost a millennia to produce the first proper chimera, a splice between a Water Otter and an Ice Martin, yet even that one had only survived for a few days outside of its birthing pod. It took millennia more before he had a subject survive until Awakening, but Awakening turned a bright, cheery little raven-fox into a slavering, insane monster akin to those within a rift.

With the serum having taken, Kar’Tan began his return to the other section of his laboratory. His long strides were soundless against the metal grates that acted as the floor, leaving only the faint hums of enchantment and circulating nutrient fluid from the dozens of tanks around him.

Even now, failures outnumbered successes a hundred to one, but they were improving. Chimeras were being born, they were surviving to Awakening, they weren’t going mad.

At least, occasionally.

It was hundreds of years between each true success, and even though most chimeras proved willing to join the army once they were grown, most was not all, and they never forced it. The fraction who were suitable to the rigors of Elite military duty were slimmer still, but having nearly the full prowess of two bloodlines was a potent one, in the rare instances that it all worked.

Potent enough for Project Chimera to retain its generous funding.

With a flap of his wings, Kar’Tan brought himself to the catwalk overlooking the growing chamber, then a few steps were all that was needed to return him to the far busier portion of the building.

His colleagues, a mixture of humans and beasts, worked in an interesting combination of utter chaos and complete order, as requests and cries to “Make way!” and “Behind!” turned the floor into a chaotic stew of researchers and assistants taking notes, studying magical patterns, and developing strategies for the next batch of chimeras.

War was coming.

They needed to be prepared.

Valerie stood her ground with her bonded armor as Violet Paladin Ortiz gave his welcome speech to a dozen Tier 10s. Five hundred years ago, she had been on the receiving end of this speech, but the new perspective brought with it no small amount of pride.

“You all fought for this position. You are some of the best fighters in your generation. Not all of you will become Paladins, but it’s possible. Green Paladin Valerie is our newest member, having stood where you are now just five hundred years ago. Now, out of Minkalla and bonded to her armor, she represents who you compete to become.”

As Paladin Ortiz said that, she saw the desire in their eyes. It was familiar.

“Green Paladin Valerie, please give us a demonstration,” Violet Paladin Ortiz said it with a smile, and Valerie had to resist grinning.

Her job here was to be serious and knock some sense into the recruits. Having been on the other side of this, she was more than ready to knock some heads together. If they were half as arrogant as she was, they needed it.

“Green Paladin Valerie will be fighting all of you in your training armors. Worry not that she will just overpower you with her better power armor. Her power armor is better, but she won’t use even a tenth of its strength. Your training armor is stronger than hers.”

Valerie smiled as her helmet sealed her in, and she merged with her armor more fully. Having emerged from Minkalla, she had been granted a full [Assistive Intelligence ME26-MI], and the original skill truly made the armor feel like a second layer of skin. With the module active, she moved into the center of the recruits.

A Paladin’s powered armor was made through incredible craftsmanship, using only the best natural treasures. Minkalla turned the powered armor into a growth armor, and a whole lot of training created a perfect pilot for the armor.

They protected the Corporations as the finest fighting force that existed and were given the best of everything, but that came with responsibility.

Valerie knew each of the recruits thought they were sure to be the one to bind with a Paladin armor, but out of the close to fifty recruits, if more than two of them got the right to enter Minkalla, she would be shocked.

Earning that shot wasn’t easy, and the biggest obstacle was the recruits’ own pride. Well, the suits of armor that took centuries to build certainly didn’t make things any easier. There were far, far more candidates than available armors after all, but that was why they weeded out the recruits even after the rigorous preselection. If the fighting style of a candidate didn’t happen to align with a suit’s specialty, they were already out of luck.

As the first blade tried to descend on her back, Valerie spun. She was slower than she was used to, but the recruits were sluggish despite all their hours of holographic training sims.

The real power armors were different, no matter how good the program.

They were more robotic than their suits accounted for.

Dipping low, she kicked the blade out of the first recruit’s hand before planting her hands on the ground and spinning, tripping another two recruits.

Bouncing to her feet with a strong push, she jumped once more and kneed the closest one in the helmet.

As he fell back, she rode him down and broke the encirclement.

This was so much fun.

When the last of the recruits dropped to their butts, she stepped back to Violet Paladin Ortiz, who winked at her.

He knew what was coming next and was looking forward to it as much as she was.

“Recruits, your armors seem a little damaged. Your first task is to fix them.” Pointing off to the side, he showed them the mechanics.

All of them had hard expressions, but it was all an act Valerie knew. The mechanics were some of the most passionate people in the Paladins, but they served a less highlighted role for all that it was just as valuable. A lesson the recruits needed to learn. If they couldn’t respect the people who maintained their armor, they had no place among the Paladins.

Most of them came from pampered backgrounds and were used to being given everything by teams of hired help, but that wasn’t how the Paladins worked, and those who couldn’t grasp that fact invariably failed. An operator was only one half of a Paladin team. Even after turning into a growth item and becoming able to repair itself, no operator wanted their armor to be running at anything other than its best. Which was where the mechanics came in.

Only one of the recruits, a man who she clotheslined in a bit of fun, moved at first. He moved to the closest team and demanded they repair his armor.

The mechanics refused.

The man looked gobsmacked and stood there as he tried to process what to do.

Ordering the mechanics was the second worst way to try and get them to help. The only way that was worse was using violence, and that option was why Paladin Ortiz and she stayed around. Well, they also wanted to watch the show, but they were ready to move and protect the mechanics.

Paladin Ortiz hadn’t lied when he said that she was only using a fraction of her armor’s power. With two growth powers on her Tier 15 armor, she could cross the distance faster than they could throw a punch. Paladin Ortiz could be there before the recruit even flexed if he was so needed.

As the first man started shouting, she smiled.

The show was starting.