The Path of Ascension 8: A LitRPG Adventure

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Luna felt a ripple in space, and like everyone else, narrowed her spiritual perception into the Clans’ moon to inspect the group who came out.

Tier 13s, and with the overly full feeling that came with a successful Folded Reflections reward. Seeing that, everyone’s attention retreated off the now thoroughly scanned team and spread back across each of the eight moons.

The nerves across the highest Tiers were palpable and translated to the various spiritual senses trying to shove the others away from their area of influence. But with so many spiritual perceptions layering, it was like trying to shove the ocean away with one’s hands.

It just flowed back in, but the exercise was more about demonstrating displeasure than actually accomplishing anything.

In the Empire at least, it was outright illegal for higher Tiers to spread their perceptions so widely on a regular basis, as well as being rude, but Minkalla paid no heed to decency at the best of times.

Thirty seconds later, when another spatial ripple appeared on the Federation moon, everyone repeated their swarming, to see that it was only a pair of Tier 14s leaving from the fourth floor with new Concepts. Luna and everyone else returned to a more neutral stance before four quick exits to various moons from floors five and six raised their hackles. None of the entrances gave them anything of consequence, and she quickly remembered why she hated Minkalla.

She was half-tempted to bring out her tail just so she had something to flick.

The waiting for the final floor’s reveal and the unknown fate of her children were like two sore spots that were also rubbing her fur the wrong way.

Normally, things weren’t quite so bad, but with the fourth floor Courtly Warfare, she knew the various groups would be preventing anyone from fighting a boss undisturbed. It would help them better finish off the last of their kill missions, which would form a bottleneck on the final level of the seventh floor.

As tensions rose like boiling water trying to escape the pot, a fight broke out between two Republican and Corporation Tier 40s. They at least had the manners to fight each other in the outer system and keep their attacks limited in scale, but the gas giant that was already on its last leg was obliterated by a stray attack, creating a pretty swirl of gasses trailing perpendicular to the rest of the system.

The fight at least provided some entertainment that was more exciting than counting the spires of the planet again, during the lulls between teleports.

Luna was just getting ready to start scratching something when another ripple appeared on the moon under her.

As her spiritual perception swept over them, she instantly teleported next to her charges and brought them all to the hospital, with her heart racing. They were well into Tier 12, which made her wonder when they had been forced to Tier up. More importantly, she could feel the spiritual damage that always accompanied a new Innate skill slot. Skills were not yet placed inside them, but that didn’t directly tell her anything surprising.

Even with her acting to shield her charges, everyone over Tier 25 in the system was already hovering over the moon, demanding answers to the most important question.

What was the final floor?

She used all her spiritual sense to wrap up her children, but she could feel others, notably the Tier 45’s from each Great Power, ripping her shielding away and trying to inspect the four of them.

Minkalla was a neutral ground by treaty, but each Great Power had the ability to staff their planet with one Tier 45, and their largest job was to learn about the newest up and comers each Great Power had sent through the Forge.

Watcher Eru, the Empire Tier 45 representative, was doing his best, but even with his help, their efforts were shaky.

As they materialized, Luna finally had the opportunity to inspect her charges, and she didn’t like what she saw.

Liz was ostensibly the best-off out of all of them. She was missing an arm, yes, but other than some lingering signs of miasma across her spirit, she was otherwise limited to an array of small injuries and a not-quite-healed scar on her throat. However, while the injuries that she still had were comparatively minor, the fact that Liz, with as much focus as she’d given to her self-healing and regeneration enhancements, hadn’t healed through them all passively meant that she must have been several times over her normal healing limits.

That Aster, with a shattered ribcage, a shredded and torn foreleg, a missing tail, and skin covered in third-degree burns, was the next best-off spoke to the degree which Liz’s healing had already carried her. Still, at least most of the fox’s wounds were superficial, save for a bit of internal bleeding that wouldn’t prove life-threatening for a few more days.

Susanne was missing a leg and an eye, with raw fourth degree burns rendering half her head a charred and burned mess, down to the bone. Several of her limbs were covered in fractures, and there was basically no part of her body that wasn’t bruised. She’d broken three fingers, cracked her collarbone, and a portion of her exposed skull had a chip of bone missing. As she was doubtlessly far over her healing cooldown, that could prove an issue.

Matt was unsurprisingly even worse off. He was the physically toughest of the four by a substantial margin, but that just meant he tended to throw himself into harmful situations with even less regard for his physical well-being than the others. His hands were slightly blackened and had so much nerve damage, she wondered if he could even properly hold his sword. He was missing half his hip and right leg, had a broken left foot, a shattered arm, half a missing hand, and a fractured jaw with half his teeth missing and only a single one fully intact. To top it all off, his chest was a mess of puncture wounds, one of which had torn one of his lungs to bits and caused some worrying damage to his heart, with the Purple Heart Lotus he’d once eaten possibly being the only reason it was still working. That his entire body was an off-color purple from a forming bruise was almost an afterthought.

It would be inconvenient to fix, but he had [Bandage]s covering the worst of his wounds, and he could be stabilized well enough to make a full physical recovery. What worried her more was his vacant, unfocused and catatonic expression, as well as the way he was limply hanging off of Liz.