The Path of Ascension Chapter 522

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.

Everyone watching had a front row seat as the satellites that had obscured the planet vanished to reveal three large chunks of the Dankor moon floating away from its surface.

Matt had rushed out apologizing, but he’d also taken on unnecessary guilt. Far more than he should anyhow. He knew as well as she did that the systems were sacrificial by nature. No doubt he felt that he should have been able to prevent the backlash from his Domain forming from affecting the planet, but that was foolish.

In their briefing they’d been warned against even trying. Officially orders were to let the formation handle everything, but Matt had, of course, still tried and felt guilty about his failure.

Or that was what she assumed.

When he finally pulled himself away, he floated over to them head in his hands.

Aster bit first and asked, “What? You feel bad because you couldn’t stop yourself?”

“No, I wish. I just forgot I was in the planet.” Liz had to repress a smile as the scene before her suddenly shifted. Matt continued before she could do more than share a surprised look at Aster. “I’d just completed my Aspect and was feeling big, strong, and yeah maybe a touch brash, arrogant, and-or cocky.”

Liz saw where he was going and helped him as he paused. “You were feeling like Lila.”

Matt shot her a sheepish grin and shrug, and it took all of her self control to keep a straight face as she started to put things together.

Not that his next words helped in the slightest as he hurriedly whispered to the two of them. “Combine that with how being hooked into a planetary mass felt really good and natural and fun. Then also add in that I made a last minute change to my Image. That got me extra introspective with my Image and Phrase, and by that point I’d completely forgotten about being in the planet. Then I went to flex a little and… whoops.”

Liz didn’t know where she found the effort to hold in her smile, but her phoenix self on her shoulder wasn’t so restrained. She started twitching in her efforts to remain silent.

Aster’s jaw dropped as she looked between Matt and the planet over and over. Eventually her eyes narrowed and fingers came up as she started counting the pieces of floating moon.

An illusion of herself even appeared next to the three of them which did its own stretch, copying the angle of the larger ejections with her arms the same way Matt did after waking up from a nap.

Right in line where illusion Aster’s tail shivered with a good stretch was the smaller third protrusion.

Illusionary Aster vanished with a hard poke to Matt’s butt as the real Aster said with a mountain of exasperation evident in her tone, “All the times you gave me shit for shaking my tail when I stretch and then you go do the same thing! And you shake your butt so hard it pops a piece of a planet off? Excuse me? I’ve never broken a planet and you have! That means you can’t make fun of me ever again.”

“It's different.”

“How?” Aster leaned in closer as she cornered him.

“Well, first, the Dankor system uses a moon, not a planet. Second thing is, I can’t tell you, it's a super secret thing that only people with Aspects can know. Third, hey don’t try to stick your finger in my ear. It's cold and wet. Stop!”

As the two bickered, Liz let herself laugh at the hilarity of Matt shaking his butt hard enough to crack a planet. As she leaned out and gave him a small pat on the rear in question, her phoenix self used the closeness to jump ship and deposit herself in the crook of his neck.

For all that he felt bad, the reality was that the formations were there to be used. He’d caused some maintenance to be moved up, a lot of it really, but it wasn’t anything fundamentally new or unexpected. Being unable to reuse the moon even one additional time would cause some minor scheduling problems, but it happened all the time.

Because as bad as Matt’s success had been, the failures were worse.

However, she had zero intention of speaking those words into existence. That felt profoundly taboo in the current real space.

Liz decided to move the conversation along. Mainly because she was curious about what exactly he’d created and its effects, though she also wanted to keep the mood up. They’d theorized themselves out a thousand years ago, but as the first one to cross that line, he finally had a chance to put it to practice.

She also knew how much Matt liked to show off to the two of them, even so many years away from Luna’s tutelage. They were at one of the most secure bases in Empire space, which made that at all possible.

With the recent rise of casual aperology and its such skills reaching the mainstream, it had started to creep into other places. Even here, in a military base, there was now an area set aside on the administration moon where anyone could create a brand new Tier 1 rift for a surprisingly private conversation. After all, an enemy Great Power couldn’t bug or hack what hadn't existed a moment before.

Because Matt was Matt, he did so by making their formation out of mana stones instead of using one of the provided formations, but she hadn’t expected anything less.

What did interest her was how Matt was moving. She wasn’t even sure if he’d noticed it yet, but somewhere in his playful dodging of Aster's frozen finger, he’d started to move like he did before fusing with his augment.

Ever since gaining so much mass and strength, he’d taken to moving more deliberately, with every action planned out and calculated. Now he was just… moving.

Liz didn’t really have another word for it. He took steps without carefully feeling out the ground around him as had become his habit. He even went as far as opening a door without looking while whisper bickering with Aster about the benefits of a tail in human form.

The small bat rift they found themselves in felt thematic to their circumstances, and Liz appreciated his sense of humor in dropping them in a cave system for a secret discussion.

They couldn’t fully trust even a newly built rift, but inside they could at least trust their internal spiritual fluctuations to be secure enough to not have to censor themselves too badly. “Did everything work out how we expected? Any surprises? You said you changed your Image. Spill.”

Matt’s mood lightened further as he got talking. “Our guesses were good. My Truth was dead on.”

Liz internally nodded at that. That meant his Truth made it harder to restrain him. A weight came off her shoulders knowing he’d been correct with that assertion. She knew how much that umbrella of freedom meant to him.

Liz’s mind was already spinning trying to puzzle that statement out but she tossed it to the back of her mind as he continued. “There were still a few surprises though. Mainly with my Phrase, given how many times I’ve reworked it, but I’m a touch surprised at what my anchor is giving me.”

Aster flicked an impatient ear in question and Liz waited instead of delaying the revelations by speaking herself. The anchor had been so wrapped up in JR they hadn’t know what to expect, and neither of them appreciated the delay.

“It came with a new internal sense of it, and therefore myself, that I’m still exploring but its real shock is that it…” Matt stroked his beard for a moment before finishing, "Solidifies might be the best word. Activating it solidifies my state and makes it temporarily immutable. I’m fairly sure that will inadvertently give me better defence, but the main effect seems more like a mirror to my Intent’s anchor. Where it concentrates everything and makes my spells hit harder, this solidification is more about ensuring everything that is there can handle what I’m sending through it.”

Liz smiled as she congratulated him while sharing what she’d picked up on. “I think it's also giving you some level of bodily control. Have you noticed how you are moving?”

Matt hadn’t and he spent a little while slowly swirling his hands. In a weak Tier 1 rift he needed to be careful not to tear the bubble of space apart, but it must have been enough because eventually he replied, “Huh. I hadn’t noticed that at all, but now that you said it, I feel it. It’s… I’m not sure it's part of my Anchor. It very well might be, but I think it’s something more like a side effect of my whole Domain. I… seem to have some control over myself through my Domain, obviously, but that layered farther than I expected. I can kind of mentally set my strength, weight, speed, and proprioception like filling a tub with water. Filling or emptying the pool can make things a little hard to control, but once I’ve settled on a spot, it all just feels normal. It's actually amazing. I didn’t even realize I’d started doing it.”

Liz beamed right back at him before she shared a more anticipatory glance with Aster as he started inspecting his hands.

While they were dreaming about their own Aspects, he continued, “That brings us to the change I made to my Image. To make things short, I removed the white hole and black holes I’d made in the background, along with the background itself. I ripped it all out, leaving only the dyson swarm.”

They’d ‘seen’ his Image along with everyone else. Or not seen, as even the backsides of his dyson swarm absorbed whatever they touched, leaving the entire planet shrouded in perpetual twilight.

It had been impressive, haunting, and beautiful.

“That should ensure that I can slot in any of my other Images going forward. As for seeing what they will do when active, I’ll need to slot them to make sure. I don’t want to do that with an audience. Empty is still passively increasing how much mana I can spend on channel spells as it lets me harness my own energies better. The stage came out better than I could have hoped.”

Not that they could do so inside a Tier 1 rift. The small fold in realty that was a rift would fracture if any of them moved too fast, let alone if they manifested an Aspect inside. They could make a higher Tier rift if they really needed to, but they didn’t bother.

“Finally my Phrase gives me more control over my mana. I’m pretty sure I could piss Zack off by just denying him access to my mana. I’m sure he’d be able to steal control over my mana eventually, but I’m confident I could make things hard for him. Or easy which is what I’ll really end up doing but that's less fun. I’ll need to see what effect it has on things like my liquid mana stones talsimans but I’m distantly hopeful it will let me make ones you guys can activate on the fly.”

The three of them were still riding Matt’s success as they returned to their ship and the war it brought them around to, but their exuberance didn’t last long.

They wanted to return to deep Federation territory, but their new orders were to head to the frontline. There they were supposed to assist with the defence as their enemies tried to push out the spike driven into their side.

That would have been annoying enough all on its own, but word must have spread about Matt’s Aspect because the Federation refused to purposefully engage them with elites. Worse yet, the moment High Command saw that, their orders pivoted and started coming with stipulations about how many times they were to engage before retreating far enough away to mask their location.

None of it made sense until she checked the latest news along the Collective frontline. There was a new elite causing waves and drawing attention, and General Raven seemed content to let that play out without their direct interference.

Liz was only mildly interested until she saw the name of the elite in question.

Queen, their friend Susanne, had returned to the battlefield at long last.

And as a peak elite, nearing the threshold of pinnacle.

That was shockingly impressive on its own, but what truly took Liz off guard was the display Susanne put on and what it implied. It was the same thing that everyone else had taken note of too, including the Ascender Chat, who knew of their friend through her association with both teams.

In her first battle, Susanne had come out swinging and had seriously wounded a Collective peak elite on the verge of advancing to pinnacle, Venom Claws Trax. Reviewing the recording proved it had still been a hard won fight, but that didn’t surprise Liz.

Their friend had fought with precision, control, and deadliness well beyond what they expected from her. It was all the same moves, but faster and with more force. She fought like a woman remolded.

Which, as Liz understood, she had been. After all, Susanne had developed her Stage 3 Power and that was rare, even among Ascenders. Whatever mysterious requirement it had, it clearly wasn’t an easy one to achieve.

Liz only took enough time to make sure she gathered all the relevant information she could before going to Matt and Aster.

“Guess who’s making a splash with their Stage 3 Power.”

Matt immediately frowned as he learned around Aster to look at her. “Tell me it's not Maya. Please. She’s been insufferable enough already without a win like that under her belt.”

Liz’s grin didn’t waver. “Fun guess, but nope. It's one of our people, so guess more local.”

That got Aster's full interest and she pivoted to them. “Oh, was it someone on the ship local or our faction local?”

This text was taken from Freewebnovel. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Not on the ship. Think Empire-wide.”

“Can’t be Zack, Allie, Aiden, or Lila. Half of them aren’t even close or we’d have seen them bragging on the Ascender Chat about a breakthrough.” Matt quickly pointed out to Aster.

“That still leaves a few people in the military. Didn’t one of the Knightly Order guys keep saying they were close? Alvin I think it was? Did he make it?”

Matt shook his head, disagreeing in unison with Liz’s own shake, but his next guess was still wildly off the mark. “I doubt it, What about Clifton? He’s been a pinnacle elite for almost twenty thousand years at this point. I know he was talking about retiring soon if he can’t make any more advancements at Tier 35. Was it him?”

Aster was indignant as she asked, "Clifton? You think Crafty Clifton made his Stage 3 Power? Maybe, but he’s been stuck for over ten thousand years at ‘just a hair away, I promise’. I doubt it’s him just knowing that. Guy needs to accept that he’s not going to cross that line by accident and move on. No way it's him. There aren't that many others we know of who have finished Stage 2 though. Maybe someone had a sudden breakthrough?”

Both looked at her and she happily shook her head, killing the idea.

That didn’t stop them and Aster threw out, “What about Dorothy? I know she said she did a lot of work on her Power between wars? Do you think it could be her?”

Matt and Aster put their heads together to think, each of them throwing out guesses left and right, but Liz was happy to let them go on. They continually guessed older and more obscure elites, eventually reaching those who’d retired.

That was where Liz ended the game.

She flicked a finger to the projector they shared and she spilled. “I’m telling Susanne about your lack of trust in her. She’s our lucky lady of the evening.”

Aster nearly popped out of her chair as she looked at the projector showing the highlights of Susanne’s fight, where it was clear she was using her Power. “What!? The!? Fuck?!”

Matt was just as interested and joined in the lean. “I’m with Aster on this. Just when I thought I was getting close to pulling ahead, she goes ahead and does this. This doesn't seem fair at all.”

Together, the three of them watched as Susanne darted about the battlefield faster than should have been possible for a fresh Tier 35.

The changes in Susanne’s fighting style were both large and small after her ‘extended training camp’. Something Liz now suspected was simply a cover for her sudden growth so as to not inform their enemies of her improvements before the war. Though, she knew they’d only be able to confirm that when the war was over and they put the screws to their friend to get her to spill; though the thought was secondary, even for Liz who’d seen the fight once before.

Watching Susanne fight was… beautiful in the way apex predators were hard to look away from.

Every move was fluid, fast, and seemingly impossible to dodge. It was a good strategy and one that had worked well against Trax, who had overextended early. He made small minor assumptions about the fresh Tier 35’s combat abilities and paid the price for them, nearly losing his life in the first exchange.

For Liz, and she assumed most others, that was the scary part of what they were seeing. Susanne didn’t fight like a freshly advanced Tier 35, she fought like a mid Tier 35 who was used to fighting up half a Tier. Something only possible thanks to the Stage 3 Power she put on display, along with hints of what was clearly an Aspect.

Powers were like anything related to a Domain, unique to the person, but everyone's Stage 3 had a similar secondary effect that made them stand out from most.

The person in question existed in perfect harmony.

Every swing, every thrust, every step, every dodge seemed unified in purpose and function.

Seeing it reminded Liz of a machine so perfectly tuned, it ran without any vibrations, sounds or mana fluctuations. It just existed and did its thing.

In Susanne’s case, that thing was fighting. Even as controlled as they were as Ascenders, none of them fought with the harmony she displayed with every swing. The woman had become a self contained force of nature overnight.

As Liz watched Susanne’s fight for a second time, she was reminded of the opposite of a hurricane's eye.

Susanne's every move looked calm, casual, and controlled but within each of them a storm silently and invisibly raged. And that was ignoring the new trick she displayed. Her blade rewrote reality to speed itself and her up, help her dodge, or cut through defences that should have given her trouble.

Unlike the other Great Powers, Liz had known about the extra Intent ability Susanne had created but it now seemed… Liz wanted to say stronger, but that seemed wrong. However, if it wasn’t stronger, it was most definitely smoother. Their friend had developed enough control over her technique that her blade no longer jittered wildly as she sought to overwrite reality.

They were seeing an entirely new Susanne.

One that would probably reach a pinnacle designation before too long, if she wasn’t taken out early.

The other Great Powers would see everything Liz had, while also understanding that Susanne still had most of a Tier’s worth of essence to absorb. They’d also see the hints that she’d developed her Aspect the same way Liz had noticed the way Trax’s own Aspect failed to slow her down one iota.

Susanne's arrival didn’t suddenly overturn the war front, but given her age, Liz suspected the Empire Generals had used her to send a very particular message to the other Great Powers.

Even if their Ascenders were off the field, the Empire still had cards to play.

That, more than anything else, relieved Liz.

While the three of them had only talked about it a few times, none of them wanted to sit around at Tier 35 for more than a few thousand years. There was too much to do, too many risks, too many enemies lurking in the background to sit around and delay their advancement.

Matt’s Talent almost demanded they push ahead. Both for the threat it represented, but the power it promised to give. Because, ultimately, the stronger they were the better they could handle whatever came at them in life. And they’d technically been half way bought out, in that the Empire wasn’t allowed to pay them to linger, which removed one of their main incentives to stay.

Not that she believed even for a second that Manny wanted them to linger. She was confident he was more anxious for Matt to advance than anyone else, given his own unique Talent. But despite that, they’d never gotten a single guilt trip, hidden bribe, or any of the other methods their peers described their own personal Great Powers used to keep them around or speed them up after their early partial buy out.

All of that logic didn’t negate their duty and obligation to repay the Empire for all the privileges they had as Ascenders. Staying Tier 35 and acting as a top level threat was a core part of what it meant to be an Ascender. It was also something the three of them didn’t know how long they could do, given everything else on their collective plates.

While Susanne herself wouldn’t cover an Ascender-sized hole in the Empire military, Liz believed the Generals clearly saw her as at least a part of that solution if they were using her in such a way.

More than any of the high level implications, Liz was happy for her friend.

While none of them ever talked about it, they knew how Susanne felt about almost completing the Path. She’d rallied, but that near miss had always haunted her and she’d been clamoring to close the gap any way she could. After creating a Stage 3 Power, she was in a much more important position among the already competitive Tier 35 war bracket.

But more than that, doing so at their age got all of the Great Powers' attention.

Most of their attention was still on the return of Tick and Tock, but they all took note as the Collective was forced to redirect some of their forces to her with the threat she represented to anyone less than a peak elite.

The three of them took the news as a good sign, not that it lasted.

They were in the middle of a war, after all, and things were never that simple.

Liz wanted to focus on the larger picture, but she struggled to do so as she pushed herself.

Matt had successfully created his Aspect and Aster was sure of hers. The fox was only limited by the lack of her next mana aspect. She, on the other hand, still had questions and uncertainty.

Liz knew her Anchor, thanks to being primed to claim her cauldron, and she had a good feeling about her Image, though she wasn’t quite ready to do the same. There were still some final tweaks she needed to fulfill, but she kept having the impression it was close. In contrast, she was still struggling with her Phrase and Truth.

She wasn’t like Matt, who had been able to play with words, definitions, and shades of understanding to make any old thing work. She needed to find what perfectly fit her and latch onto it, she couldn't just make it.

To that end, she had to try each and every option. But she needed to do so with her full might and effort if they were to mean anything. Each attempt was a well planned, well thought out endeavor with months of care behind each and every word in either her Truth or Phrase.

It didn’t help that she still didn’t quite know what she wanted out of her Truth.

As Liz had the thought, she forcefully stopped herself. Self delusion wasn’t helpful. It was more accurate to say that she didn’t like what she thought her Truth represented.

So far the only thing that she’d found that resonated with her was something that might spell the end of one of her other hopes after the war: Children.

As much as she wanted to have a child with Matt, she was afraid that her Truth might prevent that.

Because after over a thousand years with Ichor, she’d come to a realization about her new form of golden blood. The same one that the Great Powers had come to as they tried to copy her and empower their own elites.

She’d even helped the Empire with the same thing and had told them as much decades ago on day one. She’d just never realized how correct she was.

“Ichor is the blood of immortals.”

Liz felt the truth to the words as she thought them, but that only made things worse.

She didn’t want that to be true, let alone her Truth, but it was an untenable facet of reality that her Aspect used as a keystone to her understanding of it.

Sadly, her wants seemed to mean little. Even regular Tier 15s could see small but noticeable improvements by biologically modifying their body to use ichor along with their blood, in an imitation of the type of Natural Treasure Matt used which did the same. All of the Great Powers had managed to get their hands on copies eventually, or steal the results of the Empire's own testing and implement it.

Secrets rarely lasted long, but that was the heart of their whole problem.

And all of that was without going as far as the army had and moving to harness the additional energy ichor moved with organs she’d help them modify. That still took rare and valuable ichor potions to manage, but the result was undeniable.

She’d made something inherently immortal.

Liz may control the majority supply of such herbs due to her terrarium, but that didn’t change the fact no one was born immortal. It wasn’t how the Realm worked. Everyone started out at Tier 0 and had to work their way up

Could a mortal be born with the blood and body of an immortal?

She didn’t know and feared the answer would be a resounding no. One that would only become more true after she claimed her Truth.

They could adopt, she knew Matt would have no issues with that or not having children at all, but she’d always just assumed that she could have a large family like what her parents had. Throughout her entire life, she’d just assumed that if she went off birth control, she’d wind up pregnant. That fear had mollified itself as she advanced and her innate fertility plummeted, but in her mind, children had always been an option ready for the picking when she wanted them.

She hadn’t been prepared for her own Domain to get in her way.

It left her at a crossroads with only one choice.

A small piece of Liz was tempted to try and have a child now, before she solidified anything with her Aspect, but she knew that line of logic was folly and would only lead her to dangerous conclusions. The issue wasn’t her Aspect. It was her blood and flesh. Her mana type. Her very being was the problem.

Her Truth didn’t make the issue, it highlighted it.

If their child had any of her in them, they were at risk of things she didn’t want to contemplate happening to anyone, let alone her own flesh and blood. She’d seen the early experiments to convey an immortal body to running off ichor and they’d nearly lost people, even with Melinda on hand.

A newly born infant?

It was improbable, but what if they inherited some measure of the reinforcements and enhancements she’d done to herself with her cauldron? It was unlikely, but the thought horrified her.

It took a few months of ruminating, but Liz knew running away from her Truth wasn’t the answer.

That solved one problem, her Truth, but left her wondering if it was fair for her to have children anymore. She was just grateful to know she had some time.

From her talks with Manny and Carissa, they had at least a few hundred years before the royal generation after the war ended, which helped temporarily take a weight off her shoulders. According to the Emperor, he intended to fully disconnect for the first twenty years of the heir’s life, and that would take a lot of dedicated preparation as he covered all of his normal duties.

That ensured she’d have time to talk about the repercussions of her realization with Matt before they truly had to make a choice. They’d had a similar talk before they decided to join the rest of her siblings, but after her revelation, she felt the need to have it again now that new information had made itself clear.

Theoretically, void children had it worse, and the Realm at large had solved that problem. There were basically no void children deaths as a result of the potions and procedures created, and she tried to keep that thought firm in the front of her mind. The researcher in her whispered that they both knew how many dead children with void bloodlines it had taken to reach that technical development and how they were attempting something even more complicated with only six Natural Treasures in reserve.

Risking a child wasn’t something Liz found acceptable; for her and Matt’s child, it was even less so. She wouldn’t condemn them to a short and brutal life of pain and untold agony as fire and lightning tore at their flesh, trying to escape.

That would break her faster than anything else.

And sadly, Matt’s lack of a bloodline made the easiest and safest answer of him converting to a matching one impossible. While not useful for them, it was the safest answer. The same one that void bloodlines had done before the technology had caught up: have a child in beast form. Bloodline forms, especially elemental ones, were far better at containing esoteric energies than a human one was, and it was rare for mana related deaths to occur for those born like that.

If the potions didn’t work the next best thing was to awaken the child, though it was never a first choice. With an awakened spirit many issues could be more easily negated, but it came with its own downsides. Awakening early was not a benefit. There were good reasons why that normally only happened around age 14.

However that was a problem for later, and she treated it as such.

It didn’t change her Truth. That was the point of an Enlightened Truth.

They existed and were true, whether she liked it or not.

She just hoped that despite her Truth’s verisimilitude, mortals could exist within and of Ichor. Surely some people could be born with immortal blood without repercussions. If there was life it had to begin as a mortal. That was a rule as true as her Truth.

However, if Liz was deluding herself, she found it easier to wish for their child to have a boost from the blood. That at least had fun possibilities rather than depressing ones.

Liz wished her realization and acceptance of her nascent Truth would give her sudden insight on her Phrase as some sort of consolation prize, but that never happened. Not even the years they spent diving in and out of the frontlines helped there. It was the decades they bounced between the Federation and Collective that managed to push her over the edge.

It wasn’t the close calls, brushes with death, actual death in her case once, or even the small breaks they managed to slip in so that they could breathe. It was something Aster off-handedly said that flipped the switch for Liz.

It wasn’t even something new, just said in the right way at the right moment.

She’d been helping knit her sister-in-law's ribcage back together after a fight that had seen her injured when Aster had looked over and said, “I know I’ve said this before Liz, but if you ever decide to step off the frontlines, you could make a damn good healer with ichor.”

It wasn’t the first time Aster or anyone Liz healed had said such things, but she accepted them with a smile nonetheless. Such kind words about something she’d created always managed to warm Liz up inside, but as Aster tried to be playful for all of them as she always did, her next words were inadvertently what Liz needed.

“Maybe we can take a piece of you and stick it on one of those cheese fountains? Paint it gold and we could market you as a fountain of immortality. Make it big enough and we might even be able to make it a core decoration for our duchies! Oh, I’m actually liking this. I bet it would be really cool! A golden fountain of healing sounds kinda awesome if I don’t say so myself.”

Liz paused as she processed the words.

“A fount of immortality.”

She immediately corrected herself with more conviction the second time.

“No. The Fount of Immortality.”

Liz was not ‘a’ anything. She was not following in someone else's footsteps, she was not retreading old ground. She was the pioneer of ichor and while that came with a lot of bad, it came with some good. She was The Fount of Immortality.

Or that was her suspected Phrase, as grandiose as it sounded, even to her.

However it was true. Liz was Ichor’s truest source, as she was its origin.

The Phrase also just felt right. Something she could lean on when times were hard and something to help her climb higher when they were good. Strong and solid.

She’d need to dip back to Empire space to test things, but she wasn't quite ready for that step. Things would be easier if she had pinnacle elites to hone herself against more often, but she accepted her fate on the other Great Powers not throwing away their most elite troops.

Liz wasn’t exactly in a rush, given the backlog of people waiting to use the Dankor moons in recent years. The early parts of a war were always the busiest, as people found new insight applying what they’d practiced on the battlefield.

Those that survived at least.

Which left her in little rush as she honed her ideas on the battlefield one fight at a time. Besides, Matt had had his own inadvertent good idea, and she was debating hiding her attempt. As she worked, her Image got most of her attention. She polished and refined it over and over. She was confident she’d gotten the core idea correct, but she wasn’t entirely satisfied with the details quite yet.

Her Aspect’s Image was her largest one yet. It was a river of ichor in every form. Solid, crystallized, liquid, gaseous, plasma, and even mana. Together, they flowed, intertwined and perfect in their myriad versions of the same thing.

In her Image there was no distinction between the forms that her ichor took. It was all ichor, whether it be magic or material.

It was all blood. And it was all shifting, both in position and composition.

It was as amorphous as she was in ooze form.

She’d toyed with the idea that her Image, or rather the river of ichor floating through it and the core idea behind it, was her, but Liz discarded that direction after some consideration. She didn’t want to be the center of her own Image.

That felt self-referential in a bad way. She suspected it would be a limit to herself rather than the empowerment she sought. She wasn’t sure why, but she was experienced enough to follow that hunch.

Instead, she started looking at the river as more of a metaphysical thing and started cutting away the landscape she’d built around it.

Her river of ichor didn’t need to be contained on a planet by earth and soil, it could be anywhere she wanted. Finding that ‘where’ was much harder than making a normal planet had been. A million times so. It wasn’t the emptiness of space or even the emptiness of a blank canvas.

Liz found her Image in an Ichor jungle. A place so teaming with life stemming from the only source there could be. The ichor river at its heart. Golden fish leapt out of it. Golden creatures swiped at them. Golden predators further stalked them. And golden trees shaded it all from the banks of the river.

Birds, insects, and beasts of all types existed in the periphery of her Image, and it took her time to settle on what she wanted out of them. None of them were in focus, they weren't the point of her Image, but few things existed without context and her Image wasn’t one of those exceptions.

Her Image represented the myriad of possible life that ichor could birth.

An entire planet of ichor.

Her Image existed on an ichor aspected world even if it wasn’t the entire world. It was at a source of life, a river, both literal and metaphorical. At least, that’s where she mentally placed it. Not that its non-existence bothered her in the slightest.

What stopped her was that no matter how long she looked, she never saw any humans making their way to her shores. That was what kept her tinkering instead of turning back to solidify her Aspect.

Liz would not accept things as they were without a fight. She might not be the master of her own destiny, but she was the mother of ichor and that would have to be enough. She’d make it be enough. She only needed to continue adjusting until she’d created the version of this ichor planet.

She’d made ichor and she’d continue to shape it no matter the hurdles she encountered.