Even from the beginning, Chikere had been a handful of years ahead of Anton and the others with her cultivation. Her talent was no less than the best of them, and her wholehearted devotion to cultivation meant she continued to advance at the head of the pack. She hadn’t done anything so audacious as scheduling her ascension in a narrow window decades in advance, but then again she never really considered time as a factor.

When the time approached, however, she was confident enough to declare when she would be advancing and to invite others to witness it if they wished to. It wasn’t an open invitation, but those from the Million Sword Vault as well as Anton and the rest of the regular group were included.

“I always thought this would happen in the middle of some climactic battle,” Hoyt commented to the others as Chikere stood alone in the swirling mirror sands.

“We’ve been lucky not to have such conflicts as frequently as we might,” Anton replied. “Though I fear I may have grown detached from the plight of the common person.”

“I think that’s one thing you in particular don’t need to be worried about,” Hoyt said. “You’ve been constantly changing the world from the bottom up for the last century for that very purpose… and sometimes people need to take care of things themselves.”

“It hasn’t been quite a century. But it’s hard to give up control and just trust things to work.”

“There’s the real answer,” Hoyt grinned. “Maybe you’ll never fully resolve protecting people with letting them manage themselves, but nobody’s perfect. Especially not cultivators, even if we strive for it the hardest.”

The conversation died down as everyone felt Chikere’s energy rousing. There was all sorts of speculation on how she might ascend, but the one thing that could be certain that watching it would be of value to anyone. The sword cultivators were betting on her cutting her way like Rahayu, of course. Nobody really bet against that, but nobody could give specifics either. Unlike the Order, she wasn’t working on a path developed by a community that had specific ideas in mind.

She was surrounded by swords, of course. It was impossible for her to fit every blade on her body at the current time, even of just the weapons she used. Thus, the majority of them floated freely around her. At the same time as she unsheathed everything around her, she tossed a sword in front of her to stick in the sand. Not just any sword, but the one Anton was quite certain still held the status of Number One, obtained from one of the invaders at great cost.

The sword drew itself, and for a moment Anton thought he saw a figure holding it. Then the battle began. It was not simply a demonstration of Chikere’s fighting style, but something deeper. Anton had first seen it with Kseniya, but it obviously became more than simple practice or moves. It was her against an imagined opponent… though in Chikere’s case she provided actual force behind her faux opponent.

A cloud of swords swept forward, cutting at the area behind the single sword… but the single sword deflected the majority of them. Anton could almost make out a figure twisting their body to avoid the rest, while still finding moments to counterattack, stepping forward through the field of swords to attempt to target Chikere. The way attacks on both sides came within millimeters of striking theoretically deadly blows at first seemed to be a top level display… but it became strangely serious when cuts began appearing on Chikere’s neck and upper torso.

It seemed she was seriously targeting herself, and though the Number One stuck to Swordmaster Rahayu’s movements as far as Anton could tell, Chikere seemed unwilling to not make things as hard for herself as possible.

Anton had only known the swordmaster for a short time while he trained Chikere, but he felt as if the actual representation of his power was exaggerated. Which was impressive, as Chikere was outputting the energy for both of them, Number One cutting wide swaths of desert apart with the force of its passing.

It soon became clear that Chikere didn’t have the capacity to keep up with such use of power, but instead of evenly splitting her efforts she maintained the same output for her ‘opponent’ while lowering her own.

Blood spurted from her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose, her sternum just below her trachea. It was impossible to judge if she was being exactly fair with how things would happen, but somehow Anton knew that she might really kill herself if she didn’t achieve whatever she was trying to do.

Then it came. Anton remembered it well, as the most powerful individual attack he had seen as well as his first exposure to an actual ascension. A seemingly simple attack, a vertical sweep. Down to up, then up to down- the latter being an addition Rahayu himself had never used.

A rift was cut into the desert sands, three meters wide by ten meters deep, and well over a hundred meters long. The attack went straight through Chikere… or at least where she had been. Yet she also hadn’t moved.

A dozen swords clattered apart, severed into pieces as each part fell into the sands.

Chikere stood in the same spot, having not moved but also not having been there when the attack came. Anton couldn’t say any more than that, because he honestly didn’t understand what had happened. Though he did notice a strange way Chikere’s blades had twisted around her at that instant.

As the sand collapsed back together, Chikere fell on top of it, landing on her knees before becoming buried up to her neck. A few moments passed, then she stood. Number One had fallen to the ground after the final attack, and she reached out towards it.

All at once, every sword in her arsenal swarmed around her, tangenting with her body as the tips of some poked into her neck while others arranged themselves along her arms and legs, or crossing her torso. A pause… then there was a burst of energy.

Chikere was gone, and as her image faded away from Anton’s mind he took note of the others around him. The two general states of people were slack-jawed awe or comatose on the ground, respectively. Anton certainly found himself more towards the former. He knew that Chikere was not that far ahead in cultivation or skill, but something about the threshold of ascension brought with it something great, and seeing that power displayed without the restrictions the invaders seemed to be under filled him with renewed vigor.

Timothy and Catarina were looking at their own swords in front of them. Though neither could be called a sword cultivator in the traditional sense, it was still their weapon of choice. They could certainly gain some insights from the display that would help them improve in the future.

It was a happy event. While her departure meant Anton would likely never see her again, it was the all important next step in her cultivation journey. So he was happy for her, even as he came to realize that many or all of those around him he had grown used to would do the same within the next decades. It reminded him of watching old friends die… but in this case he could be happy for them, even if the loss was still real for himself.

-----

Investigations into the formation plate found in the underground facility hadn’t yielded much, except to match the initial assumptions. It was merely part of something greater, but exactly what that was couldn’t be divined with just what they had. The only thing Catarina was certain of was that it was an important component, and that nobody had ever seen the materials it was made out of anywhere else. They were untouched by time while the entire rest of the facility had crumbled apart.

“There’s one more thing I learned,” Catarina said, holding it out towards Anton. “Take it for a second, will you?”

“Sure…” Anton took it suspiciously. “What am I supposed to do with this, then?” He was sure that Catarina wasn’t doing something that would hurt him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be surprised either.

“Try injecting it with energy,” she said.

He did. Or rather, he tried. When he provided energy for it, it was like pouring water over a rock. “Nothing,” he said.

“Try… a different kind of energy.”

He had the feeling she didn’t mean using an element, but he briefly brushed the plate with fire and light, which it casually rejected, letting the energy spill off and scatter like it wasn’t its entire purpose to make use of it. Then he reached out for the pocket of energy he had access to beyond himself, drawing Ascension energy into the world. It was greedily devoured, and he looked at Catarina.

“You can add more. It will be fine.”

So he drew upon more, and even more beyond that… until he drained his entire pool of ascension energy. Yet he could feel no discernable difference in the plate itself. “Does it just… eat ascension energy?” Truthfully, that was actually a valuable asset, at least in this world. It would be problematic for someone who actually ascended as it would interfere with their own energy instead of just protecting them, but against further invaders? Priceless.

Catarina shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it at all. It’s just not enough to do anything.”

“I know I’m not a true ascension cultivator… but I feel like that was a significant amount. I should have felt something. Perhaps it’s simply because it’s not connected to anything else?”

“It could be,” Catarina admitted, “But I think it’s simply because this part requires much more than what you could provide. At least… ten or a hundred times that, just to get started. I’m not sure if that means the entire formation would run with that amount of energy, or just this part… since I have no idea where it would even be.”

“Well,” Anton shrugged, “I’m sure you’ll have a chance to figure it out, when you’re there. If you think it’s safe to bring it.”

“Safe? Certainly not. But valuable, almost certainly.” Catarina held out her hand, and Anton gave it back to her. “On another note, I got a message from Chikere!”

“Really?” Anton’s eyes widened. “What did it say?”

“Dcjpteyqdglqebodpvsu, I think. I mean, it was gibberish- but the prototype device I sent with her at least activated!” Catarina nodded, obviously pleased with herself. “We’re one step closer to communicating with the upper realms, so we might actually be able to keep tabs on each other. At the very least, I expect this to work with people only in the upper realms. The problem is I don’t know how much ascension energy there really is there to provide interference.”

“I suppose I got overly excited. But if we were actually able to provide quick and clear communication, we’d have a leg up on those other guys,” Catarina said. “Their process still appears to be slow and limited.”

“If they get word of this, you’ll likely be in danger,” Anton pointed out.

“All of the ones who already want to kill me won’t change. And we can expect that formation masters still have some status even in the upper realms, so I’d of course gather allies before doing anything overt.”

“Fine, fine,” Anton waved his hand. “You know, back in my day we had to deliver messages by hand, even if it meant walking days through the snow.”

“Oh yeah?” Catarina asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I know you were from a mundane village too. It really was that way. Didn’t even have carrier birds in Dungannon.”

“Cultivators had that though,” Chikere shrugged. “It’s just now we can move messages anywhere instantly.”

“And people.”

“Sure, but people are harder.”

Though they hadn’t managed intelligible communication, Anton was glad that Catarina was actually having some small success, and confident she’d be able to do more. While he wouldn’t be able to go to the upper realms himself, security for the continents seemed it would require some level of support from the upper realms- and thus communication that the surrounding regions had clearly been unwilling to provide. At least the world he cared about should be able to survive long after him, and prosper… at least for a time. Nothing lasted forever.