Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

He was very clearly angry.

He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was hard as he stepped up to Krijn slowly. ”If you had stayed down, that scout would have headed back and joined the rest of his group, thinking he imagined something. You standing up confirmed it. Our stealth advantage is now gone, and we have a body to deal with too.”

Krijn didn’t apologize. But at the same time, he didn’t retort. Even he knew he was at fault here.

”Let’s just bury the body and hope his friends don’t notice immediately,” Uhtred said, moving to use Earth magic to hide the body.

Zara helped, and Krijn also moved to help. They dragged the body into a deep ditch prepared with Earth magic and covered it with dirt and heavy foliage afterwards for good measure.

”Stealth is no longer our primary option,” Uhtred said, turning to all three of them. ”We have to push as fast and deep as possible before they realize one of them is missing... if they somehow haven’t already.”

He didn’t wait for agreement. He and Zara kicked into a sprint, weaving through the trees toward the deeper interior of Zone 3.

The female general fell into step right behind them without a word.

Krijn grunted, his jaw set in slight annoyance, but he followed a beat later.

Behind them, far back along the route they had left, the patrol reversed its path and returned literally less than a minute after they left. They were speaking in their alien tongue, calling out what seemed like the name of their fallen comrade, searching for him.

One of them — one of those wearing that strange mask — narrowed his eyes, looking at the surroundings more carefully, then activated the essence powered device strapped to his forearm.

.

.

Meanwhile, back with Uhtred and the others...

An hour of high-speed movement brought all four ascenders to the edge of a high ridge.

Through the thick treeline ahead, they finally caught sight of the enemy base... No. Calling it a base was an understatement.

It was a city.

A massive, dark semi-transparent dome covered the center, spanning miles in every direction. At its apex, rising straight through the dome, stood a towering pillar of cold blue light that pierced high into the clouds, dispersing at altitude into a slow, continuous bloom.

The light pulsed rhythmically, radiating the same bitter, foreign quality that Uhtred had felt in the ambient essence since crossing the border. Here at the source, it was overwhelmingly concentrated.

Uhtred finally understood what he had been sensing.

That pillar was some kind of environmental converter. It was actively corrupting and attuning the ambient essence of Earth into an energy signature that the Otherworlders thrived in. The corruption was already spreading outward, and Uhtred could only imagine how fast it would swallow the rest of Zone 3 if left unchecked.

Inside the dome, the level of activity was staggering. Glowing arrays flickered across all kinds of structures continuously. Otherworlders stepped onto platform circles, vanishing instantly and reappearing miles away on the other side of the dome.

These are teleportation arrays, for goodness sake!

He knew how valuable such a thing was. The only one he possessed back in his territory was the one the System provided for traveling to this trial grounds.

These Otherworlders possessed their own. Not just one, but dozens, and they were using them for basic, internal city transit. The sheer wealth and resource capability on display was mind-boggling.

Everywhere Uhtred looked, he saw structures and machinery he couldn’t comprehend. Strange, biological-looking constructs stood alongside metallic towers, humming with dark power.

A cold sense of trepidation settled over not just him, but all four of them at once.

How the hell are we supposed to drive beings like this off our planet?

He could understand now why the System had called it a statistically impossible feat.

Uhtred gritted his teeth, then tore his gaze away. This was just a scouting mission to assess their opponents anyway. He glanced around for any other thing he might have missed. As he did, he caught a weird expression on the face of the female ancient variant general.

Her facial muscles were completely rigid and her eyes were locked specifically on the central pillar in the distance. It seemed the trace Esoteric magic lacing the radiation emanating from the pillar seemed to affect her far more intensely than it affected the rest of them.

She kept her reaction under tight control, but Uhtred caught the subtle shift as she took a slow step backward.

Uhtred turned his head, realizing they had seen enough and it was time to fall back and re-evaluate their approach.

Then, he noticed something wrong.

Down in the city, several winged sentries standing on watch towers were scanning the landscape. But their eye-lines were deliberately sweeping everywhere except the exact ridge where Uhtred’s group was hidden.

It was too uniform. Too consistent across too many individual sentries acting independently.

”They know,” Uhtred whispered.

Everyone became alert immediately, tearing their gazes away from the spectacle of the city, and looking specifically at the sentries walking about far below and in the distance.

”They’ve locked our position,” Uhtred said rapidly. ”We should pull back to the border line. We’re gonna go slow at first, act like we’ve not noticed either. Then when they realize we’ve caught on and they finally drop the act, we make a mad dash and split up to divide their forces.”

This time there was no complaint about who decides what. Everyone moved immediately, Krijn and the female general included.

Not long after they moved out of view behind the ridge, a series of terrifying, oppressive essence signatures emanated from the direction of the city. The Otherworlders threw away all pretense of ignorance, charging toward the ridge with blinding speed, all of them high-level Nascent Realm Otherworlders, whose raw essence emanations completely eclipsed anything Uhtred had faced so far.

”Run!” Uhtred barked.

Even Krijn could feel the terrifying auras coming for them. He didn’t argue or try to stand his ground. All four of them burst into a full-speed retreat, tearing towards the forest a mile away like streaks of light.

A high-pitched, terrifying screech echoed from the clouds above.

Uhtred glanced over his shoulder as he ran, his eyes widening.

Descending from the sky at a terrifying angle was a high-ranking Otherworlder. He possessed massive, light-absorbing black wings, and his skin was a deep, abyssal shade of matte black.

He was mounted on a grotesque, nightmare-inducer of a creature. It resembled an inverse version of a unicorn, wicked-looking, with an obsidian black horn on its forehead and dark smoke pouring from its nostrils as it galloped through the open air.

The rider held a long, black lance in his right hand. His cold, pale-gold eyes swept across the four fleeing figures below, scanning them searchingly as if looking for someone specifically.

He totally ignored Krijn, Zara, and the female general, who had all split up at this point. Instead, his gaze locked directly onto Uhtred with an absolute, terrifying certainty.

Uhtred’s heart sank as he met the gaze from below.

Fuck!! Why is it always me?!