Wish upon the Stars chapter 461

We all stared in shock as Zeke ripped the soul from an A-ranker, just  in time for Killian to appear next to him with a whistle. "Shit, that  was brutal, you're still as terrifying as ever. Honestly I think you'd  have hit A-rank before I did if you didn't keep killing all the  witnesses every time you got in a tough fight."

Zeke  reached over and snagged a broken mask shard from the air. "I need  materials. These things always get broken in big fights." He grimaced at  the thing. "Shit, this was my Piercing Metal mask. Armor penetration is  always super useful." He kicked the floating elf corpse that he'd freed  from the chains after the soul was removed. "Smarmy pointy eared  bastard."

Killian chuckled. "Well hey, at least you got  the soul. You think you even make a mask out of an A-ranker?" I couldn't  remember if Zeke's power could do that either, though I knew he needed  materials.

"It's fine." Said my uncle with a wave. "My  Archery mask will provide a solid platform to attach it to. The soul has  been fully integrated into that one and elevated the quality of the  porcelain infinitely close to A-rank. I'll have to structure the  enchantments carefully, but it should be more than suitable. Plus I can  add his path to the arrows." He pocketed the flask containing the soul  as he put away his gloves.

Killian just shrugged. "Fair.  Let's go help Uncle Miles. He's going two on one, and Rayner is proving  to be shockingly competent."

Zeke shook his head. "You go.  I put way too much into that. The capture only worked because I  channeled my whole Path into the mask at the end, plus the fake out  arrows and the attack that softened him up were mind numbingly draining.  Unless you need me?"

Killian shrugged. "Nah. Already  killed mine, and Uncle Miles and I use similar abilities, so we can  synergize easily enough. I just figured it would be fun to fight  together again." Turning on his heel, he vanished, even as Zeke groaned  and did the same. Assuming he probably wasn't coming right back to watch  the fight with us, and assured he was ok, I walked over to join Blake  at his own viewing portal, where he was watching Miles do his thing.

Much  like Carus, Miles was obviously using has Path liberally. He was also  using what appeared to be a weapon mastery with that sword, as a massive  blade of condensed ghostly death was raining down blows on Rayner. The  black masked man had condensed a manifestation of his own above himself,  this one a massive version of his own body, arms made of the same dark  metal as his mask.

Miles probably would have won, except  he kept having to deflect dagger strikes from the rapidly appearing and  vanishing gold masked man, who was emitting a concentrated air of death  energy of his own. Weirdly, despite the similarities, the two auras were  as different as night and day. Miles's Path was the chill of the grave  and the ghostly, while the masked man seemed to be channelling the  sudden ending of a life.

To my surprise, one of the  daggers actually caught Miles along the ribs on the last attack,  deflected too late, and the old Ascendant snarled, raising his  cleaverlike blade. A dozen ghostly outlines of identical blades  manifested around him, superimposing themselves on the manifestation of  the blade, and the sword began to literally hum with power.

I  wasn't sure at first why this seemed so different than last time, but  the I spotted Killian standing to one side and realized what was  happening. Those blades were made of ghosts, and Killian had just poured  in his own ghost army to subsidize Miles's full power attack.

The  gold masked guy didn't even bother to pretend to thing about it, he  just dipped out, vanishing instantly. Rayner, frozen in fear, only had  time to say "Shit." Before the colossal manifestation of that huge  terrifying sword swung down like a headsmans blade and BISECTED both the  construct and the pirate lord who had made it.

The two  halves of him floated gently away from each other, bobbing in space, and  I winced. It just went to show how easy battles could turn. It went  from two to one against Miles to two to one against Rayner. That  assassin was just gone the second things got bad.

"Alright,  well...that was over faster than the other fight." I said in mild  disappointment. I had been hoping to see another awesome display like  Zeke had shown us.

Blake shrugged. "Most fights are like  that. We had way more firepower and just crushed them. Granted, Great  Uncle Miles is a monster, even for an A-ranker. He'd probably have ended  them even sooner if that assassin wasn't directly restraining him. But  once dad showed up, the assassin stopped the attack. Can't really  backstab without leaving your own back open."

Killian  appeared next to Miles. "Hey, you ok? Saw he got you." The words weren't  echoing through the room anymore, but the viewing portal was still  picking them up.

Miles coalesced a small, ghostly knife,  then jammed it into the gash in his side, working it in slowly. After a  second he managed to lever out a shard of dark smoking...something. "I'm  fine." He grunted. "Don't get to my age without learning to deal with  poison. That's a nasty one though. Hopekiller. Lucky he got me and not  you, your vitality ain't near enough to suppress it."

He  fished out a vial, stowing the dark smokey fragment, then put it away.  "Let's get back. The assassin will be gone after losing his backup.  Maybe this will be enough to dissuade any of the other. Rayner had a  hell of a reputation out here, and killing him is bound to be  intimidating to some." His sword vanished and he cracked his neck with a  groan. "I hope so, because I could use a nap."

Killian  chuckled, then turned his head, and somehow, his eyes fixed right on the  viewing portal. "Why are you still watching us?" Echoed his voice  through the hall, once again projecting loudly. "Tell everyone to get  back to work, and let our guests move on with their day. Show's over  Blake." Then he snapped his fingers and the portal disappeared, along  with all the others, leaving us looking at a massive empty sky of stars.

I  could just barely notice a speck in the distance if I focused, and with  my Perception could probably have seen something if I looked hard, but  it wasn't worth pissing off an A-ranker.

"Well." Blake  said loudly. "You all heard him. Get back to work if you're a crew  member, and if you're not enjoy your day." He turned to us. "I can take  you to the docking bay they probably used. Zeke should be there  still,I'm sure you all want to check on him."

We did, so  we thanked him and he led us out of the observation dome and off down  the hallway. It didn't take as long as I'd expected to come to a large  open metal room with an open doorway off the ship on one side. There was  a screen of green light across the doorway, and I saw Zeke slumped over  a chair, taking long pulls from a very large bottle of liquor.

He  finished his swallow and set the bottle down, nodding as he saw us.  "Kids. I take it you enjoyed the show?" His smug tone made it clear that  he knew we had. Which was fair, he had reason to be smug, it had been  impressive as hell.

Abel chuckled. "You were in total  control of that whole encounter for the entire fight. Every single  action you took was bait for what happened next, wasn't it?" He sounded  almost awed. "Would that initial arrow attack have even done anything to  him if it had landed?"

"Not a thing." Zeke said casually.  "Which is why it didn't. If there's one lesson I can teach you, it's  that raw power isn't what decides a battle. Control is. Your enemy  should never make a move you weren't expecting them to make. HOW they  make the move can vary, but at the end of the day, they should be  attacking when you want them to, defending when you want them to, and  catching you when and if you want them to."

"So that whole  thing with the copy of you getting shot?" I asked in amazement. "You  knew that was going to happen? From the very beginning?"

He  shrugged, taking another pull. "Of course I did. Otherwise the one who  got shot might have been the real me. The same with the punch, I even  framed myself up nice and perfect with a pair of masks just to make sure  he was focused on the right me. The whole fight was a shell game."

"What  about the mask?" I asked, putting my finger on one thing that had been  confusing me. "You mentioned it was a Path ability you used. Why didn't  it feel like one? When Carus used his I could sense it. Same with Miles.  It like...changed reality. Like most Paths seem to do."

Zeke  sneered. "Showoff nonsense. I make masks. Masks are discrete objects  meant to conceal and confuse. How could my Path be the kind of noisy  trash you can see at a glance. The power, much like all identifying  features, lies UNDER the mask. Everything I did in that fight was in  accordance with my Path, it just wasn't blatant. That last attack was  definitely leaning into it pretty hard though."

"Yeah,  what was with that?" I said, thinking of the crazy switch he'd pulled  off. "Is that the nature of a mask too? Because I've seen your masks eat  people, but that was almost like you were becoming him."

"Don't  worry too much about that." He said with a wave. "Suffice to say that  the concealment of a mask isn't always beneficial. I suppressed his  personality. As for the mask I used, it has to do with the nature of my  ability and my legend. That kind of thing isn't something you'll need to  worry about until much later."

Did  that mean that the next step in Path usage was to fuse your solid Path  with your identity as an Ascendant? Or even an older story? I shook that  off. I wasn't even finished learning to use the Path I had. Zeke was  right, I had a long way to go before I needed to think about the next  step.

Still,  Zeke had made his point, in a way. He hadn't been lying in wait to get  attacked, he'd reacted when it came. Whats more, he'd shown me that  rolling with the punches didn't mean you had to constantly improvise.  Plans and tactics were still useful and possible during short term  engagements. I was sure part of the reason he'd done it this way was so I  didn't abandon my attempts to think things through.

Zeke  listened to all of our questions, deflecting most of them, and drained  his bottle of what I was pretty sure was bourbon. Then, when he was  finished, he bid us all goodnight and headed back to his room to sleep. I  suspected he was much more exhausted than he was letting on.

I  said my goodbyes to everyone and Callie and I decided to take some time  to ourselves. Just walk around and digest some of what we'd seen and  learned. Not training, we were still trying to take some time off, but  just think things over. Besides which, once we emerged back out into the  ship, we were able to bask in the lovely scenery. Just a nice long walk  with my girlfriend as we hurtled through space on a giant block of  enchanted metal. My life could be pretty cool sometimes. What would it  be like when I reached Zeke's level? I couldn't wait to find out.