Ascenders Rift

As Evan's party had an unexpected encounter, the battles on the Earth sector's side were heating up to their finale, a fierce exchange now occurring between the MSS's special weapon Reaper X and the Flesh Mutator's Ultimate Destroyers.

They rumbled as explosive energies erupted all over, be it from the shockwaves of the clash between mech and monster, along with the brutal battle of those human ascenders who faced off against the horde.

Suddenly, the Reaper X fired its thrusters, propelling it towards a particular Ultimate Destroyer; it then swung a scythe-like weapon towards it, leaving a line from its beam trails that were only moments from cutting into the destroyer's fleshy surface.

Hugrils, who controlled this destroyer, had a bad look on his face as he channeled his innate abilities and shouted, "Empower!"

A layer of even denser muscles appeared over his Ultimate Destroyer, hardening its surface even more. Still, as if it didn't have much effect, the beam scythe cut into its surface, pushing it back by a few meters across the sky.

Hugrils seemed to have similarly suffered a chest wound much like that cut inflicted onto the destroyer; he gritted his teeth, stabilizing himself in the air as he glared at the Reaper X.

"Damn, how can it be so strong?!" Hugrils cursed in rage; he glared at the Reaper X, preparing to strike at it again, but before it did. The Reaper X did something strange.

Its mechanical eyes glowed in a bright light and angled its head to a particular direction, with a series of flashing digits a marker locked onto an empty point in space as if tracking something moving at unobservable speeds.

In a flash, this thing had appeared at its flank, revealing itself to be the Ultimate Destroyer that Khenul controlled. Utilizing her innate speed ability of a flesh mutator, she struck its arms towards the Reaper X, the tissue reforming into what seemed like blades for arms.

Just as the arm was about to slash the central cockpit of Reaper X, a few sockets opened from its front, revealing hidden thrusters that propelled its back by a meter as it swung the scythe to counter it with the aid of another set of arm thrusting modules.

Ting! The metallic sounds of both the scythe and the arm of Khenul's Ultimate Destroyer resounded, the force pushing her destroyer's blade-like arm upward, forcing it into a state of defenselessness.

"What?" Khenul said in surprise, not to mention that it could avoid her godly speed boost; she had no idea how it could parry her attack from such close range.

As if seeing an opportunity, Reaper X's eyes shone once more as it punched its free mechanical arm, striking directly onto the component which housed Khenul, forming a depression into the muscular surface as it blasted her away.

"Argh!" Khenul's cry sounded as the punch blew her destroyer back even farther than Hugrils.

The Reaper X angled its scythe as it set itself forward, aiming to charge towards Khenul for the finish, but right at this time, a group of long objects swept towards it from another direction at incredible speeds.

Looking at its source, one would notice that the third Ultimate Destroyer controlled by Candrons had fired off countless parts of its tissues of muscles, forming giant tentacles with sharpened edges.

These edges shone with a strange aura as they swept towards the Reaper X at speeds no less than Khenul's as Candrons smirk while muttering, "Hehe, these humans made a fine construct, but any materials cannot resist my Extension Trait. I will tear through their metals and gorge through that weak human soul."

Candrons felt as if he had everything in control, but sadly, it seemed that he was about to witness the impossible. Different components opened up on Reaper X's body with a series of clicking noises, showing a few ports that glowed with bright lights.

In an instant, a colorful scene followed as multiple beams of light fired off towards the incoming sharpened tendrils; before they could even react, the beams collided with them, vaporizing them into bits of pieces, leaving Candrons in shock.

"How can this happen?" Candrons exclaimed, but as he did, he only now noticed that a few of these beams had also fired his way.

"Not good!" Candrons exclaimed as he tried to escape, conjuring a few tendrils that tried to counter-attack, a few of the beams were blocked by the tendrils, but one still swept through, crashing into the surface of the destroyer before vaporizing a part of its hole.

Candrons had also lost that portion of his body; he rapidly retreated fall back to the direction of the leading Horde Carrier, controlled by Xakkok.

Naturally, the injured Khenul and Hugrils had also fallen back, the tree destroyers, looking similar to beaten dogs, hampering before their master.

Xakkok frowned at this; he glared at the Reaper X that had reddened due to the excessive energy burst while thinking, 'To think these humans could create such a device, I truly underestimated their ingenuity. Hmph! Such large amounts of energy will likely cause even us a burden, say not of these humans; I'll have to take destroying it into my own hands.'

With his mind decided, Xakkok looked at his accompanying generals and spoke, "Candrons, Khenul, Hugrils, Ekv... hmm, Ekver? Where the hell is Ekver?"

Candrons and the others also made a look of surprise; they didn't notice when Ekver had vanished from their assault. 

"That Ekver, when the hell did he vanish?" Candrons murmured; the others thought the same.

Puzzled by the change, Xakkok felt enraged, but as he knew that now wasn't the time for such affairs, he pushed it aside before speaking once more.

"Leave that human construct to me; I want you all to go and take care of the rest; I'll use my power to assimilate and merge all the destroyers."

Candrons and the others soon flowed from the destroyers, reforming into their former selves that floated in the air. They looked at each other, noticing their wounds that began to self-heal as they nodded.

"Fine, don't lose to that foolish human construct!" Candrons said as he glanced at the Reaper X, which stood at standby, seeming to gather energy.

Xakkok frowned as he shouted, "Go!"

Not dallying, Candrons and the other three turned into blurs that flew towards the leading battleships, leaving behind Xakkok, who reached his arms out and spoke, "Assimilate!"

His voice caused three massive tentacles to flow from the primary horde carrier, connecting with the three Ultimate Destroyers. Each began to break down as they were swallowed by the carrier, which soon started to change its shape, slowly forming into a shape of what seemed like an even larger Ultimate Destroyer.

A few seconds before that scene, on the side of the alliances, Alan, Nelly, and the other leaders that saw the defeat of Candrons, Khenul, and Hugrils from their battleships, showed looks of joy as they saw the scene.

"Incredible, you two madmen came through this time; this machine is truly unstoppable, to think it could take on the merger of such dreadful things by beings of that insane level," Alan said as he stared at Cline and Conrad.

"We only did our best," Cline said; Conrad frowned and spoke, "You mean I did."

"You..." Cline was about to get angry, but before they could even express their feud, they finally noticed the change that occurred in the sky, seeing the deadly rays of light that soared towards them, followed by a loud rumble caused by the main horde carrier's transformation.

Alan frowned as he saw the scene; he spoke through the communication device fitted on his ear, "Reaper, they're changing their plans. We'll have to fight them head-on, and it seems that another of those mech-like things is on the way. Can you still hand it?" 

Reaper, who stood within the single pilot cockpit of the Reaper X, glanced at a few terminals that were showing red and orange lights, with the others mainly on the green.

"It's fine; I've almost cooled down; besides, I have yet to use the most dangerous thing within this big guy truly."

Alan thought for a bit and replied, "Good, leave the rest here to us, you take care of the main carrier; I have a feeling that something is going on, even more so when I saw that one of them had left the battlefield."

"Hmm, what? Are you sure it's okay to let that one go?" Reaper said in surprise.

Alan chuckled as he replied, "Of course, while I don't like him, the direction it's headed is likely to be under that fellow's control."

Reaper said nothing more, focusing on his duties. He already knew who that 'fellow' mentioned was from Alan's tone. Now, Nelly, Angeline, and the others, even leaders such as Akim and Viktor with their accompanying aids, had solemn expressions.

Alan stared at them before clenching his fist, his battle energy rising to its peak as he spoke, "Since they want to challenge us directly, let's show them that we... are more than happy to oblige!"

"Right!" The others said as they too erupted their full battle energy, gearing up to clash with the incoming trio from the Eight Destroyers.

The scene here seemed about to enter its final act, but in another part of the Earth Sector, another battle was playing out against different human alliances. But despite the immense power of its enemies, a shocking scene had promptly unfolded.