The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

71

Matt sincerely hoped so, because there wasn’t even a blade of grass left in the explosion radius. The trees that survived looked as if a giant had a tantrum and stomped on them. Their shattered and splintered trunks lay in haphazard piles.

Emily, who was closest to him, whistled. “Ascenders’ balls Matt. f**k! I want one of those.”

Hoisting the cannon and moving to the next location with Conor, Matt grunted out, “Get your own [Cracked Mana Bolt] to hold a few thousand mana.”

“You’re a monster, though. I could do it at half the cost, given enough time to modify the skill. Or use it on the seventh or eighth combo. Ohhh, that’s a good idea. I bet I could make a bigger explosion than you if I got my streak high enough.”

Annie parted the troops who were manning the walls around them, creating a clear path for them to shuffle through. Thanks to her, they made good speed to the next location. Liz followed up with Aster, assisting her with moving the other cannon with a mix of ice and blood, helping to lift the weight and slide it along.

When they reached their second position, Conor hauled the ballista out of position, to the displeasure of the crew manning it. But when they saw Matt setting up the cannon, they quieted down and moved to the side.

After calculating the shot and charging the mana cannon, Matt destroyed the second pylon. They repeated the process three more times, missing only once before Matt had to switch out the cannons, thanks to his shoddy work. It was also enough time for the queendom to pull back their structures and start setting up the formations farther out.

Matt didn’t know what each of those massive formation pillars cost, but he doubted that they were cheap. They might have made the better sacrifice, with one cannon gone for four of their formations.

Still, they underestimated the amount of mana Matt was charging the cannons with, and he was able to repeat the feat a second time, just as they were almost done setting up the formation farther away. The queendom moved significantly faster in pulling up and retreating with their space-locking pillars this time, and he could only hit two pillars before they truly were out of range.

This time, they moved nearly two hundred feet farther back. His last shot with the cannon was sent at a too slow trebuchet, and even that was at the very edge of his range. Watching the strut of the wooden siege engine shatter, then the entire thing collapse, earned a cheer from the defenders around them. They had been the ones watching stone after stone be blocked only feet from where they were standing.

He got a message from Juni, who sounded near jubilant. “Fantastic work. Once we’re back from the dead, remind me to throw you the largest party I can f*****g plan.”

“Whoa, whoa. You expect us to die?”

Juni was distinctly less happy when he said, “Not intended, but there are a million plus troops moving to take this city. I don’t know if we can hold out, but we don’t intend to give up or go out easily. ‘Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.’”

“Don’t you f*****g quote Albertson at me, Juni… Juni?”

The prince’s right hand man had already ended the call.

Matt growled out at the surrounding besiegers. He didn’t intend to go down quickly, easily, or at all.

17

Matt and his party stood together on the wall by the main gate, watching the dozen queendom trebuchets fling boulders at the shields.

They had been at this for a full day now.

The siege engines assaulting each entrance was the queendom’s way of battering down the shield reserves, and it was effective. The first attacks had been more about frightening the defenders. After that, the artillery was carefully hitting the walls with standard rocks, no longer bothering to set them ablaze.

They observed the enemy command tent with the telescope they had linked to their AIs. Meanwhile, Juni was leading negotiations with the besiegers from on top of the battlements.

The discussion was going about as poorly as Matt expected. The opposing general was demanding the immediate surrender of their city and the entire defending force. Juni was countering with an equally absurd offer of letting all the standard troops leave uncaptured and unharmed if the queendom commanders surrendered.

Neither side expected the other to comply but, apparently, d**k-measuring contests were a part of defending a city.

That neither side had slowed their siege preparations was telling. The attackers were assembling siege towers as if they were children’s toys. Meanwhile, earth mages formed smoothed out tracks for the towers to advance on. The mages ventured as close as they could to the wall without the defenders being able to shoot them.

The miniature roads were a worrying testament to the lengths that the queendom would go to for the capture of the city. It was also a clear indicator that they didn’t intend to simply batter the city to rubble with their artillery. No, Princess Sara intended to take the city intact. After all, they’d need to pay for any repairs once it was in their control.

Matt looked back over the wall into the massive city. The streets were packed with fighters. Most were uniformed kingdom soldiers, but there were smaller clumps of fighters in oddly colored, mismatched armor. They were the quick reaction forces that Liz commanded, comprised mostly of Pathers.

He had already run simulations for most of the possibilities with his AI. They were going to have to play this almost perfectly to successfully defend the city. His estimation of a million queendom troops wasn’t far off. Around their city, there were eight hundred thousand queendom fighters setting up camps and their own additions to the fortifications.

So far.

To his surprise, the prince had done as promised. There were bands of kingdom fighters harrying the attackers and creating chaos. They weren’t getting firm numbers, but the queendom had dedicated a substantial force to taking out the kingdom’s guerilla forces.

It was the prince himself that led a raid deep into the queendom encirclement, where the team he personally led tore down two of the formation pillars that were locking down the city’s teleporters. With their assistance, the city’s defenders had managed to reinforce themselves, and now stood at nearly five hundred thousand fighters in total.

Eight hundred thousand attackers versus five hundred thousand defenders wasn’t an impossible matchup for the defenders. It would just be a challenge. According to conventional wisdom, a three to one ratio was the minimum an attacking force should be comfortable with for besieging a city of this size. It was why the time they had bought with the cannons was so crucial. The kingdom might now be able to defend against this siege, if they were able to execute.

The problem was time. They were running out of it. According to Juni, the city’s mana reserves were nearly spent, and the attackers clearly knew it. The rate of trebuchet fire was slowing down to a sprinkling of boulders, compared to the torrential rain it had been before.

Ten minutes later, the inevitable finally happened.

A flying boulder slammed unimpeded into the city walls. The useless prince had spent a lot on city reserves, but it all eventually proved ineffective. Looking around, Matt wished that their leader had spent even more points on the city’s fortifications. While their defenses were adequately equipped, they clearly were not enough.

There was a joyful roar from the attacking army as they saw that the shields were finally disabled. On the other hand, the mood turned markedly somber around the defending command center.