The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

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The attackers soon reached the halfway mark, and he sent out his next command. “Archers, fire at the marked locations!”

A breath later, the sky darkened as thousands of arrows were loosed in near unison. They arced up and then down to slam into the upraised shields of the advancing formations. The next volley was a little more ragged, but gaps started to appear in the enemy formations.

“Mages, when you’re in range, take your shots. Prioritize the targets your skills deal with best.”

[Earth Spike]s and [Water Spear]s lashed out at the siege towers to Matt’s right. A barrage of [Fireball]s did the same to his left. They splashed against the large, reinforced siege towers to little effect, but they did hinder the advance of the attackers.

From behind the first row of infantry, a contingent of archers drew their bows. Matt bellowed out on the open channels, “Prepare to receive counterfire!”

Defenders started ducking under the parapet, but Matt stood his ground. At this range, there wasn’t a chance of an attack making it through his armor.

His fighters’ shields were raised just seconds before the archers started to fire.

Having seen their own arrows fly over his head and darken the sky not moments ago, Matt thought he was prepared to receive a similar volley. He was dead wrong.

As the storm of arrows hailed toward him, he fought the instinct to duck and cover. Before him was a wave of glinting steel, crashing down upon a shore of flesh and dread.

The projectiles landed with a heavy push of air. Half a dozen of them bounced off his pale blue armor skill with plinking sounds, but that wasn’t all they hit. The screams started just afterwards. Some lasted mere moments, but others lingered. Most wounds weren’t severe enough to demand elimination.

His AI confirmed that his team was fine, and he dismissed the injury reports after glancing at the tallies of wounded. The numbers weren’t pretty, but they were better than he’d feared.

“Healers, start getting the least wounded back on their feet.”

Seeing the formations starting to move from a walk to a jog, he called out, “Anti-personnel squads, their formations are advancing. Stop them!”

It didn’t look like the queendom was going for a probing attack. With this many resources at play, they obviously wanted to try to gain a foothold on the wall.

Arrows and spells flickered back and forth as Matt called out commands he received from his AI. Most were only what was obvious. It was like a game. You counter what the enemy tried to do while hampering them as much as possible. There were only so many orders that could be given, after all. The rest of the orders were just trying to counter or preemptively cut off problems.

The first of the three remaining siege towers slammed into the fifty-foot walls with a rumble. The second and fifth towers were stuck in mud and on fire, respectively. He didn’t know when either had happened, but it was good news.

“Prepare to repel attackers! Don’t let the towers distract you from the ladders and ropes.”

His command felt unneeded, but it was better to make sure that everyone was on the same page.

Giant doors opened downwards, creating ramps to the top of the wall, where dozens of attackers flooded out.

The first wave consisted mostly of Tier 7 melee fighters in heavy armor.

Matt entered the fray for the first time.

With his staff in hand, he put his full 80 mana into the initial cast of [Hail] and let an avalanche of ice pour in front of the front gate. His staff didn’t just empower a single skill. It empowered any skills that had an initial cast cost.

The battering ram that was being wheeled up suddenly had no way to advance. There was an ever-growing pile of ice raining down before the gate, blocking its way.

The hill of ice reached the top of the door and became dozens of feet thick. Matt turned off the skill, then started launching [Fireball]s at the invaders. He was aiming for those with ladders and grappling hooks.

People screamed, and attacks bounced off his armor as he leaned over the parapet to get a better angle on the queendom soldiers.

They quickly realized that their attacks were ineffective against him, and that he’d set those attempting to climb the walls aflame. The opposition quickly began focusing their efforts elsewhere.

Taking a moment, Matt looked over to the three siege towers that had reached the walls. His team was contesting the middle one to a halt. Conor stood poised at the bottom of the ramp with [Demon Zone]’s crimson hue whirling around him, inviting anyone foolish enough to step foot onto his grisly dance floor. Behind him, the team’s mages only added to the chaos, playing a symphony of spells to a chorus of screams.

Yeah, that tower was fine.

Matt looked left and right to the remaining towers.

The third was mostly bottled up, but the first tower was gaining a foothold on the wall. It was small and burgeoning, but it couldn’t be allowed to grow any further. He really didn’t need his AI screaming at him in glaring red letters to know that much.

“QRF-Alpha, move to support against the left-most tower.”

He cast a scattering of [Fireball]s at the stream of people flowing out of the tower. After seeing three among them vanish, he checked his surroundings again.

For some odd reason, the battering ram team had brought the covered ram to the edge of his ice field. They seemed to be trying to dig a path forward.

With a shrug, he cast [Hail] a second time, and entombed everyone and everything under another frosty mountain.

He needed to be careful about piling the ice too high. If an ice mage was out there, he was just stockpiling ammunition for them, or providing materials for a ramp. Regardless, it was still effective, and it was worth it to prevent the ram from reaching the front gate.

A [Fireball] slammed into Matt a half-second later, quickly followed by an arrow. He cast half a dozen [Fireball]s of his own in retaliation and watched as part of the archers’ division poofed away.

His head swiveled, but he had no idea where the pesky mage who hit him was.

Before he could search further, his AI sent him a warning that a quick glance confirmed. A pair of competent swordsmen from the third tower were overwhelming that section of the wall. Matt leapt down from his vantage point, and dashed over while calling for the QRF-Beta team to converge at his location.

Sliding his staff into his spatial backpack, he summoned his sword into hand and charged into the two swordsmen, whose blades now gleamed with a sanguine red glow.

Both were Tier 7 and prepared for his charge. He met their flashing weapons with his own glimmering longsword, and used its greater reach to cover half the wall’s walkway. He blocked two hits before taking a strike to his armor.

It increased his mana draw to nearly the max of what his armor Skill could handle, 45 MPS. But it enabled him to confidently take the glancing hit.

Knowing that, Matt started moving a little more recklessly.

Ducking a sinister looking s***h, he half-stepped to the right and brought his blade up from below the rightmost attacker’s guard. The swordsman pivoted to block, but as their weapons met, Matt unleashed the mana stored in his blade. [Mana Charge] detonated on collision, sending the smoking and charred intruder stumbling backward.

Before Matt could follow up, his prey’s partner was already retaliating. They landed a walloping blow along his left side. The attack sliced through [Cracked Phantom Armor], and dug into his leather armor beneath.