The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

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He and Conor seemed to register it at the same time, and they dropped off the wall. A split second after they had the chance to hunker down, the concussive force of the spell shattered the air. The world seemed to shake as the dust settled. Matt stood before Conor, with the world around him ringing and blurring. The man was mouthing something while working his jaw. Matt’s ears had been mostly protected from the concussive force by his armor, but Conor wasn’t so lucky.

With two steps, he was in the little gatehouse and staring at the door that was little more than remnants of hinges clinging to the blackened stone.

His AI had already identified the model of cannon and done the math. They had used at least 10,000 mana in that blast. That was fifty Tier 5 mana stones, essentially the value of a Tier 6 stone, if not its mana equivalent.

Matt was aghast. He created mana at an absurd rate, but that single attack was the production of a Tier 5 rift run eight times, if the average reward was given. It just seemed wasteful when that much mana could have sustained a crafter making a permanent weapon or powered a city for hours. If they converted that mana into personal mana for their mage’s mana pools, it could have completely refueled four or five mages.

Matt wasn’t able to think anymore, as the enemy had charged forward in unison with their first wave and were now only steps away from the annihilated entrance.

He cleared his head and realized that he had been instinctively charging [Mana s***h]. The blue crescent quickly lashed out with an eager bite. Two people vanished as they tumbled in a spray of blood and still-settling dust.

Conor appeared next to him as the attackers reached the doorway. The other man stood at his shoulder and thrust his shield forward, blocking a descending mace. An idle part of Matt noticed that the man was using a short metal truncheon instead of his sword, or longer mace.

Matt kicked an attacker in the knee and immediately noticed that they were only Tier 6. The way they crumpled under his full power almost gave him pause, but he had no time to think, he could only act with power and speed.

The door was four people wide, which let him swing his longsword around without any hindrance, but it also meant that he was always fighting at least three people while they cram their way in. A shield was split under his Tier 7 blade as he braced himself and swung at the nearest enemy.

A screaming howl of wind tried to knock him off his feet, but Matt instinctively used his Concept to anchor himself to the ground. It knocked everyone else to their asses at the same time, and Matt noticed the mage and five archers standing behind their fallen allies. He didn’t know when they moved forward, but they were now only fifty feet away, so Matt rushed them.

As he stepped over the rising bodies of the queendom forces, he kicked an armored head and winced as the man vanished. Head wounds were dangerous, he tried to avoid them if he could, and only hoped that the man had been pulled out before any significant damage was done.

The archers and mage hadn’t missed the opportunity created by their comrades falling, and the archers loosed their arrows. He didn’t know if it was a miscommunication or not, but they all aimed for Conor’s still prone form instead of splitting their targets.

That was their final mistake.

Matt was close enough to get off a [Mana s***h], which he realized right as he was nearly halfway across the distance separating them. A [Wind Wall] sprang up, protecting the mage in the center and an archer on either side of him. The others were just gone, and as Matt slammed his ever brightening blade into the defensive spell, he understood why.

They were only Tier 5.

He almost felt like a bully, but they were a part of a mixed force, and therefore fair game. His feelings didn’t cause his blade to slow as he reared it back, and with a bright explosion of blue light, broke through the mage’s defenses.

The wind mage just dropped to the ground, with blood running from his nose from the rebound of having his spell forcefully shattered. But Matt still had two archers to deal with. They hadn’t been dumb, and knew they were stuck behind the [Wind Wall], but they hadn’t sat still.

Once the barrier fell, they both fired arrows at Matt. They were good shots. One went for Matt’s face, and the other at his chest, making them exceedingly difficult to dodge or block at this range.

Matt ignored the arrows as they bounced off his armor and bounded toward them. He cut through both of them in a heavy horizontal s***h.

As they fell, he noticed another group of attackers forming up at the edge of the woods, and more people mulling around the cannon. Matt sprinted back to the safety of melee combat with his enemies and started slashing at them from behind.

Conor was back up and had taken most of them out already. He had four arrows sticking out of his shield, and another in his shoulder.

They retreated into the hall and peered out as the attackers prepped their cannon.

“Can you pull this arrow out? It’s stuck in my shoulder joint, and I can’t reach it.”

Matt reached up, and after checking the direction of the arrow, pulled it out. To his surprise, it only had a small drop of blood on it.

“How didn’t this hit you?”

Conor shrugged with his now mobile shoulder. “No clue, I was just huddling behind my shield when I saw the backline. Got lucky, I guess.”

Matt tossed the arrow and asked everyone else on his team for a report.

Annie responded first. “Two small groups of people tried to scale the wall. They were going more for stealth, so it was easy to deal with them.”

Emily said, “A full team with ladders tried to scale my wall, but I managed to kill them and destroy the ladders.”

Matt cursed and asked, “Did they look made here, or professionally made?”

“Rough, Sticks and s**t lashed together.”

Matt breathed a slight sigh of relief. It wasn’t ideal that they were making them, but they at least hadn’t come prepared with them.

Liz noted, “People were sniffing around the back wall where it meets up with the fortress, but I was able to keep them away without much effort.”

Matt peered out of the tunnel and saw that the enemies were actually pulling back their cannon and assembling a larger force. It looked like they were gathering everyone that hadn’t been a part of the last rush or the encircling force.

Scared to see how much time had passed, Matt checked his countdown. Seven minutes fifty-seven seconds left.

Matt sighed. They were practically guaranteed their victory when their reinforcements arrived.

If his initial guess of one hundred people was correct, he estimated that they had sent twenty-five or so people to surround them, with another twenty-five in the last attack through the three places they tried to gain entrance. If they attacked with everything they had, it was at most fifty people, if they wanted to keep their encirclement up.