The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

44

Matt fought on his own for what felt like years, but his AI said it was closer to fifteen minutes. They kept sending bodies at him with little strategy, and the fighting turned primal. Strategy and technique were discarded for power and bloodshed. The queendom fighters stepped forward and one by one he cut them down as he was slowly pushed back into a wall.

His armor was broken through more than once, but he was always able to reform it before taking more than shallow cuts. Rage fueled him more than stamina or mana could at this point. In his anger he discarded [Endurance] and put everything he had into [Mage’s Retreat] and [Cracked Phantom Armor]. They had harmed his family, and he was going to make sure they paid for it.

With his back to a corner, Matt felled a dozen people in queendom uniforms. When they pulled back, a shorter man with dark hair and a blue tint to his skin replaced them.

Matt panted heavily as a wave of what looked like ink flew out at him in a wave. Matt tried to sidestep it and charge forward but felt himself lifted off his feet as the pressure increasing on his armor. The dark water mage was squeezing him until he popped.

He ignored it and tried to think. He had no leverage, and his only option was to use his teleporting ring. But it felt like a waste to give up his trump card so easily.

As he tried to think of a way out, he swung his sword through the water ineffectually. The glowing blade gave him an idea but with nothing to hit he couldn’t release the mana stored in [Mana Charge].

Bringing his blade around to his leg Matt let the blast of mana out. It was unfortunate but without striking something the skill couldn’t be triggered, a safety measure he intended to remove after this.

It broke [Cracked Phantom Armor] and mangled his leg, but it also shattered the spell around him, and he dropped down into a watery puddle. Matt awkwardly lunged forward, but someone else stepped up to protect the mage, and stabbed him while his armor was still coming back.

The leg he used [Mana Charge] on wasn’t working properly, but Matt pushed through the pain and ripped the shield forward with a guttural roar.

He brought his fist down on an armored head, even as he felt metal bite deep into his back and chest.

With a final punch and roar, the man under him vanished.

A moment later, and with an ever-growing cold sensation through his chest, he did as well.

11

Ash stood panting, staring at the pool of blood the man had left behind. This was why direct combat should be avoided; ambush tactics were so much more refined. Ash’s Tier 1 talent allowed them to use any skill as though it were Blackwater affinity, a high-level mana aspect that primarily contained water and shadow.

The tool kit it granted them trended very strongly to ambushes and fighting from the shadows and made them far better at assassinations than anything else. It was why Ash was teamed up with Thayden for this little war after all, to deal with hard-to-hit targets.

Why the two of them were sent to take back a fort in the middle of a siege was a mystery. They worked better as a strike unit, used for infiltration ahead of the main assault, focused on taking out a leader or sabotaging gear and defenses.

Attacking head-on was stupid, but they had their orders, and had to comply if they wanted to be rewarded by the Empire war AI. Purely suicidal missions weren’t permissible but, apparently, ‘kill that monstrous team’ wasn’t enough to be considered suicide.

Ash didn’t consider it suicidal either, until they had all nearly died. Thayden had a brilliant idea of going through the window by mixing their abilities with shadows to let the man turn intangible.

Sadly, the attack hadn’t worked completely, and Thayden was dead. On top of that, the attacking force was down to twenty-odd fighters.

Still, they had won, and the reward for taking a medium fort would be hefty.

But killing the final armored man was a task that they weren’t sure was even worth it. The man had fought like a monster in human flesh. Or perhaps more accurately, in impenetrable skill armor. Archers were unable to get a good enough shot to kill the man because of the tight space, and the melee fighters were utterly dismantled as they came into reach of the man’s blade. Still, they were ordered to capture the fort, so they had, despite the cost.

Even so, Ash had to burn a Tier 7 mana stone to charge their fast converting mana stone. The stone was an ace in the hole for emergencies, one recommended by their sponsor. It could convert mana near-instantly, but the efficiency was awful. 400 mana invested had yielded in less than 30, but they had figured that it would be enough to restrain the armored man and finish the fight.

They had never expected that the kingdom fighter would blow off their own leg after being hoisted off the ground. Ash didn’t even know that it was possible to disrupt a blackwater skill like that.

Ash had only survived because a random queendom guard had jumped in the way of the armored man’s last lunge. Ash hadn’t been sure they had defeated the man until he was teleported out. And that was only after everyone stabbed the man in the back. Repeatedly.

Screams disrupted Ash’s musings, and through the window they saw a stream of kingdom-colored troops fighting the encirclement group outside of the fort with a second group of at least twenty entering the building. Before the queendom defenders outside could do anything useful like group up, they were quickly subdued in small packs. Unable to use their near equal numbers to good effect.

Everyone still alive on Ash’s floor simply dropped their weapons, too tired to put up any sort of fight, as a smiling woman with dull brown hair entered the room. She had a rainbow-colored parasol spinning behind her. Her cheer seemed out of place with the blood and gore splattered around.

Her armored dress was a fashion statement that Ash had never seen before, and looked as impractical as it was flashy. Apart from her dress, she was as plain as could be.

The woman surveyed the queendom fighters and spoke with a clear, bell-like voice, “Felix dear, please dispatch these ones. Thank you.”

One of the Tier 6 melee fighters who had survived spat at the woman’s feet, saying, “f**k y—”

Before he could finish, the woman in command turned around and viciously kicked him in the face. Blood from the man’s nose arced through the air, splattering the other captives in the face. The woman’s dress had hidden it, but she wore practical combat boots under all the finery. That must have hurt.

“Now there, I’ll have none of that.” she said with a gentle smile on her face. She looked down and saw the blood that had landed on her dress, “As if this day couldn’t get any worse.”

Looking at the queendom fighters she continued with a sigh, “Honestly, I expected better from the best and the brightest the Empire had to offer. I guess all that glitters is not gold. Well, I thank you for your efforts, substandard as they were.” With that final statement she closed the parasol with a snap, placed the tip on the man’s forehead, and pushed it back. With a brief flash of blood and light the man disappeared.