The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

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It led to harder fights and increased casualties in the teams trying to flee to the safety of the camp. With massive casualties in the third squad from a successful ambush, the survivors had to cut their losses, and stop venturing out for all but the closest or largest groups.

It wasn’t an easy call for Juni to make, and Matt didn’t like the idea of possibly abandoning more survivors. Still, he understood the man’s logic, and accepted the decision as the right one.

Losing members of the rescue team meant losing the most powerful fighters amongst the survivors. With nearly three hundred people to defend in the camp, they couldn’t justify losing their greatest defense for the last few stragglers.

Still skeptical about the effectiveness of the tree wall, Matt was somewhat pacified by the fact that it was currently being reinforced with dirt. Hopefully, the clay-like soil would impart some extra weight to the thin wall. The entire defensive structure would have been essentially useless, if not for the anti-air construct that the prince had salvaged from the teleporter city. He and his group had salvaged it when he realized that the city was doomed, and that the Tier 15 would do nothing to prevent the coming destruction.

Each of his representatives were given two, and the weapons were the only thing keeping the city from being overrun. The constructs could be overwhelmed with numbers, but they were enough to keep the camp relatively safe.

The strongest fighters were supposed to have a meeting with Juni this evening. It was to discuss plans for the Tier 4 and weaker Tier 5s, who were unable or unwilling to fight. Currently, the survivors were too vulnerable with the weaker members needing to be defended. And that meant that they couldn’t move to the offensive against the ruin and its golems.

For Matt, it was eye-opening to see the combat abilities of run-of-the-mill Tier 5s.

They were weak. Incredibly weak, if he was being honest, at least to Matt’s estimations. So many of them didn’t seem to actually practice or strategize in any way. They simply cast spells without regard at the first sign of movement, and only seemed capable of progressing at painstakingly slow rates through rifts of their own Tier.

Rescuing those groups had been more trouble than an ambush with a competent team. Matt had no idea why they had come to a known hostile area with such a lack of experience. He hated having to rescue these amateurs. On more than one occasion, their spells had hit rescuers instead of golems, which exacerbated the trust issues between teams of unknown people.

As of now, the surroundings were calm, and from their communication with the other survivor camps in the massive expanse of forest, the situation was similar for them. Things were calm and had been for hours. It was almost unsettling.

Matt stretched out his legs and shifted in his seat. His group was part of the quick reaction force and was currently on standby. Liz, Aster, and Camilla were asleep in a row next to him, using rocks as backrests. The rest of their makeshift team was situated to his other side. Geraden was either meditating, or sleeping sitting up, and Fen and his wolves were asleep in a solid mass of fur and limbs.

The newest additions to their team were a couple. Basil and Thyme were slumped together after falling asleep chatting amongst themselves. Basil was a melee front liner, and Thyme was a mage. They were more than likely fake names, but they were what the couple had given when asked. No one pried about their real identities. They fought and fought well. That was the important part.

They were all exhausted from their last venture outside of the camp, and desperately needed the rest that they were finally getting. Even with [Endurance] running, Matt still felt the wear on his mind from lack of sleep. He just couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes and lie still. At least, not when there were still people in danger outside of the camp.

There had to be something that they could do. They had a plan for keeping the weaker individuals safe, by getting them into a rift instance. They would be discussing that at the meeting later. From the few reports they had received, protecting the rifts long enough to form an instance would be a brutal fight. The golems had been delving themselves and were protecting the rift openings jealously.

Getting the noncombatants inside through the golems was another problem that they’d have to contend with. From the chatter on the crashed satellite network, it seemed that the prince wanted to mobilize all of the survivor camps at once, in a coordinated strike. Hopefully, the sudden rush of cultivators would stretch the golem forces thin or force them to only reinforce a single location.

As his eyes were starting to droop, Matt’s AI pinged him, and the others all startled awake. The rest of his team all jolted up as well, and there was a flurry of activity while they read the report. A large group of survivors had just reached out during their journey to the camp. What they were doing this late at night was a mystery, but Juni had decided that there were enough of them to prioritize a rescue.

After a quick headcount, Matt agreed. There were thirty-seven people in total. It was too many to leave behind to be butchered. His guilt over the few teams that they hadn’t responded to still weighed on him, but right now, he was too tired to feel much of anything.

It took only moments for them to get ready, and they were outside the walls. Matt withdrew his flying sword and made sure it was charged before Liz took control and hopped on with Aster and Thyme. They stayed low and just behind the melee fighters and would provide aerial support from the flying device.

Thyme, despite being a Tier 6, was a pure mage with minimal physical cultivation. She was simply unable to keep up with the brutal sprint that the melee fighters ran at, so the flying sword was welcome.

Once in formation, they didn’t speak. They didn’t need to at this point. This wasn’t the first, or even tenth time they had done this.

As they continued at a ground-eating sprint, Matt checked the group’s mana reserves. They were the only group of survivors exempt from the mana tax to feed the anti-air construct, but they fought so often, it ended up equaling out. The mages were all nearly full, but the melee fighters were sitting at around half-capacity.

It wasn’t a perfect situation, but it should be enough. They had retreated from a fight they couldn’t win before and could do so again. Even if it had left a bitter taste in their mouths.

Showing mana amounts had caused a slight problem for Matt. He had wanted to hide it, but he couldn’t spoof the readout, and not sharing wasn’t really an option. So, everyone saw that he always ran on nearly no mana at all.

He had simply lied and said that his Talent was his armor skill. His explanation was that it drained most of his mana for the persistent effect and strength boost. That covered both [Mage’s Retreat] and [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s effects nicely. Talents that did two things weren’t unheard of, just rare.