The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

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It was hard and brutal fighting where each attack felt like flailing in a pool. No matter how many times Matt brought his sword down into the swarm, they rushed to fill in the gaps created by his strikes.

Most of them were the lighter, flying models, and took only a single attack to bring down. Still, their effectiveness was in their sheer numbers. The continuous onslaught of golems wore down the defenders’ bodies. As the mindless fighting continued, Matt engaged with three of the melee golems, wielding the usual mana swords and shields. He was unable to finish them off, but his sole objective was a successful retreat into the rift, so keeping the monsters occupied was good enough.

As he was backpedaling and parrying, he stepped on something fleshy and heard a cry of pain.

Pushing forward slightly, he tried to buy time for the survivor to get up and move. When he heard no movement, he quickly glanced behind, and his shout of impatience caught in his throat. He found them still on the ground, with an obviously broken ankle. Judging from the other boot marks, they had already been trampled by quite a few people.

Cursing mentally, Matt let loose a blast of mana from his sword and with the space provided grabbed them. With a single hand he threw the survivor at someone retreating in the mass of people. He didn’t have enough time to see more than the two of them stumbling and gripping each other, before he threw himself back into the fight.

In the lull he quickly glanced at the icon of Liz, while low on mana she was physically fine. Aster was doing better on mana, but she lost a chunk while he watched. If she was using mana, she was fine.

Matt wasn’t sure how the melee fighters were doing, but the fighting was growing more and more frantic as each moment passed so he assumed it was worse than the flying mages. Golems kept slipping through and trying to grab the weaker Tier 4s. Checking his AI, he saw they were stretching out, pulling ahead faster than the rear of the formation, separating them farther from the pack and forcing the defenders to cover more ground.

Allowing his anger at the situation to take hold, he let his rage fuel his strikes. He was forced to fight at max effort and didn’t have much mana to spare for [Endurance]. [Mage’s Retreat] was eating everything that wasn’t fed into [Cracked Phantom Armor] or [Mana Charge].

The fighting seemed to go on forever. In between flashes of his released mana, he caught glimpses of spells and ranged attacks pelting the mass of golems.

It was helping, he knew that, but it felt so useless.

The anti-air constructs were sending out a continuous stream of mana bolts and kept the golems from landing inside their formations. Still, some were already flanking them, and attacking those at the front of the retreat. There was a bright side though. The stronger people were running ahead and were able to clear any golems that tried that.

A blast of flame washed over Matt, and the force of the explosion took him off his feet. Rolling and standing, he found more than a few humans moaning on the ground, while clutching themselves in various spots.

Matt swallowed, stunned for a moment. The smell of charred flesh was overwhelming.

Looking up, he saw a mage with a staff, who had a crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder, the bolt had thrown off his aim while he was using the skill. The mage looked on in horror at what had happened. His expression matched what Matt was feeling.

Shaking off the shock and jumping into action, he picked up the two most intact people, and started shoving them forward. He didn’t get much further, before a golem came into his sight, trying to grab an unconscious man. With a roar, he turned and leapt at the golem, knocking it aside and into the encroaching horde.

Picking up the downed man, Matt ran for all he was worth to catch back up with the retreating masses. Leaving the others behind tore at him, but he knew he had no choice. Not if he wanted to save the still unconscious man, or himself, for that matter. Getting killed or captured wasn’t exactly on his list of things to do.

Turning and running, Matt got back to the group, and after handing off his still unconscious baggage, returned to the fighting. The trees were a blessing and a curse. They stopped the golems from pelting them with their crossbows, but they also impeded their progress, forcing people around the thick trunks.

Matt kept his HUD up and saw the group he was next to split off to the left a little too far. They ran into a hill too steep to climb, getting themselves separated from the retreat.

Checking his surroundings, he found that the defenders had the situation mostly under control. So, he ran to the side, and launched himself off the top of the hill that the stragglers were stuck under. While landing, he tried to lead with his sword. It worked for the most part, but he still tumbled down into a mass of metal limbs.

Something stabbed into his side and punctured his armor. He let the pain add to the rage already fueling him and brought his fists down on anything that moved. Before he lost himself in the killing, he retrieved his sword and screamed at the party of nine.

“f*****g get your asses moving. Now!” His voice cracked on the last bit, and he spit out a mouthful of blood. He had bit his tongue hard during his…graceful entrance.

The survivors only looked at him as if he was stupid and the rage flared up again. He started shoving them to get them going. Seeing that no one wanted to take the lead, Matt pushed forward, with his sword cutting through a pair of golems. With him leading the way, they quickly reunited with the rest of the retreat.

In the moment he was inside the defensive line he took a swig of water from a canteen someone had out and checked his AI for Liz and Aster’s status. They were full on mana now but out of his range so with his primary concerns ensured safety he made to return to the fight.

Before he could return to defending the rear, Matt got a ping. Fen was pinned down close by, along with a group of survivors. Not slowing down, Matt turned and rushed through a volley of crossbow bolts. They were simply nuisances that he ignored as Matt didn’t feel any connect.

After nearly five minutes of sprinting, he found the group. Fen, Bow, and Arrow were the only fighters defending the group of seven. The others were bloodied and wounded but trying to help as much as they could. Their wounds only rendered their already weak weapons and skills essentially useless. They were barely holding on.

How did they get so separated?

He didn’t have time to consider the question, as he slammed into the back of the small group of golems. One of them turned toward him and fired a crossbow bolt into his side at point-blank range. He grunted in pain before punching out blindly through the agony. He was quickly surrounded, but he grabbed the crossbow golem and used it as a shield. Charging forward, Matt barreled through the line of monsters and made it to the group of survivors.

After coughing out a mouthful of blood, Fen called out, “You look like s**t Matt!”

Matt didn’t know how the man had the energy for banter, and just nodded to the side in response. He led the group away from the rest of the golems, breaking out of the encirclement. The monsters tried to stop them, but with Matt leading the charge, along with the two massive, bonded wolves, they were able to secure a path to safety.

Fen was limping heavily, and he struggled to keep up, but some of the survivors helped enough for him to keep pace. Matt moved to help as well, but then noticed that the cut on Arrow’s side was disappearing, as Fen’s limp grew worse.