The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

53

While he advanced, Matt slowly started to allocate the newly acquired essence to his physical core. It was a lot easier for him now, thanks to the skill manipulation methods he had learned from playing with [Endurance]’s structure. But the task still required most of his attention.

As the five of them met up, Camilla looked to Geraden. “You carry a tree with you?”

The man chuckled and patted the tree like a pet.

“Den is a good tree. We do everything together.”

Matt checked the tree again and, now that he was looking for it, he felt the same bond that existed between him and Aster.

They were a bonded pair.

It wasn’t something that he had even thought possible. Nothing he had read or heard had ever mentioned anything of the sort.

Which left one possibility.

Talents.

They didn’t follow the rules and were known for strange phenomena. Matt was just surprised at how weird this one was.

Does the tree think? Will it get a human form at Tier 15?

Matt didn’t have answers and didn’t feel that it was appropriate to ask the man. It would be incredibly rude, and would open him up to the same question, which was a situation he preferred to avoid.

“We should meet back up with the wounded and ensure that they get back to the gathering point safely. Can you move your tree, Geraden…?” Matt petered off at the end at the absurdity of the question. Trees didn’t move, but this was a special case. It still felt weird to ask, though.

“Yeah, just give me a couple of minutes. Shrinking Den isn’t as fast as rooting him.”

Matt watched on, as Geraden walked up to the tree and started to rub the bark while whispering words of praise at the tree. Overall, it was one of the strangest moments that Matt had ever experienced.

It was so out of the norm, he momentarily forgot about the horror of the golems they had unleashed. He was actually able to enjoy the sight of a tree slowly shrinking, with its branches pulling back in.

With Den back in his portable form, they retraced their steps and moved to catch up with the wounded.

Before they met up with the group, Liz messaged Matt from above.

‘There’s a group of people about four miles to your right. They’re fighting, but we aren’t sure what. We only saw a single flash of a spell.’

Matt relayed the information to Geraden, who moved to intercept without saying a word.

Putting 20 MPS into [Mage’s Retreat], Matt nearly kept up with Liz on the flying sword. She pulled ahead slightly, but over the short distance, it didn’t matter much.

As they arrived, Matt heard the fighting before he could see it. The forest was thick with underbrush. Matt half expected more spider golems, but instead he came upon a group of humanoid golems. They were the variety that they had encountered in the lower floors of the ruin. Shield and sword users.

Matt threw himself into the fray and hacked down on the nearest golem. He destroyed an entire side of its metal body with a burst of mana. The rush of essence indicated that he had appropriately dealt with the golem, and he thrust toward the next enemy with his blade.

The attack slipped into the shoulder of the next golem. He dug in, lunging into the attack. The downward momentum of his weight allowed him to slice all the way through the golem, mana shield and all. He was left with a golem split in two, down to the waist.

Kicking the golem off his blade, he turned to see that he had brought plenty of hostile attention to himself. It was enough to provide this new group of eleven a moment to breathe.

Two more of the shielded golems were already on Matt, with shields facing him. They kept close enough to him that he was unable to take advantage of his longsword skills.

Dropping a cast of [Hail], he parried a blow from a mana sword and chopped his blade down hard at the extended arm.

The problem was, these particular golems were Tier 6, and his blade was only Tier 5. It didn’t have the strength to cut through the metal as easily as it did with the freshly fabricated spiders, or weaker ranged golems.

Matt wasn’t fazed and struck out with two more heavy blows. He sidestepped the counterstrikes from the golems in front of him, only to get flanked by a third.

As the trio tried to circle him and take him down, Matt noticed how spread out the golems were and took a chance, charging forward and shoulder checking one. Dropping his longsword, he grabbed the mana enlarged shield and pulled as hard as he could. When he had the golem off balance, he kicked as hard as he could at the golem’s leading leg.

Something cracked and, as the golem stumbled, Matt punched the golem’s head. There was a slight heat emanating from his vambrace, and he remembered what the Baroness had told him when handing them over as payment.

The vambraces would empower unarmed melee attacks, making it much easier to break bones with hand-to-hand strikes. Apparently, a golem’s metal structure counted as bones for the enchantment.

Smiling under his ghostly helmet, Matt sidestepped a swing from the remaining golem’s mana blade and grabbed its wrist. He extended the arm and punched the joint with a [Cracked Phantom Armor] spiked fist. The pop of metal was satisfying, and he brought his fist back around, letting loose a flurry of punches into the golem’s chest.

Each blow broke a different metal component, and the vambraces heated up slightly with each rapid blow. Matt used his bulk to take a golem down to the ground, letting his vambrace enhanced fists make short work of the golems near him. When he landed a blow to their chests, it completely destroyed the defensive layers of their metal structure. With their armor taken care of, he was able to quickly break the more fragile cores that powered the metal lifeforms.