The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

18

For the first time in the fight, Susanne spoke, “Your rewards from the tournament are pretty great. But so are mine. Like this very special [Cracked Berserker’s Rage].” Her smile turned feral as she launched herself forward. “Careful, or this will end too quickly.”

Matt blocked the first attack, but the silver energy rolling off Queen felt like tiny swords that were cutting him all over.

The longer the [Cracked Berserker’s Rage] effect was in contact with his armor, the greater the damage ramped up, forcing him to spend more and more mana on his armor to keep it from affecting him.

Normal [Berserker’s Rage] just increased strength, speed, and durability corresponding to how injured the person was, but this version seemed to have some kind of weird lingering effect that attacked him.

Sensing how quickly the damage increased, he used his ring to teleport away again, but the silver aura lingered on his person fading showily. Queen blurred and seemed to cut through space to reach him in a single swing of her blade.

Blocking her second sword, he punched her in the already wounded chest with a spiked gauntlet of [Cracked Phantom Armor] after deflecting her greatsword. But wounding her further only created more of the silver aura, and it was stronger.

Cursing, Matt parried two attacks with his sword and [Sword Twin], but took a blow in the collarbone, with the attack effortlessly bypassing his already-strained armor and shattering the bone.

In response, he moved most of his mana back from his physical boosts into [Lesser Regeneration] and [Endurance], fighting through the pain to use his Concept to set the bone in a well-practiced move.

At the same time, he was forced to block with a one-handed grip and nearly lost his blade as Queen tried to disarm him. He hadn’t divested enough mana from [Mage’s Retreat] to be weaker than her boosted state, however, so he was more than able to resist the forced bending of his wrist long enough to get his off hand back in action.

Susanne seemed intent to finish the fight immediately, so he mentally shrugged. He still had so many tricks he could pull out, but if the fight was about to end, he may as well end it. With a twist of his left hand and a mental nudge, he unleashed his greatest trump card.

A whopping 1,000 MPS of pure piercing power in the form of [Cracked Mana Spear] lanced from Matt’s fingertips to Queen’s chest, faster than the woman could even react, causing her to vanish as one of their managers pulled her out of the fight. The spiritual backlash of using the skill that was almost twice his Tier stung Matt as if he’d been slapped, but he was long since used to it. There was no real limit to how high a Tier skill you could use, but the larger the gap, the more the spirit was strained. In theory, a Tier 1 could use a Tier 44 skill as said strain was well within what the spirit could naturally take, so if they had the mana for it was no issue. But using a high-Tier skill with an already strained spirit was like trying to fight with a broken arm. [Cracked Mana Spear] in particular was.

But with three years of practice under Luna’s guidance, he could keep the beam going for nearly thirty seconds before he lost control and the attack entirely destabilized. Even that was really hard and had required some custom modifications to the skill’s base structure that even Luna hadn’t been familiar with beforehand. Not to mention the dedicated training and total focus required for him to manipulate the mana in the right way…. But they’d gotten there in the end, and despite the process being tremendously inefficient, nearly everything Tier 16 or below eventually died to a full 2,500 MPS beam.

Really, the limiter tended to be hitting a target long enough for the spear to break their defenses. Many Tier 15 monsters could move fast enough that he couldn’t keep the beam trained on them for more than a fraction of a second, and by Tier 16, it was a toss-up whether or not he was able to hit them in the first place.

As a result, it had mostly fallen into something of a ‘finisher’ skill, burning through tough but immobilized enemies, usually courtesy of Aster. It was still everything he’d dreamed of, but his initial experimentation alone had shown him firsthand why reliance on a single skill was a bad idea.

Seeing Susanne off to the side of the ring, Matt dismissed his armor and cast [Bandage] on his wounds while sending all his mana generation into [Lesser Regeneration]. It was better for actual healing when compared to [Endurance], and if he had time, it created less of a healing cooldown than [Ranged Heal], so it was their preferred healing method for moderate wounds.

Queen looked up to Matt and asked, “What was that?”

Matt shrugged as Liz and Aster reached them. “One of my skills from King Frederic. It’s a [Cracked Mana Spear] that turns it into a channel spell. I’d hoped to beat you before needing to use it, but…”

He ended with a shrug.

Queen nodded, and her wounds vanished as though they had never been there.

Susanne grunted seeing her now fine chest. “Ugh. If you hadn’t ended it so quickly, I might have pulled that off in the fight. I need to prepare it ahead of time, but it’s the cheapest healing skill I have, and getting it instantly is pretty useful.”

Matt and Liz nodded, “Not bad at all. Cracked skill from King Frederic to pair with the [Cracked Berserker’s Rage]?” Susanne nodded. “Yes, [Cracked Second Wind], it restores health rather than stamina. Useful, but it requires me to figure out how badly I’m probably getting hurt before I start a fight. I’m just glad I had enough in it for everything I just took, but it was closer than I’d like.”

Matt could see how the skill would be useful for a solo melee fighter. Less potent over time than his constantly running [Lesser Regeneration] and [Endurance], sure, but a way to instantly mend all wounds taken would be worth its weight in Tier 40 mana stones. Especially to anyone without a healer on their team. As Liz used her skills to bring the blood off both of them, Matt flexed his Concept and focused on Susanne, adding her to his mental whitelist.