The Path of Ascension 7: A LitRPG Adventure

9

Dropping their house, Matt staggered inside and started charging the reserves to counteract the shielding he had going at full power, even as Liz cleaned off his island in the kitchen, where she helped Susanne lay down.

Instead of cutting away her armor, she simply retracted it into her spatial ring, allowing Liz to get to work and Matt acting as an assistant.

They weren’t by any means professional healers, but they needed to do more than dump a healing potion on a gut wound. While the risk of sepsis and its related infections wasn’t high for someone of their Tier, they still needed to flush her abdomen before they started properly healing her.

As they worked, Aster limped over and nuzzled Susanne, who scratched the fox.

Matt only kept half an ear out as Susanne talked to Aster despite not being able to understand her yips and chortles.

The only good thing about Susanne’s injury was that it was large and gave the two amateur healers more than enough room to reattach and heal the cut intestines. The gaping wound also made it a little easier to wash the waste that had leaked from her abdomen.

Once they double and triple checked that Susanne didn’t have any remaining waste, they dumped a healing potion in her and stapled the wound closed before pouring a second healing potion on a bandage and wrapping her stomach.

After that, a sore Susanne helped him pull out the hundreds of tiny needles that had perforated Liz’s body with tweezers. While it was slow and tedious work, none of the needles were in her face, which would have been a real cause for concern. They had seemingly gone through her armor as if it wasn’t there, though they didn’t seem to have done much damage to her healthy flesh.

Meanwhile, her black arm had yielded completely to the needle barrage, the projectiles having passed completely through the limb and out the back. Ironically, those were the easier ones to deal with. It took them quite a while to find each and every one of the tiny needles, but the work itself wasn’t all that demanding, which at least allowed them to chat.

“I agree. That group was way too strong,” Liz murmured as Aster yipped something.

Susanne agreed. “Yeahhhh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group that strong at Tier 12. I’m assuming their armor must be enchanted to the brim.”

Matt shook his head. “No, that’s not it. It was their bodies that were strong not their gear. I only checked it out a little before putting it away. I got a good enough look to prove that it’s not that. While it’s top of the line, it’s not enough to explain their durability.”

Aster whined, and Liz translated, “Aster asked if maybe they were someone’s rich kids or the like?”

Matt mulled that over but disagreed. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would some group geared to the teeth ambush us outright, and then not even try to flee when the tide of the fight turned away from them. Even if they were super confident in their gear, they should have tried to run once their healer dropped.”

Liz threw out her own idea despite Matt pulling needles from her neck. “Maybe they were a low Tier hit squad.”

Susanne made a noise of disagreement, which Aster seemed to back up, but Liz defended her idea. “Think about it. Most death squads are strong Tier 14 teams who are then kitted out after being trained to counter a few Pather equivalents. But what if the team was extra strong and you wanted them to kill people and also get good rewards? Why not send them in as Tier 12s? It would even get them underestimated by the majority of people who would be incredibly suspicious of any higher Tier team.”

Matt didn’t think she was right, but he also didn’t have a better explanation, so he left it at that.

Anything more they could learn would be from the group’s belongings, and they needed to finish healing before they started going through loot.

After Liz’s needles were pulled out, and the holes in her arm patched up, they pulled the arrows out of Aster and Matt.

His broken rib was left to its own devices after he drank a healing potion.

They could have used spells or even talismans, but they all suspected that their talismans would be nerfed in some way soon, and their spells were meant for emergencies until they left this floor.

This was only the second level of this floor, and they had already encountered four teams, three of which attacked them on sight.

It wasn’t a comforting trend, as it only promised to get worse as they slowed down and ventured deeper, where everyone was pushed closer together.

As Matt laid down on the floor, he concentrated on keeping the mana in their reserves topped up while working his still sore jaw.

Liz started going through the first group’s gear, but it was indistinct and didn’t have any telltale signs from any of the Great Powers. But like Matt had said earlier, it was well-crafted gear, about as good as Minkalla would allow.

Thankfully, Tier 14 materials and enchantments could only be so strong within the restrictions of the planet, which prevented teams like this from coming in with Tier 20 disposable weapons and just killing everyone they encountered with wealth.

The second team that attacked them and had been killed by Matt’s [Cracked Mana Spear] were a different story altogether. They, unlike the first group, were very obviously Republican delvers, judging by their gear and items. As far as Matt could tell from the quality of their gear, the team had been on the Republican equivalent of the Path, though they weren’t notable enough to have been included in any of the briefings that Matt had received. Unfortunately for them, they were a case study in the dangers of delving too deep and too greedily; all their years of hard work were wasted because of a single bad decision.

Matt was just about to take a nap when he felt a ripple of Genesis Energy flow through his spirit, and it traveled with the mana he was sending into the house.