The Path of Ascension

Chapter 103

Matt had once again just finished leading his troops to attack a portion of the Queendoms defensive fortifications. Scores of soldiers were surrounding the second of the two cities under siege. The other city was receiving constant reinforcements, and he got news that a new skill was being used on the quickly falling walls.

As the reports filtered in, he started to curse. Amber had clearly gotten [Cracked Breach] after he refused it, and she was using it to devastating effect in the siege of the second city.

They had managed to knock down two of the three standing walls in just hours. The city was quickly falling as they lost defensive position after defensive position. The highest-ranking officer had ordered his remaining troops to attempt to sally forth, but they were stopped on the rampart of dirt that the besiegers had set up.

He watched two shots of [Cracked Breach] obliterate nearly half the Kingdom personnel in the recording.

The siege was officially over when the Queendom troops rose up in a wave, and cut down the few scattered and disoriented defenders. It left the kingdom with a single unmolested city, and another under siege.

That report was only minutes old, and the new information implied that the Queendom was moving to take the city with most of their wounded and less than ambulatory troops. The remaining troops were being organized in formations that Matt expected to be moving to end this siege.

He felt so helpless. It was a combination of knowing his perfect skill was gone because he couldn't immediately use it, and envy at seeing the skill in action. If he had that, and could use it, he could finish this siege in an hour. Two at max. It would be like having a perfect mana cannon ready at any time.

If Matt had that, he would be unstoppable. And he doubted that there was another version of that particular crack on [Breach] around. Now he would need to wait until Tier 9, when he could afford the initial cost of 500 mana for the original skill.

Still, he couldn't say that he regretted upgrading [Cracked Phantom Armor], or giving Annie the points from his win in the dueling arena. He had good reasons for each of his decisions, and while they had cost him an amazing skill, he didn't think he would choose differently in either scenario given the chance.

It just hurt to see a skill that would let him eventually fully utilize his Talent go to someone who was surely being stuffed with mana crystals.

Still, he had a much more important job to do; slow down the reinforcements as much as he could. The Prince only had two days left on his healing cooldown, and they needed to try and buy time to prevent the second to last of their cities from falling.

After he was able to pass off command, the army couldn't blame him for any losses. As much as he did his best, he was sure that the army AI would be handing out critiques left and right for his performance.

Still, he shook off the morose thoughts and set his AI to create a plan to slow the enemy down. That was on top of dealing with a woman who could take down city walls in quick order.

There were two distinct possibilities. Either they tried to hide Amber because of the value of her new skill, or the armies flaunted her and the prowess she represented, while she blasted through any defenses his side set up.

Matt felt like pulling out his hair as he failed to develop a suitable counter to the [Cracked Breach] skill. His best option was to call on Annie to assassinate the woman, but it was a pretty obvious plan that he was sure the Queendom would expect. Especially after taking out Sara.

But he didn't have an adequate way to remove Amber besides throwing a ton of people at her, and hoping one of them could take her down between blasts of her skill. It wasn't an ideal anti-personnel skill from the recordings, as it was relatively slow for its Tier and power, but that was only relative to other spells. It would be challenging to dodge a well-planned shot if directed at you, but not impossible, given the normal distance the skill was cast at.

Their only other advantage was that it took Amber nearly ten minutes to charge up each shot. Still, they would need to know exactly where she was and be aware of her forces movements.

To that effect, Matt gave orders for the scouts to carefully shadow the city and the troops that were forming up as he predicted.

The army didn't immediately move out, to his surprise. So he started sending out his own orders in the time that the Queendoms inaction bought him. The two cities were separated by a mountain chain, which he could use to set up defenses and hopefully slow down the Queendom's advance.

He and his troops quickly abandoned their camp and moved to the most likely passes the Queendom would take, setting up skeleton fortifications. They didn't want to commit until the Queendom troops had established their route.

Matt was digging out the side of a mountain late into the night, when the report came in. The Queendom was finally moving. Even with their head start, the task was less than ideal. The Queendom was moving nearly three million troops, but they weren't staying grouped up. They were splitting in half.

To make matters worse, the two formations went in opposite directions around the mountain chain.

The scouts had no idea which formation Amber was in.

The whole situation brought her last words back to mind. Then best of luck to you. I know we don't need it. Her little proclamation felt like a slap in the face now.

He calculated the odds of which formation she would be with, and had his AI do the same. He had no better way to determine the path she took than a fifty-fifty chance.

His AI was better at processing information, and had seventy percent odds on the southern formation. The northern procession was too obviously centered around a single individual that was careful not to be seen. That in and of itself hadn't given the AI sufficient information to make such a call, but it had noticed an anomaly in the southern procession. A much smaller selection of individuals revolved around one person.

It was a detail that was easy to get lost in the movement of millions of people, but his AI was able to use his full mana generation of 80 MPS to analyze each person. His AI finally found the hidden anomaly, and he trusted it enough to order his forces south.

They needed to at least slow Amber down.

He was hoping that Annie could get out here quickly, and would be able to pull off another miraculous kill.

She was still on her way from recovering in a hidden location, after killing Sara, and would take another two days by her estimation. Apparently, there was a city-wide hunt for her. The Queendom hadn't taken kindly to their Princess being assassinated, and had placed a sizable bounty on her head.

With the Queendom having to travel for ten hours to reach the mountain range, Matt and his men rapidly built fortifications. Sadly, this area had a lack of small forts that would have anti-flying formations, but they were able to set a few mana cannons up. They hoped they would be able to quickly strike into the heart of the troops and kill Amber.

If they did, they would come out on top no matter the losses they suffered. Or at least, The Prince would heavily reward them for their sacrifice.

The wait for the Queendom unit to appear was agonizing. But eventually, as the sun rose over the horizon, the mass of flyers breached the curve of the planet. They were right where their scouts report said they would be.

Matt could feel the morale of his troops plummet like a stone, and he couldn't blame them. They were currently flying in range of the mana cannon emplacements for support, but almost unconsciously, his troops retreated slightly.

Wanting to put a stop to that as the Queendom formation swung wide, he said over the general command channel, This isn't the time for retreat. We need to force our way into the enemy formation and break their spirits.

That was clearly the wrong thing to say, as he felt the air shift. His side's spirits were breaking, not the Queendoms.

He was tired of all the responsibility landing on his shoulders, and the ever-building murmuring of the troops who increasingly disliked their ability to decisively end the sieges.

Without thinking, he added, Ok fuck that. We need to kill the woman with the siege spell, and it doesn't really matter how many of us die to do it. It has to be done, or well die when its used on a city instead. We rush in there to watch for the blast, then focus on that location. The reports say that it takes her ten minutes to charge back up, so that's our window of opportunity. Find her, and kill her.

While that didn't improve the general mood, people tightened their grip on their weapons. Seeing that it was the best he was going to get, he called out the general charge.

His remaining three-quarters of a million troops rushed forward like a wave into the prepared flank of the flying enemy.

Spells and ammunition raced across the distance in a multi-colored rainbow of death. Matt kept the lead position until a pillar of rock smacked into him, sending him spiraling until he steadied himself.

To his mounting trepidation, Matt felt the mana in the area building, signaling Ambers charging of [Cracked Breach].

He raced back to the lead position quickly, but a hole opened up in the Queendom formation as their sides were about to clash.

Out from it came a figure with glowing hands, who launched a bus-sized arrow of mana.

Matt reacted with everyone else and scattered.

Most of the flyers were able to escape the projectile's path, but the mountain and their embankment weren't so lucky. So when the [Cracked Breach] shot landed, there was a flash of light, and a rumbling sound accompanied by an impact of wind.

Matt felt like Liz kicked him while in golem form as the wave of wind passed.

He internally cheered when his AI reported that the shot missed the majority of his troops. When he ordered a follow-up charge, he found that a portion of his troops refused to listen and retreated.

That still left a sizable wave of men and women all desperately rushing to where the [Cracked Breach] shot came from.

Matt parried an axe while he spun on his flying sword, trying to rush forward. The Queendom soldiers were just throwing their bodies at the rushing Kingdom troops in an attempt to prevent them from reaching Amber.

He was hemmed in by five people as he charged a [Mana Charge]. As soon as his weapon hummed with power, Matt brought his glowing longsword around, into the flying sword of a Queendom fighter.

There was a faint scream as they started to fall, and he slipped through the gap created with his faster flying device.

Once he was through the barrier, he found a few hundred Kingdom fighters trying to batter their way into a knot of Queendom troops. Tired of this farce, Matt rushed forward and cast [Flamethrower] at anyone in a Queendom uniform. The spell was fairly short range, but even the thirty feet was more than enough to send people running.

Matt was peppered by a rain of glowing arrows a moment later, but when he turned to look, it was one of his Pathers using [Arrow Storm]. It was a Tier 14 skill that, for 200 mana, created a mass of mana construct arrows that created a cone around the original arrow. He was simply hit from the expanding cone as the archer took out a number of other fighters.

The archer created a tunnel in the Queendom defenders that he didn't need to order people into. It was mostly other Pathers, but the Kingdom fighters streamed into the gap and closed the distance with Amber.

Matt was intercepted by another four fighters who hacked and slashed at him while trying to dodge his [Flamethrower]. They disappeared as he washed the jet of fire over them, but they still slowed him down. He was now at the trailing end of the forces chasing Amber down.

The ten minute countdown timer was nearing its end, and Amber started glowing again as the ambient mana started reacting with the mana being converted and pumped into her.

She must have decided that she didn't need a fully charged shot, because with three minutes left on the timer, another large arrow of mana lashed out. It was significantly smaller than the first shot, but much faster.

It cut through a number of her own people who stayed engaged with the Kingdom troops, taking them along for the trip to the hospital.

Matt rushed with everyone else to fill in the gap, when another team curled around and attacked from above. A man with tiger ears sticking out of his helmet swooped down, and with a gust of wind that swirled around, accelerated to blurring speeds as he tore into four of the defenders around Amber.

A second member of the team started throwing [Fireball]s that froze their targets instead of burning them, creating a gap large enough for the final man to rush forward.

Matt paused in his rush at the sight before him.

As the final man approached, the defensive spells and magical attacks all seemed to lose cohesion and fall apart before they could hit him. The arrow that slammed into his neck only slowed him down as he got within arms reach of Amber.

The Pather cast a [Fireball] inches from her, and the resulting explosion caused them both to vanish.

After confirming that they had actually taken out Amber, Matt called for a general retreat. He and the others who made it deep into the enemy formation had to fight their way out, but no one held anything back. A wave of spells created enough of a gap for them to slip up and over the flying Queendom soldiers.

Everyone fall back and watch our rears. The Queendom might decide to engage while we pull back. We killed Amber. Now we need to make it out of here.

That actually seemed to help slightly, as the middlemost troops slowed and formed slight defensive walls as they continued their retreat. Forming up allowed the rearmost Kingdom fighter to catch up and have some modicum of protection.

Matt was afraid that they wouldn't get away safely at all when the Queendom moved to pursue them for longer than he anticipated. He was concerned that they would be unwilling to let their ace being killed go unpunished, and wouldnt relent in chasing them down to finish the remaining troops off.

Considering that he was down to nearly four hundred thousand troops, he sorely hoped not. They had killed Amber, removing her and the [Cracked Breach] skill from the war for two weeks. But they didn't have the numbers to fight off the Queendoms army. They started out with a numbers disadvantage, and it was only growing as they were picked off.

At some point, the Queendom must have decided that pursuing them deeper into the mountains was a losing proposition, and contented themselves with their advance to the besieged city.

Matt called for the end of the retreat twice before the leading elements of the unit stopped their advance.

They landed in the mountains, and he started barking orders to set up a camp, but he didn't have any plans other than to wait for the Prince to finish his cooldown timer. They would rest until he mobilized the entire Kingdom army with his actual authority.

He and his people had done their part trying to hold everything together, and had even taken out a vital asset.

They had earned the break.

***

Albert watched the timer tick down and smiled as it hit zero.

He sent out his orders to his elite units and the remaining troops. He added Matt and his forces as an afterthought. At less than half a million troops, they mattered little. They were farther away from the Queendom capital, but he could use the extra manpower in their rush on the Queendoms teleporter city.

He also didn't want the top Pathers caught in the fallout of his father's plans. They had done more than he could have hoped for by stalling the Queendom, and he didn't want to repay that trust with a death right before the end of the war.

Albert had already pushed their trust with his seeming failure to stop Saras surprise attack. Since he couldnt go out to reassure them, and could only communicate with those who came to him directly, many were despairing about the outcome of the war.

When you had the win condition and could trigger it at any time, what did games matter? And having nearly seventy percent of the Queendom troops in or around the cities was exactly where he wanted them. He couldn't have gotten Sara to more perfectly place her troops if he had asked her to.

She was so concerned with holding the cities, that by all reports, she had stripped her forts to avoid weakening any of their defenses. She was concentrating her forces exactly where he wanted them to be. While he only had a single city that wasn't under siege left out of the six, he was fine. Even if they moved to siege that one down as well.

The only city with a variable that he didnt control was the Queendom teleporter city. As long as that fell quickly, he had the victory of this war in his pocket.

As much as he hated his father forcing his plan on him, it had worked out well. The Queendoms' greed to end the war quickly had driven them to swallow poisoned pills.

He knew that he could have prevented quite a bit of his nobles bickering with some simple calls, or some casual face-to-face conversations. But that indecision let him keep most of his troops safe while the two armies were all on healing cooldowns. He would need them to swiftly take the final city. So, letting his troops sit around without risk was ideal for his plans.

More than a few of the nobles and generals who werent in the loop had contacted him, asking for whatever guidance he could offer. He was able to placate most of them, despite the seemingly worsening situation, without giving away the larger plans. He wasn't sure how many were spies trying to ferret out information for Sara, who must have suspected that something was wrong, or who were truly loyal and worried.

Still, a few carefully selected top generals and their personal retainers knew about the plan. They were the ones who had done most of the hard work in preparing the cities. Olivia had been a massive help in that effort, which was a part of the reason why he rewarded her so heavily.

But all of these games were going to come to an end in the next day or two. It was only a matter of choosing the perfect moment to end the war.

With Amber dead, trying to take down the much better walls of the second city would be a much more difficult proposition. Even the most consertive estimates put the Queendom at half a week out.

Things were going perfectly.

***

Matt and his remaining troops were told to move to the Queendoms teleport city the very minute that Prince Albert was off his healing cooldown. They met up with a large force that was moving in that direction already. It was an odd order, but he was happy to no longer be the highest authority on the Kingdom side.

The only positive was that they had successfully stalled the original force, and whittled down their numbers for long enough. Their city was in much better shape for it.

Through preventing the pounding that Amber could have delivered, the Kingdom still held the city.

The Queendom would win, that much wasn't in doubt. But they were going to have to bleed for it.

Matt still had no idea why Albert wanted them to go to the Queendoms capital city. It seemed like a stupid move.

He was unable to figure out their plan, but with Liz, Aster, Emily, and Conor on the attacking force, he was fine with just following orders and meeting up with them.

The last week had been far too stressful for his taste.

The new army quickly absorbed his remaining troops into the standing army of five million, bolstering their numbers by quite a bit.

He pulled Aster and Liz into a sweaty hug when he saw them for the first time, once he found their tent in the sea of similar, spatially expanded tents.

Liz pushed him back to examine his face and said, You look like shit! She got a much more perceiving glean in her eye when she asked, When was the last time you slept?

Last night, after our failed attack. It's been a disaster the last few weeks.

Conor clapped his shoulder and said, From everything we've seen, it looked like you did the best anyone could have asked of you.

Aster wiggled to make her presence known.

Yeah! You did good!

Matt had his doubts that Aster had any idea what he had actually been doing, but the encouragement was nice nonetheless.

Thanks, Aster. He kissed her head before squeezing her a bit. That was apparently a signal to play, as she yowled her distress, and Matt started to spin her around and rubbed her all over.

The pleas that she had just gotten her fur the way it should be sounded more like encouragement to him.

As he played with her, he listened to Emily while she idly informed him about the general disposition of the neutral city.

Odds are heavily in the Queendoms favor for winning the war with the latest developments. A lot of middle-level Pathers were even wondering if the Kingdom could hold onto their final city. Others wondered if there were more points to be had in changing sides. She kicked at a partially visible stone until it was free as she talked, knocking it away and out of the standing area in their tent.

So far, the more restrictive point distribution and the cost to change sides are keeping people over, but I think this siege is the important bit. Rumor has it, Sara stripped most of the forts she had of troops to fuel this attack without weakening the city. She pointed through Conor to the city under siege.

Matt shook his head. What's the plan then? Why not relieve the siege on the other city?

It wasn't Liz who answered, despite her open mouth.

Junis voice answered from outside their tent, I can explain that if you'd let me in.

Liz turned her head and glared. Come in. I'm so glad you are listening in on our conversations.

Juni ducked under the flap and shrugged. I coughed twice and messaged Matt three times. I had to make my presence known somehow.

Matt checked to see if that was true as Juni continued. Generally, commanders come to the headquarters tent to report in. They normally don't have the leaders track them down.

He cringed at that as Juni turned an icy and tired gaze at him.

Yeah, sorry. It's been a shitshow with the last attack. Matt tried to sound apologetic, but he wasn't sure it worked. He really didn't care.

Juni looked nonplussed as he waved Matts statement away. That was fine. You were able to take out Amber, which was the true victory. No, we need you to help with the next attack. We have been digging a trench forward, and have a fortification of mana cannons set up with a clean shot on the front gate.

Matt interrupted, And you want me to fuel the attacks?

Juni just nodded, to which Matt asked, What good does that do? Theres no way we can take the city quickly, even if the gates fall.

The Prince's right-hand man shook his head. Taking the city through one entrance is stupid, yes, but it's a start. Were in a rush, but we cant be stupid. We won't throw our troops away. Once we have the gate down, well start battering down the walls. But theyre upgraded, so it will be harder. Speaking of which, wed like you to charge up the mages with whatever willpower you have leftover.

Matt just looked at the man with tired eyes. He just wanted to relax. He may have been able to sleep, but it hadn't been as good a rest as he needed.

Juni seemed to understand that, and offered, Take a few hours. We can wait that long.

Matt just nodded at the man and turned to his friends, which Juni took as the dismissal that it was.

He needed to recharge from them in a way that had nothing to do with mana.

The war just felt so distant and unimportant.

Liz didn't leave his side as they sat around and talked, except when she brought out a stew from a heater next to their little sink.

It tasted amazing. Matt wasn't sure if that was from his only eating cold rations, or if the person who cooked it was just that good.

Listening to his friends washed away the lingering self-doubt and endless questions of the past week. Having Liz close was even better, though she barely said ten words, content to simply intertwine their fingers and soak in each others presence.

Aster yammered on through their connection about all the fun she had playing with her beast friends, and chasing the bunnies during her downtime.

This is what matters. Not the war. Not the prizes. Friends and those close to me. I cant lose sight of that.

Matt vowed to keep what was truly important firmly affixed in his mind as he went forward. He knew he would have to fight, and taking the city would be anything but easy.

***

Five hours later, Matt was back in action with a team of mages who rotated off, feeding the mana cannons with their personal mana and mana stones. Their underground bunker only had slits for the cannons to stick out, but it protected them from the return fire with minimal losses.

If the dust from the destroyed mana stones didn't vanish into nothing, they would have been hip-deep in the stuff. Sack after sack was brought up and emptied of their crystalized mana.

Still, they had managed to destroy the front gate in short order. What was taking longer was blasting through the rubble that the defenders had set up behind the inner gate.

Two hours later, they were finally through, and their entire bunker was ordered to halt their attack and move to secondary locations.

Matt was going along with them, when he was called to rejoin his team for an attack with siege towers. He thought it was suicide, but didn't think Juni would throw their lives away on a foolish attack.

He was right. Mostly.

Plans had shifted with new information that their long-ranged scouts had discovered. The exact nature of that information was kept quiet, but it necessitated a faster siege.

Their team was part of a coordinated effort to attack from fifteen metal clad siege towers at once. The majority of his tower consisted of the other top Pathers, as well as a battalion of Tier 7 men and women equipped with Tier 8 weapons or armor.

He felt quite a bit better seeing that. These had to be Kingdom elite, who were in no way disposable.

When they arrived, they were given a position inside the tower, to all of their surprises. Normally, people didn't ride the tower for the approach, as any added weight simply slowed them down.

Matt laughed when he reached the top of the tower and found a mana cannon already set up on a swivel.

It was exactly what he wanted to see.

The Kingdom had to have splurged on spending, because each of the towers were set up with a portable shielding unit. While weaker than the city-wide version, they were enough to protect the towers on the approach.

With an ease that belied what Matt knew to be true from the other side of this tactic, they slammed into the wall and dropped the towers ramp down . They were met with a rain of arrows, along with a wall of shields.

It meant little when Matt was sitting on a mana cannon in the entrance.

He didn't even flinch as the first arrows and spells slammed into him, while the cannon lit up and blew away the front-most troops.

Quickly, he charged another shot and swiveled right as he fired again. Scores of troops vanished in the expulsion of mana. When there was a clear area, the Tier 7 troops moved out in a shield wall and set up small barriers. Meanwhile, Matt and his team removed the mana cannon from its mount and carried it to the roof of the tower.

There was a second mount there, where he was able to shoot over the heads of his allies.

During the quieter moments when the Queendom was unable to take the offensive, he saw the Kingdoms mana cannons firing from each of the siege towers.

The expense boggled his mind. Albert must have put every point he earned in the two week healing cooldown into this siege. Mana cannons weren't cheap by any means, and the non-castle versions were only more so.

Adding in the sheer number of mana crystals, they must have spent an absurd amount of points on funding this attack.

Liz acted as his spotter, along with his AI, allowing him to target problem areas in his range. Eventually, they decided to move to the wall to get a shot inside the city, but Juni flatly refused that request.

Liz even asked to use [Blood Sprite] to set upon the enemy but was similarly refused.

Matt didn't understand that, since things seemed to be going well. At least, until he accessed the command channel and looked at the overall casualties. Things were looking awful. The Kingdom had taken nearly half a million casualties in the last push.

Their side of the city had either gotten lucky, or they were stacked with stronger people, because they were holding their section without much issue. The only thing they had to worry about was the Queendom troops shooting anyone who stuck their heads over the parapet, into the inner city.

The other side of the city had had three towers repulsed and set ablaze, along with a higher concentration of anti-siege weaponry. They had bled to take a single section of the wall and hold it, while reinforcements streamed up their tower to replace the losses.

Things were slowly stalling as the sun set, and the night that was still sweltering went on, ensuring that anyone without magical armor was uncomfortable. Liz and his team, with little else to do, cursed up a storm the entire time.

They were waiting around for more orders when Matt felt the ground rumble. He looked past the besieged city, over the northern horizon. It was like a new dawn was born over the wrong horizon.

He turned to look along with everyone else, and saw a massive fireball rise into the air.

It didn't take a genius to know that location was one of the Queendom cities. He still had no idea what was actually going on when he found himself standing in the sunlight with millions of others. Instead, he blinked to clear the bright sunspots out of his eyes. It was nighttime where he was last, and the sudden translation to mid-day was jarring.

In those few blinks more and more people appeared around him.

He was still confused, and looked to Liz and the rest of his team stood in the shadow of the neutral citys wall.

What just happened? He asked the open air, but he was hardly the only one.

Liz looked around and shrugged and messaged him through their AI, to be heard over the growing rumbling of a confused crowd. I don't know, but I thought I saw Juni.

Matt jumped with [Mages Retreat] empowering him, and as far as he could see, Queendom and Kingdom troops mingled.

Liz ducked away into the crowd for a moment, before pulling Juni back by the arm, with Alyssa following close at his heels.

What the fuck is going on!? Matt, Conor, and Emily asked variations of the same question as Juni scanned the air.

When he found what he was looking for, he pointed at the sky with an armored hand. Look.

Hovering in the air were three distinct sides. One of them only had two people. It was hard to see exactly who they were from a distance, but the figures were dressed in the Kingdoms dark red and gold.

The army was in the other corner of the triangle, with a mass of people hovering behind who Matt suspected was Colonel Thorne because their uniforms seemed to blend into their surroundings.

The final section was a mass of at least two hundred people in various forms of the Queendom colors of silver and light purple. The mass of people seemed hostile towards the two lone figures.

His questions of what was going on were only partially answered when his AI bleeped at him,

Kingdom Victory by surrender of Queen Diana; rejoice as your side has won!

Matt looked back up to the sky as a broadcast started streaming to his AI.

What is going on?