The Path of Ascension

Before they could venture after the retreating hoard of spider golems, someone came over from the group of wounded. The hope was apparent in her voice as she called out to them.

"Are you from the prince's group!? Have you come to help us!?"

Matt didn't know what could have given her that indication. Glancing around to Liz and Camilla, he could tell from their body language that they were just as confused. They did their best to hide it, but he could read them well enough, especially after all the time they had spent together.

Being the closest to the woman, Matt shook his head in response. "No, we’re just a wandering team trying to help however we can."

He paused for a moment, debating whether he should ask, and decided to sate his curiosity. "Why do you think we’re with the prince?"

She cocked her head at the question. With the dried blood still coating most of her head, it made for a weird sight.

"Did you not get the message? After the prince's broadcast, there was a second message. A text-only message that he was sending some of the stronger people with flight items to the gathering points."

She pointed at the still hovering Liz and Aster. "You guys are Tier 5, and you fight like Tier 6s. You even have a flight item. Who else other than those close to the prince would be like that?"

Matt didn't know what to say, but didn't want to lie any more than he had to.

"I see. Sorry, we aren't a part of the group that was sent out. We’re just trying to do what we can..." At the woman's downcast expression, he added, "The prince's representative is probably on their way. They would have needed to fight directly under the fortress or go around. Going around is a lot safer."

That seemed to work well enough, and she limped back to the other two teams. Looking back to Geraden, he nodded at the man's impatience. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and looked ready to run at any moment.

As soon as Matt's armored form turned to him, he started to take off and asked, "You ready? Let's go already!"

Liz brought the flying sword over to him, but Matt shook his head. "You and Camilla stay on the sword. I won't run out of stamina, so I'll stay down here and make sure Geraden doesn't get ambushed."

At that, Matt took off after the already retreating man. Matt assumed that with [Mage's Retreat] and [Endurance], he would have zero issues in keeping up. But the Tier 6 moved through the forest as if he was born there. The bushes and shrubs that Matt had to avoid or plow through didn't seem to phase the man at all. He ran as if he was on a wide open track.

As they ran, Matt kept in communication with Liz. While the satellites had been taken out, their individual AIs were still able to link over a short distance. It was enough for Matt to take advantage of her bird's eye view.

They didn't fly too high, for fear that a patrolling golem would see them and engage. Still, a vantage point at even minimal altitude allowed Matt to see further than he could at ground level. The dense underbrush in this part of the forest was obstructing his view.

A little over ten minutes of running brought them to a mountain with a large crack in the side of it. The fissure traveled the entire height of the mountain, and gave them a glimpse of the mountain’s interior. It was teeming with spider golems.

They crawled over each other in what appeared to be total chaos, until his AI identified a pattern in the golems’ movements. They were feeding raw ore into a massive, rectangular construct which processed the ore. The spider golems were then building something with the processed ore.

Geraden's fist tightened around his staff, which creaked audibly at the applied force.

"We need to destroy that factory at the center of the mountain."

Matt looked at the man flatly for a moment. That was so obvious, he was wondering if the man was all there in the head.

"Yeah, but how do we do that? There’s thousands of spiders down there. If..."

Geraden cut Matt off with a chopping motion, "If we don't move now, there will be tens of thousands. Think about how much damage that could cause to the surroundings. I can't allow that!"

Under [Cracked Phantom Armor], Matt raised an eyebrow. The man really didn't care about anything but the nature around them.

Looking for info about the man's capabilities, he asked, "Do you have some range? Or at least something that can take out the factory from this distance? We have some ranged skills, but you would be a big help. I don't think our ice mage can guarantee a kill from this distance."

Geraden rubbed a hand on his staff, while murmuring something too low for Matt to pick it up. He spent nearly a minute looking around the fissure, eventually shaking his head.

"I can't do more than an off chance at best. I think we’re going to have to rely on your ice mage, and hope of the best while we do this the hard way."

After a slight pause, he added, "If you can get the protective casing broken, I can probably take out that processing unit, but that won't do much good if we’re already fighting."

Matt had been watching the factory intently as well, and said, "Looks like one spider gets popped out every thirty seconds or so. We can definitely kill them faster than that, but taking it out would be nice."

When he looked up to Liz, Aster, and Camilla, the girls flew down for just long enough to let Camilla join them on the ground.

Geraden looked around and shook his head, clearly irritated.

Matt understood. There were a lot of golems, and waiting would only make the problem worse.

Camilla broke the silence, "We can always just hit and run with our mages in the air. It's a lot easier for them to disengage that way."

Matt answered, "It's not them I'm worried about. I don't want us swarmed. They’re Tier 6..." He paused. The golems in the ruin had been Tier 6. These were being made from local materials, which meant that they could be weaker.

Reaching out with his spiritual sense, he felt the golems. They were weaker than Tier 6, but not by much. They were Tier 5 if his spiritual scan of the nearest golems, and the ones at the edge of the ore vein, was correct.

"Actually, they’re only Tier 5 because of their source materials. This isn't impossible. I can block out these golems’ attacks for the most part."

Looking around, Matt searched for a suitable place to stage their attack on the factory, but found none. These spiders had already proven that they could climb on ceilings, let alone the walls of the fissure just ahead of them. A steep wall would only give them a way to climb above them.

"I think Geraden is right. We’re just going to have to fight this out."

The three of them moved to the edge of the fissure and watched as blood and ice rained down on the swarm. The first ice spear was massive, but shattered on the ore processing unit’s hard outer shell. There was a rent, but the overall lack of damage confirmed that the factory itself was Tier 6.

That first strike signaled the spiders to go into action and swarm. After seeing the mages were out of range, they dove at the trio of targets within their reach.

Matt stood with his longsword charged and at the ready. When the combatants came in close, he brought his blade down, and released the mana accumulated inside with a massive explosion. The ground quaked from the shockwave; the wash of mana destroyed all of the spider golems within five feet of the blow.

The area wiped clean of enemies was quickly repopulated and Matt cast [Hail] right in front of their position. The ice slowed the spider golems down, but the real advantage was the ice that tumbled down the steep cliff they were defending. It was instantly grabbed by Aster, and she used it to sweep across the terrain, and wiped out a whole slew of golems.

As new monsters replaced the destroyed ones, Matt fell into a rhythm, and started killing in earnest. When they got under his feet, he stomped down and crushed their fragile bodies. When they tried to leap at him, he used his free hand to rip them off his body; crushing them underfoot or throwing them off the cliff.

Essence flowed into his core in a stream.

On his right, Matt could see Camilla in brief flashes. She was using her whip more than her mace. The range and length of the weapon was doing more than the mace could, even against enemies made of metal.

His AI also registered that the damage she was inflicting to the Tier 5 metal implied that the weapon had been upgraded past her own Tier. Matt took note of that, but it wasn't exactly a priority.

To his left, Geraden was mostly an unknown, but the Tier 6 seemed to be holding his own against the waves of spider golems.

After dispatching a group of spiders with a spinning sweep of his blade, Matt was facing the Tier 6 man, and got a better look at the man’s fighting style. He was doing a lot more than just holding his own.

Spikes of stone rose out of the ground to impale the skittering golems in waves. Matt thought it was an odd use of [Earth Spike], or possibly a cracked version. But the man wasn't limited to that single skill. He used his staff like a club. Each swing crumpled the golems, and when they surrounded the man, he would slam the butt of his staff down on the ground. Thick roots would surge out of the ground around the earth mage and grab the golems, before retracting into the ground, leaving the earth completely unscathed.

Matt was pretty sure it was [Entangle], but the skill should have been a single target ability, instead of an area of effect.

The last thing Matt noticed was that his staff seemed to hit with more force than it should, considering its apparent mass. When Geraden swung the weapon and knocked a spider out of the air, it didn't just get sent flying... It was completely disintegrated.

All was noted with his AI for future use.

But for all the good they did in killing wave after wave of golems, they were all overshadowed by Liz. She was constantly using [Create Blood] and the skies rained red. As the blood increased, it started to form veritable tidal waves that crashed down on the spiders. When the golems started to avoid the mass of blood, she split the mass of liquid into quarters and sent four smaller waves of blood in different directions.

From his vantage point, Matt watched as spider after spider threw themselves into the blender of blood and metal that Liz had created. As she approached the factory, the spiders gave her blood constructs more and more attention. Soon, nearly all of them were attacking the blood rather than the melee fighters.

As Matt watched, Geraden threw his staff towards the giant ore processor. It flew more like a javelin than a large staff, and he threw it with extreme precision.

When it landed in the small crack Aster had made, Matt was impressed. When the staff began to expand in a mass of leaves and roots, he was shocked.

It made sense that the staff had felt alive to Matt earlier, as it was turning into a giant tree before his very eyes. Its trunk expanded throughout the factory, and destroyed the ore processor in the process.

With the device taken out, and the production of golems halted, the spiders seemed to lose cohesion. Each of them started to act independently, instead of as a unit.

Matt and the other two melee fighters moved into the fissure. As they advanced, they picked off the few remaining spiders in a rush.

Aster sent sheets of cold at the fleeing spiders from Liz's backpack, which slowed them and limited their movements. Their small size meant that they were more susceptible to frozen joints. Their limbs would stop working as the ice took hold. Soon, the last of the spiders were swallowed up by the newly formed tree.

Liz and Aster floated down, with Liz rubbing her armored head. She had overused her [Blood Manipulation] while killing the golems. Meanwhile, his spirit was nearly full with essence from the nearly thousand golems they had killed.

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 began to retrace 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 towards 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 phased, 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.

As he reached for another golem, a massive wolf jumped out from the surrounding foliage, and quickly shredded the monster it grabbed with a violent shake of its head.

Seeing that the beast was on his side, Matt tackled a lunging golem and, after a brief moment where they struggled for dominance, he got its sword arm into an armbar. Using his skill-enhanced strength, Matt was able to get on top of the golem, with its chest into the ground. Keeping the arm bar, he got up to one knee with the other pinning the golem down. He twisted and wrenched the arm as he rose, until his leverage won out against the Tier 6 material.

A screeching sound and the lack of resistance told Matt everything he needed to know. The fact that he was holding a dismembered metal arm was a good indication of his victory too. The golem was quickly dispatched with some well placed blows to the chest and core.

Another golem thrust its mana blade along Matt's back. It skittered off [Cracked Phantom Armor], which was only slightly stressed by the blow.

Still on his knees, Matt tried to stand and fight, but was tackled by a golem from the rear.

With his face buried in the ground and a golem on his back punching him, Matt bucked. That created just enough separation for him to throw his hip over to the other side, and get on his back. From there, he punched out at the golem in its mounted position. His vambraces heated and the golem leaned to the side as the structure of its entire upper body collapsed.

The advantage was short lived, as a mana blade cut down on his face from above. This time, [Cracked Phantom Armor] was almost stressed to its breaking point, but it held. The golem on top of him was mangled, but kept attacking. Matt gripped its waist and bucked for a second time, planting his feet in the ground and thrusting his hips into the air. The upward force knocked the golem off balance, giving him enough leverage to pull the golem up and over his head slightly.

The golem broke its fall with its left hand as it flew over. Seeing the opportunity for a counter, Matt hooked that planted arm with his own left arm, and hooked his left leg around the golem’s. He bucked his hips into a roll towards his left and, using his free right leg to push off, pulled the golem’s locked limbs towards him. At the same time, Matt struck the golem in the abdomen.

The maneuver sent the golem rolling off of him to his left and Matt was able to transition into another arm bar with the golem’s left arm still in his hold. With the golem now on its back and Matt to its side, he got to his feet and lurched up, wrenching the golem’s remaining good arm as he rose.

A pop indicated that he had indeed ripped out the other arm, so Matt scurried to mount the downed golem and finish it with his fists. However, he was shield bashed in the back of the head before he got the chance.

This blow sent him rolling out of the melee, but he quickly sprang back up to his feet. A quick query to his AI showed that his sword was far enough away to not be worth getting.

With two golems charging him, Matt punched and kicked until he had created an opening, and was eventually able to take the pair down one at a time.

As he stomped the chest of the last golem, he looked around and saw that the battle was winding down. The few remaining golems were being surrounded and destroyed by the others.

His exhaustion faded with [Endurance] active, as it revitalized his muscles and healed the strains on his body from high MPS usage of [Mage's Retreat]. After a few minutes of recovery, Matt joined the rest of the party.

"Everyone ok?"

At the nods confirming what their AIs reported, Matt and company moved to the group on the slight hill.

There was a man on the ground with most of his lower left side missing. Matt pulled out a clotting potion, but the woman tending to the next wounded person called out to him. "Don't waste that potion on him. He's done for. We need the supplies for those that we can actually help."

Matt handed over the potion, slightly stunned. He was used to seeing gory messes, as he usually had a hand in them. But this was a fellow human. They were savaged so badly, he agreed that it would be better to help the less injured and move on.

It wasn't like he hadn't killed the wannabe bandits on the training world, but that encounter wasn’t a direct result of his failures. This person’s blood was on his hands. This was his fault.

Matt moved to the barely breathing man and asked quietly, "Do you want me to end it?"

The man tried to speak, but when only a burble of blood came out, he shook his head. His mouth tried to form what Matt could only assume was a plea for help.

Not knowing what else to do, Matt held the man's hand while his breathing faded, until, with a final gasp, he joined the dead.

Matt felt the burst of the essence. It wasn't directed at him, as he hadn't killed the man, but he was near. Not wanting anyone else to take advantage, even though he found it unlikely, Matt grabbed the essence and shoved it down into the planet.

The resulting feelings were complex. Matt wanted to rage at the loss, or say that if they had been faster, they could have done something. But he knew it wasn't true. If they hadn't taken out the spider golem factory, they would be dealing with much worse. They would have been overrun in hours. A day at most. The reality didn't stop him from wishing that he could have saved the man somehow.

Closing the man's eyes with his hand, he stood and saw the woman who was acting as a healer wipe her face with a clean towel.

The woman shook her head and nodded at Matt, "Thanks for sitting with him. I was too busy stabilizing the last one."

"Thanks for doing what you could. Name's Matt."

The healer shook Matt's proffered hand and sighed, "Vanessa. I'm a healer, or at least kind of. I only have the one skill, but this is more than it can handle. Thanks for coming to our aid. I saw you jump in there and fight off more than one.” She paused for a moment before slightly shrugging. “Well. It took a lot of pressure off of us, and it's the reason that the rest of us are alive."

"How many did you start with?" It was a morbid question, but Matt needed to know. There were five human corpses on the ground, and from the shocked looks on the others’ faces, he knew there had to have been more casualties.

"Close to fifteen more than this. It was a running fight and..." Vanessa didn't sound angry or upset, just tired. She didn't finish the sentence; Matt didn't need her to.

That was half of their numbers, lost.

Each confirmed death was like a weight on Matt's shoulders. But he pushed them off. Now wasn't the time.

Moving from the healer Vanessa's side, Matt tried to get everyone moving. But not before the grim task of looting the corpses. It wasn't pleasant, but he made sure that their teammates got the spatial bags. It still felt wrong to take from the dead.

It's us getting the items or the golems. And they don't need more of our things.

Pushing to the side, the remaining twenty people moved to the crashed satellite. They didn't encounter any more resistance on the way. Matt, Liz, Aster, and Camilla all agreed to stay and escort the survivors to the base camp with a few quick messages.

As they neared the area, they found a clearing with felled trees being stacked. Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Geraden shake his head, but he didn't voice his displeasure.

As they approached the opening of the makeshift wall, they found five people guarding the entrance. They were not stopped, but one of the guards called out, "Wait inside for Juni to get to you. He’s the prince's representative."

As they moved through, they were directed to an open area off to the side.

The rudimentary camp was actively being worked on, and Matt saw crude tree lean-tos giving cover to a few tents. Matt didn't know what good a tree would do, but it probably gave the occupants a sense of security.

While they waited, a familiar face came up and offered his hand, "Nice to see you, Matt." It was the man with two bonds that they had met in the woods.

"You as well Fen, and you Bow and Arrow." The two wolves sat and he replayed his AI’s combat footage. He added, "And the assistance was timely Bow. There were a lot of golems to fight there."

The wolf lightly barked at him. The beast was so big, Matt felt the bark more in his chest than he heard it with his ears.

The wolf’s bond smiled and rubbed it’s ears. "Yeah, Bow does good work. Don't you, girl?"

The wolf chuffed at him.

Camilla and Liz came over, and the five of them started chatting.

Matt mostly kept out of it, and watched as Aster started to communicate with the two larger bonds. The yips and chuffs were amusing to watch. The little fox seemed to have the two larger canines under her spell in moments.

Camilla was watching the surroundings with a nervous eye. Matt thought he understood. She was repeatedly cracking her knuckles, and didn't say much. She only smiled when a wolf tail batted at her side.

Not long after, Geraden joined them. A shorter man came over and called out, "Please separate into groups based on combat prowess and willingness to fight."

When everyone else separated from Matt and the two forest men, Juni looked at them and nodded. He said, "Just give me a few minutes to settle this group, please."

With that, he started directing the shocked remainders of parties to various areas. When Vanessa said that she was a healer, Matt swore that Juni had to hold back from hugging the taller woman.

Healers would be in short supply. It only took a short look around to see the limping and struggling occupants of the camp. It was obvious how badly the woman's skills were needed.

Juni came over and asked, "Are you all one party? Or separate?"

"It's us four, and they’re two solos. Though we’ve fought together." Liz's words had a tone that Matt wasn't used to hearing, and he couldn't quite place it. It seemed almost imperious.

"Can you head to the east then? We have a group of people who have been hit by a swarm of spider golems. A short message got to us when they crossed a mountain top." As they nodded, the man paused. He asked, "How are you all on, mana? If you’re too low, it's better to wait here. We need to prioritize defense more than sending our able defenders to their deaths."

Matt had been feeding mana with his Concept to Liz and Camilla, who had crowded around him. They were good, but he didn't have access to Fen or Geraden's mana reserves, as both had veils up.

After the other two men agreed, they moved to leave, but were handed a small box that Juni said would increase their AIs messaging range. Once they were ready, they headed in the direction to help the pinned down group. Liz and Aster flew ahead, and tried to catch their signal.

As they ran, they received another message from Juni. He said that a second group had gotten a message out and would need their help.

Matt was just happy to be of some use. The guilt still ate at him, but this shrank the pit in his stomach ever so slightly.