The Path of Ascension

Matt flew through the air with his team; they were interspersed throughout the standard guard team.

A month after their deaths, they were pulling secret escort missions. While neither glorious nor high earning, the missions were necessary. Nearly half of the Kingdom’s resource shipments from the outlying forts were being stolen. The third city was being plucked at from all sides, and the thefts were costing the Kingdom valuable resources. The Prince had personally asked them to escort the shipment while hidden inside of it.

Matt was in forest drab armor, with a long staff at the ready. It wasn't likely he could hit anything at the speeds they were traveling. The Prince’s espionage staffers apparently excelled at disguises. His face was made up to the point that he didn't even recognize himself. His cheeks were filled in, and his hair dyed brown, completely changing his appearance at first glance.

Liz underwent the same treatment, and now had ink dark hair, which contrasted with her pale skin. He loved her red hair, but the black hair was new and exciting. It caused them to both muss their disguises quite a bit before the mission. The espionage staffers who had to redo their makeup were less than enthused.

Liz was also in “heavy armor” with a new spear. The former helped conceal how thick the backpack that she was wearing was. It was only necessary because Aster had flatly refused to dye her fur red. She’d rather die than take on the visage of a fire fox. After that horrible suggestion, she refused to change into a fox of any other element, while adamantly maintaining that ice was the best. They really shouldn't have started with fire. Matt tucked that lesson away for future reference and ordered an illusion collar instead; it would turn her into a dog.

It wasn't the dyeing that irritated the fox. No, they had been able to make that seem fun to her, and she dyed the tips of her ears purple. What set her off was the people thinking that she used fire. That was an indignity too severe, so she chose the backpack when they gave her the option between it or the dye.

A large backpack with a white fox was synonymous with their team, so it had to be made to look like a much slimmer backpack, forcing Liz to wear the fake armor ensemble.

Conor was in what Matt felt was the most dangerous position. He was keeping his own role as a heavy melee fighter, but his armor was too distinctive, so it had been swapped out with a second set. It apparently wasn't sitting right no matter how much they adjusted it. That wasn’t exactly an ideal way to go into battle, and Liz intended to hurry to his side as soon as things kicked off.

Annie and Emily had simply done the same as Matt and Liz. Emily was acting like a basic mage, equipped with only a [Fireball], just like Matt.

Annie was using one of the golem crossbows he had made in bulk and sold in the monthly auction.

The sales had netted them nearly 5000 points, which while not a ton, was still a few days worth of their idle share of the Kingdom earned points. Their team sat around the fifth spot in the rankings when they could hit big missions back to back. Their death all but grinded their momentum to a halt, sliding them back to thirty-second place. It was a setback from which they still had hardly recovered from.

The six of them were infamous for a guaranteed death, so most teams preferred to surrender rather than take the death when they showed up. Losing half your points to buy your freedom and prevent a two-week death timer was a much better option than losing half your points and earning a two week wait to get back in the war.

They were hoping that this ambush would allow them to get back on track, due to a distinct lack of forts changing hands after the Pather’s meeting. Without orders to take a fortress, they couldn’t earn points from the army war AI.

That left them with an ambush mission.

Twenty guards were interspersed throughout the shipment. They flew in formation around a messenger with a spatial bag stuffed to the brim with Tier 6 gold.

Or, at least, that was the information that the Kingdom had purposefully leaked. Usually, the courier was given both the package and the fastest flying sword. But today, the courier was bait. He was paid well, especially for the second phase of the ambush, which they knew was lying in wait somewhere nearby.

Matt was the actual courier because he had the fastest sword. His Tier 7 sword was made for speed after all. It was better than the ones that the Kingdom was allowed to bring, and what most people could afford. His [Cracked Phantom Armor] also played a large part in his role, as he could activate it and take a hit that would incapacitate most of the others.

And they didn't intend to just survive the ambush. No, Team Bucket was going to find the ones responsible and kill them, then destroy any and all infrastructure that the ambushers had established.

As they flew around the target fort's anti-flying zone, they heard a shout from the neutral zone, and Matt readied his staff while turning. So far, this was precisely how the other ambushes went down. They pinned the teams against the anti-flying barrier, and either pushed the team in when they had the height advantage, or chased the team down if they tried to flee.

Three teams of ten people had flown up behind, beside, and in front of Matt’s team. The ambushers must have thought that they made a safe bet with the ten extra fighters. They were wrong to think that they could win through sheer numbers.

Matt and Emily flew up with the courier and three other guards, while the other fifteen guards rushed ahead to entangle the ten fighters flying in front of them. It was exactly as every other escort team acted.

The five guards with the courier were meant to help him break through any subsequent ambushes.

Matt cast a [Fireball] at the nearest group of mages as they flew up and over, and smiled at the staff in his hands.

An average staff either reduced the mana cost of a spell, or increased the recovery speed of the spell diagram in the spirit, allowing the mage to cast faster. His weapon increased the damage of all fire spells channeled through it. Not exactly a rare effect, but it put his weakened [Fireball] just over the strength of a normal [Fireball]. The staff enabled him to go from the fist-sized ball of flame that normally appeared by his hand to a head-sized one that now appeared at the top of his staff.

With a satisfying woosh, the [Fireball] raced out and slammed into the head of a melee fighter, who wasn't able to get into contact with the Kingdom troops. That unfortunate soldier was teleported out, and the explosion's blast wave sent the two nearest fighters tumbling as they lost control of their flying devices.

Matt kept his place in the formation as the six of them flew up and over the forward-most attackers and escorts. His AI indicated that Liz, Aster, and Conor were fine, but he still worried for them in the madness of the battle.

Annie was off his radar, as she should be. Her role was to go invisible and shadow their group until the enemies fled from the failed ambush.

Not even two minutes after their escape, they flew into the expected second ambush, just as they slipped through a slight gap in anti-flying formations.

Ten more people flew up from their concealed positions in the underbrush below. Eight Tier 6’s and two Tier 7’s now faced Matt and his group.

Matt launched five [Fireball]s in quick succession, then started to fill the mana stone he had in the band on his wrist, before draining it and launching more.

The bracelets of mana stones were their team's newest idea. Normally, Matt kept his team of three going with his Concept, or manually filled their personalized, fast converting mana stones. Their current formation made that infeasible, so they had the idea to make bracelets with ten personal mana stones and charge them before their fights.

The extra 2000 mana would enable them to fight longer than anticipated. Filling this many mana stones wasn't usually done, as it took a typical mage about a day and a half to refill their mana pool. Very few people could afford to spend that much time away from any real fighting. At least, not people who were trying to push themselves. Training was just as important as combat, after all.

Yet with Matt able to refill his team's mana pools with his Concept, it was fine for them to sit around for an hour and bank the 4000 mana needed for the bracelets, while also having mana to train with.

Their preparation had some flaws, though. The mana stones in the bracelet couldn't be linked to act as one big battery. So, they had to individually access each stone and then draw from it. From their testing, ten stones around their wrists were the max they could use before they couldn't efficiently withdraw mana. With more training, they could probably increase that number, but for now, ten was the best they could do.

The strategy was still infinitely cheaper than throwing a higher Tier mana stone into a rapidly converting mana stone, which usually had a near ninety percent loss rate. Those stones were only to be used in emergencies, or by the uber-wealthy. Even Matt used them sparingly. The standard, personal converting mana stones were more efficient, if you had the time. Even the ordinary fast converting mana stones that they commonly used were better, if you had at least a minute or two. The rapid type was only beneficial when near-instant conversion of rift mana to personal mana was necessary, or when you simply didn't care about the cost.

The effect of having an extra mana pool was more pronounced with Emily, who didn't have to ration her four spells as much. Consequently, she became a terror on the battlefield. Even now, as she rapid-fired [Fireball]’s alongside Matt, he was impressed at her speed and accuracy. She hit most of her shots, even on the evading fighters, which he routinely missed.

Together, they removed four of the Tier 6’s. One of the Tier 7’s flew to them, and the other led their five remaining Tier 6’s to attack the melee fighters.

“I got him.”

Emily nodded at Matt’s AI voice command, and retreated with the other group.

Matt readied himself to block the short sword swing with his staff, and used his foot to brace the end of the staff on his flying sword. When the wooden staff met metal, it wasn't destroyed as the melee Tier 7 expected.

The staff he was using had metal bands running up the sides to give it more sturdiness, and it was enchanted with durability. If the Tier 7’s weapon had been Tier 8, it might have done more damage, but with their weapons being equal, it was a stalemate.

The Tier 7 flew up and to the right slightly as he swung down at Matt’s lightly armored head, but Matt had already started moving as well.

To the melee fighter's ever-growing surprise, Matt flew into him and started to grapple with his free hand. The man’s smirk quickly faded when he realized that Matt wasn’t the weak mage he had expected. He probably thought their first exchange was simply a difference in flying equipment, but he should have thought twice about a simplemage attempting to grapple him.

When Matt held his opponent’s sword arm at bay, it was already too late. He drove his dagger into the enemy Tier 7’s armpit and twisted the blade as he removed it. It wasn't instantly fatal. The man had about a minute before he bled out enough to fall unconscious, and two before he died.

The Tier 7 could have fought through the pain and retaliated, but the wound was damaging and painful enough to force the man to clamp his arm down. It was a futile attempt to staunch the arterial bleeding.

The man’s instinctive movement left him open to a second attack. He was teleported out just before Matt moved to slice his throat in a backswing. As his blade neared the man's neck, the shock on his face was evident. Even as he was teleported out, he still didn't seem to believe what had happened.

The army watchers apparently decided enough was enough, removing the Tier 7 before more work was given to the healers.

Spinning with a flick of his hips, Matt faced the back of the melee and started launching [Fireball]s. In under a minute, the ambushers decided that their mission wasn't worth it. As a unit, they disengaged and flew off.

None of the defenders flew after them. Matt and Emily decided to act after they heard from Annie. The encounter wasn't exactly ideal;they hadn't gotten the other Tier 7, who had a chance of seeing through her Talent. Still, he trusted her. After all, she had passed the assassination test of the army, killed Alyssa, and torched her closet. All without getting caught.

The Tier 7 woman, to their mild annoyance, had been more upset about her wardrobe than her death, as she had apparently expected it, and had already spent her points. She had mildly reprimanded Liz about it, saying that killing her was one thing, but destroying her clothes was a step too far. Although, in the next moment, she ended up thanking Liz for the excuse to buy new clothes. The next day, she showed up to headquarters looking brighter than ever. It seemed like nothing would keep her down for long.

Matt threw Alyssa out of his thoughts. The less he thought about her the better.

It was just a waiting game now. Annie would track the bandits to their lair, and they could hopefully take down a large central hub, earning enough points to set them back on top.

The five of them continued on with their mission, with one of the melee guards having been killed and removed from the fighting. Together, they flew the remaining distance to the city and dropped off their payload, earning a decent chunk of points. They hoped that the points for the delivery would be dwarfed by their taking down another secret base.

He and Emily didn't dawdle to sight see, and immediately flew back out of the city towards the first ambush site. Liz, Aster, and Conor were waiting for them.

As they pulled up, Matt asked, “How was your ambush?”

Liz answered with a shrug. “Fine. They didn't try to do much more than hold us back, just like the reports said. What about yours?”

“Everything went as we thought. The ambushers retreated once they took decent losses. Annie’s following them as we speak.”

They moved in a group to follow their rogue’s trail. As they did, Matt threw his Concept on at full blast. Everyone was full according to his AI, but he couldn't see their reserves.

All of their mana dipped by about 200 before filling back up, with them having used some mana stones in their fights. Once they stopped emptying their mana after being restored, he cut off his Concept and fully concentrated on chasing after the retreating team.

To his surprise, they didn't abruptly rush in. They dismounted and walked through two separate anti-flying fields, then another mile into Queendom territory, before turning back around into Kingdom controlled land. There, Matt’s squad walked through a few more anti-flying formations near a small fort. Finally, they found the hill that Annie was inside of.

They didn't see an entrance despite their careful observation, but they sent a low priority message to Annie, who simply responded that she was handling it.

Two minutes later, she popped out of a grass-covered hatch and waved for them to come down.

“It’s all already taken care of. There were only three people inside besides the few who retreated. Easy enough to take them out one by one. They never even saw me.”

“Oh.”

Matt was incredibly disappointed. They went through all that trouble, only to not even get a good fight out of it.

Aster popped her head out of the backpack and mirrored Matt’s sentiment. “No fight? No fun.”

She shot a glare at Annie, who shrugged. “Sorry. It was easy. Also, I doubt this is the only center of operations. It's just too small. I'm sure there are others out there.”

Emily said, “Maybe we can get points for that, but this was a colossal waste of time.” She quietly grumbled, “It's gonna take a week or more for this dye to wash out.”

Matt agreed, it felt shitty that they had gone through so much preparation to get nothing.

Together, they walked to the small fort and informed the leader that there was a bandit camp under his nose.

He looked green at the discovery, and none of them bothered to comfort him. The man was in for a talking to at minimum, or getting sacked at worst. His best and only defense was that it was a hilly area, but an enemy encampment not even half a mile away from his fort was inexcusable.

They were halfway back to the city when Aster started sniffing, hard.

“Fire? Fire!”

At her message, they flew higher until they were able to see the curvature of the planet. At that altitude, they were able to see the medium and large forts that were part of the circular protection around the city being besieged, bypassed, and set ablaze.

From their vantage point, they also saw the mass of people moving through the anti-flying zones on foot.

This was a full invasion.

They didn't need to speak, and rushed forward to the city perimeter, where they encountered its anti-flying formation. They immediately dismounted and sprinted for the entrance. They weren't the only ones. A message was being sent to everyone in the vicinity to either retreat to the city before they were surrounded, or retreat to one of the large or medium forts.

Reinforcements were already pouring in from the neutral city, according to the Pather network. An urgent call went out to everyone ambulatory to get to a teleporter and move to this city, before the Queendom could set up the spatial locks.

Once those formations went up, all teleportation would be shut down as the space inside the city got locked down.After that, the defenders would be on their own.

The six of them ran up the stairs to the fifty-foot tall walls, and peered out over the battlements. Together, they stood and watched as the large fort in their view was simply surrounded and bypassed. In fifteen minutes, the front gate was surrounded, and a thin wall of people encircled the city. They had even more concentrated numbers around the city’s other entrance that Matt could see from his vantage point.

The city had four at each cardinal direction, and the Queendom forces seemed to be moving quickly to block all of them off. Small teams moved out to chase down any Kingdom teams who strayed too close.

With a noticeable rumble, the door under their feet slammed shut.

“Well fuck a duck. This was shit timing.” Annie spit over the edge of the fort after saying her piece.

“What?” Matt looked to her and said, “This is amazing timing. Who knows if we would’ve been able to join if we missed the initial start. We’re gonna earn a shit load of points for this.”

Annie didn't look convinced. “I doubt it. There’s thousands of people, and we’ll need to outperform them all. We’re gonna get like twenty points for this.”

Her sister slapped her shoulder. “Come on. We’re far better than that. Matt and I can probably hold this entire city ourselves. Easy peasy.”

He didn't quite agree with that statement, but before he could retort, Conor started to strip out of his armor. Matt and everyone else, realizing what he was doing, followed suit.

None of them wanted to fight an important battle with gear other than their own. Matt was faster than everyone except Annie, who also wore light armor. So, he moved towards Conor and helped the man with his full plate armor. By the time they were finished, the rest were also done, and the six of them moved their borrowed gear into their spatial bags.

They looked out beyond the ramparts and watched as a trebuchet was assembled at the edge of the Queendom formations. Piece after piece was pulled out of spatial storage containers and rapidly assembled.

In under two minutes, an earth mage created a boulder and placed it in the sling. The missile was instantly slung at the city wall.

The first shot was way short, so they calibrated the siege engine then launched a second. This one looked like it would miss to their right, but as it reached a dozen feet from the wall, it slammed into an invisible barrier. The city’s shielding flickered into visibility for a moment, but as the boulder shattered and fell, it quickly dissipated.

Everyone on the wall flinched and instinctively ducked down. A mage launched a [Fireball] at the attackers, but they were well out of range for a single Tier 8 spell. It traveled only a hundred feet before the mana sustaining it weakened, and it sputtered out like a candle in a tornado.

It didn’t even reach a quarter the distance to the enemy forces.

Having found their range, the attackers adjusted the counterweight slightly and lobbed a flaming chunk of stone at the wall. Unlike last time, this stone hit at the top of the wall. Or it would have, if the shielding didn’t block the attack.

It still made Matt wince. They were going to run out of mana eventually. Unless Matt kept the city charged...He shook that idea off; he wasn't going to reveal more than his Concept.

A ballista next to them fired, but the large bolt didn’t even reach halfway to the line of trebuchets that were being put together.

They got a message from Juni a moment after the impact. “You’re here? Good. Take control of the Pathers. Please. Organize them into QRF’s, and get them ready to reinforce the walls or repel wall climbers.”

Liz started issuing commands, getting the quick reaction forces set up. Matt asked, “What's the situation? And how many reinforcements can we expect?”

“Depends on how many we can shove through before the anti-teleporting formation goes up. I doubt you have a spell that goes that far, but if you see them setting it up, try and break things.”

“What about the Prince?”

There was a pause before Juni’s response. “He will be gathering an overland response force and harrying the attackers from the rear.”

Matt almost said that the man was a coward since he had stayed in the rear during the golem battle as well. But this time, things were different. If the Prince died, they would be out of a commander for two weeks. And worse than that, if he died, they wouldn't be able to spend points for the duration either. An outside force able to keep pressure on the enemy wasn't a bad idea when he thought about it.

It just left a bitter taste in Matt's mouth. Still, it gave him everything he needed to know to start feeding information into his AI.

After two minutes and nearly 10,000 mana, he had an answer. At least for some of their problems.

He called Juni back up. “Get me a mana cannon.”

“What?”

Realizing he hadn’t explained at all, Matt backtracked. “If I have one of the siege cannons, I can tamper with the runes a bit and increase the range.” He debated explaining fully, but in the end decided to be forthright. “Warning though, it will significantly decrease the lifespan of the cannon, and its stability will be shit after a few shots.”

Juni answered him after a worryingly long silence. “How many shots are we talking about?”

Matt reran his modification simulations and gave a conservative estimate. “Five, if we’re unlucky. Ten is when I'd be really careful about firing them. After that, they’ll turn into bombs if mana is poured through them.”

“I’ll send you two of them. Don't worry about the siege equipment. The shielding can last a while. You need to take out the formation pillars that are going to be set up to lock down realspace. The smaller the circumference they have, the cheaper the mana cost. If you let them mostly set up and then break it, we can force them to dig it all up and relocate. That will buy us more time. The more time we have the more we can funnel reinforcements, the better our chances of defending are.”

There was a pause and he thought Juni was done, but the man added, “Please don't waste the cannons. They are fucking expensive. But if you can stall for a while, it will be worth it.”

Matt failed to find a flaw in that reasoning and signed off the command channel.

Not five minutes later, two people ran up to Matt with a wooden crate between them, carried on poles.

By their sweating faces and trembling muscles, they were carrying quite the load. After Matt identified himself, they scurried away. He pried open the crate and found that it was spatially expanded. Inside, a singular mana cannon and its disassembled stand were nestled in straw.

Matt needed to activate [Mage’s Retreat] to lift the heavy metal tube out of the crate by himself. Conor, seeing him struggling, quickly moved to help. Carefully, they set it down and assembled the stand. Once it was all put together, he carefully inspected the runes on the weapon.

Or at least, he tried to. It was far, far more complicated than anything else he had ever seen. There was no way that this Tier 6 cannon was made by anyone less than Tier 15. Matt knew without a doubt that even Kelley couldn't create runes this small or interlocked.

The runes were like twisted braids of rope the size of a human hair, and they crisscrossed the entire length of the barrel. It didn't help that obscuring runes were also placed throughout the rear of the cannon, where the mana conversion happened. Thankfully, he didn't need to affect those runes.

His target was the barrel.

Normally, the barrel simply focused the mana in whatever spell was used. The propulsion was all handled at the base of the cannon, where the spell was generated. He didn't need to, or want to risk modifying those runes. What he intended to do was empower the spell throughout the entire length of the cannon.

It wasn't a new strategy, but it was rarely done, as it increased the mana cost by tenfold and reduced the life span of a cannon. It would go from being able to sustain thousands of shots to a few dozen. It was a textbook example of what not to do with sensitive equipment.

Matt was only willing to do it because the enemy was outside of cannon and ballista range. The Tier 6 trebuchets had a greater range than their defensive equipment, but that was to be expected. Their effectiveness was pretty much limited to walls and battering them down. They were mostly useless against small and mobile targets.

With his AIs help, Matt carved runes into the free spaces between the braids of runes that lined the weapon. He was fairly confident that he hadn't messed anything up, but his clumsy work was far worse than what it could have been. Each of his runes were crammed into the space between formation lines, and more than one had bled over. If the change wasn’t a simple, singular, empowerment rune, he would have never been able to get this to work.

The empower rune would just add more mana to the attack spell as it traveled down the barrel. Which, in theory, should increase the range, since the spell could travel farther before it dissipated. As he was carving, he also realized that he only knew the Tier 5 version of the empower rune. It only made everything worse, as the Tier 5 rune was a mismatch for the rest of the runes and material.

A second team of men brought up the second cannon, but he only made the modifications then stored it back into its crate. He was essentially going to be the only one able to fire this thing, and not just because of the mana cost. That could be made up for with more mana stones.

He was much more worried about the likelihood of the cannon exploding, and [Cracked Phantom Armor] had a pretty good shot at resisting the worst case scenario.

Half an hour later, Matt and his party watched the first column go up. It was a fifteen-foot tall metal structure that was sunk into the ground. There was a slight glow as it was placed upright, and it felt like the air became more restrictive. He almost felt like the air was resisting his movements.

When each subsequent pillar went up, the pressure increased as they locked down real space.

Matt was watching as the readout from the teleporter showed the mana cost for each teleport increase. When it was getting to the point that teleportation was becoming unstable, he charged the cannon and readied it to fire.

It took nearly three and a half minutes and 15,000 mana, but the cannon drank it all in and started to glow. As the glow spread up the barrel, he winced.

There shouldn’t be that much wasted mana to make the metal glow like that.

Having already aimed the cannon in the general direction of the pillar they were targeting, Matt fed mana to his AI. There was no way he was going to trust himself to fire at a target he could barely see, especially with a weapon this unstable. He wasn't Tara; he didn’t have a Talent for these things.

He made minute corrections to the aiming equipment in the cannon as his AI registered everything in his spiritual sense. Air temperature, air density, and wind speed and direction at the top of the city wall. Angle and elevation, the rotation of the planet, and their latitude were calculated over the course of a minute.

Matt made the corrections that his AI indicated, and then waited for the conditions to line up.

Liz called out to him as he seemed frozen with his hand hovering over the firing rune. “Everything ok?”

“Just waiting for the perfect moment.”

As the wind slowed, his AI flashed green once the parameters lined up, and he sent mana into the fire function.

A [Mana Bolt] the size of a horse raced out of the cannon in a gentle arc, and into the base of the space locking tower.

It seemed almost gentle as the light blue mass of mana lashed out from atop the city's walls.

That image only lasted until it landed.

The explosion from the overcharged [Mana Bolt] was so large, it blew down the nearby copse of trees as the impact released its stored energy.

I hope the army was ready for that one.

Matt sincerely hoped so, because there wasn't even a blade of grass left in the explosion radius. The trees that survived looked as if a giant had a tantrum and stomped on them. Their shattered and splintered trunks lay in haphazard piles.

Emily, who was closest to him, whistled. “Ascenders’ balls Matt. Fuck! I want one of those.”

Hoisting the cannon and moving to the next location with Conor, Matt grunted out, “Get your own [Cracked Mana Bolt] to hold a few thousand mana.”

“You're a monster, though. I could do it at half the cost, given enough time to modify the skill. Or use it on the seventh or eighth combo. Ohhh that's a good idea. I bet I could make a bigger explosion than you if I got my streak high enough.”

Annie parted the troops who were manning the walls around them, creating a clear path for them to shuffle through. Thanks to her, they made good speed to the next location. Liz followed up with Aster, assisting her with moving the other cannon with a mix of ice and blood, helping to lift the weight and slide it along.

When they reached their second position, Conor hauled the ballista out of position, to the displeasure of the crew manning it. But when they saw Matt setting up the cannon, they quieted down and moved to the side.

After calculating the shot and charging the mana cannon, Matt destroyed the second pylon. They repeated the process three more times, missing only once before Matt had to switch out the cannons, thanks to his shoddy work. It was also enough time for the Queendom to pull back their structures and start setting up the formations further out.

Matt didn't know what each of those massive formation pillars cost, but he doubted that they were cheap. They might have made the better sacrifice, with one cannon gone for four of their formations.

Still, they underestimated the amount of mana Matt was charging the cannons with, and he was able to repeat the feat a second time, just as they were almost done setting up the formation further away. The Queendom moved significantly faster in pulling up and retreating with their space-locking pillars this time, and he could only hit two pillars before they truly were out of range.

This time, they moved nearly two hundred feet further back. His last shot with the cannon was sent at a too slow trebuchet, and even that was at the very edge of his range. Watching the strut of the wooden siege engine shatter, then the entire thing collapse, earned a cheer from the defenders around them. They had been the ones watching stone after stone be blocked only feet from where they were standing.

He got a message from Juni, who sounded near jubilant. “Fantastic work. Once we’re back from the dead, remind me to throw you the largest party I can fucking plan.”

“Whoa, whoa. You expect us to die?”

Juni was distinctly less happy when he said, “Not intended, but there are a million plus troops moving to take this city. I don't know if we can hold out, but we don't intend to give up or go out easily. ‘Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.’”

“Don't you fucking quote Albertson at me, Juni... Juni?”

The Prince's right hand man had already ended the call.

Matt growled out at the surrounding besiegers. He didn't intend to go down quickly, easily, or at all.