The Path of Ascension

Eleven hours later, as the sun was rising over the horizon, the first wall crumbled in on itself. It was the western section, the one directly opposite from Matt’s position. The light coming from the east gave him a spectacular view of the destruction. The wall now had a slope where the rubble slid down, creating a natural ramp.

Matt wasn't surprised. No one was. They had expected this for the last few hours. During the next two, the remaining walls fell one by one. They stopped bothering to have the earth mages reinforce them a while ago. They had since been commanded to conserve their mana and energy for this pivotal moment. Now, they would form smaller cliffs out of the rubble, so the attackers would have to slowly scale them instead of marching down an easy path. During that climb, they would be sitting ducks.

Detached stairs had been prepared on their side, to be attached if the defenders needed to sally out. They weren't going to create a stairway for their enemies after all.

Around Matt, archers and mages stood shoulder to shoulder. The attackers probably wouldn’t bring siege towers this time, when they had easier options. There was always room for surprise though, so they kept the walls manned. Best case scenario, they would be left free to rain down fire on the attackers as they funneled through the breach, turning it into a potent kill zone.

As they expected, the enemy lines started to trudge forward in a steady procession. These looked like fresh troops to Matt, but he couldn’t be certain. The Queendom had brought in a substantial number of reinforcements.

Formation after formation moved forward with shields raised high. They weathered the storm of arrows, spells, and siege equipment that the defenders rained down on them.

Matt was hoping to inflict enough casualties to force them into a retreat, but it was a futile ambition. This had all happened before. Only a handful of individual divisions had ever been broken, and only after being completely decimated.

There was no such luck this time.

The first formation was accompanied by skilled earth mages who shaped ramps out of the rubble. It was an oddly satisfying sight. The disorganized rubble shifted and formed clean, precise steps out of the jagged slope. They were a drop of order splashed into a city that had housed only chaos for days.

“Drop.”

At his command, the buckets of boiling pitch they had heated with mundane fires were pushed over. The boiling black liquid sloshed into the opening, and the attacker’s screams were brutally short. Matt saw people clutching their scalded flesh, and others trying to peel off the soaked clothes that clung to them and burned them.

Matt didn't enjoy their pain or let it linger. At this point, he was too drained to feel much of anything.

“Fire!”

Every mage with a fire spell, including himself, launched their spells to ignite the black liquid. What was boiling before was now a raging fire.

For a moment, it was as if a new sun was born. Everyone but Matt flinched back from the flash and wash of heat. The heat didn’t penetrate his armor, but he felt the burst of the air as it rushed past.

He hoped the wall of flames would earn them a reprieve, but the invaders had clearly expected something of this nature. The earth below rumbled, and the fires were quickly put out as the stone shifted to swallow the pitch and flames.

The next wave of attackers marched up the fresh stone stairs like nothing had happened.

Matt messaged the first fallback position and its accompanying ranged positions and squadrons.

“Prepare for enemies.”

He was still launching [Fireball] after [Fireball] as quickly as his spirit allowed. He paused only to recharge a mana stone with 200 mana, so he could immediately drain it dry and start the process over again.

Their enemies constructed their own ramp to the ground, not deigning to traverse the makeshift cliffs once more. Their ramp was steeper than what was ideal, causing more than one attacker to slip and fall under the rain of arrows. He cast [Hail] for a moment, but the earth mages hastily created a roof, giving them cover from the onslaught of Kingdom attacks.

With a quick check, Matt verified that his melee fighters were protecting the outer wall and the stairs leading to their positions. Good, that gave him some breathing room. He threw himself over the edge, and landed just behind the first fallback position. The men above should be able to keep the invaders from climbing the outer wall, or taking advantage of the stairs. He wanted to be in the thick of the action.

He was just in time. The attackers were racing forward with a deafening roar. Matt screamed back wordlessly.

Each side clashed with a cacophony of epic proportions. [Cracked Phantom Armor] dampened the noise to a tolerable level, but with his own scream rattling in his ears, it was difficult to tell.

Matt leaned slightly forward over the small fortification and smashed down on a head peeking towards him. His target vanished without a sound. He struck down a second, and then a third Queendom soldier in rapid succession.

An ally two people over was pulled forward over the barricade. A warhammer was already descending right to where he would crash down.

Without a thought, Matt launched himself at the hammer wielder with a [Mage’s Retreat] empowered leap. He body-slammed the man in the back as an axe feebly attempted to cut into his armor from the side, only to propel him forward harder.

Standing over the man, Matt swung his longsword in vast sweeping arcs that left trails of blue from the mana charging his weapon. The pressure of the advancing forces pressed the front lines forward, but Matt stood his ground, sundering metal and flesh as if they were one and the same.

When a mere Tier 7 shield had the audacity to block his attack, he let loose his sword’s stored mana with a [Mana Blade]. The bright slash arced out in a crescent moon that jettisoned the Queendom fighter and their shield backwards into the crowd.

That gave the fallen Kingdom soldier that he was standing over enough leeway to scramble to his feet, reach up, and be pulled back up to the fortification.

Matt looped his left arm backwards, and was met with four outstretched hands that grabbed it and hauled him up as well.

“Don't let yourselves be pulled over!”

The situation here seemed in hand for now. Matt took a moment to survey the battlefield and located his team. He ran over to join Conor in the clear area that had formed around him. Allies knew better than to willingly walk into the red glow of [Demon Zone]. Enemies that took their chances received a free teleportation ticket to the hospital, as did those who were forced forward by the endless march of the Queendom.

Together, Matt and Connor culled the swaths of enemies who had no option but to move forward. Aster, Annie, and Liz also made sure to attack the enemies in the range of the skill too. Every target hit was a chance to trigger the skill’s reflected attack, and strike everyone else in the zone too. With the mages outside of the affected range, they didn't have to worry about reflection damage. Nor did Conor.

It was a devastating combination, and it was how the small team had managed to repeatedly hold a siege tower on their own.

In a moment of clarity, Matt also realized that he should use his Concept, and he let it billow out around him. The enemies that came into range were dead in seconds, before they could meaningfully benefit, so there was no reason not to use the small amount of willpower that he had accumulated.

With that extra mana, Aster prowled to the front, just left of [Demon Zone]’s aura. There, she dug her paws into the ground and reached out with Winter's Embrace. In a flash, the thicket of ice branched out, and the frontmost dozen attackers became tangled ice sculptures. They shattered as the occupants were whisked away. The embrace didn't stop growing there. More and more people were forced into Aster’s chilling garden as her area of effect grew.

The stones loudly cracked under the cold. Matt recognized that Aster was using the cold collar he’d enchanted with separate runes. One for her own ice mana, and the other for slowing ice mana. The rune made from her mana increased the ice damage of any spell she channeled through it. Now, he could finally see the fruits of his labor, though they had tested it earlier.

While not a conventional skill, Winter’s Embrace still qualified for the added damage from the collar.

As their comrades forced them forward, the frontmost Queendom fighters were shoved into a frigid, flowering jungle that wolfishly devoured them whole. Their fate was sealed after simply stepping into its domain.

The downside of such a natural treasure was that it guzzled mana as if it was endless.

With Matt as her bond, it was.

He crossed over to her and slipped a hand through her spiky armor. Burning extra mana to convert his own mana to her personal signature faster, he charged the mana stones around her neck. Simultaneously, Matt’s Concept surged forth in a tight circle just broad enough to include only his bond.

Mana rushed into Aster and kept her going, expanding Winter’s Embrace and allowing it to gorge on enough invaders to be self-sustaining, even with its meals being stolen. If the army rescuers left people inside for any longer, the skill could have sustained itself from merely one or two ensnared victims. Aster wouldn't have had access to that mana, but the skill itself would have continued on its own.

At a diameter of nearly fifty feet, a large enough number of troops were ensnared by the wintery jungle of roses to keep it sustained with a little help from Matt. The push of the Queendom’s advance only led more lambs to the slaughter at Aster’s paws. They were so eager to get out of the chokepoint through the wall, they rushed forward into another zone of death. And only the first in line were able to see it.

The best part? Aster was an adorable little fox, and thus shorter than the berm they used as a parapet. She was sheltered from retaliation.

An hour and a half of fervent fighting later, an order went out which instantly gave Matt pause.

‘All forces— Charge!’

Matt thought someone had gone crazy but relayed his orders as was his duty.

“Charge!”

Taking the lead, he leapt over the berm and swung his sword in a downwards arc. After a second of bewilderment, everyone else followed. They collided with the momentum of the attackers, with each side stalling out for a moment.

Then, Matt heard it. Echos where there had been none before.

A glance up revealed that the city shields were active once again.

That madman Juni had lied about the amount of mana they had and saved some. Now he was using that final reserve to trap the invading forces.

Matt snickered at the pure audacity of the move.

The Queendom fighters, who had been taking heavy casualties before, were now on their heels as attacks rained down from the outer wall and archery positions. So this was why the city AI only wanted half of the artillery brought down from the wall.

Death and destruction showered down from all sides. Ballistae and mana cannons tore lines of death into the panicked attackers, as fast as they could reload.

With refound vigor, the weary Kingdom defenders sheared their way through rank after rank of the opposition. Liz was a golem of bloody death, scything her way through the trapped attackers like ripe wheat waiting to be harvested.

Lightning thundered so powerfully, Matt knew that Emily had to be at his side. As the blinding flashes flared out, half a dozen people blinked away while the [Bolt] arced its way through multiple bodies. The spell was empowered enough to chain through and eliminate swaths of enemies in a flash.

Matt and his forces minced their way up to the breach in the wall, to find an open spot free of enemies. At first, Matt thought that their retaliation ended there. But then he saw them.

The real prize.

Matt looked over the breach to discover a formation of Tier 7 elites with their backs against the shielding. The way their equipment looked, he suspected that they carried Tier 8 arms and armor. A hail of arrows from them caught Matt and his people off guard.

They were backed up to an invisible but sturdy wall. Matt pondered his options. Only for a moment. Now wasn't the time for thinking, it was the time to pay them back for each and every raid.

He launched a max-powered [Hail] with a wave of his staff. It started to batter at his opponents, but they were a Tier higher, and not as threatened as he’d imagined.

Too tired to think straight, he latched onto the simplest option, and ordered a charge into the enemy position.

As he exploded forward with his sword aglow and a berserk roar on his lips, Matt flew through his [Hail] and into the mass of elite troops. He crashed down with a dry-then-wet crunch of someone else’s mangled armor and bones. His reckless blitz prompted enough of the fighters to turn to face him, allowing his allies to charge without immediate reprisal.

A spear pierced through the side of Matt’s leg armor. Luckily, it was a glancing blow, half stopped by his under armor. He managed to step away before it drew more than a little blood.

His own people slammed into the raised shields of the Tier 7 formation. It promised to be a hectic, bloody fight where they were out-Tiered in both cultivation and equipment.

He kicked and lashed downward with his sword as he cut into metal armor. His sword was heavy for its Tier, but not sharper, so the wounds weren’t fatal.

Matt expected the melee to last a while, as it was a brawl in close quarters, when suddenly the air went white.

A huge explosion of cold consumed the area as the air itself seemed to solidify, and ice from the still falling [Hail] started to elevate. The world around him seemed to slow then stop, as if space time had been flash-frozen. The fighters surrounding Matt all stilled.

Then, just as suddenly, they were gone and the illusion shattered.

Nearby, a wheezing, quivering Aster collapsed onto her side next to a field of ice, blood, and churned earth, with Matt at the center.

His lungs heaving, Matt slumped to the ground. He felt boiling hot despite his armor blocking external sources of heat. He hadn’t noticed the heat until just now.

Deactivating it sent a shock through Matt’s system, as the still freezing air washed over him, jolting him fully awake from what now felt like a bad dream. That had been stupid. Monumentally stupid.

What was I thinking?

He had troops holding the breach, and the enemy was pinned against a wall. That made them fish in a barrel for the mana cannons and ballistae.

There were zero good reasons for his reckless decision.

Liz leaned down to quickly check on Aster, but soon stormed over to him. He expected to be either punched or slapped, deservingly so. But she just kneeled and felt him over for injuries while demanding, “What were you thinking!?”

“I wasn't. Sorry, I neglected to wake myself with [Endurance] for too long and got tired. It’s been a long few days, and it keeps wearing off faster each time. I'll...”

“Stop. What was that? Have you not slept recently? When did you sleep last...? Wait, have you not slept at all?”

At Matt’s shake of the head, she grabbed and shook him. “You idiot! You need to sleep. Right now. Matt, you can only go for so long without some proper sleep.” Seeing him open his mouth, she shook her head. “No. The rest of us have all slept since this started. While I hadn't personally seen you sleep, I assumed you were just sleeping when we did. I'm taking over for the next few hours while you get some rest. Things will be easy enough with the shields up.”

Matt shook his head. “I need to recharge the earth mages.”

“No, stop! They’ve been resting for nearly a full day now. You need to sleep. We all need you to sleep. Go grab Aster and find a bunk to crash in. She severely overextended herself rescuing you from this insane stunt. Juni sent us a message about this that you ignored. He already knew about the Tier 7s here, and an equivalent division of our own Tier 7 elites was already on their way to deal with them. We didn't have to take this risk.”

Matt didn't have it in himself to argue anymore, particularly after seeing the state of his bond and hearing her worried pleas. After messaging Juni that he was going to sleep, and being chewed out again for not sleeping, he found a cot and his world went dark before he had time to adjust.

With Aster in his arms, Matt was out cold in seconds.

***

Liz prodded him awake after what felt like only minutes, but a check of his AI showed that it was closer to seven hours.

“What's wrong?”

Liz pushed him back onto the cot slightly as he tried to stand. “Nothing. We have about three hours before the shields fall for real this time, and I knew you would want to be up. I've had everyone resting and recovering their mana. The healers are even ahead of the casualties, and we’re...” She paused. “Well, we aren't at one hundred percent, but everyone is mostly healed and ready for the next engagement.”

Matt laid a groggy Aster down on the cot and picked up his sword from where he’d apparently dropped it on the floor, returning it to his spatial ring.

“Thank you.”

He kissed Liz’s sweaty, soot-covered head.

He walked outside to see that the area around them was cleaned up, and any debris was added to the defensive berms.

Quickly climbing the stairs, he surveyed the attacking army. Their numbers had grown again during the time he was unconscious. While observing the besiegers, Matt called Juni.

Before he could say anything, Juni cut in with, “You're an idiot.”

“We went through this yesterday. Yes, I am. No, I won't do it again. Though I think we’ll be dead before I need to sleep again anyway. Oh! How many Tier 7’s did we get? Was it worth it?”

Juni snorted, “Nine full battalions of Tier 7’s with Tier 8 items. I wish I could have seen The Princess’s face when she found out. After they realized we tricked them, the Queendom restarted the bombardment for real. Clearly, the plan to take the city intact is dead and gone. Just like their elites.”

The Queendom had moved half their trebuchets forward to within range of the city proper, and was battering at the shield with a vengeful intensity that could only be born from being made a fool of.

“What's our strategy?”

“Hold as long as we can and make them bleed for it. We intend to hold until they take the outer walls, then try to sally forth out of one of the gates. With the Prince’s help, we should be able to break through their lines and escape.”

“Think they’ll happily let us walk out of here?” Matt didn't think it was likely, as boulder after boulder shattered on the invisible shielding.

“No. We'll need to fight our way out. Are your troops ready to ride out the bombardment?”

Matt peered over the edge of the inner wall and surveyed his side. “As ready as we can be. All positions are within the protection of the wall, but outside of its collapsing range. Are we going to hold the wall this time?”

“If we can, yes. But orders will change as we progress.”

Suddenly remembering something, Matt asked, “What about the remaining crafters still in the city?”

Juni groaned. “I’ve gathered most of them that weren't able to catch a teleport out, but some are refusing to leave their workshops, even though we know the Queendom will be pummeling the city center.”

With that ominous note, they ended the call and waited, with only the pounding of rocks on shielding to give them company.

It wasn't good that all the crafters hadn't gotten out of the city. They were able to get in the teleporter, as it was a swapping function between locations, and they were trying to bring people in. There was nearly no demand to leave except from the civilians. Even then, some of them had simply refused to evacuate without the large, expensive equipment in their workshops that they couldn’t pack up in time. Losing that equipment would financially ruin many of them, and if it wasn’t stored on their person, then it wouldn’t be ‘looted but returned’ to them when they died or were captured. The ones who fled without any equipment wouldn’t be getting it back either, because it would either be destroyed during the siege or claimed as war prizes afterwards.

It was a shitty situation for everyone.

Three hours later, the first boulder sailed over the wall and smashed its way through a city block. Then, the Queendom started lighting the rocks on fire before launching them. Teams ignored most of the fires, unless they ate their way to their positions, where bucket brigades and mages would handle the flames.

One landed close enough for Matt to smother the flames with [Hail].

He looked over the Kingdom casualty list as he waited for the attackers to move in again.

Things weren't looking good. They had lost nearly half their troops in the various fights and while repelling the seigers. On the bright side, they had taken out nearly eight hundred thousand enemy troops already. If the Queendom hadn't gotten reinforcements, they would have won the siege, but there were another million and a half troops out there waiting.

With the enemy's new willingness to level the city, Matt hoped that The Prince had a decent extraction force ready to help them break through the encirclement.

They would need large numbers to break through and avoid being chased down and killed out of hand.

Five long, agonizing hours later, as the sun reached its zenith, the Queendom troops started moving forward.

Matt readied his men. “Form up! The enemy approaches. Let's see if we can bring the tally up to a million casualties with this wave.”

There was a loud but wordless cry from the fighters at his command. Most were Pathers, but around a third were Kingdom troops who were filling in the gaps from their losses. Even with that help, there were still thin spots on the walls. Matt tried not to think of what would happen once they were unable to repel the assaults.

There was a scream from below, and Matt looked down to see a woman pointing up. He followed her finger and nearly looked into the sun, but then he saw them.

“Air assault! Dropships incoming!”

He repeated the message on all the commander level channels. Though it was already too late.

Dozens of giant, flying battalions were using the sun as cover, and had flown up miles into the sky. They hovered beyond the edge of the anti-flying formations with their immense, needle-like packages, each carried by a hundred plus people with various flying devices.

They let them go, and nearly as one, the fifty-seven dropships arrowed down, spelling doom for anything in their way.

The dropships were crude, angular cones, designed with minimal thought given to anything but reducing drag and preventing rotation during descent. The ones Matt had seen in movies were dropped from low orbit, and had fins to allow mundane flight for bypassing anti-flying runes. They always caused devastating damage when they landed behind enemy lines.

Matt heard orders for the QRF teams going out, but ignored it to give his own.

“Second and fifth companies. Turn and guard our rear. Lookout only. Get the QRF teams to deal with the fighters. They’ll all be Tier 7’s, or at least fight like it.”

The enemy vessels slammed down into the empty city center, where it was mostly just wreckage from the attacking trebuchets. They landed with ground-shaking rumbles as the heavy metal dropships punched into the ground. As Matt and his troops tightened their grips on their weapons, the heavy steel doors smashed down, creating ramps that teams of a dozen people poured out of.

“Annie?”

“Is it time? Am I free?” She sounded eager.

“You still have the giftboxes I made for you?”

“Yes!”

Matt was almost worried about the exuberance in her voice. “Then do what you do best.”

He moved his position down after seeing that the Queendom wasn't trying to take the half-crumbled walls, and gathered his best fighters from the QRF teams. They were all Tier 6 Pathers, but they fought like monsters. They had to, as they were the ones used to defend the worst case scenarios and plug breaches in the walls.

“Be ready to deal with the airborne troops. Each pod seemed to carry a dozen people in it, but be ready for larger or smaller teams. I don't know if they’ll try to gather together and attack one position, or harry us all around. Maybe both. Don't go down needlessly, and call for help when you engage. We have the numbers here, let's use them.”

The next hour was hectic, as other sections of defenders reported hit-and-run tactics over and over. They were targeting valuable structures and facilities like the healing tents. The drop ship forces’ coordinated strikes gave the other teams time to protect the more vulnerable areas, but both sides incurred heavy losses as the day crept along. All the while, they had to defend from a continuous assault from the Queendoms main forces.

Even with the sound of battle just in front of him, something felt off to Matt. Things got quiet, and he turned to the rear to ready both his team and the other QRF teams. Something wasn’t right. This felt like the times in a rift when a monster stalked in the shadows. You never knew when it would strike, and the feeling slowly wore away at you.

Matt widened his eyes and watched for movement, not focusing on any specific thing. His arm shot left, and he let loose a [Mana Slash]. A scream quickly followed the explosion. A few seconds later, a much larger explosion rocked the entire courtyard.

***

Annie skulked through the shadows cast by the noonday sun in the rubble-strewn city. Streets were more vague suggestions now than actual clear paths.

She was stalking the Queendom drop-troopers as they made attempts at hit-and-run tactics. They were all foiled by her sending messages to any group of Kingdom fighters they tried to approach.

They still succeeded more than once, simply because they were Tier 7 and could move so quickly through the rubble. But the greatest damages were mitigated.

She saw they were about to move again and raced around their projected path. They always moved back into the central, deserted portions of the city between strikes.

They were about to hit her team's location, and now was her time to strike.

The army assassination test had given her far more than she expected. Going in, she thought it would just be a practical test, one and done. Instead, it was a series of puzzles that she had to solve in real-time, while stalking and killing a foe. There were dozens of tests with a theoretically infinite number of possible solutions.

She failed the first dozen scenarios, but eventually she adapted and started succeeding. By the end, she was almost always killing her target without being spotted. She knew her Talent made it easy for her to do some of the shadier things in life, but she learned through the training that she had quite the knack for it too.

Worse yet, she enjoyed it.

But that was a problem for future Annie. Now, she got to revel in it.

The group of Tier 7’s moved forward to attack her team, and she waited on top of a collapsed roof.

Loading Matt’s golem crossbow with a special bolt, she waited for the right moment. Matt, the competent idiot, launched an attack at one of them, causing the attackers to charge, so she was rushed.

As the Tier 7’s came within proximity of her traps, she launched the detonator bolt at the bomb wedged into the rocks. She was already sliding down the roof when the explosion went off.

In a white-blue flash, one of the mana bombs Matt had charged for her detonated.

Using a shadow to conceal her, Annie waited as a retreating Tier 7 ran past her so close, she could reach out and touch him.

So she did exactly that.

Grabbing a shoulder pauldron, she pulled and jumped, raising herself onto the stumbling man's upper back. A quick flick of her knife ended the man's time in the war, before they both tumbled to the ground.

Rolling off, she broke into a sprint, off to find and hunt the other teams.

She tried to remove the smile from her face.

Somehow, it kept slipping back.

***

Matt looked towards the explosion and concussion force coming from an area behind their defensive lines, and shrugged after ordering two teams to watch their rear.

If Annie was handling it, he could worry about other things. There was a frontal assault to deal with. He doubted that this was the last time they would try this strategy on them either. So, they needed to prepare more substantial countermeasures for the other teams out there. It wasn't as if the Queendom sent only one drop pod of fighters, or that they wouldn’t send more.

The work never ended.

***

Three days later, Matt sat in a command meeting with the remaining staff. Their forces were down to seventy thousand men from their original five hundred thousand, and they were exhausted.

The Queendom had battered them down with sheer numbers.

There was no respite from the waves of enemies. Even after adding another million to their casualty count, they were still outnumbered and outgunned.

At first, they had defended themselves well enough. Then, the Queendom tried four more frontal assaults, before sending another larger wave of drop pods yesterday evening. Those troops focused on a concentrated push to take the city’s west entrance. Between the combined tactics and dwindling defenders, they were unable to plug the breach, and the invaders started taking the city. With attacks from both sides, Juni was forced to call a full retreat back to his fortified position.

That was where the Kingdom went from bleeding numbers, to hemorrhaging them uncontrollably. Under the waning light and with a swarm of Tier 7 hit squads running amok, there was little that anyone could do to make the retreat intact. The dropship teams had learned from Annie’s ambushes, and set similar explosives along the defenders’ most likely avenues of retreat, further increasing the casualties.

So, they withdrew to the southernmost wall, and were holding a small fortification hastily created by the few surviving crafters that had joined Juni’s group.

They had thrown in the towel. The city effectively belonged to the Queendom at this point, and they were preparing for their breakout run.

The Kingdom had bled the enemy, and made taking the city a living nightmare, forcing a little more than two million casualties. Four dead enemy combatants for every one of theirs lost wasn't a bad ratio by any means.

Even with The Prince gathering a large force to harry the besiegers, they were still looking for an opening to break through. This would be their final shot. The enemy knew where they were pinned down, and had excessively reinforced the opposite side of the city gate that they were pinned against. Attempting to retreat through there would be a suicide mission.

They were stuck.

But, they had an idea. One born more out of desperation than solid planning. It wasn't remotely perfect, but it was their best chance.

Juni turned to Matt. “Is everything ready on your end? Annie is in position and the platform is made?”

They had been over this three times already, but the man was worried to the extreme. This was another risky plan after the previous two had failed, and it would be the last. It was imperative that they get the remaining fighters out of the city, as they had earned an absurd amount of points in the last week and a half. If they escaped, anyone here would only come out stronger, with possibly hundreds of thousands of points to spend.

That was something the Queendom was keen to prevent.

Juni pulled back the tent flap, and not able to see much, said, “The sun is about to rise. Everyone get to your positions. You know your jobs. I'll take the front. Follow my lead and stop for no one.”

Matt and the other surviving leaders funneled out of the tent with somber expressions. Their odds of getting out of this weren’t great by any means.

Nodding at the troops he passed, Matt climbed aboard the nearest wooden platform housing a mana cannon.

As the sun started to filter through the cracked stone walls, everyone stood without being ordered to.

Matt started charging the mana cannon. Most of the glow didn't escape the blanket covering its surface, but it lent an almost eerie glow in the predawn light. He had to spread his legs a bit to remain steady while the platform was lifted off the ground.

Ten men were responsible for carrying the makeshift weapon platform, with another thirty as backup. Two hundred men were in a block formation around them, to prevent the enemy from attacking the most vital aspect of their escape plan.

Everyone fidgeted as the seconds ticked by, but a massive explosion in the wall that the Queendom had created to box them in signaled their time to move. They ran in the opposite direction with quiet steps. Screams and shouts echoed across the nearby portions of the city as they moved to the other side.

Matt lined up his cannon and fired.

The wall in front of them disappeared. The sparse Queendom soldiers, unable and likely unwilling to throw their bodies in front of the remaining Kingdom defenders, left them a clear path out of their encirclement.

He reached up and pulled the burning cloth off the mana cannon and readied his next shot. He held the cannon at full charge as they rounded a corner and reached the street that led to the western gate. They turned right and ran to the northern gate when the western gate exploded as well.

Annie had set the two modified mana cannons near each location, and charged them with a few mana stones after Matt had gotten them most of the way there. A remote device that charged them with even more mana essentially became a massive improvised explosive, placed in distracting locations.

They were hoping that with The Prince hitting the western city gate’s defenders, they could clear the northernmost gate. The idea was that the Queendom troops stationed there and at the southern gate would be moved to Reinforce the western gate. The Prince’s charge would be the distraction they needed to escape.

In what felt like seconds, but was closer to twenty minutes, they were blasting through the half destroyed northern gatehouse and into the open air. They’d escaped the city, but they weren’t safe yet.

The remaining encirclement was sparse, but that was only relative to the Queendom’s forces previously, at multiple millions strong. There was still a line of defenders that they needed to get through.

Matt and his cannon cleared a path through the defenders as best as he could. He aimed his shots at the biggest clumps of people in rapid succession.

Still, they were being bogged down.

At the front of the formation, Juni cut his way through the Queendom fighters with a seemingly plain-looking stick. It clearly wasn’t; it smashed its way through armor like it was wet paper, but there were no visible markings on it.

As they moved farther away from the city and deeper into the ring of enemy troops, their pace slowed even further, from a jog to a shuffle.

Between firing his cannon, Matt saw a fifteen foot tall wave of blood wash over troops in swirling patterns, freeing their men from being ensnared in a melee. Liz wasn’t exactly going for subtlety with her attacks.

Person-thick bands of blood lashed out at anyone who strayed too close to her blood wave. Archers shot at her, but nothing seemed able to stop the juggernaut of a blood manipulator on a battlefield. Aster was clearly with Liz, as shards of ice were forming at the tips of the tentacles, and attacking anyone trying to flank the golem.

Juni was also performing beyond Matt’s expectations. He fought in a circular field of what Matt guessed was heavy gravity, from the way everyone around him moved sluggishly, and the grass flattened around him.

The Prince's right hand man moved like a dancer with a grudge. He wove between attacks and used his stick to kill anyone within reach. A group of six Pathers charged him, and in the time it took Matt to charge and fire his cannon twice, they were dead.

Conor was near Juni at the front. A clear area slightly larger than his [Demon Zone] helped relieve the pressure slowing the Kingdom fighters down. Based on the space being given to him, the man was clearly a well known threat. No one wanted to enter his airspace, knowing that their own attacks could hurt them, while the man in the center was unaffected.

Annie was using her crossbow, but disappeared off Matt’s HUD from time to time, so he assumed that she was using her Talent when she could.

Like Liz, Emily was a tyrant, ruling the area around her. Just like during her time defending the berms and fallback points, she started with a [Cracked Mana Bolt]. Then, she rotated through [Water Bullet], [Fireball], and finished up with a truly massive [Bolt]. The electric spell jumped from person to person, devastating the enemy numbers. It also made her an obvious target, but she had six melee fighters as guards. They were hard at work keeping ranged attacks and other melee fighters off of her.

It was an impressive sight.

Everyone on the Kingdom side was fighting with everything they had. Matt saw abilities he had no record of, along with flying and weapon skills he had no choice but to envy.

But he had his mana cannon. Shot after shot raced out while he refilled the mana cannon as fast as it would cycle. People vanished with each shot.

As Matt attacked, more and more people started to target him. His carriers and defenders tried to help, but they were a long line trying to avoid being cut off and encircled. Firing backwards to help the rear most Kingdom fighters helped, but it wasn't enough. They were still slowing down.

Liz, in her blood golem form, roared past where Matt was shooting and smashed into an equally large stone golem. He worried that the fight would go the other golem’s way, but Liz seemed to flow into the rock and annihilate it from the inside.

After her victory there was a cheer, and he turned to see that the leading element of their group had punched through to the edge of the anti-flight barrier. Juni was already turning around and moving back into the fighting. He made a beeline to secure the gap along with Conor and the other imposing fighters in the front lines.

Matt, atop his platform in the middle of the pack, was constantly taking arrows and spells. But he ignored them as best as he could. One spell dealt enough damage to [Cracked Phantom Armor] to break down the spell structure. Meanwhile, several arrows and a [Fireball] washed over his under armor and scorched his back. The only one he felt was the arrow that struck his side.

Not bothering with it, he kept firing. Time after time, groups vanished under the blue light of the mana cannon. Where he aimed, death followed.

His AI flashed as members of his team took wound after wound, helping to keep the breach open. Liz’s entire head was flashing red with a myriad of wounds, but she wasn't in the worst shape. Emily was missing a leg and an arm, but was being carried away with the retreating team.

Annie was mostly fine, with only a few minor injuries, along with Conor and Aster. None taking anything more than scratches.

As the midpoint of the retreating Kingdom fighters was nearly through the opening, his instincts screamed at him to get off the cannon, and he threw himself back with a tumble. Snapping off the arrow still lodged in his side as he fell off, he saw a ball of purple blackness tear its way through the cannon and where he had been standing.

Matt followed the trajectory to see a lone mage with a staff capped by two orbs on each end. They were racing to close off the gap the Kingdom had created and was holding. At the center of the staff was a light-swallowing darkness so black, the man's hand seemed to be holding space itself. Towards the ends, the orbs were a light blue and seemed to have sparks arcing off of them towards the center.

Another ball of void simply deleted another swath of the few remaining Kingdom fighters holding the line.

Matt rolled to his feet and rushed the mage. If he didn’t take him out fast, the man might wipe them all out on his own.

Another ball of void gathered at the center of the staff and launched outward.

Matt threw himself under it and felt at it with his spirit sense as it raced above him.

It wasn't actually void. Or at least, not true void, like the mana he had gotten from his advertisement for exotic mana types. This was more like his Concept.

It was a black hole.

As Matt scrambled to his feet, he crossed the remaining distance to the man while another ball of black hole void magic formed.

He was two strides away; it was too late and he was too close to change his trajectory.

The mage launched the orb at him, and Matt threw his left hand in front of the attack. It was a desperate move, as his armor was only partially effective against void aspected attacks.

He fully expected pain, and the rending of his armor and flesh to follow.

To Matt's surprise, the attack felt cold as it hit his palm and ate right through his armor. He almost thought it would be painless, but the agony was just delayed. When it did hit him, it was worse than anything he’d ever felt before. It was like pain boiled down to a concentrate and injected into his very being.

Feeling the spell hit a little resistance from his armor, he redirected all of the armor's power to his left gauntlet, just like he did when forming knuckle spikes. It seemed to help, but it really just slowed the spell down a little. The pain was immense and all-consuming as the spell progressed down his arm. It grew to such an intensity that Matt blindly threw everything he had into it.

His Concept’s repelling power flared to life and countered its inversion's pull with its own push. The clash of his will against another told him the mage had a Concept of his own as well.

Matt refused to lose, he refused to go down after so much struggle. He pushed everything he had into his left arm, and the spell stalled from its racing speed to only inching forward as it ate away at his armor, Concept, and arm.

It seemed like no matter what he did, the attack kept creeping forward.

To the inevitable end.

Time slowed, and his attention narrowed down to just this single moment. He tuned out the battle around him. Gone was the lost defense of the Kingdom city. Gone were his AI’s blinking damage indicators for his friends.

None of it mattered anymore.

It was just him versus the void.

If he died, they all might die. Void mages were that dangerous.

The fact that the mage wasn’t in standard armor and had a Concept told Matt that he was a Pather. It explained why he was having such a hard time overpowering a Tier 6. Only another exceptional Pather could make him struggle like this.

Matt refused to listen to the pain radiating up his arm, or the weariness of his Concept.

He was endless, and would not give in.

***

Luna, Kurt, and April watched Matt take the void attack head-on.

Luna lost control of herself and a toothy smile snaked across her face. April was wringing her hands with worry, but she would learn. These moments of danger were how you pushed children to be the best they could be; to reach their true potential.

With an effort of will, she blocked the army watcher from interfering. They should know better by now. She had prevented several true deaths in this siege already.

She earned this moment.

This was the perfect opportunity to see how far the boy could reach inside of himself. She couldn't have asked for a better match-up if she had set the fight up herself. Black hole versus white hole Concepts. It was perfect.

It was a battle of will, determination, and grit.

There wasn't a chance in the multiverse that she would let the army interfere with this moment. Matt wasn't at any real risk, and she had better speed and control than any of them. The rescuers removed people when they could save them. At her Tier, she could ride the edge so much longer, especially with someone as durable as Matt. Besides, his little healer friend was somewhere on the planet, so Luna would whisk him away before his head or heart was completely vaporized. She was ready for every possible outcome.

He wouldn't die. But he might feel like death if he lost this contest.

Her newest protege let loose a scream of weakness, hate, and defiance—a scream against the world. She had heard it so many times before as people found where their true limits lay. Most people had far more to give than they thought.

Luna strained to keep her tail from materializing and swishing. If he dug so deep on his own, she could only dream of what he would accomplish with her... loving guidance.

One day, he would look back at this fondly.

Eyes wide, she watched with [Perception] draining her massive mana reserves, and her mental cultivation dilating her perspective. She wanted to catch every microsecond of this; every detail.

Flesh and blood vaporized as she looked on. She was ready to step in if need be.

But she expected a better outcome.

***

Matt could feel the ball of void growing weaker and weaker. The will behind it lessened until he pushed the black hole back long enough to expend its power. He stood there, utterly spent.

His Concept was beyond empty, and he felt like a towel that had been wrung to the point of tearing.

But he had won.

One arm was outstretched and gushing blood at the concave point where the orb had eaten at his flesh. The wound was causing him to get more and more light headed with each heartbeat.

Matt met the eyes of the mage in front of him, who stood panting with pale disbelief written across his face, and gave him a grin of victory. He reactivated [Cracked Phantom Armor], staunching the blood loss, and pulled back his sword. He moved to drive it through the man's unarmored chest, when a familiar blood-soaked spear blew a hole straight through the mage’s heart.

Liz’s golem ran past him, smashing through another line of Queendom fighters.

Turning to face the enemies around him, Matt roared at them and charged, sword glowing as the mana he was storing with each step increased. He raised his weapon, but no one was willing to meet him. They all scrambled away to clear his path.

With that, the last defenders of the Kingdom city cut their way free of the fallen city.