Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

The first floor of the fortress fell to the imperial hands.

Looking down, Salicious could see nothing but endless ranks of the imperial legion.

All the buildings once littering the lower level were now gone, razed to the ground, and turned into all sorts of makeshift barricades the legionaries filled the ramp with.

Somewhere in the side of the floor, massive fires continued to consume the dead on both sides alike.

And just like Banjay warned, as a result of having him reveal his grand plan for the fortress defense, he was now awaiting his death.

Whether it would come in the form of a bow's arrow, crossbow's bolt, cut of sword, or a smash of a bludgeon, no one could tell. Yet, just like all the brave folks who gave up their lives to set up the first stage of Banjay's plan on the first floor of the fortress, Salicious was now ready to lay his life down in the due process of the second stage.

'That plan of his is truly devious,' he thought, gripping the perfectly familiar handle in his hand while watching while the legionaries mounted yet another attempt to move up the ramp.

'This isn't going to work yet,' the old general thought, staring at the doomed attempt for just a little bit longer before turning round and then leaving the walls.

It wasn't the time for him to put his life in jeopardy. And while that time would surely come, maybe even today… It wasn't going to happen just yet.

By the time the old, handicapped general managed to make his way down the stairs leading down the wall, the officers that remained had started to shout their orders.

The best sharpshooters of the entire army nocked their arrows, getting ready to pick up every sure shot they could find. Everyone else grabbed whatever makeshift projectile they stocked up on since the last imperial advance, ready to throw stones, pieces of burned wood, or just pots filled with excrement down the walls.

Soon enough, though, all of the commotion died off, the sign that the seventh imperial attempt at scaling the ramp burned out before its flames would have the chance to even reach the massive, metal-reinforced wings of the second gate.

'What the hell are they even doing?' Salicious wondered as he reached the small shed he took for a residence and cast a glance down a whole array of reports describing, in detail, everything the patriarchate and the fortress defenders knew about the legion besieging them. 'Are they trying to tire us down?'n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

If there was any quality to all of the imperial attacks thus far, it was their consistency.

Every two hours, a few hundred and up to a hundred imperials would arm themselves will all the shields they could bear, all for the sake of protecting the core troops hidden in the middle of their formation. Upon reaching the furthest point on the ramp with the cover installed, they would pan out, abolishing the formation that allowed them to minimize the number of targets the defenders could pick before the core troops would carry wood, stone and all sorts of broken pieces of furniture and quickly construct a few more, makeshift barricades.

Then, jumping from one barricade to the next, the entire unit would retreat, heartlessly abandoning the corpses of their friends and companions in their rush to escape the defender's range.

And just like that, with every trip they made, for every few tens of soldiers who would fail to avoid arrows or other, simpler projectiles, the legion would conquer a few more steps of the ramp, extending the row of the makeshift barricades.

'As costly as it might be, they are inching closer and closer to the gate,' Salicious looked down on the painting of his own making that he sketched and added to after every trip to the wall he made. 'At this rate, five, six more trips and the fighting will move up to the wall itself.'

Enjoy exclusive adventures from empire

The only reason why the patriarchate managed to hold Lunagar for so long was the divine skill of both the architects and the builders who turned this abandoned project of the gods into the fortress it is today. And so, while the first wall only served to funnel the enemies into few, predictable paths, it was the ramp leading up to the second gate that was the first, major obstacle any attacker had to overcome.

A ramp that started right at the level of the fortress's first floor, with the walls of the second ring stretching as far as thirty meters up into the sky. Yet, as one advanced through the long stretch of the ramp, the height of the wall successively decreased, reaching a mere twelve meters at the point of the gates.

When it came to the third wall, though, this product of a divine's hand…

Only the mathematicians of the Patriarchate's capital could roughly calculate the height off, for there wasn't a single soul so brave and stupid at the same time to attempt climbing them. And with the third wall stretching as far as the mountains of the pass occupied by the fortress itself were high, the only way to pass was through one of the four, massive tunnels.

Or so, it would be the case if not for two of those tunnels being blocked by some ancient mechanism, made with the exact same, indestructible material the rest of the dam was constructed with.

Done thinking, Salicious walked out of his shed before he could even get a single moment of rest.

According to his predictions, there was still more than enough time for him to rest before the imperial legion would mount an actual attack, and at least a few more hours before the attack's intensity would grow to the point the time would come for him to give his life to the cause.

'Now, all that's left, is wait until dark so we can try to sortie out to burn some of those annoying barricades and buy ourselves some more time this way,' the old general thought, giving the second wall and the people atop its terrace a short glance, before turning his head and looking up the inner ramp of the fortress, leading all the way to the third gate, behind which the divine tunnels were hidden.

A cold shiver moved down the old general's spine.

'I thought I saw all kinds of wicked plans and strategies in my life, but this…' Salicius thought before shaking his head and turning back, ready to once again scale the steep walls leading up the wall's terrace. 'But this?' the old general shook his head.

"This, only Banjay could come up with."