As I was expanding and reinforcing the walls, I received an urgent message from Bella, who had met up with Aetra. I just got done telling them what you said. We’ve got a problem!
My eyes widened briefly, hastily typing back. Is there a super boss nearby?
No, the villagers are strong enough to deal with any monsters in the area that could attack their village. At least, that’s what they said. The problem’s something worse. They don’t have a respawn system!
I froze when I read that, feeling a chill run down my spine. When I had been able to give Aetra a quest before, I had assumed that the villagers were a variant of Fallen that could grow stronger over time, similar to Bella. Although I still called them NPCs in my mind, I had imagined that they had access to all of the same systems I had, they just didn’t know how to use them.
However, if they couldn’t respawn, that changed things. Are you sure?
Positive! I told them that we had a respawn stone if they wanted to seek shelter, and they had no idea what I was talking about. Here, it’s just common sense that people stay dead. Monsters appear in hordes, and their numbers never seem to end, but the chimerae are individually strong. In exchange, they only have a single life, and must protect it from the endless monsters.
…Got it. See if there’s anything that they need to help defend themselves. If we can provide it, do so freely. I don’t want any of them to die in this battle. After I sent that message to Bella, I relayed the information to Diane.
Understood. She responded simply, clearly focused on her work. Should we relocate our fortifications to pull it away from them?
I had thought about that myself, but the problem was quite simple… There’s no way to cancel the event that I can see. Once the timer’s started, there’s not an option to cancel.
Diane fell silent after that, and I turned my head to see her focusing intently on the scrolls that she was creating.
Like that, three hours passed by. In the last twenty minutes, Diane abruptly left her crafting bench, and began running along the wall, slapping sheets of paper onto it every hundred meters or so. Bella remained at the village, having obtained permission to help their side with the defenses. Of course, I made sure that she was registered with our respawn anchor before agreeing to that.
As the countdown neared its conclusion, Diane and I made our final preparations. I positioned each of my clones atop one of the walls, with my true self and Diane standing atop the final wall. Above our heads, we released our blood familiars, which took the form of Dark Whales flying in the sky above us.
“Realistically, the attacks will come in waves.” Diane said, standing next to me with her daggers drawn. “The prompt said that it would affect all monsters at once, but monsters that are further away will take longer to get here. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the later waves will be the strongest, since we don’t know where the boss monsters are. You should be prepared for the battle to last a few hours, with only brief breaks between each wave.”
I glanced over at Diane, nodding my head. This was the worst situation for someone like her, because she was specialized in single target damage. Having to defend against a horde put her at a severe disadvantage.
In the distance, I could see the first monsters starting to approach from the mountains. As Bella told us before, these monsters were a skittering horde of Stone Spiders, their rocky carapaces offering both offense and defense while their eight legs carried them quickly across the landscape.
To combat them, I placed my Ki Clone to the east, and it unleashed a sweeping wave of projected spears. Meanwhile, the southern side was manned by my Water Clone, which released a wave of ice spears towards the sky, striking at a horde of two-headed wyverns.
Diane’s body shifted, turning into her shadow dragon form. “Why not… let’s try this your way.” She said, aiming her daggers forward, towards a pack of wolves that broke out of the northern part of the forest. Black spears shot out of the ground, skewering those wolves. At the same time, her familiar released a blast of darkness in the same direction, killing most of the monsters that survived her initial barrage.
Going by this performance, I estimated that the monsters were likely around level one hundred and eighty. However, their numbers were a problem. This was definitely meant to be handled by a large guild of players, possibly with the support of advanced Fallen.
I sent my gaze towards the west, where Bella was stationed in the village’s watchtower, rapidly firing arrows from her bow. Using my Hawkeye-X, I could already see traces of blood on her bowstring from how rapidly she was forcing herself to fire.
Meanwhile, the villagers were fighting in full force, defending their village with a perimeter of spears. Thankfully, the monsters weren’t focused on the village, most just passing it by as they ran for us. Straight into the path of my Fire Clone.
I could feel the slight strain on my mind from all three of my clones releasing large volleys of attacks, but it wasn’t yet at the point where it would pose a problem. I still had enough focus left to assist Diane to the north.
Like this, we were able to make it through our first wave, though another pack of monsters could be seen charging over from the distance. As I waited for their approach, a message came in from Ennolf. I don’t know if you’re already in your trial or not. Either way, be careful! If the king candidate dies during the trial, the trial automatically fails. And if the trial fails, your trait will be degraded by one level! You’d need to challenge another nine star trait holder to get it back to normal! One person already failed his defense because he tried to claim the portal area.
My eyes went wide as I heard that, suddenly finding this defensive battle far more hazardous. This might only be an inconvenience for most king candidates, but it was enough to absolutely ruin me. If I lost even ten percent of my trait’s effect, there was no way that I’d be able to defeat another high level player.
Sensing me tense up, Diane glanced over. “What’s wrong?” She asked, and I told her what Ennolf had just shared with me. Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded her head. “Got it. Whatever happens, don’t leave the wall. Remember, I can respawn.”
After she said that, she jumped down from the wall, charging ahead towards the incoming wave of monsters. My first instinct was to jump out and follow her, but her words echoed in my head. This wasn’t a battle where I could afford to be reckless. No, I had to do my best and support from the rear. Besides, I had plenty of ranged options of my own.
I narrowed my eyes, focusing on the horde and casting Killing Stare, causing most of them to falter. For those that continued charging forward, I cast Confuse. Chaos erupted among the pack as some began to attack their own allies, and others simply turned tail and ran.
Having bought some time for Diane, I held up my right arm, focusing. I wanted to try to recreate the Assassin’s Storm that I had once used in Embermill. However, the aggro of the monsters was firmly locked onto me, so I had to rework the enchantment. Instead, I mixed all three of my projection skills, together with Greater Detect Weakness and Empty Bow Expertise.
Since none of the skills I was using were magic, I didn’t have to face the recoil. Instead, all it took was time. The first enchantment failed as Diane tore through the large wolves like a black-scaled typhoon, her body soon covered in blood. The second enchantment failed when the wolves began to notice her, their attention switching to the source of their current losses.
Finally, the third enchantment succeeded, and I pressed my hand forward to activate it. I projected my vision above the horde with Hawkeye-X, and my sight was filled with hundreds of red circles, each indicating a target. Arrows of ice, fire, and pure energy rained down from above, raising a cloud of dust and the pained howls of monsters.
My brow knit as a small pressure briefly spiked between my eyes. However, it passed quickly, since this was not a sustained ability. Instead, I commanded my clones to use their own Myriad Strikes to create similar abilities.
While they were doing so, I launched this new elemental arrow storm over the monsters approaching those sides. The pressure returned again, but it was still within a manageable range.
As soon as each clone had created its own enchantment, I stopped focusing on that side, until I was able to purely pay attention to the area in front of myself. Just in time for the trees to the northwest to shake, a three-headed hydra covered in vines emerging. According to the information from Bella, this seemed like the strongest monster within the nearby area.
This hydra feared neither fire nor spears, possessing an immense regeneration ability. The only reason that it hadn’t destroyed the village was that they didn’t go out of their way to provoke it.
I activated Greater Detect Weakness, locating three hearts within the hydra’s body. However, these hearts were surrounded by a layer of dense bone, like a thick ribcage. For all three to register as a weakness, I assumed that all three had to be destroyed at the same time.
The hydra approached Daine, who was still clearing out the last of the wolves that had evaded my earlier salvo. Green, noxious beams of energy shot out, striking her before she had the chance to dodge. I clenched my fists, watching as Diane fell under the combined breath attack. Meanwhile, I was focusing my Martial Intent-X, creating the same giant pestle I often used when destroying our houses.
If it’s good enough to reduce stone to dust, it should be able to break some ribs. I thought to myself, slamming the pestle down against the hydra’s body. It screamed in pain, a sickening crunch resounding from its back as the pestle smashed down and ground away at it.
A moment later, Diane appeared behind me, having just respawned. “You didn’t lose anything important, did you?” I asked, her outfit rapidly repairing itself thanks to the enchantment I had put on it.
“A few gold. Nothing I can live without. Though, my thigh pouch…” She began, and I recalled that little piece of equipment she wore on her leg.
“…I did warn you that it would be lost if you died.” I pointed out, and she let out a sigh of regret. The hydra was still scrambling beneath the pestle, which I briefly lifted up to smash back down. “This thing has really strong bones.” I said in frustration, having only managed to destroy one of its hearts, which was already regenerating.
Still, the fact that it couldn’t move from beneath the pestle was reassuring, since I could take my time crushing its bones. “Can you go check on Bella?” I asked, looking over at Diane briefly. “She was pushing herself too hard earlier.”
Diane nodded her head, jumping down from the wall and running towards the village to the west. Meanwhile, I ground away at the hydra, smashing its spine again and again, until I finally managed to crush all three of its hearts at once.
From there, it was just a matter of waiting out the waves, my clones and I firing volleys of projected arrows as more monsters appeared. If one volley wasn’t enough, shoot two. If that wasn’t enough, keep firing until they stopped twitching. Admittedly, this made the pressure on my head worse and worse, but I had a few minutes in between each wave to recover.
