As if a meteorite fell, the explosion was so loud that it made the whole map vibrate. And thanks to that commotion, all the gazes went in the direction of the sound. Crack- Crack-! Subsequently, the walls that were encircling the castle broke, and the bricks started to fall down simultaneously. The Archmage Sigrid looked at the scene not being able to comprehend what he had just witnessed. “The wall is crumbling… don’t tell me they had a siege weapon?” Even the rankers of the Titan Guild who were about to attack the dark mages stopped and looked at the wall that was crumbling. As what just happened was an unexpected situation, everyone stopped momentarily to see what was happening. “No, there is no way…!”
Emily too stopped and stared at the crumbling bricks. A huge shadow began to appear from the dust. It was obviously the shadow of Thor. Ku- Kuahh-! Thor was roaring viciously and whipping his hammer round. Kwang- Kwakwang-! Like a domino effect, the huge wall’s durability went down. Emily couldn’t help looking at Thor with fear and shook her head. ‘How did the Lotus manage to arrive here already?’ She never underestimated the siege destructive power of Thor.
She obviously noticed the damage that the giant hammer inflicted on the wall. However, there was something that Emily didn’t expect. That was Ian, not placing much importance on the matter of ‘contribution’. If Ian had been trying to gather contributions like he meant it, then he wouldn’t have entered unless he demolished all the towers that were outside the castle. However, Ian seemed to place more importance on clearing the quest in the shortest time possible than gathering contributions, which was why the only tower that needed to be removed was demolished as efficiently as possible. Did Lotus give up on the silent competition that they had with Titan? There was no way that could have happened. It was Ian’s strategy to abandon the contribution gathering of the Lotus and to stop the Titan from gaining contributions. After a minimum amount of easy-to-get siege contributions, Shakran was taking time to gather contributions from the named monsters. And while that was happening, a lot of contributions would be garnered by the small and medium guilds and other regular users. However, that didn’t matter much.
It was because the small and medium guilds would in no way be able to compete with the contribution figure of the Lotus. Ian didn’t give up on the competition with Titan but made the best choice to clear up the quest as soon as possible. However, Emily had no way of knowing that. There was no way she could know that Ian was performing a time limited quest. Emily bit down her lower lip and mumbled in a low voice, “Are you giving up your contribution and hindering us? That would be a loss for the Lotus too…” While the others were still in shock, Ian who was riding on the shoulder of Thor leaped into the air and started to give out orders. “Magic corps! All of you target the ghost dragon! 2nd and 3rd cavalry defend the squadron and the rest of you follow me!” * * *
The elite troops of Lotus along with Ian and the dragon cavalry of Titan came from both sides. The Legion of Darkness began to fall helplessly. “Kwak! Chalian will never forgive you!” “Kiyak, to be hit by humans…” As the battle began, not just Ian but Shakran too showed his best plays. For Ian, there was no other option but to clear the battle quickly so he could clear his quest as soon as possible, and lacking the option to do anything was Shakran. Ian noticed that the Titan and Shakran were going for the named monsters. However, even though the Titan knew that Ian was aware of it, they couldn’t do anything. The only option that the Titan Guild and Shakran had in their current situation was to fight with all their power and kill more named monsters and gather higher contribution than the Lotus. And for Ian, that was the best situation. ‘Yeah, Shakran! Work hard!’ While smiling at himself, Ian began to control his familiars.
From now on until the end of the quest, he decided to adjust his tempo according to the Titan Guild and Shakran. “Kaka, Dreaming Devil!” “Okay, master!” Kooo-! Kaka’s unique ability which was an enemy to the undead got activated, and they were inside the dark region which made it even better. And the users who were witnessing the ability of Kaka for the first time started to turn a little wary. “Uh, what is this?” “I think it is something that Ian is using. Isn’t our vision being obscured?” When the dreaming devil ability was cast, there was a ‘dark’ option, and it reduced the light by 30%. However, the castle that was on the dark region was already dark, and due to Kaka’s unique ability, it turned much darker.
All the magicians began to quickly cast their light spells, and the knights immediately pulled back to re-organize their distorted visions. But in that time, there were few shadows that were standing tall in the darkness. Tat- ttat-! They were some assassin rankers who were used to the dark along with Ian and Shakran. Chang-! Ian’s spear was hitting at the flying warrior skeletons that were coming in his direction. ‘The scene created by Kaka is the best condition for the undead.’ No matter how good the control of Ian was, he wasn’t someone used to the darkness in the first place. However, as the fights went on increasing in the conditions created by Kaka, the movement of the enemy started to get visible little by little.
Shakran too having a class that was accustomed to the dark was able to immerse himself into the darkened scene. “Are you trying to take that one down?” Shakran stared at Ian while grunting his teeth. At that, Ian just smiled a little and responded, “Uncle, let’s play head-to-head.” There was one thing that Ian and Shakran were aiming for. It was the named monster that was riding on the ghost dragon, the Archmage Sigrid.
The Archmage Sigrid would definitely contribute much more than the knight of death, Rockper. And if Ian managed to kill Sigrid first, then the position of the Titan Guild would turn unchangeable. It was Titan’s dragon cavalry and Shakran who found Sigrid after killing all those named monsters. Ian’s gaze moved to the undead in the front, and Shakran looked at that direction too.
‘Oh ho, you’re going to use the dragon cavalry?’ In order for Shakran to be able to hunt down the ghost dragon that was high up in the sky, he had to get on top of the dragon cavalry. And for Ian, the first thing that came to his mind was Pin. ‘Do I need to call Pin too?’ But the next moment, Ian looked at Ly with some thoughts that were running in his head. “Ly, Rage of Fenrir! Dark Encroachment!” “Ahwoo-!” Ian’s intentions was unknown, but Ly enabled all the buff skills that Ly had. [Familiar ‘Ly’s’ unique ability—Rage of Fenrir—has been activated.] [Familiar Ly is in a rage.]
[All the combat stats were increased by 50% and critical strike chance increased by 20% for 3 minutes.] [Familiar ‘Ly’s’ unique ability ‘Dark Encroachment’ has been triggered.] [Familiar Ly is currently in a state of Dark Encroachment.] [For the next 3 minutes, all of Ly’s attacks are critically struck and will negate 70% of the damage taken.] [Ly’s agility has been increased by 50%.] The unique abilities of Ly, the ‘rage of Fenrir’ and ‘Dark Encroachment’ were all self buffs. The 100% critical strike effect of the ‘Dark encroachment’ and the 20% increase in the critical strike of the ‘Rage of Fenrir’ overlapped, and they were the skills that had to be triggered unconditionally. The reason was because of the additional messages that didn’t appear in the system message. [Familiar ‘Ly’ attacked with a critical strike.]
[The cooldown of ‘Rage of Fenrir’s’ unique ability has been reduced by 5 seconds.] [The cooldown of ‘Rage of Fenrir’s’ unique ability has been reduced by 5 seconds.] Each time Ly attacked with a critical hit, the cooldown of the Rage of Fenrir decreased gradually. The cooldown of the Rage of Fenrir was around 10 minutes, which meant 600 seconds. If Ly hit 120 times, then the Rage of Fenrir could be used again. And the attack speed of Ly was maximized due to the buff. Slash slash-! Ly had hit 120 critical strikes in less than two minutes. Which meant one attack every second. The next order that Ian had given to Ly was…
“Ly, once again—Rage of Fenrir!” The Rage of Fenrir skill was going to overlap again. [All combat stats are increased by 50%, and increase critical strike chance by 20% for 3 minutes.] The Rage of Fenrir lasted for 3 minutes only, which meant that he had only one second to stay back. But Ly, whose stats were increased by 50%, was bouncing around like a monster. Because of the tremendous increase in Ly’s stats, he was having a monstrous combat capacity of 2.25 times his original stats. In other words, Ly who was currently at level 394, would be showing strength same to a level 880 during the one-minute duration of the buff overlap. Just having a simple high stats didn’t mean that his strength would be in the 800s. However, the destructive power of Ly was high enough to call it a monster. Even then, no matter how strong he was, an air attack was impossible. But Ian had everything planned in his head.
“Thor, throw Ly up!” Krrrrk- krrr-! Ly’s shadow jumped onto the body of Thor and then leaped into the air. Thor’s hands were already ready as if waiting for the command from Ian. Kiooo-! The pet control option of Ian wasn’t improvised. And this was the first time Ian would be doing this tactic. However, the effect of it was amazing. Ly’s body was soaring on top of the ghost dragon on which Sigrid was riding.
And not surprisingly, those turn of events was so bizarre that even the NPC Sigrid was surprised. Sigrid, who was focused only on Shakran, was forced to change his gaze. Awooo-! “A crazy wolf?” Sigrid tried to avoid Ly, so he pulled on the reins of the ghost dragon, but before he could do it, Ly had already hit him. Kwang- Kwakwak-! And Sigrid who had already lost a lot of vitality due to the hits from the magic corps was taken down. “Ack-!” [Familiar ‘Ly’ inflicted fatal damage to the ‘Archmage Sigrid’.] [The vitality of ‘Archmage Sigrid’ has been reduced by 8,557,094.]
[You have successfully defeated the Dark Archmage Sigrid.] [You have defeated a named monster from the Legion of Darkness.] [Episode contribution increased by 695,000.] [Acquired experience points of 97,225,100.] [Acquired fame of 150,000.] Shakran who reached the point late after getting on the dragon cavalry looked like ‘a dog that goes chasing after a chicken’. “…?” When he saw that, Ian started to rile up Shakran. “Uncle, is there something that you wanted to do?” The perfect design of Ian’s planned provocation.
And nerves started to stick outside the forehead of Shakran after hearing what Ian just said.