The Battle (25 page)

The crazy quartermasters would appear among the mop-up groups. They tore the locks off storehouses and marked the buildings with different color seals to signify loot priority.

The biggest fight happened beneath the donjon’s walls as the surviving Chinese backed up into it. We lost warriors as we closed in on them, shedding fresh blood and adding more gravestones to the shrapnel-pocked yard.

The exchange was routine: about one-on-one, a hundred warriors per minute. Our guys got resurrected and came back to the battlefield. The enemies, on the other hand, lost their high-end gear and got thrown off the castle territory. Their chances of getting back in were slim.

At last, everything was going according to plan!

All of the above led me to one conclusion: it was important to have a few backup teleport points. One Portal Hall was obviously not enough. The forces couldn’t be moved around. Chances of getting blocked off were high.

I wrote this down in my planner, then quickly skimmed the chat-log. The Analyst highlighted the most important messages and passed them on through my first-priority channel.

The current situation was: the temporary alliance had managed to smash the dome shields of eighty-seven castles the first time around. Six more castles were rendered defenseless at the second attempt, with the help of backup scrolls.

The others, who had missed their chance and had somehow lost their AMA wizards, were forced to settle for the second echelon’s targets.

Assailants had managed to reach the Control Rooms in half the castles. The rest, like us, were still fighting amidst the compact planning. Five of the attacks had become bogged down; our warriors had been zeroed out or forced back beyond the walls.
Looks like the Guards of the First Temple weren’t the only ones with quick-acting allies
.

Twenty more troops requested reinforcements as they had run into something really tough or simply underestimated their strength. But we’d determined each clan’s reserve availability prior to the operation. I didn’t want to lose both the precious scroll and my goal because of someone’s greed.

"Sir, we’ve broke through the donjon wall. Assault troops are inside. We can follow them!"

The aide-de-camp was anxious to go into battle and perform some heroic feat.
Too bad, I’ll have to replace the guy,
I thought,
he’s obviously in the wrong place
.
Too young, plus madly in love with someone's soulful eyes and seductive body
.
This makes him ashamed of his low rank and eager to prove that he’s
better than the others.

Glancing over the massive donjon, I noticed a fresh gap in the brickwork. The Children of the Night warriors were pouring through it.

The way the donjon was laid out allowed us to breach it anywhere we wanted. Our warriors took advantage of this. With much heroic effort, they broke through the 1,500,000 HP wall with incredible speed. I was sure that Snowie's mithril gun must have had something to do with it.

I dove into the gap, cautiously looking up at the vaulted ceiling.
Might they make the whole thing collapse on our heads, just like Fuckyall did while defending the Cursed Castle?

But it looked sturdy...

The Control Room operator must have fallen asleep. Or the commandant didn’t have a mutual understanding with the Controlling Artifact. The artifact was only semi-sentient, a captive soul of a mighty entity at its core. You only needed to show respect and overcome your xenophobia to make contact with it. Of course, having the Creator’s Spark was also a must, no doubt.

The scouts sent updated donjon maps into the chat as they went far ahead. Logistics specialists figured out the shortest routes and sent the speedy goblins down the hallways. The goblins marked the walls on their left with fluorescent lines.

We were heading to the Control Room, so we followed the purple line.

The red led to the main battle scene. It was a giant hall in which we had trapped around three hundred Shui Fong warriors. They were mostly medium-level meat, plus ordinary castle inhabitants.

The Shui Fong elite broke away. They were backing up slowly, reaching for the defensive barriers that had been prepared beforehand, and prolonged the fight in the hope of getting help.

The polygonal passageway was studded with graves. Most of the gravestones had an amusing smooth form with laconic inscriptions in Chinese.

We dragged all the Slavic obelisks to the neighboring hall which had been temporarily designated as a reincarnation zone. Full service was provided: resurrection, plus an obelisk at your feet. A quick rebuff as you got dressed, fine-tuning of your on-line information, field repairs for your gear, and finally an encouraging slap on the back, "To battle!"

We had cover forces at the junctions already with a rogue constantly keeping watch, and some fortifications like machine gun rings, a light golem or some NPCs. Services of the rear had done great. They deserved rewards.

The fight still continued, yet the looting was picking up speed. We seized armories and storerooms, taking luxury items. We sometimes took hostages, escorting them like prisoners to the execution block – in double time, their arms over their heads as they bent over.

We dove into another gap in the closing slab of an entrance. Our legs banged against all the gravestones obstructing the long straight hallway. Its far end was set against a dead wall with several gun slits for stationary arrow launchers.

Wow, a whole bunch of us got killed here
. Despite potential immortality, it bothered me to see my friends’ names on the gravestones.

We reached the end, then turned. The sounds of a serious battle reached our ears. I glanced at the casualty counter and frowned.
Fuck me, did the clan just fall into a giant meat grinder?

A breathless messenger appeared in my way. "Sir, we’ve tracked them down and trapped them in the Control Room!"

I looked at the spinning counter again. "I see. Who is ‘them’ exactly?"

"All of ‘em! The Shui Fong badasses! The Grand Prince and his guard!"

I nodded understandingly. "You trapped them, but handling them is another question, right?"

The young warrior allowed himself a smile. "Yessir! They’re all level 350-plus, and the clan leader’s almost at 500! Of course, they’re all a bit clumsy. Musta stolen slave XP to level up. They make such stupid mistakes! Still, we could use some help. We’re getting slaughtered... Some can’t even walk after the postmortal debuffs. All stats are below zero..."

"Lead the way!" I commanded, gesturing my guard to follow.

It was hot in the Control Room. It looked like a fuel depot on fire under a heavy artillery attack.

The flames were all over. The ground burned. Homing Spark and Fireball missiles were zooming by. Waves of Fire moved from wall to wall, avoiding their own but greedily consuming their foes. Thunderclouds swelled up beneath the ceiling, disgorging lava rains, lightning lashing everything.

Colorful clouds of smoke tore at the warriors' lungs, ate away their eyes and seared their skin with sores; auras of Dust, Rot, and Fear completing the dark setting.

Control Spells played their part: the warriors went blind and froze up as they became paralyzed or attacked their comrades from behind. It was a regular gaming process, a battle in a tight space.

It helped that we’d prepared for the raid. The PvP buffs and our gear increased our resistance to all types of magical damage, allowing us to run through fire, breathe in toxic fumes and swim through acid. We sustained damage nonetheless. Sensations varied from player to player, determined by their respective imagination and perceptivity. But we held up.

We’d really caught Shui Fong with their pants down. Their gear was pitiful, their buffs... let’s just say each had seen a different caster.

But still, they fought back hard, showing no mercy. They had the advantage of both higher levels and a longer reach.

Five warriors blocked the entrance to the hall, impaling one of our teams on their blades and breaking the attackers into small groups.

Spears and vials of various colors whistled over our heads. We were many. They were few. The Chinese had overspent, yet no reinforcements or supplies came.

Snowie reached for his club and looked at me pleadingly.
I hear ya,
I thought.
Saw Bomba’s gravestone in the hall myself
.

However, I had my own reputation to consider too.

I took out my staff which purred with excitement. Scowling, I made my way forward. My clanmates parted to let me through.

The black wings of darkness unfolded behind me, pushing my guards back and leaving me face to face with a crowd of enemies. A shadow gently wrapped my face in darkness, filtering out the poisonous fumes.

By the power of God, by the strength of Darkness!

I pushed forward, making the sea of foes recede. My blade growled disappointedly, craving a fair battle and reaching for the enemy, stretching out so far that it became needle-thin.

My foes were pressed like sardines. The crowd swayed backward as the Grand Prince emerged from it.

Fuck me, he was a badass
. He'd been human once, but his outrageous stats deformed him. He'd acquired a giant monstrous frame. His inhuman strength had endowed him with shoulders nearly six feet wide. His great brain distorted the shape of his skull, giving him the gaze of a wise old man.

His gear was unknown to me. It was something ethnic of exclusive artifact value, judging by the numerous stones and detailed gold decorations.

I sped up my consciousness, freeing up my mind’s limitations as I summoned up the element of battle. The roar of the coming duel was already in the air, rhythmic as a drum. Possible attack vectors and dodge-block space marks enhanced my field of vision.

I smiled, raising my staff, "Shall we dance?"

Even my voice changed... Corey Taylor would have been jealous.

The donjon’s echo repeated my question, my voice resonating across the giant space. Everyone stepped back from us. The eyes of the Grand Prince were glued to the adamant blade.

The emotions clashing within him were so powerful that I could read them like an open book. First, disappointment; a grudge against fate, which granted him an unfair battle. What did he have against adamant? An ancestral sword he stole from an Archangel? Pah! So what was left... to die? He had this thought, but chased it away immediately. The thirst for power, life, and revenge outweighed his potential for such a heroic act.

He made up his mind at last. The staff and I gave a sigh of disappointment:
he’ll flee, the bastard!

He snatched a pendant off his neck and ordered, "Kill him! I’ll go get help!"

He crushed the single-use artifact in his mighty fist.

Knowing already that I’d miss, I zoomed forward, dragging out time as much as possible. But an instant cast is an instant cast.

I stopped at the line of enemy guards, coming back to normal time. I looked at the idiotic mug of some high-ranking officer whose eyes crossed staring at the pink blade pressed into the bridge of his nose.

"Drop your weapons, or your eternity is over! I’ll carve ya like turkeys! Any cast attempts will be viewed as a threat and curbed in the most brutal manner! Those who surrender are guaranteed life and freedom in the near future! On the First Priest’s word!"

A deadly silence followed. Some in the back rows quickly used personal portals. But the rest knew that they didn’t have six seconds to cast, and that a Russian shouldn’t be provoked. They were hoping till the last second that it’d all turn out alright somehow.

I lightly cut one of the guards to speed up their decision.

He let the blade drop from his left hand.
A wise move
.

"And the other?" I nodded at his right hand.

"It's a no drop," the Chink groaned, backing up into his comrades to get further away from the terrifying blade which reached greedily for his cut. The staff didn’t just lick up blood. It consumed much more. Those who had once felt its touch would forevermore remember the cosmic cold spreading through their body.

"Drop your weapons!" I repeated.

Everything went smoothly after that. Once the first guard showed weakness, becoming the sacrificial victim, the rest were more likely to follow. The Chinese were particularly susceptible to this technique: they’re collectivists, and individual heroism wasn’t the order of the day.

Shields, blades, crossbows, staffs, shock and strengthening artifacts clattered onto the floor tiles. My volunteer goblins began weaving between the warriors, collecting their valuable gear.

"I am warning you: you will be required to prove the weapons’ personal status with appropriate screenshots!"

After a brief pause, the Chinese dropped twice as many weapons.

Most of them took their helmets off without orders, hiding them in their inventories and confirming their captive status. Somehow I associated a bare-headed soldier with epic disasters: retreat, havoc, captivity...