〘 Tinylia kingdom 〙

〘 Chechiy County 〙

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〘 Fort of Chechian, outer wall. 〙

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It was a cloudy night. The moon was covered by clouds.

However, the sky was not dark. It was illuminated by thousands of streaks of light zooming in all directions.

Tens of thousands of mages, warlocks, sorcerers, and witches were flying through the sky using all manners of transport - dragons, wyverns, pegasi, flying carpets, and brooms. Spells, curses and hexes projectiles of all colors and patterns streaked across the sky, illuminating it and the ground below.

A large Red Dragon breathed out a stream of white-hot flame. The fire swept through the rank of wyverns, burning off their wings along with the riders. Several Wyverns dodged out of the thousand-degree flame and closed in on the dragon. Opening their mouths they spit out globs of acid, which clung to the dragon and ate holes through its wing.

「 Greater Air Barrier III」 「Greater Water Barrier IV」

The rider repeatedly cast protective spells, but the onslaught was relentless. Eventually, she ran out of mana and was drowned in acid.

“AAAARRRGHH!” With a painful cry, she died, her mangled corpse still attached to the leather seat on the dragon’s back.

The dragon did not outlive its rider by much. Eventually, the membranes in its wing were completely corroded by the Wyvern’s ichor and were no longer able to support the massive creature’s weight. With a painful roar, it plummeted toward the ground.

*WHAAMMM!*

The dragon hit the hard-packed dirt, crushing several dozen warriors locked in combat, instantly killing them. The impact shook the ground, sending the warriors nearby off their feet. In its death throes, the dragon kept breathing fire, incinerating friends and foe alive. Many warriors rushed to take cover in the bodies of the Wyverns that were killed moments earlier.

*BOOOOMMM!!!*

The covers were for naught as the remaining explosive gas within the Dragon was ignited. A massive fireball covered the ground, instantly evaporating everyone within a 50-meter radius. The wave of fire expanded outward, burning anyone and anything unfortunate enough to be in the way.

The fire rose upward into an orange, twisted mushroom, its light illuminating the ground, showing hundreds of thousands of figures locked in mortal combat.

A large figure wearing heavy battle armor noticed the approaching wave of fire. He was surrounded by hundreds of enemy warrior. Spears, swords, arrows, and spells were raining on his body, but he did not seem to notice. His name was THRAIN the Mithril Hammer.

「 Shield Bash 」 !!!

With a roar, Thrain rammed the tower shield as tall as his whole body into the crowd of enemy combatants, stunning them and sending them flying.

「 Hammerfall 」 !!!

Clutching the gigantic war hammer on his right hand, he slammed it down on the ground. A shockwave expanded from his body, flinging the rest of his enemies away, breaking the encirclement.

With a mighty leap, he jumped back to the front of his soldiers. “Stay behind me!” He ordered.

「 Prayers of Protection 」 !!!

The battle standard on his back glowed an ethereal blue light. Then a huge transparent dome materialized, sheltering him and a few hundred soldiers behind him. The wave of fire reached them but was held back by the dome.

Wham!!! Crash!! Crash!!

Before the fire even dissipated, several big projectiles slammed onto Thrain’s barrier. Ballista bolts, Catapult’s shots. The moment the barrier broke, he immediately fired up 「 Prayers of Protection 」 again, but several dozen spells and arrows still managed to hit his body.

“HEALERS! DO YOUR JOB!” Thrain roared.

A plethora of healing spells from different disciplines was cast upon Thrain. Green particles surrounded his body. Small butterflies drifted around him. An illusion of a chalice hung over his head. However, he noticed that his health bar is still steadily shrinking.

“Drat!” Thrain realized he had been cursed. His enchanted armor could negate all curses, except for those inflicted by a melee weapon. This meant…

「 Hammerfall 」!!!

The ground around him shook again as the massive war hammer was slammed down. However, he did not notice anyone hit. Then there was a very slight snort behind him.

“Impossible!”

He whirled around with the hammer, but only hit the air. Immediately, he felt pain as a blade was plunged into his left armpit, through a tiny gap between the thick armor plates. Immediately, he felt strength leaving his body and could no longer lift the massive tower shield.

Enraged, Thrain shook his head and shouted.

“Face me in open combat, wretched coward! I am THRAIN the Mithril Hammer, son of Thror, grandson of… Hurk!”

The speech was cut short by a blade in his throat, through the tiny gap between his armor’s neck guard and his helmet. The blade was extremely thin and was transparent like glass.

「 Weaken III」! 「 Blind III 」! 「 Paralyze III 」! 「 Venom IV 」! 「 Kiss of Death 」!!!

One after another, curses and hexes directly bypassed Thrain’s armor and invaded his body.

Immediately, his shoulder shagged and he dropped both his hammer and shield.

The blade retracted and Thrain fell on his knee. The transparent blade hovered in the air, then a hand holding it materialized, followed by a thin figure wearing a black cloak. His whole body was shimmering in and out of existence.

“Ghost Blade!” The big man spat out the words. His voice thick with venomous hate.

“It is I, Ghost Blade. O’ mighty Thrain the Flaccid Dildo, son of… oh who gives a sh*t!” the black-clad man replied. His face was covered by a skull mask. But his voice made it clear he was sneering.

“Stubborn fool! You won’t be able to keep this fort!” Thrain said between labored breaths.

“Oh, sure! We’ll probably give it back to you tomorrow if you ask nicely.” Sarcasm was dripping from Ghost Blade’s voice.

“Heh, you’ve got no idea, do you? Shame I won’t be able to see your face when you realized how f*cked you are!”

The fact that Thrain broke character caught Ghost Blade by surprise. He was about to ask when he noticed several gigantic flaming boulders were zooming toward them.

“Whatever! See ya, loser!” He said as his body turned transparent.

Thrain smirked and held his arms wide, welcoming death.

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〘 Fort of Chechian, Observation Platform 〙

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The Fort was currently under the control of guild Scourge. They were holding their own quite admirably against a massive coalition of guilds, led by the League of Justice.

Black Mamba, Scourge’s third Commander, was overseeing the battlefield. He was yelling commands at his men.

“Ballista team A! Shoot down those dragons!”

“Trebuchet team D! Aim at those siege beasts! Other teams keep on your own target!”

Ghost Blade materialized next to Black Mamba.

“Any problem?” Black Mamba asked.

“No. I was just messing with him.” Ghost Blade replied as he wiped his blade clean.

“He said anything interesting?”

“No, why?” Ghost Blade glanced at Black Mamba.

“Nothing. Just asking,” Black Mamba shrugged and looked back at Ghost Blade: “What’s wrong, you don’t seem happy?”

“Just thinking this whole battle’s fucking stupid. Hundreds of thousands fighting on open ground. What kind of retarded tactics is this?”

“Well, it looks good on camera. That’s all the rage these days, y’ know. Appearances.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Appearances can go fuck itself! I just wanna win. League of Justice will retreat soon. Chechiy is now ours. We’ll press on into their territory, drive them out, seize that Mythril mine. We’re gonna tear those fuckers down to the last territory. Our Scourge guild will reign this whole continent!”

“Listen, Li. I…”

“The fuck you saying my name for, Lu?” Ghost Blade snapped.

“Sorry. I mean… You sure you don’t wanna negotiate?”

Ghost Blade spotted another champion among the enemy’s rank. He scoffed and turned to his friend.

“Of course I’m negotiating. My blade’s talking with their throat, isn’t it? See you later!” with that, he jumped down the wall and disappeared from view.

“Yeah. See you later.” The expression of concern dropped away from Black Mamba’s face like a mask, revealing a sneer underneath.

“Log out!” He turned into colorful ribbons of light and disappeared.