When Aren suggested they stop the raid group from grouping up together, he and Fang had entirely different ideas about what to do with this. Aren was no strategist; he knew a few anecdotes and stories of the ancient eras, but knowledge and strategic ability were not the same thing.

Aren’s idea was to isolate each party group and engage them, destroying them one by one and not allowing them even a sliver of a chance to regroup. This was the classic Battle of Alesia that Aren had in mind. In fact, he could even pick out a few spots on the map where something like this would be possible. For example, the new city ruins bazaar had seven streets feeding into it, and if all of them were blocked with a Light Barrier, regrouping would be extremely difficult. Then, the group could engage the enemy one by one.

Of course, there was no guarantee of victory. Aren’s plan assumed that their group was stronger than any of the enemy’s groups. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but Aren had faith and, quite frankly, there was no other choice but to win those battles.

However, Fang’s interpretation made Aren’s stomach twist into knots. It made him sick.

Fang, Aren realized, was a ruthless psychopath.

Aren did not see the battle, or the plan in motion, but the group chat described the events as vividly as watching one of the Singularity Arena Tournaments, with play-by-play casting for a world-wide audience.

At first, everything seemed to go wrong.

[Group] Nissavi: I am engaged by the goblinoids. Route B17 unsafe. Evading towards D12.

Nissa was caught, it appeared, by an ambush of goblins and orcs. From what Aren remembered of the map, Route B17 was a side-street feeding into the eastern main street, and D12 was a passageway towards the southern main street.

[Group] Damien: Spotted at E4. Evading to C9.

Then Damien also got caught, and was also forced to evade.

Before they even reached the adventurers to implement Aren’s plan, it had all gone wrong.

Meanwhile, Fang continued reporting the positions of the raid groups. C14, E19, and so on. There were seven groups in total.

Aren opened his buffer, obtained that bird’s eye perspective of the area and focused on his internal world. He constructed the map from memory — the one they meticulously scouted days before — and manipulated it in such a way that he could add friendly and enemy symbols to it.

The situation was extremely grim. Everyone except Fang was caught between a rock and a hard place. Actually, it was far worse than that. Without exception, they had adventurers on both sides of them, and they were being chased down by goblinoids.

The reports kept streaming in; Nissa was moving southeast, away from the main streets. Damien was moving towards the King’s Plaza, and Fang reported that some adventurer groups had begun to move in Nissa’s direction, likely becoming aware of her battle with her pursuers.

Nissa’s finished, Aren thought at that moment. Once the adventurers got involved, it’d be all over. And why wouldn’t they get involved? Nissa was alone, but even if she wasn’t, how could she fight off goblins, orcs and adventurers? It was impossible.

Then Nissa got intercepted — ambushed, more like — by another group of orcs in the path of her escape, and her final report to the group went as follows.

[Group] Nissavi: All green. See you later.

After that, she most likely died.

All green? As in, everything according to plan?

Damien and Fang continued reporting the enemy raid group positions, and after a few minutes, it became clear that they changed directions and started heading towards where Nissa reported her final location to be — the place of her untimely demise.

The two adventurer groups must’ve engaged the two orc war parties that ultimately sealed Nissa’s fate.

Aren was concerned, because their plan had already failed. Not only did their fighting strength decrease by losing Nissa, but two of the enemy groups had already made contact with each other and increased their fighting strength.

But something was nibbling on Aren’s consciousness. Something wasn’t right.

[Group] Fang: Bishop 1 and Knight 1 captured, at D14.

[Group] Damien: Rook 1 captured, at C9.

Aren updated the map symbols, and he nearly had a stroke. So that was what Fang meant by winning without fighting.

Fang’s plan was never to engage the raid group themselves, but to have the goblinoids do the job for them!

All the uncollapsed tunnels were in the places where the enemy symbols were captured. That most likely meant they were trapped with Light Barriers.

The subsequent reports reflected the confusion through the enemy ranks, and they began to split up; half of them moving towards Rook 1, the other towards Bishop and Knight 1.

But then they too became captured, leaving only the Queen to move freely. And with that freedom, the Queen symbol started heading east, away from the trapped raid groups.

Flashes, explosions, roars and screams filled the night air. Even though Aren and Cassandra were distant from all the fighting — at the northwestern sector of the ruined city of Rakab — the sound of battle still reached them.

It lasted for more than an hour, and then Aren received a notification.

[ A new Calamity rises! With brilliant strategy and tactics, the Marauders of Rakab, the Celestial Flash and the Lightning Riders, annihilate all enemies in their path, and all who seek to take back the ancient city of Rakab from the One-Eyed King. Who can stop them now? All adventurers are urged to make haste and put down this menace once and for all. Exquisite rewards await those that eliminate the Calamity. ]

That is when Aren understood what Fang meant by two birds with one stone. His first objective was to eliminate the raid group using the goblinoids. This would, in turn, achieve the second objective: Increasing the fame of the goblinoids. And the last objective was no different from their original plan for Rakab: To obtain fame and glory.

“How much longer?” Aren asked, suddenly restless.

Cassandra opened her eyes, her expression still twisted into one of total focus. “Ya shoul’ be good to go for the most part,” she said. “Jus’ a few more minutes.”

Aren nodded, trying his best not to cackle with glee. He was excited. Perhaps, it wasn’t that he was excited, but there was a burning feeling in his veins. On the precipice of fear and ruin, to the backdrop of a plan coming perfectly together, he couldn’t help but become excited and have the feeling that it would all go right.

Morale? The thought strayed into his mind, once again uninvited but relevant to the situation. Even back then, in his fight in the Plaza, he didn’t feel this good about his chances. He was almost bursting at the seams with joy and restlessness.

He began an inventory check, to occupy the time while Cassandra finished healing him. He had three throwing knives left, and he had a backup weapon — a dagger. His leather armor — a padded jacket that only protected his torso, but not his stomach — was mostly intact. It had a hole from the javelin that pierced his chest and nearly killed him in his very first battle.

On the other hand, he had lost his cloak — used it as cover and obscurement — in the Plaza battle. But Aren doubted having a cloak would come in useful in the tunnels. Even if he managed to break line of sight, the tunnels were probably too narrow to evade incoming fire.

Other than that, Aren had a pouch of healing powder that could close small gashes and stop them from bleeding, two bandages and a bag of glitterlight — a substance, like modern chaf, that could stick to invisible creatures and outline their physical form. It was nothing that would come in terribly useful.

Finally, Cassandra sighed and nodded. “All patched up,” she said and pondered Aren. “Ya are goin’ to the tunnels?”

Aren nodded. He was certain of it.

Cassandra popped open the clasp to her satchel and rummaged within for a few moments, before withdrawing a cloth-wrapped object the size of a tennis ball. “‘Ave this.” She offered the package to Aren.

Aren took it and tested its weight as Cassandra explained. “It’s a Light Stone. It emits bright light. Won’t las’ forever, so use it sparingly. Can’t do much else for ya.”

Aren smiled and put the Light Stone into a pouch. “Thank you, Cass. This will help.”

Cassandra nodded and returned Aren’s smile with one of her own. “Take care and good luck.”

Aren took that as a signal and he allowed himself to stop holding back. His grin was practically from ear to ear. He simply couldn’t wait to get started. With a smooth motion, he hopped onto the broken wall, and then, with incredibly acrobatic ability, pushed off the wall and vaulted onto the roof.

He left Cassandra behind, and leaping from rooftop to rooftop like a flitting shadow, made towards the closest tunnel entrance.

[Group] Fang: Aren, it’s your turn. Head towards the Tunnel at E6.

[Group] Aren: Already on the way.

Not far into his dash, he ran across another flitting shadow, and nearly attacked it. His hand was already on the hilt of the shadowblade and his buffer was open, loading the Macro for Flash, when the shadow waved at him and Aren realized it was Damien.

Damien pointed towards the direction of the tunnel entrance, and then leapt onto another crumbling rooftop, also heading in that direction.

So they would be partners on this mission, it seemed like.

[Group] Fang: Don’t rush. Take your time. We have plenty of margin before other raid groups arrive.

Aren nodded at the words their leader and strategist wrote — although, Aren could read and hear the words in his head simultaneously — and allowed himself to slow down a bit. Fang was right, there was no need to rush it.

It took almost two hours to reach Rakab from Leone, moving at a normal pace. With mounts, it would probably take far less, but the city was crawling with goblinoids. Aren estimated that he had around two or three hours to find this One-Eyed King and eliminate him; although, he realized he had neither the knowledge nor the expertise to make such an assumption. But Fang did. And Fang told him he has plenty of margin.

On the way to the tunnels, Damien and Aren ran into a couple of goblins — crossbow armed lookouts — and Damien snuck up on one, stabbed one dagger into the goblin’s back, and the other into its throat before the creature had a chance to scream.

The other goblin turned towards Damien, panicked, let loose a bolt into the yawning, black yonder, miles away from Damien, before Aren reacted and put Reaping Sword to use with a technique called [Singing Crescent], followed by [Falling Moon].

Aren’s Shadowblade made a singing note as it whistled through the air, chopping through the goblin’s wrist, reducing the appendage to a useless mess, and then an overhead chop carved through the goblin’s skull, embedding halfway through and instantly slaying the creature.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Serious debilitating wound.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

Damien wordlessly nodded at Aren, gently put the goblin he killed down onto the roof, rifled through its pouches and then moved on.

Aren repeated Damien’s actions, having some trouble with retrieving the shadowblade from the comfy fit of the goblin’s skull, and then moved to follow the silent assassin. Neither one of them found anything useful on their kills, though they didn’t expect much to begin with.

For the rest of the trip, less than half a kilometer, they didn’t come across any enemies. Flashes of arcane light still lit up the sleeping ruins in the distance where remnants of the raid group were still being slaughtered.

[Group] Fang: It’s a mess out here. Resistance in the tunnel should be minimal. Be careful and get that Calamity kill. Everything depends on it. I’ll try to link up with you when I can.

Aren and Damien approached the underground entrance. It was in one of the ruined buildings and it looked like the entrance to a wine cellar. But looking down the stairs, Aren could see faint torch-light pouring through, and the beginning of a straight tunnel.

Holding his shadowblade at the ready, Aren headed down into the tunnel, following Damien’s lead.