Chapter 340: Defense

Due to long battles without any breaks in between, the Snow Region in the north had been restless for two days already. Buildings had collapsed and there were fires everywhere, creating black smoke that blocked the night sky. Citizens and monsters were running non-stop. Above them were groups of countless birds flying in circles, each serving as an omen of death.

Sebastian raised his head, looking at the sky. Next to him were White and Vogue. The three of them were like the strategists of Belacia City, so they stayed in the safest place in the city, observing the birds’ movements.

The citizens in Belacia City, White included, were already familiar with northern monsters. She could now speak to Lord-Rank monsters as equals without feeling pressured.

“This is already the second day. It seems our enemies are bombarding us in shifts. If we don’t change how we defend, we will lose.”

Vogue generated a holographic map with his psychic power. It showed the positions of members from both sides. He pointed his finger at a group of triangular symbols, representing the enemies, who were fighting against the circular symbols, that represented their side.

“The enemies came from the air, so the underground tunnel and most of the traps prepared by the dwarves became ineffective. Even worse, only half of our combatants, humans included, can fight well against flying enemies.”

The enemies bombarding them from the sky proved to be extremely troublesome. While it was true that each and every one of Belacia’s citizens and monsters possessed a way to fight flying enemies, such fighting styles weren’t their forte. Due to the situation, some monsters had to stay on standby even though they came from races that were very active in wars. This included the Giant King Karum and the Dwarf King Bul, who were currently in the headquarters, waiting for further instructions.

Keeping in mind the overall situation, Sebastian had been preserving their forces, not dispatching them in their entirety. He ordered the army to alternate their shifts in order to conserve strength.

“Normally in wars, the attacking side has to be quick while the defending side has to let it drag out. This is our terrain. If we can stall for a couple of days, the other side will surely change their tactics,” commented Sebastian.

“It’s difficult for us though. Although these birds are only Knight Rank, their numbers are a problem. How can they endlessly keep on coming?”

Vogue shared his intel, “Furthermore, their kings haven’t shown up yet. From the information provided by Gigan, the bird race must have six kings. Two are qi type, one is magic type, and the remaining three are psychics. The absurd number of birds must be the result of the Psychic Bird Clone skill from the Sky King. However, even Gigan doesn’t know how the summoned birds have such high ranks.”

The Sky King’s Psychic Bird Clone could split a monster under his rule into two, the target’s resources and overall power also being split in half. As a matter of fact, he could repeatedly use the skill on the same target. It was a method to create an unlimited number of soldiers. Still, the more the target was split up, the weaker they became, so the skill was oftentimes used for diversion purposes rather than direct assaults.

“Those birds are even a bit stronger than ordinary Knight Rank monsters.”

White didn’t understand. Knight Rank monsters were normally no match for them. However, these birds were as strong as early-stage Marquis Rank monsters. It was fortunate that they had low health points, so AOE skills were extremely effective against them. If it wasn’t for this, Belacia City would have been broken on the first day of the siege.

“Must be the work of the Emerald-Winged King, one of the other psychic-types. The bird race’s strong suit is their ability to work together, generating great synergy. It’s highly likely that their kings are hiding themselves and pouring their power through the Emerald-Winged King, strengthening the summoned birds.”

Having seen Bluebird using a similar skill, Sebastian wasn’t that surprised. It would be extremely helpful if Sila was here to use Omniscient Evil God Qi. However, he was asked to handle things from here, so he didn’t want to bother his master.

Sebastian had been recently travelling around between Belacia City and Skull Mountain Pass, but at this rate, it seemed he ought to stay in the city for a longer visit this time.

“The opposing side is keeping their trump cards back. They want to probe us to see whether we have any tricks in our bags. I expect they will elevate the level of the attack in less than two days. If we can’t keep up, they will fully assault us until we’ve been defeated. This is the reason why I haven’t used Death Magic yet. With more casualties, regardless of which side they come from, my spells will become increasingly powerful.”

“What if their level of assault goes beyond what we can handle?”

“Well, sometimes we have to rely on luck. I’m betting on it.”

“Betting on what?”

“On whether the enemies will crush us first, or if my lantern will light up before they do.”

Sebastian chuckled lightly. Reminded of Lord Yama, Vogue felt chills run down his spine. On the other hand, White didn’t know what the lantern did, so she was confused.

Glancing at the lantern’s continuous blinking faint aura, Sebastian laughed at his past idiocy for idly waiting for its next use for almost a month. Its name, the Manifesting Soul Lantern, already hinted that its fuel was none other than souls of monsters dying near it.

If these birds hadn’t come, it probably would’ve taken him much longer to discover this secret. Thus, when the flame in the lantern returned, Sebastian intended to ‘return the favor’ in full.

***

The Slime Kingdom was under a powerful magic domain. The darkness was strong, blocking the slimes’ vision and preventing them from seeing things further than two meters ahead. On their bodies were chain-shaped tattoos that suppressed 30% of their total stats.

Most slimes were protected under a domain made of Viola’s Divine Raiment. However, no matter how capable she was or how high her stats were, she couldn’t maintain a domain this large for so long.

“You can’t borrow ambient mana, I take it? How long can this domain last?” The Slime King approached Viola, who was sitting in the kingdom’s central square.

She shook her head. “No, I can only use my own magic power. To sustain a domain this large, another 16-17 hours are the longest I can last.”

“Well, our opponent is Kritsana. Her Unison Percentage is at 98%, which is the highest in Monster Soul.”

Some enemies managed to invade the Divine Raiment. The skeletons were parts of the Sovereign of Grave Keepers. The more they fought, the stronger they became. Every time they died, they would adapt themselves to make fighting against them become increasingly harder.

“Death Magic at this level isn’t something we can withstand. We have to quickly find Kritsana's whereabouts and defeat her,” Divine proposed the most obvious solution to counter a powerful spell—defeating the caster.

“Pinpointing her location is not difficult. She is underwater, on the northern side of the Island of Beginnings, around one kilometer from the shore,” the Slime King announced.

Divine frowned. “She knows that seawater is our racial weakness and how to exploit it. It’s possible that she already expected us to come.”

The Slime King and the Guardians were full-fledged monsters, so—unlike Sila—they didn’t get the privileges available for players. Goddess Cynthia had bestowed upon humankind divine protections, negating some debuffs. Seawater wouldn’t work against Sila, but it worked against other slimes.

Although Montra had asked her to get rid of the protections, things were changing slowly. Cynthia didn’t lift all of her blessings at once but gradually cancelled them in order to keep aftereffect at the minimum level. It hadn’t been long since Montra made the request, so players were still unaware of the effects.

Kritsana’s only weakness was the fact that he was too famous, meaning everyone in the closed beta knew who he was and what he could do. Still, knowing was one thing and being able to fight him was another. During the closed beta, Kritsana’s strength was comparable to Hu Xian’s, maybe being just slightly inferior.

“She hasn’t made use of her S-grade set items suitable for close combat, the Rings of Sovereigns, yet. Even Hu Xian suffered from them back then.”

The Rings of Sovereigns are set items similar to the dual swords set—Dorolia and Solaria Swords—in a sense that they are useless at first, but exert tyrannical might both individually and together once the set has been completely obtained. Set items are naturally stronger in accordance to the number of items within the sets in the user’s possession. The Rings of Sovereigns were a set of eight items and Kritsana managed to obtain them all, so their abilities were unfathomable.

“Our solution is to keep defending until Luaid successfully destroys Kritsana’s magic domain. When the time comes, Divine will teleport us to Kritsana. The four of us will pour our attacks at her without holding back. Defeat her as soon as possible to minimize our losses.”

Only the Slime King and Divine were fortunate enough to have personally witnessed Kritsana’s fight in the Monster Realm. On the other hand, Poluk wondered.

“Against a man who knows nothing about profound arts... won’t that be going a little overboard?”

Divine shook his head. “Kritsana is an enemy we can’t afford to fight solo. In my opinion, even when it’s four against one, to defeat Kritsana, one or two of us will die.”

The Slime King agreed. “By the way, she is a woman, not a man. Well, she deliberately pilots an old man avatar, so I guess she wants to keep her real identity a secret.”

Even the Slime King himself managed to bring Bow into the game as a monster, so he guessed Kritsana must have some kind of agreement with Joshua as well. In any case, he accidentally discovered her gender thanks to the power of his Marvelous Bible. Nevertheless, he found nothing about her even after he tried to investigate her background. She never showed her real self in public and always selected a male avatar as her character in every game she played. It was a wonder how could she manage to keep her secret for this long.

Each and every player had their own reasons for entering the world of Monster Soul. It would be great if they could join forces. However, if their interests collided, it was natural that a battle would break out.

That was a law of the world that the four were fully aware of. All they could do for now was preserve their strength, waiting for the storm to pass by in order to turn the tables in the decisive moment.

***

A certain small hut, located within a very special dimension, was a place normally unapproachable by most people. Joshua, too, was a distinguished person, so meeting him was a difficult feat. The hut was his peaceful space, exclusively for him and his wife.

However, on this particular day, an anomaly was happening.

The air around the hut was heavily shaking like a television in the environment with a poor signal. The grass, wind, and artificial sunlight turned greyish. A black screen unfolded itself before Joshua’s eyes, completely interrupting his and his wife’s afternoon teatime.

“You’re as carefree as ever, huh, Frankenstein.” An electronic voice greeted him.

Even with the artificial voice with no face, Joshua didn’t even have to guess who the speaker was. There was only one man capable of causing a disturbance in Monster Soul’s system. The former World’s Most Wanted cyber-criminal—Boss’ left-hand man.

“Ziz,” Joshua greeted the opposing side with a serious expression, “Is there an emergency?”

Their ‘organization’ rarely contacted each other, much less confronting one another. Even Joshua had only encountered two executives so far. Most of the time, Boss would send news through his two most trusted lieutenants, though every time they did make a call, it was almost guaranteed that something big was going to happen.

Ziz said with a casual attitude, “You know what? The most troublesome thing about having a double agent is that we can never be sure whether the person is really on our side or not.”

“Does Boss think I’ve switched sides?”

“Nah, I merely expressed my concern,” Ziz said, pausing briefly, before continuing, “You are still on our side, right?”

“Of course I am,” Joshua replied as he restated his allegiance to the organization. He tightly held Cynthia’s hand. “Only the organization can make my dream come true.”

“That’s a relief. The intel I got recently is unreliable, then. It’s great that I can pleasantly inform Boss that there is nothing to worry about.”

Joshua’s expression remained unchanged, but he panicked inside. The fact that Boss got wind of his possible betrayal implied that his past actions had somehow leaked to Boss’ ears. Joshua had always been so vigilant around the organization, so this meant there was a spy among someone close to Sila or Montra.

“You actually didn’t have to hack into the system. If you prefer, I can appoint you as an NPC. You can observe the Wulin Masters Association’s movements together with me this way.” Joshua probed for Ziz’s reaction.

“It’s okay. I’m not interested in playing games. We already have three executives in the game anyway.”

‘Three? ...Including me, there should be only Faceless, right? Or is he trying to see if I react as well?’ Joshua thought.

“Oh, by the way, Boss has already scheduled D-Day. I will forward the details to you later.”

“Is everyone going to assemble?” Joshua wondered. The gathering of all executives was unprecedented.

“Nah, everyone should continue doing their usual jobs. I’m just here to notify you. Only Boss and Typhon will participate in the attack,” Ziz replied, then left.

Joshua felt chills in his chest. He had thought Boss would send two executives and a group of members. However, it turned out that Boss would personally take action against the Wulin Masters Association.

In fact, even if Boss dispatched his right-hand man—Typhon—alone, Joshua believed that it would already spell despair for the association. No one in the association could stand a chance against Typhon. Even against the Three Elders fighting together, Typhon would still come out victorious.

The basis behind Joshua’s belief was the fact that the Three Elders were the Demon God Zenga’s disciples. Even now, each of their strengths still fell far behind compared to Zenga at his strongest.

Typhon was the one who had forced a draw against Zenga back in the day. This was even done a long time ago in the past, back when the organization’s martial development technology was nothing compared to how it is now.

With the plethora of bad news, Joshua’s worries grew by leaps and bounds. He quickly opened his system window and input several commands. Now he sincerely hoped the Wulin Lord selection would come to an end soon. Their chances of survival would only diminish further the longer the selection took to finish.