The Battle For The First Castle (3)
In the Living Room, as Tongqiu continued to tell of his story, as well as repeating his words a little while also answering some small questions; the situation on the TV incredibly large screen was similar to giving a speech before the 'last battle'!
On the Guerilla Guild's side, Baston had one young man speak next, once he was over attracting everyone's attention. Not that he really needed it with how damn popular he was, as well as respected. Delette, along with a young girl, were to his left side below his level; their position wasn't one of subservience, it was of allowing their -?- man to standout.
After giving the initial speech and also after the young man finished speaking, he once again stood on the 'stage' to point out to a few dozen people or so. Once he was done with that; he, the other elite higher ups of the Guerilla Guild and those pointed out players moved towards a certain location where they began discussing seriously. Whether it was a plan, strategy, scheme or even an internal debate, it was completely unknown for all spectators.
On the Knights of Raoundozia's side, once the 30,000+ players reunited to one spot, Raoundozia also made some sort of speech where, even the female players from that previously 'winner' group from the little testing out of an skirmish reacted strongly with their faces scrunching up into an emboldened furious face!
Raoundozia's speech was a little shorter, but it seemed as if he made sure that everyone knew of the difficulties that their partners faced when confronting with the game's settings in such a large-scale-like manner.
After the two sides finished their preparatory speech, they all moved into action. There were two groups from the Knights of Raoundozia which headed east and west completely, whatever Raoundozia had planned, they brought with themselves a lot of light-clothed players.
Those two groups consisted of 7,500 players going to the east, while the west group consisted of 5,000 players. Both of them, as previously mentioned, with many light-clothed players; in fact, with almost all of them!
Meanwhile, the main group of the Knights of Raoundozia moved directly towards the center of the battlefield map, the choke point where the first battle could be decided. Their main group consisting of around 21,500 players.
As for the Guerilla Guild, GG for short, the main group was moving towards the center with exactly 5,500 players; while in the rearguard, there were 3,717 players. Of those in the main group, half of them were magical-type class players, while the other seemingly half was consisting of die-hard warriors, ready to hold the front. At the very front of their group, were a few ranged-type class players, being the obvious scouts from their 10,000-man army.
As each group had their scouts report their gathered intel, the leaders of each group made slight differences to the formation of their groups; right before meeting face-to-face with the adversary.
. . .
The 21,500 players from the Knights of Raoundozia moved into an almost entrapping circle, with only the northwest of the battlefield's area being clear from their people. Meanwhile, the GG's players were tranquilly remaining in place, their overall morale and calmness made the scene seem slightly comical.
Suddenly, an arrow fueled by flames could be seen soaring into the sky at a slow pace, from far away in the distance as the sun had already gone away and only a blue darkness covered the entire plains.
Two flaming arrows, one on the east, one on the west before suddenly, being engulfed by a huge flaming snake that accompanied the flaming arrow instead of gobbling it down.
When the two arrows flew directly upward to the sky, Baston and company marveled on whether those were a player's or a mob in the vicinity but then, seeing the 30 m or more long flaming snake made him and company become wide eyed in speculation.
At the same time, KR were calmly looking between both the arrows and, when they were accompanied by those flaming snakes... Raoundozia shouted out!
-"CHARGE!"
There was the only audible voice from the battlefield, as the rest of the Knights of Raoundozia's players seemingly screaming at the top of their lungs got muffled by the broadcast.
THUM-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-!!!!
Even then, the sonorous thundering of their stomps against the ground were of no joke, their entirety of their 21,500-man group immediately initiated a do or die crazy charge!
With just two seconds of becoming stunned, Baston was the second to react as he began giving directions and commands to each team leader of his group, for as Delette was about to start shaking off his body to wake him up. And as the team leaders moved, Baston gave Delette a tight grip on her hands with his before taking the vanguard.
THUMP-thump-SWISH!...
Their charge, unlike the KR's, was although also heavy; rather focused in motion.
Each side made their way towards each other, each side was merely a few meters from slapping each other away with their own bodies. Even if Baston wanted to procure a more safer method, he still had to make time! He still had to take it upon himself to die if necessary; for this wasn't a reputation battle but one for the first castle ever seen in Rising Essence, who knew how long until castles became available for anyone?
As such, though the less than 3,000 melee players had to endure the sight of the sea of almost a total of 21,500 charging players, they kept on charging without even making a face.
Then, it began!
CRAAAAASSHH!!!
With Baston and Raoundozia leading their troops, the initial collision finally came, and hundreds of players from both sides died at once! Except, the Guerilla Guild's players seemingly had the upper hand, and after the initial collision there was a 4 meters wide gap between each side. And after getting up from the previously backlash, the KR's players studied the GG's ones, only to notice several glows on their adversaries' bodies.
'Shaman, sorcerers and bards' buffing skills!' It was the thought of many of them, specially Raoundozia and his elite team, who just like Baston's, had studied these things for long periods of time ever since the announcement of the battle.
Raoundozia was seen once again shouting for a couple of seconds towards the back, he didn't need to exhaust his throat like that with the help of the raid system in the game, furthermore with the aid of the Association system as well. Yet, to ensure that his people didn't lost the concentration and will to fight because of it being a game, he had to make sure to let everyone understand that he was dead serious.
As he was commanding with his voice, only his own people could heard him; not the enemy group nor anyone else that wasn't in his Association. It was even more clear with how Baston and his Guild members had a confused expression or jolted their necks backwards.
And as Raoundozia was giving orders, a few arrows as well as a few bullets came on his way!
Plank, clink, clink-CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!
Yet, only to be perfectly deflected by Raoundozia's long heavy sword as he turned around, his face becoming serious and his eyes turning somber.
There was a solid 3 seconds pause of everything in the surroundings, until Baston smiled right before starting his own attack on the nearest enemy player!
He wielded an ordinary sword yet his shield was a crazily heavy-looking one with a design of imitating the sun, its colors were of an obscure and ugly green-brown color; while Raoundozia also started attacking with his seemingly made of stone long heavy sword, which even had some kind of thorns that grew from the handle of the sword.
As the players of each side saw their leader cut down their enemies, they also went into a frenzy to take out the other!
For a time, many shining of the swords, axes, maces and even of some scythes came to everyone's sight as the frontlines were packed with the flashing of those and the terrifying floods of blood arching from one side to the other. Yet, there was a problem, one that was crucial for the Knights of Raoundozia.
For each GG's melee player that they killed, 4 or 5 of them had to die as not only clerics could heal; but even bards and shamans had a little of healing and an immense AOE healing effect respectively. That, coupled with the fact that each of their skills can stack up as long as they aren't from the exactly same skill, made it an unjust death for many players of the House of the Knights of Raoundozia!
Baston was beautiful remaining on his spot, his shield would block any source of damage, even those coming from some Spiritual Martial Arts Master. Delette was healing everyone around her right after finishing off a couple of players, the sight of her wielding a strange, rapier-like yet also claymore-like long sword and brandishing it as if it's a piece of paper made not only the players dying at her hand or beside her to either die in shock and reverence or praise her from their bottoms of their hearts, but even the spectators had already made a club for a brand new goddess!
If Tongqiu were to look now at the forums, he'll be able to see a cringe-worthy thread that had already 30 billion comments, recruiting people for their Delette Goddess fan club.
Meanwhile, though a guardian as well, Raoundozia was actually behaving like a misery fucker that could not help but kill tons of players every second; from how long a heavy his sword was as well as from its strange properties, Raoundozia could one-shot many of the already injured players while he had a skill that made a shadow of his last attack appear. Every time he was going to be impossibly hit, a shadow would appear to cut down whoever the fuck wanted him down. However, he also made sure to utilize that skill mostly for killing, killing and killing only!
Meanwhile, Phetsia; would always take upon her task to guard the surroundings of Raoundozia that were narrowly close to his own area. Even if there were 25 players -or more- ordered to take him down for good, she would take all of them at the same time by dodging like an ever-lasting dark butterfly; the night was her friend, and she used perfectly despite the obvious glow coming mainly from their own side. She would either be moving around at the waist-height level, her back being the only thing that her enemies saw before being stunned silly with 1 or 2 different altered negative effects before amply being struck down by other Knights of Raoundozia's players.
Mort was a rare one, though also a priest and also used a strong-looking heavy long sword, she mostly used a holy dagger to cut down whoever was close to her, even her allies! This weapon was not in the top 10 of the Equipment Leaderboard, but it had definitely a strikingly useful effect for a battle cleric like her. It was something fortunate, however, as she was never seen using a healing skill in any point of the battle. Well, only when dear Baston's HP was downed by 2's or 3's from how great his reflexes and Physical and Magical defenses were. Fuck, he probably also had a ton of well reduced damage in %.
There was an unknown irregularity in the seemingly 'okay' plan of the Guerilla Guild, it was called 'Loyal player'. This strange dude whose game ID wasn't 'properly' written, with his second word in his ID not having that 'p' as 'P'.
Yet, he was crazily moving in-between the frontlines, at melee!
To remember, he is a gun master, meaning that his class was a ranged type, of course. But he was, as of right now, running around while not stopping shooting his guns even once. The fact is, even his allies were 'hurt' by his bullets.
Now, the thing was, when in an allied raid, one can't injure their companions, let alone from the same Association and from an active Association raid at that. But, each time his bullets made contact with an ally's body, instead of going 'puff' and disappearing they instead scattered towards the rest of that ally's body before converging at their feet, head, hands and eyes with a red electric-like current effect.
Then, each time those allies attacked someone else for the next three times, they would set ablaze the enemy players for a few seconds. Yet, those blazed enemy players would die fast and surely!
Not only that, but those who Loyal player shoot when it came to the enemy side players, would gain some kind of red colored electric-like effect on where their dantian was located. For those who had that effect going on on their bodies, the third hit they would receive from a Knights of Raoundozia player with the similar effect but in a support state, would explode in a red colored electrical bomb of 1.5 radius meter; creating an even more worrisome source of damage towards those close to them. With the exception of the Knights of Raoundozia players of course.
'Hmm. Healing reduction? Oh, that little girl is now making some noise with her throat.' As Tongqiu deducted quite rapidly to the multiple ongoing situations, he then spotted that Mort girl stop for a second with her long heavy sword on her right hand aiming at the ground diagonally while raising her left hand to point towards the Knights of Raoundozia who were seemingly attacking in a pattern as of lately; namely the last for the last minute.
Two minutes and some second more after she gave commands, those Guerilla Guild's players set ablaze would rather make a 'kamikaze' of sorts- last attack towards all of the enemies surrounding them, not caring about wasting their magical class type players' efforts. Now, this wasn't the greatest solution, but it was the only one available. And there was really nothing else they could do; for this one battle was one for holding the lines and making sure no scouts take in this information that they so much riskily want to protect.
With those set ablaze players going 'kamikaze' whenever their turn came, the Knights of Raoundozia player count began to reduce even faster, yet the Guerilla Guild's finally found themselves no longer able to hold the battle. If every single on of them were to die there, the battle behind themselves will be for naught.
Like that, remaining strong for 10 minutes more or so. Like that, 3,169 Guerilla Guild players had been sent to outside of the map, back to Main Kingdom's respective Sub-Division, only leaving them with 2,331.
Meanwhile, the Knights of Raoundozia lost an astounding amount of 15,845 players! Leaving them only with a total of 5,655 remaining strong warriors.
And these number were like that for, the battle on the center of the battlefield had already come to a halt with both sides' leaders standing a dozen meters away from each other, yet facing each other powerfully.
A 'small' talk was next, that lasted only two minutes before Baston first waved at his players while forcing a good yelling at them. Before anything else, those players moved in a hurry and in retreat, towards their own territory at the northwest of the battlefield map.
However, Baston and his team leaders stayed instead of leaving with them.
10 minutes later, the players of Knights of Raoundozia then made their way towards the Guerilla Guild's territory in a similarly orderly manner, with only a few elite team leaders remaining behind along with Raoundozia and company.
. . .
"Oh, look! Mm, what are they doing? Oh! Are they gonna face off each other to win?"
Tongqiu looked at the maid who interrupted him just now and calmly spoke, his voice obviously carrying a warming tone to it which was never there before: "Nope, if that was the case, their armies wouldn't continue moving on to the next battle. Also, they would've needed to make a contract with the system to allow for the winning side to effectively win the battle."
"Oooh! Master is so wise! Ah... sorry for interrupting." The maid first praised, then apologized; ah, she was smart... but not enough!
"Ah, that's alright. But you are now obliged to surrender that mouth to me, c'mere!" Finalizing speaking his words, Tongqiu proceeded to eat up that maid's mouth before finally letting her breathe in enough air to live! How cruel! Or so everyone thought, yet, the maid was asking for more right after breathing in a couple of times...
"...Master, I still feel bad so... should I feed you more? I'm willing~!"
Tongqiu: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Everyone else: "..."
. . .
Back on the TV screen, as Raoundozia and Baston had finally decided on how to fight; it seemed that it would be a team battle in a 12 vs 12; with the Knights of Raoundozia needing 8 more people to help up their elite higher ups. While the Guerilla Guild's only needed one more to fill up that gap.
Yet, as everyone lined on a 1v1 line-up, Baston and Raoundozia were the first to act while everyone else simply watched!
It was a quick and natural action, both of them used the sword in their hand to strike at each other!
Meanwhile, Raoundozia's right hand made a grabbing motion towards Baston's collar of his armor, yet Baton was already using the edge of his shield with the sharp rays of sun all around it to cut down at Raoundozia's waist at the same moment!
-"Hup!"
-"Hayeeep!"
CLANK~!
Swish~...
Bvreee-Vwlsht!
Raoundozia was sent backwards with his upper and body lower almost meeting each other from how tragic his figure became as he was sent backwards a whole meter. Yet, the moment Baston was about to stand up straight and to begin a charge to catch him on the ground off-guard and finish Raoundozia off in a single 2 seconds; he had his eyes widen a lot before attempting to form a block to his right with his left-handed shield!
Bvreee-Vwlsht!!
Yet, 'attempt' was all it got as a shadow of Raoundozia's sword materialized in an already about to penetrate his chest position which immediately after made an astronomical amount of damage that made Baston exclaim in an almost cute expression of disbelief while also being sent flying away, yet this time it was him being sent to a total of three meters!
...
Author's Note: I know is dull, but there is nothing much to say when I have to show the side of Tongqiu more than that of those USELESS side-characters, alright?
Also, my power went off like 3 times in a row so, I'll be prematurely releasing this baby right now.
