Guild Wars-Novel

Chapter 172 - The First Guild War 3

For a second, there was total silence on the battlefield as everyone came to terms with the horrifying sight before them. More than 3,500 level 50 Rank 1 NPCs had been turned into dust as they had been hit with an undefendable sound-based skill.

This baffled the onlooking players and the surviving NPCs greatly. They couldn’t understand how such a skill could dare to exist in the material world.

Players belatedly noticed that they weren’t affected the skill, but enemy monsters and NPCs who encountered it would be severely damaged if not outright killed. If the range of the Black Dragon’s Roar hadn’t been adjusted, Draco would have killed every NPC on the field.

Even though the shock was mind-numbing, the fighters of either army didn’t stop the battle. The players who were part of the regiments that lost their NPCs were given quick and astute commands by the two guild leaders to join up with Regiments that still had NPCs to reinforce them.

The 50 regiments that were battling the Army of Camelot each had 500 level 50 Rank 1 NPCs within their ranks, which meant a gross total of 25,000 NPCs had been with this group.

For 3,500 of them to die in one hit was a big blow. Just like the war weapons, they were one of the trump cards of this war.

More importantly, they had only one life and couldn’t be brought back unless one was a White Dragon like Hikari. Some of the Rank 7 powers might have such items or skills, but they would only be a handful.

Also, who would use those on some Rank 1 scrubs instead of saving it for themselves?

Draco turned around and casually walked back to his throne from where he had blinked to. Not a single player tried to attack him as they had their hands tied by the enemies assaulting them.

Another reason was that they were painfully aware that they didn’t have the firepower or skills to take him down. As it stood, just his summons alone forced them into a temporary stalemate.

If he unleashed his other trump cards or let his guildmates enter the fray, what could they do then?

Draco calmly walking across the battlefield struck the spectating players greatly. After destroying a large number of enemies with overwhelming power beyond their comprehension, he leisurely returned to his throne.

At this moment, they felt the majesty of Draco and Umbra as a whole.

They were a power that could not be brought down easily. Even overwhelming numbers meant little without skill or expertise to back it up.

However, how could Draco be allowed to display such grandeur?

Joker and Happy Scholar had some assassin players on standby enter stealth and rush Draco’s position. They were to assault him on his way back to his throne and lay traps that could damage him, even if it was just a little.

They were aware that these players would never be able to actually kill him. However, allowing Draco to build such momentum would reduce the morale on their side, especially if they sat down and swallowed it.

While Draco slowly returned to his throne, the Wood Monster Army was stuck with the extremely difficult task of pushing through the other 50 regiments while being under fire from the many war weapons.

Unlike the Army of Camelot, who had average equipment but extremely high skill, the Wood Monsters had very little skill and no equipment or items.

However, what they did have going for them was their extremely high HP and defense. They were the perfect enemies to counter the war weapons. Should the Army of Camelot have taken on this role, they would have been wiped out by now.

These war weapons made up at least 70% of the Rank 7 forces’ confidence in defeating Umbra. The fire rate was slow, but that was what the players and the NPC army was there for. Should Draco even summon a Dragon, it would be weakened slightly, but definitely not defeated.

They still had a hidden card the Allied Guilds were extremely reluctant to bring out, nevertheless, it made up another 25% confidence. As for that last 5%, it was the level 50, Rank 1 NPCs.

The Wood Monster Army had started with 100,000 combatants, but had since been reduced to 80,000. It couldn’t be helped, as Draco had largely focused on the side of the Army of Camelot.

Draco felt that the Army of Camelot were more valuable than the Wood Monster Army and the reason was obvious. The Army of Camelot were disciplined soldiers who were elites through and through.

They could adapt, react and create their own strategies without any prodding from him. Draco had largely left them alone in the battle with the Metal Dragon and they had autonomously performed.

Their performance had been great at that time, which showed they were the perfect army to summon.

As for the Wood Monster Army...

They were called here by his Heart of the Woods, which was an Epic item the remnant of Flora - Progenitor of Nature - had bestowed upon him.

They didn’t come here because they respected or trusted Draco, but because they were compelled to by Flora’s aura.

They were simple-minded and very wild. They would unconditionally obey his orders to the best of their instinctive ability, but they had no proper autonomy.

In the Battle of the Central Meadowland, they didn’t need any direction, because it was monster vs monster.

However, they were fighting players and NPCs now, so they couldn’t continue playing around. These enemies had intelligence and wit, being able to outsmart them to gain victory.

As such, without direct guidance, they were taking heavy losses. However, the Personal Command Center had chosen to give them simple instructions and leave them to do their best.

As long as they met the predictions, it didn’t matter what happened to them. The Army of Camelot was more important to focus on.

As could be imagined, a Tradeskill like Tactics was extremely powerful and versatile as it was at the Epic rank. However, it also had levels, meaning that the current level 1 Tradeskill was limited.

So far, Draco had used it only once, during the battle with the Metal Dragon. In a fight against a single large force, Draco could easily maneuver the Tradeskill.

However, in such a complex battle, its limitations were beginning to show. The first limitation was its ability to use items above its Rank to analyze the battlefield.

The Eyes of Caelo were Divine Rank while the Tactics Tradeskill - and by extension, the Personal Command Center – was at the Epic Rank. With a two-tier gap between them, it could certainly use the eyes for an initial analysis, but struggled to maintain this for a longer period.

As such, the Personal Command Center relied on Draco’s Control to grasp the scenario on the battlefield. This was great, but the range and power of the Void of Perfection was nothing like the omnipotent Eyes of Caelo.

Not to mention that Control couldn’t read minds, so the plans of the opponents couldn’t be pilfered. The Wood Monster Army were struggling greatly. The Dryads and Sprites provide healing that managed to reduce the death rate, but it was futile.

Unlike in the battle of the Central Meadowland, the enemies here weren’t brainless monsters who fought each other more than they fought the enemy. They timed volleys and attacks cleverly, attacking the monsters with the lowest HP in turns.

Because most of the Wood Monster Army were large entities, it was really hard to evade these volleys, so they continuously suffered.

However, was their beating one-sided? Definitely not.

Just as players found it hard to miss the huge Wood Monsters, the Wood Monsters could crush many players with a sweep of their hands. It was only the NPCs within each regiment that could survive one of these strikes.

Their counterattacks were extremely potent, as they turned more and more Wood Monsters to pixels.

Initially, the players who had been assigned to fight the Wood Monster Army were excited. They could gain levels and drops from killing these summoned monsters, because at the end of the day, the Wood Monster Army was comprised of monsters.

However, that enthusiasm quickly died down when they realized that they got nothing from defeating the monsters. No experience, no gold, not items... nothing.

Was it because they were summoned monsters? No, that wasn’t it. The AI followed the rule of effort = reward - relatively, of course - and would not cheat players out of such rewards should they encounter the Wood Monster Army anywhere else.

However, one could not gain experience or loot during Guild Wars. This was a mechanic that was built in to prevent players from abusing the feature to gain things without grinding or questing.

Even Draco, who killed 3,500 NPCs with one Black Dragon’s Roar, didn’t gain anything from it except the benefit of looking cool.

On both sides, the battle progressed steadily as time passed. After 5 whole minutes of combat, the battlefield on both sides had changed greatly from the initial set up.

The Army of Camelot had started with roughly 100,000 men in 6 divisions of which 1 division remained with slightly over 10,000 men as well as all 6 Knight’s of Camelot slightly beaten and bruised, but generally fine.

Their opponents though...

Devastating.

The 50 regiments with 5,500 fighters each - which meant a total of 275,000 - were reduced to less than 60,000 people, with the majority of them being NPCs. The players had been slaughtered like dogs all this while.

While there were still more on the enemies’ side, it was still a shocking sight that spectating players, who had watched the whole thing unfold over 5 minutes, felt fear from.

They had watched this elite Army of Camelot tear through average to pro, and even expert players like they were nothing but mere decorations. If it weren’t for the NPCs, it was doubtful if the Allied Guilds would even have killed a single enemy.

Many people began to feel green with regret as they remembered that they had bet against Umbra. Weren’t the odds higher on the Allied Guilds because they were objectively assessed by the system to have a higher win chance?

No, what was this? Why were they being pressured slightly? Weren’t Umbra going to win?

For f.u.c.k’s sake, the actual members of Umbra themselves hadn’t moved yet. Even the most basic members of Umbra could kill a player party with optimal class distribution on their own.

This was the basic test for Umbra anyway. One basic member of Umbra was worth a full party of pro players. Those at the higher ranks were even more skilled.

Many originally thought that these 2,500 would be the ones fighting against the Allied Guild’s 500,000. Yet they still believed Umbra would have won, before they saw the power that the Allied Guilds were packing.

Now that just one aspect of the battle had experienced such a devastating outcome for the Allied Guilds, terrified spectating players.

However, the side with the Wood Monster Army was much more relieving. The entire group had been reduced from 100,000 to a mere 1000, and even those were mostly healers like the Dryads and Sprites.

The power of the war weapons had proven to be too much. If simple healing could save their targets, then they wouldn’t have earned their fearsome reputation in large-scale battles.

As for the enemies on the side of the Wood Monster Army, there were over 120,000 enemies remaining. Almost every single one of the NPCs had survived while a good amount of the better players did as well.

This meant that the Allied Guilds had slightly over 180,000 people left from the original 550,000. This was a devastating loss compared to the 200,000 Draco fielded that were left with slightly more than 12,000.

On paper, the Allied Guilds were better off because they had 33% of their original army remaining, whereas Umbra had only 6%.

However, was that truly the case? The pained and anguished faces of Joker, Happy Scholar and the NPC commanders contrasted with Umbra’s lax and amused expression.

They had taken legitimate losses that would affect their foundation, while Umbra lost summoned troops which could be brought back once the cooldown was over.

However, where had Draco been during these 5 minutes?

Let’s take a look.

................

After firing off the Black Dragon’s Roar, Draco leisurely walked back to his place among the members of Umbra. Joker and Happy Scholar had dispatched some assassin players to hinder Draco as best as they could.

These players were part of the core members of both guilds and were at the level of elites (which was the equivalent of a Captain Rank), meaning that they stood no chance against Draco, who was a God-tier player (which was equivalent to a General Rank) individually.

But with their numbers, they had a chance to pressure him slightly. If they could fish out some of his skills, it would be great.

For that matter, no one had seen Draco truly fight on his own. He mostly showed his prowess through astounding the world and using his acc.u.mulated items to overwhelm all.

No one had a true grasp of his skills apart from the fact that they were transcendent.

Draco, walking while waiting for the cooldown of the Blink skill to elapse, was surprised to find that some players had entered the range of his passive Control.

His active Control was being used by his Personal Command Center while the Eyes of Caelo were dormant since using them was slightly confusing when his Control was active as well.

His passive Control was still there, so Draco could sense those players. He currently wasn’t using the Personal Command Center, otherwise, he would’ve gotten the report from Sofia a long time ago.

However, it made no difference. Draco simply stopped and turned to face the various assassins who had been trying to creep up on him in stealth.

"Get out here!"

Draco’s command startled the assassins, who refused to believe that he could spot them so easily. Most people who weren’t a part of the dangerous bits of society were ignorant of Control.

In this timeline, it was quite the recent discovery, at least in the public eye, which was why many powers found Draco terrifying.

Control was a very new thing and was extremely hard to grasp, with only slightly more than 10 people worldwide officially being able to display it.

Yet, he could do so despite his young age. It was clear that his future would be Boundless. The assassins thought that Draco had sensed something and was bluffing to get them to come out.

Even so, they couldn’t help but feel respect. This was truly the number 1 player, Draco! He was able to sense them slightly when they were in stealth!

Draco activated the Eyes of Caelo and noted where they were as well as what expression they were making. He smiled derisively as he saw their disbelieving expressions and as he got the gist of what they were thinking.

As such, he pulled out Fragarach and lightly walked over to one of the assassins, who had stopped in place to maximize his stealth during Draco’s period of suspicion. Once he gave up the bluff, they would resume creeping up on him.

But no, what was this? Why was Draco getting closer to his location while staring directly at him? It couldn’t be that he was actually seen... right?

Impossible!

That specific player wanted to refute what was happening right now, but as Draco came closer, he began to feel fear. There was no doubt, Draco had seen him.

The other assassins realized this. They weren’t like King who believed that their stealth was unparalleled under heaven.

They understood that it was possible to be seen through, just that they didn’t think Draco would have this ability so soon.

As such, they broke their stealth and attacked him simultaneously. They judged that it would be better to take the initiative and overwhelm Draco with numbers.

This was an astute judgment that would work on most targets except those at the level of Draco. Draco just smirked and swung Fragarach in a full radius.

Even though he did not hit anyone, the 300% wind damage erupted from the blade and blew back all the assassins that were rushing at him.

"Arragh!"

"Ahhgggghh!!"

"Urghhh!"

They all turned to pixels immediately with that one swing, as a damage of -89,300 appeared above their heads. Draco only dealt -70,000 to Kilean back then because he was nerfed by the Land of Riches and because Kilean’s defense was so high.

Not only that, but he had used both swords back then. His base damage had been shafted from an almost assured 3,000 to ranging between 1000-3000.

He also had the Sword of Promised Victory passive, which boosted one-handed sword damage by a factor of 10. That meant that whatever his base damage was with a sword, it would jump from even just 1,000 to 10,000!

However, he used the King of Wind passive skill which dealt 300% wind damage which was so broken that it made sense why Fragarach could become Divine.

When an item or spell stated that there would be x% damage on an attack, it meant that one’s practical attack power with the weapon - combined with any passive they had, with the exclusion of active skills - would be multiplied by the percentage.

For example, there was the Fireball skill Draco had gained from the Magic Hind. It stated that one would do 5% fire damage. If someone like Rina equipped it, it meant that one fireball would do 5% of her practical fire damage as a Pyromancer.

So, if her total practical damage for fire magic was 2000, she would deal 100 damage with every fireball spell.

However, the King of Wind passive dealt 300% wind damage. What did this mean? It meant that Draco’s base damage with the wind element was factored into the skill, with any other passive he had.

Practical damage related to the weapon/item or source of the skill. If it came from a weapon, it would be calculated from that weapon. If it came from an item, it would be calculated from the owner’s own stats.

The same went for if it was a spell.

So, Draco’s base 3000 damage with Fragarach was then buffed with Sword of Promised Victory which sent it to 30,000. Then it was multiplied by 300% from the passive and dealt as wind damage.

Broken, Broken, Broken!

Draco was too overpowered! He slaughtered almost 20 players who were elites with one indirect attack, a mere swing from his blade!

Who could take him down?