Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 169: Eve of War

Thankfully, it didn’t take very long for the connection with the League of Assassins to be made, after which Wisteria calmly walked out from the new gateway that had formed in the back room of the blacksmith’s forge. She looked around, giving a small nod of contentment. “This will do,” she said, before turning to address Ella. “And you must be Queen Leafit, I assume?”

Ella blushed slightly, but nodded her head, while Diane barely resisted letting out a laugh. Ella shot her a brief, exasperated look. “It was one of the conditions for having more time in-game, okay?” she muttered mutinously, before looking at Wisteria. “You can just call me Ella.”

Wisteria offered a slight chuckle at the exchange. “Very well. Your friends have kept me apprised of the situation, so I’ll keep this brief. Until tomorrow evening, I’ll stay in the city to stand guard. Since you all are so certain that this attack will happen tonight, this should not be a problem.”

Ella let out a sigh of relief at Wisteria’s words. “If Drake trusts you with his, so do I. I just don’t want to let all of my people get killed off like that. My nation isn’t really all that popular with players yet, so I only really have the elves to rely on. And they’re not willing to dedicate any manpower until it turns critical.”

Wisteria had a knowing look on her face as she listened to that, seeming to know some inside information. However, she kept silent about whatever it was. “I see. For now, I will need a full report of the city’s defenses. Also, please do not share my presence with anyone outside this room, regardless of how much trust you may have in them. There have been many conflicts caused in the past that escalated because knowledge was shared between players which ought to have been kept secret.”

Ella hesitated at this, but ultimately agreed. Wisteria was meant to be the secret trump card in case the dragons attacked. If they knew that she was there, then there was the chance that they could call off the attack altogether, or just delay it until she left. While the former would certainly be beneficial for the nation, it would also have pushed the cost of the gate entirely onto me… which I certainly hoped she took into consideration when agreeing!

“Got it,” she said in a firm tone. “Are you able to hide or something? One of my guards has keen perception.”

Wisteria simply grinned. “If he was good enough to spot me, you wouldn’t have had to call for me in the first place,” she said in a confident tone. “You head back to your office. I’m going to take a look around, and then meet you there for the briefing.”

As soon as she said that, Wisteria disappeared from view. Even with my True Sight, I only picked up a vague, hazy outline of her. And even that disappeared as soon as I stopped focusing on her.

Ella smiled weakly, turning to look at the rest of us. “You heard her, guys. Get some rest early, since it looks like we will probably be having a fight tonight. Of course, if you need to leave this to your Chosen for life reasons, I totally understand. Well, aside from Drake, of course.”

Diane and Bella just looked at one another, nodding their heads. “I think we’ll log off for now. We’ll get back on in a few hours,” Diane explained. “For now, can you show us to an inn where we can stay? It won’t be any good if our movements are slowed down later because our Chosen are too tired to fight.”

Ella’s smile turned more hopeful at that, quickly turning to lead the way. As she did, I saw Diane log out, and Bella dimming her own brand to simulate logging out. As for me? Well… staying up all night wouldn’t be the first for me. And I want to make sure that I am ready in case they use our period of rest as an excuse to change the time of the attack.

As such, I made my way back outside the wall, once again working on my preparations under the watchful eye of the antagonistic elven archer.

Time seemed to be… weird in Pyrrhos. Not in the sense that it flowed differently from other realms. That would be absurd. However, there was no real way to measure time by looking at the sky. Whether day or night, the sky was constantly burning, illuminating the ground with its scorching light. This was something that I had noticed the last time that we were in Pyrrhos, back when we went to the arena dungeon.

Because of this, it was rather hard for me to tell when ‘nightfall’ arrived, aside from when I received a message from Diane informing me that she was online again. Heading to meet up with Ella. You coming?

After thinking about it for a moment, I shook my head. I’m almost done with prep. I’ll see you guys in a bit.

As I sent that message, I looked down at my preparations proudly. All along the outer wall of Ella’s city, I had created rows of projected ballistas, using my Martial King skill. However, whenever I created one, I simultaneously channeled my Ghost skill, ensuring that the creations remained invisible until they struck.

Because my Martial King skill allowed me to bestow awareness to the things that I made, I gave these siege weapons a simple command, which was to await my order to fire. Now, I was going around and creating projected bolts for the ballistas, each ballista getting six bolts of normal projected energy, and six of projected ice. Like the ballista themselves, they were to await orders before loading themselves, and then track the targets that they are fired at.

I was certain that nobody else would be able to use these two skills to set up a long-term siege defense the way that I had. You might call it wasteful to keep it at all times, but I preferred to think of it as being prepared. In addition, by focusing on each individual ballista’s construction, I had finally evolved my Construction Worker skill into Interior Designer-X. 

If I remade the mansion now, I could add numerous beneficial effects like increased training speed, recovery speed, or maybe even a house inventory. Of course, doing so would no doubt require rare materials, some of which might not be usable with my particular method of construction. I’d have to test that out later.

For now, I sat near the ballistas, constructing one bolt after another with my new Water King skill after it had evolved, and sending them towards the various siege weapons. And yes, this meant that I had unlocked the Simulation Training skill, but I had no intention of testing it out just yet. Not until I knew for sure that I had plenty of time to do so.

As I was working, a message suddenly arrived from Ella. Drake! Come back inside the walls. We just received the alert. The war type has just changed to Extermination. If you’re outside the walls, you won’t be protected during the ceasefire.

I arched a brow, looking into the distance. Against the fiery backdrop of the burning sky, I could see the shadows of numerous wings filling the air. The dragons had begun to mobilize in force. If Diane was right, that would mean that it was just after ten at night.

Sure enough, at the front of the flight of dragons, I could see the familiar black dragon, the same one that Diane and I had once killed, and had more recently chased us out of Pyrrhos. Not far away from him was a blue dragon, the same one that had been able to see through my stealth and led the chase when we fled from that dungeon.

Clicking my tongue, I teleported back to the wall, and then deeper into the city. All I could hope for at this time was that they wouldn’t notice the ballista on the ground outside the wall, or that they would underestimate them.

It didn’t take long to find Ella and the others within her obsidian palace, where Wisteria was calmly leaning against the wall. “Looks like they really hate you,” she said in a playful voice when I arrived. “They actually tried to make a demand before declaring the change.”

I looked at Wisteria curiously, before directing my gaze to Ella. She sighed, nodding in confirmation. “About ten minutes ago, they sent a message saying that they would accept our surrender if we handed you over to the Black Scale nation. As soon as I refused, they issued the new declaration.”

“It makes sense,” Diane spoke up, standing near Wisteria. “That man’s main goal has always been to obtain Drake’s trait. With it, not only is his own negative trait completely nullified, but he will able to maximize the power of all of his skills.”

“What are his traits, then?” Ella asked, clearly hoping for some good news. “I mean, obviously he has a ten star trait, but his downside must be pretty extreme.”

“Total magic immunity,” Diane answered. “Drake’s old player won’t take any damage from any form of magical skill. In addition, from what we could tell before, his draconic racial trait amplifies the effects of his own skills, though I don’t know if that was strictly magic skills or not. As for his negative… yeah, it’s a harsh one. His Magic stat must increase incredibly slowly. When we first found him, he was desperately training a basic fire breath, and constantly pushing himself to the point of Mana Burnout.”

“Most likely, he won’t participate in the fight himself,” Wisteria added. “With his mana unable to develop much thanks to that negative trait, his power is mostly as a figurehead. If the dragons could have stripped him of his trait, they would have. They’re probably just as desperate to give your trait to him as he is to get it. After all, few things would be more shameful to a dragon than having an incompetent leader.”

“Is that why they invested at least two grandmasters in this attack?” Bella suddenly questioned. “There’s the meteor dragon from earlier, but I also spotted one of the dragons that chased us out of Pyrrhos before. He should be a grandmaster with detection skills.”

Wisteria furrowed her brow, deep in thought. “That might be the case. That one you mentioned probably stays with him whenever he goes out, like a glorified babysitter. If he’s a master of detection skills, his primary job is probably just to keep an eye out for any threats to their fledgling king. Did he have any distinctive traits?”

Bella thought about it for a moment, crossing her arms. “His scales were blue, his eyes were silver, and he had particularly thin wings with a sleek body.”

While I was impressed that she had even managed to spot his eye color, given how far away that dragon was the few times Bella had seen him, Wisteria was mulling over the information. “In that case, it’s probably Dryax. Description matches, at least.”

“If you know about him, does that mean that he’s on the League’s list?” I asked, but Wisteria shook her head.

“No, he knows better than to randomly harm NPCs. I know him because we’ve actually fought alongside each other before. Ages ago, at this point. Don’t worry, it’s not like we’re still friends or anything. We just briefly had a common enemy. Anyways, Dryax specializes in wind skills, and always trained his perception. He might even be able to see through my Perfectly Unseen skill, if I went out now.”

Listening to Wisteria’s words, I couldn’t help but become more tense. “In that case, do we have enough firepower to defend the city?”

However, Wisteria kept a calm smile on her face. “Don’t worry. Let’s just see how things play out until the time runs out. We’ll be able to get a better idea of Evergreen’s stance if they actually attempt to send decent reinforcements.”

Ella’s brow twitched, but she agreed. “I already sent the alert to notify them. They assured me that reinforcements will be sent at the earliest possible time.”