It was another effortless victory.
Confronted with an enemy who had lost her focus mid-battle, Alger would never let such an opening slip. Yet he felt not the slightest thrill in taking down a foe, and even the dragon-blooded giant eagle beneath him let out a low, mournful cry.
Gazing down toward where Nellie had fallen, Alger spoke in an even voice:
"Igor, as I said, we simply serve different masters now. The Alger of the past died long ago."
"Nellie... she should have known that."
Without sparing a single moment to mourn the former friend he had just slain with his own hands, Alger steered his giant eagle back into the fray.
"Igor, back to the fight."
Yet this small-scale skirmish was already nearing its end. Against battle-hardened Eagle Guards, these novice wyvern knights were fighting even more effortlessly than Alger, driving the battle into a one-sided slaughter.
"Watch my barbecue technique!"
"Triple kill!"
"I'm on a killing spree! Total frenzy!"
"Don't steal my kills, damn it! I'm capping out my contribution today!"
Paying no heed to the layers of encirclement the Eagle Guards tried to form, the wyverns simply unleashed barrages of flame directly onto their targets, reducing several Eagle Guards to charred cinders that tumbled from the sky.
Tactics, maneuvering, probing—the players disregarded all of it. If an Eagle Guard dared to strike back, they charged straight in and blasted fire until the enemy couldn't fight back anymore.
Tactics?
That was just talk for fun. When an actual brawl started, who remembered any of that? Wasn't it always just reckless brute force?
What?
You dare harass and ambush from behind?
The players would completely ignore the foes right in front of them, wrenching their mounts around and risking being attacked from both sides just to rip apart whatever annoying bastard tried to flank their rear.
Even more terrifying, thanks to the natural scales coating their bodies and their mounts, arrows striking from behind felt like nothing more than an itch.
The players' crude, ferocious style threw the Eagle Guards completely off-balance.
What kind of fighting style was this?
The tactical training manuals never covered this—!
With Nellie's death, the North Wind Eagle Guard was left leaderless, trapped against players whom they could neither overpower nor outrun.
Before long, the clash degenerated into a one-sided pursuit.
"Keep chasing! Keep chasing!"
"Where do you think you're going?!"
"Halt, villains!"
Mantou rode at the very front atop his wyvern, Noodles. Clamping his five-meter-long lance tight under his arm, he looked wildly exhilarated.
The lance was already mottled with blood, hungering for the blood of its next victim.
Seeing the Eagle Guard ahead pulling farther away, Mantou, frantic to secure more contribution, activated a skill without hesitation.
Dragon Roar Charge!
"Roar—!"
The half-dragon knight and the wyvern beneath him bellowed simultaneously.
The resonant, booming roar between mount and rider carried immense majesty, making the nearby giant eagle shudder violently in primal terror. Its speed plummeted, wings wobbling unstably as it struggled to maintain level flight.
"Haha! Die!"
"Five hundred contribution, here I come!"
Mantou let out an arrogant roar of laughter, steering his wyvern into a dive.
Just as the tip of his lance was about to pierce the enemy's back and drink its fill of blood—
*Swoosh!*
A sharp arrow streaked past Mantou, striking the Eagle Guard squarely in the back of the head. Its immense force drove the arrowhead straight out between the guard's brows.
The Eagle Guard tumbled from the giant eagle's back.
The anticipated contribution notification never arrived, and the wild grin on Mantou's face slowly froze.
Fuming with rage, he hollered up toward the sky in exasperation, "Sing-dog, why the hell did you steal my kill?! My five hundred contribution—!"
Singo's lazy voice drifted down from above. "I'm an archer fighter. What's the point of playing an archer fighter if I don't secure kills? I was aiming at that guy long before you. You can only blame your lance for being slower than my arrow."
"You son of a..."
"If you suck, practice more. How many have you even killed? I'm already sitting on six thousand contribution."
"If you're so damn good, stop kill-stealing! I already CC'd him with my Dragon Roar, and you still shot!"
"Well, didn't you CC him just so I could hit him?"
"Screw you..."
The battle ahead had degraded into an outright massacre.
Alger paid no more attention to the chaotic skirmish. Having spent considerable time alongside these players, he knew just how maniacal they could get for the sake of so-called Faction Contribution. He had no doubt that not a single fish would slip through their net.
What concerned him more was the whereabouts of the coalition army.
"These guys are making such a huge ruckus; they'll give away our position far too easily..."
"Igor, let's go scout ahead on our own."
Alger instructed the dragon-blooded giant eagle beneath him. After years of fighting together, their minds were practically linked; a single motion was all it took to convey each other's intent.
And so, while the players scoured the skies chasing contribution, Alger quietly departed on his giant eagle.
"There they are."
Soaring past mountain ridge after mountain ridge, he finally spotted his target in the distance. It was so conspicuous that it required hardly any searching.
—It was a massive army. Tens of thousands marched across the wilderness like a mottled torrent. Many among them wore iron armor and wielded long spears. Warhorses neighed, infantry and cavalry intermingled, spearheads glinted coldly in the sunlight, and numerous heavy wagons draped in thick canvas rattled along, their contents concealed.
Several banners were hoisted high at the army's center. At the very front fluttered a gray eagle banner—the standard of House Lakeman, the "Eagle of the North Wind." Behind it followed the banners of Bosque, the "Lion of the North," and Knott, the "Two-Headed Eagle." Interspersed throughout the ranks were banners of all shapes and designs—the battle flags of regional noble lords.
Beyond the soldiers, the column included vast numbers of conscripted laborers carrying shoulder poles and driving wagons to transport supplies. Serfs were bent double under the weight of grain bags, even though they themselves were gaunt and skeletal, plagued by chronic hunger.
In the sky, numerous giant eagles wheeled and soared, keeping vigilant watch over the surrounding terrain.
Their forces were easy to distinguish: Lakeman's uniforms were generally a sober grayish-black, Bosque favored deep blue, while Knott leaned toward an earthy ochre.
And within this surging torrent, gray made up the vast majority.
It was worth noting that across the Northern United Kingdom, all twelve realms combined could not scrape together a population of one million. Even Northwind Keep, capital of the Principality of Lakeman, was a city of merely thirty-odd thousand souls.
Yet this time, House Lakeman had mobilized nearly twenty thousand troops—truly throwing everything into the wager, resolved to crush Cinder Nest once and for all.
Alger stared at the imposing host and murmured to himself:
"The coalition of the three northern realms..."
"They really came."
"Anzeta hasn't seen a war of this scale in decades..."
"I must return immediately and report to Master."
Wheeling his dragon-blooded giant eagle around, Alger sped past the mountain peaks at breakneck speed, flying straight toward Dragon Valley.
Chapter 104