The Players' Siege

Viscount Horace stood atop the castle watchtower, watching the line of black dots in the distance, his legs already trembling. "They're coming..." "It's the army of the Kingdom of Cinders!" "They're almost here!" Sir Mitra stood quietly beside him, hand resting on his sword, his expression resolute—he was prepared to die in battle for the lord he served. "Are we going to die...?" "By Tempus..." The soldiers within the castle were terrified as well. By now, the army of the Kingdom of Cinders had become a terror spoken of to hush crying children at night, an outright omen of death; in the tales, they were utterly invincible. From the distance, a grand and stirring swell of music rose into the air, as if heralding the arrival of a dread foe. None of them realized that this was merely some bored player carrying a loudspeaker on his shoulder, humming along as he blasted the "Victory" BGM. Within Belon Castle, the air fell deathly still. Everyone held their breath, silently awaiting the enemy's approach. "Are they finally here...?" "Just what does the legendary Dragon Legion look like?" Sir Mitra murmured to himself, an utterly suffocating picture already forming in his mind— Countless monstrous, dragonspawn hobgoblins and ogres cresting the horizon, unleashing ferocious war cries that shook the earth and terrified the mountains. This was no mere flight of fancy; it was what the fleeing soldiers had recounted with their own lips. Yet the scene that followed defied all their expectations, leaving them feeling... somewhat bewildered? A scattered group of barely a hundred people appeared on the distant horizon. They maintained no formation whatsoever, simply surging forward headlong like a disorganized swarm of headless flies. "What in the world..." "...are those things?" Studying the distant enemy closely, the battle-hardened Sir Mitra found himself completely baffled. Under normal circumstances, fine standard-issue armor was a key measure of an army's combat strength. Yet the enemies before them were clad in a motley assortment of garb—some had even taken to the field stark naked. "Is this a joke? A shambolic rabble like this wiped out the coalition army?" "The legendary Scourge... is that all they are?" "Come on, they look worse than our town watch." The soldiers on the battlements began to relax from their high tension, some even breaking into idle chatter. Belon Castle was garrisoned by nearly six hundred house guards. According to military convention in the Northlands, without at least triple the numbers, taking a fortress this fortified was virtually impossible—unless the enemy could fight one against a hundred. Yet seeing the players' lax, disorderly swagger, no one could connect them with an invincible "Dragon Legion." The only thing truly demanding caution was perhaps the wyverns wheeling in the sky. "WAAAAAGH!" "Siege time!" "Die, Northland runts!" By now, the music had reached its crescendo, and the players burst into raucous cheers and howling battle cries. Soldiers along the walls and towers drew their bows, leveling their arrows in unison at the players below. Stepping to the very forefront, Mitra glared down coldly at this "rabble" and shouted: "Begone from here, outsiders!" "This is the territory of the House of Lotte!" "Even with dragonkin backing you, a bunch of lawless brigands like you could never hope to breach impregnable Belon Castle!" Among the players, one named Gustav glared at the knight atop the wall and grumbled indignantly: "Man, this NPC is arrogant. We're right at his doorstep and he's still running his mouth." "Loves trash talk, huh?" "Damn it, blast him with the cannon!" Gustav wheeled up the cannon beside him, calculated the angle, and loaded a shell—as a member of the Machine Cult, he was more than familiar with these toys. A deafening roar thundered across the wilderness. *Boom!* A pitch-black cannonball traced a graceful arc through the air, screaming straight toward the battlements. "I, Knight of Honor Mitra, advise you—" Mitra was still in the middle of his impassioned speech when an ear-piercing screech cut him off. The next instant, a massive shell landed just meters away from him and detonated violently. *BOOM—!* Billowing plumes of smoke and dust erupted into the air. Half the wall tower collapsed, shattered masonry flying everywhere as the entire castle seemed to tremble. Severed limbs and scorched corpses littered the ground; dozens of soldiers had been blown apart on the spot. Sir Mitra, however, managed to keep his life. Clad in full plate armor and shielded by several soldiers who inadvertently served as his meat shields, he survived the blast. "Cough, cough." Mitra crawled out from the rubble. Staring at the carnage around him and feeling racking pain through every inch of his body, his face was filled with utter disbelief. "What... what is this...?" Mitra's heart sank straight to rock bottom. He finally realized that he had been fooled by appearances—and understood why the army of the Kingdom of Cinders was hailed as "invincible." "What kind of weapon is that?" "How could it hit from... such a distance?!" "Ye gods, the army of the Kingdom of Cinders truly is invincible..." With merely a single exploratory shot from the players, every soldier in the castle was struck with terror. The sense of security they drew from their fortress walls vanished into thin air. *Dun, dun, dun, dun—* Another sweeping, epic BGM surged forth—this time, "aLIEz," the legendary anthem of explosive drops. "Aaaagh!" "Boys, get ready to charge!" "This is so hyped! Let's goooo!" Cheering wildly, the players jostled to charge ahead. Gustav, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, patted the hot cannon barrel and cursed under his breath, "Damn it, I actually missed." "Don't let them get close!" "Kill them!" Sir Mitra endured the excruciating pain wracking his body, raised his longsword, and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Quick! Hurry!" "Loose!" Facing the players charging at them with wild shrieks, the soldiers on the walls and arrow towers frantically loosed arrows and hurled boulders down from above. In past sieges, these defensive measures had proven tried-and-true. This time, however, they were useless. Most players taking part in the siege were veteran closed-beta players whose strength had reached the level of a fifth-level classed individual or higher. Ordinary attacks couldn't harm them at all. Take, for instance, the somewhat famous monk player Dawei Tianlong. Capitalizing on a monk's superior mobility, he darted back and forth through the rain of arrows pouring from the walls, now and then using his Deflect Missiles ability to redirect the arrows right back. "Wall Run!" With a fierce cry, Dawei Tianlong tapped off his toes and vaulted effortlessly atop the several-meter-high rampart. "This humble monk is back to farm some mobs!" Surrounded by over a dozen elite armored guards, he didn't panic in the slightest. Laughing heartily instead, he unleashed a barrage of thrusting punches in all directions. Every strike carried a wisp of ki, piercing straight through their armor and injecting into the soldiers' bodies. "Resonant Ki: Thrusting Fist!" Next, Dawei Tianlong snapped both hands forward, detonating all the ki at once. "Resonant Ki: Detonate!" *Boom!* With a tremendous boom, the ki within the soldiers abruptly detonated. Bleeding from all seven facial orifices, they collapsed backward into a heap of bloody corpses. As a ring of dust spread outward, Dawei Tianlong was the only one left standing, flashing a wide, toothy grin. "Haha! Another fat wave of mobs farmed! Ah, so satisfying." Watching the players display their bizarre, extraordinary talents, a strange realization suddenly struck Mitra's heart. They weren't fighting a war. They were playing a game.