Initially, the players who broke into the fortress were split into two camps: those focused on killing for points, and those focused on capturing the main hall to win.
The two goals weren't mutually exclusive; killing the defenders was, after all, the best way to weaken the resistance around the objective.
But when the Thunderclap Drums boomed with newfound power, the women of Crimson Bloom became nigh-invincible, and the pressure on the attacking force multiplied tenfold. Now, not only could they not breach the main hall, they couldn't even get close to the defenders.
Soon, the attackers' 6,000-strong army had been devastated by a storm of unidentified AOE damage, and another thousand players were sent to their graves.
In contrast, the heroines of Crimson Bloom had lost only a handful of members.
Lila surveyed the shifting battlefield.
“Leader, I think they’re splitting up,” Hazel called out from the front line, where the change was most apparent.
Lila nodded. She’d noticed Magnus and his contingent breaking away from the main force. When she saw the path they were taking, a sense of dread washed over her. “Their target is the Thunderclap Drums!”
She shouted into the guild channel, “Hazel, Rena, Starbloom, Lunara, with me! Everyone else, hold the main hall!”
“Got it!”
Lila led the charge, but they had barely taken a few steps before a trap sprang at their feet. A layer of frost coated the ground.
[Frost Trap]: Movement speed reduced by 20%.
At the same time, a blizzard descended from the sky.
[Blizzard]: Movement speed reduced by 15%.
Before they could react, a debilitating wave of sound washed over them.
[Sonic Wave]: Movement speed reduced by 15%.
While the damage from the skills was negligible, the stacking debuffs were infuriating. Lila looked around and realized the area was swarming with players, but none of them were DPS.
It was a dedicated crowd-control squad. This was Magnus’s strategy: pin down the defenders’ elite team while he took all the heavy hitters to rush the drums.
Seeing the endless spam of control skills, Lila knew they weren't breaking through. All she could do was cast a hopeful glance toward the high platform in the center of the fortress, where a lone figure stood.
It’s all up to you.
The moment Kael had upgraded the Thunderclap Drums, he knew they would become the enemy’s primary target. He stood atop the drum platform, watching the swarming horde and silently calculating their distance.
When the front line of players crossed the forty-yard threshold, he drew Galeharrow.
Phantom Barrage!
Nearly two hundred players were instantly erased. The skill went on its eight-second cooldown. Forty yards was a distance the enemy could cover in three or four seconds. Without a moment to waste, Kael began firing his normal attacks.
One shot every 0.8 seconds. Three arrows per shot. Each arrow piercing through three players. Nine kills per arrow.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Under normal circumstances, this terrifying damage output would have sent the attackers scattering in fear. But now, with a mob of two to three thousand players zerg-rushing the platform, individual deaths barely registered.
Kael had become a walking taunt totem. Getting killed by him was just bad luck; killing him would be the ultimate release of their frustration.
By the time they reached the base of the platform, they had lost only thirty or forty more players. The five NPC guards standing by the Thunderclap Drums were formidable, charging fearlessly into the enemy thousands, but Kael wasn't about to do the same. He opted to shoot while kiting backward.
Magnus saw Kael, so close he could almost touch him, and his eyes burned with rage.
“Ullr is right there! Get him!”
“Don’t let that bastard get away!”
“Kill him!”
A huge chunk of the attacking force peeled off, swarming Kael from all sides. Their faces were contorted with rage, each one wanting to be the one to tear him limb from limb.
Kael didn’t run far, just maintained a twenty-yard distance. But the fortress grounds weren’t an open field, and his room to retreat was limited. Suddenly, a frost arrow flew from the crowd and struck him.
-381 (Movement Speed -20%)
The attackers roared with excitement.
“He’s hit! He’s slowed!”
“Now! Hit him with everything you’ve got!”
“Get that son of a bitch!”
“I’m gonna loot his corpse so hard!”
As the crowd closed in, the damage numbers popping over Kael’s head grew more frequent.
-692
-1023
-197
-1
-735
.....
Kael’s red bar, which was over twenty thousand, was quickly cut in half. He was now backed into a corner with nowhere left to run. He watched the enemies close in, their snarling faces a clear testament to their hatred for him.
Magnus shouted triumphantly, “Haha, nowhere to run now, are you!?” It had cost them four or five hundred players, but they finally had him cornered. “I know what you’re thinking. That you still have two respawns, right? Let me tell you, we’ve already got people at the respawn point. The second you die, we’re going to corpse camp you into oblivion! Let’s see how you like a taste of despair.”
As more and more attacks locked onto Kael, he simply offered a faint smile. He tapped the emblem on his chest, and his form began to blur.
Fzzt—
Kael vanished from sight.
“Where’s Ullr? Is he dead?”
“I didn’t see a kill announcement.”
“Did he go invisible?”
“No way, with this much AOE, stealth would break instantly.”
While they were scratching their heads, a shout came from the back of the crowd.
“He’s not dead! He’s on the roof!”
Everyone looked up. Sure enough, Kael was standing on the roof of a nearby building.
“Dammit, how did he get up there?!”
“Find a ladder!”
“There’s a low wall over there we can climb!”
Just as they were scrambling to find a way up, another volley of death rained down.
Phantom Barrage!
Another two hundred players were vaporized.
The chat log erupted in a symphony of creative insults, a true testament to the diversity of online gamer rage.
“Fucking camper!”
“Get a life, you basement-dwelling troll!”
“I’m reporting you for hacking!”
Kael stood on the roof, calmly chugging a health potion he’d bought from the faction vendor while continuing to harvest the players below. He had intentionally put himself in danger. It was a gambit to bait them, to enrage them into focusing on him. If they had all rushed the Thunderclap Drums from the start, the girls of Crimson Bloom would have been overwhelmed in minutes.
He glanced over at the drum platform in the distance and saw that the five NPC guards had finally fallen. Gorgon_Viper was leading nearly a thousand players in an all-out assault on the drums.
Meanwhile, Gorgon_Viper was raging in the faction leader channel.
Gorgon_Viper: Magnus, you idiot, get your people over to the drums now!
Magnus: I have to kill this asshole!
Gorgon_Viper: We can kill him after we destroy the objective!
Magnus: No! We finally have him cornered. We might not get another chance!
Gorgon_Viper: God dammit, the drum has a million HP! It'll take forever if you don't help!
Magnus: Then I'm definitely not going. I'm going to kill this bastard with my own two hands.
Gorgon_Viper and Magnus represented the two fundamental types of players: those who prioritized the objective, and those who saw personal grudges as the highest law. With the two leaders refusing to cooperate, five minutes passed.
Under the relentless output of the other players, the Thunderclap Drums—boasting a staggering one million health points—could endure no longer. With a final, thunderous crack, they collapsed into a heap of splintered wood.
With the destruction of the drums, the buffs supporting the women of Crimson Bloom vanished. Their power level plummeted back to square one. Even Kael's arrows were no longer guaranteed one-shots.
Without the massive defensive buffs, Hazel was instantly melted by the sheer volume of attacks. If she couldn't survive, no one could.
In less than a minute, the gates of the main hall were breached, and a thousand players stormed inside.
Kael stood on the rooftop, watching the system's countdown timer appear in his vision:
5
4
3
2
1
The two-hour defense timer was up.
And yet, no special announcement appeared.
Did we lose?
Kael didn't know.
