Chapter 172: 172
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 .
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?
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