Demon King's Ca...stle (1)
Demon King's Ca...stle (1)
Within the Tower of Growth, chaotic and furious combat raged without pause.
The main rules for this Tower entry were occupation battles and flag battles.
In occupation battles especially, early successes snowball, carrying momentum far into the late game.
Once a force digs in and decides to hold, dislodging them is naturally difficult.
"Find the structures! Find the structures first!"
"Position confirmed! Push into the enemy center!"
"Strip their spell formulas first! They're hidden between the buildings!"
Three formations — Red, Blue, and Green — clashed chaotically to seize the uncontested occupation points in the early phase.
The entire Siyoram cadet population across all four years numbered 2,141.
Roughly seven hundred superhumans were allocated per formation, creating a large-scale battlefield.
This was nothing like dungeon raids or monster subjugations where, at most, a few individuals or a few dozen fought monsters.
Even amid such a chaotic field, certain cadets shone with exceptional brilliance.
Usually, during public matches, the upper years — third- and fourth-years — drew the most attention.
They were seasoned veterans who had gorged on the Blessing of Growth for at least three years, growing explosively, and had stacked up real combat experience through outside activities.
Especially in occupation battles, which demand practical experience, the skill and experience of the upper years truly shone.
— Fwoosh!
"Calamity Flame on the left! Get clear!"
"Ah, fuck, it's on m— Guaaaaagh!"
"Anyone watching would think they actually feel it..."
But in this battle, that wasn't always how it went.
A sudden crackle of embers. Then flames swelled like an explosion, swallowing one flank of the formation whole.
The cadets caught in it screamed and dissolved within the blaze. Even those who barely endured or dodged still had limbs turn into clusters of light, rolling on the ground.
Cadets who evaded the fire recoiled from the casualties disintegrating into light and widened their distance from the flames.
"Don't get hit by that! Avoid it at all costs!"
"Easier said than done..."
Whenever first-year Hong Yeon-hwa of the Red Faction kindled her Calamity Flame, cadets, regardless of year or ability, flinched and pulled back.
The danger of Calamity Flame was already known worldwide. Yet Hong Yeon-hwa's Calamity Flame far exceeded even that level of output — and she wielded it with practiced ease.
Approaching those flames was difficult, and on top of that, Hong Yeon-hwa's own skill already surpassed the upper years'.
Even the upper-year cadets couldn't properly contain Hong Yeon-hwa as she rampaged across the battlefield.
"...! Taking hits from five directions at once!"
"That Calamity Flame is seriously broken..."
While things dragged on that way.
Blue Faction cadets attacking a Red occupation point suddenly wheeled around at news that their siege had stalled and their main camp was getting ganged up on.
"Huff..."
Hong Yeon-hwa watched the Blue cadets retreat with their tails between their legs and rested her sword on her shoulder.
Then she raised her empty fingertips and blew out the remaining Calamity Flame with a soft puff. Unlike moments before, when she'd clung to the enemy and burned them to nothing, the ember quietly snuffed out.
'...I've gotten good at controlling it.'
Hong Yeon-hwa stared at her extinguished fingertips with an odd expression.
She was self-aware enough to know her personality was hot-tempered and foul. Perhaps reflecting that, her Calamity Flame was ferocious and wild, often refusing control.
These days, though, compared to the past, it listened extremely well.
To be precise, ever since she started training Calamity Flame with Lee Ha-yul.
There was nothing special about it.
More or less, when Hong Yeon-hwa held Lee Ha-yul in her arms, Ha-yul would bring his own gentle Calamity Flame close to hers.
Her tame, bright Calamity Flame overlapped with the blood-red, fierce Calamity Flame.
They mingled and burned together... and when Lee Ha-yul's Calamity Flame flickered as if acting spoiled, Hong Yeon-hwa's savagely blazing flame would quietly subside.
"Heyy~ Miss Hong, did you learn to show off too?"
"Shut up."
Hong Yeon-hwa scowled and turned her head. Her friend Shin Seo-yul, assigned to the same Red formation, approached with a grin.
"Aren't you gonna handle cleanup instead of slacking off?"
"I need time to catch my breath too, all right? How do you expect a person to deal with things instantly every second?"
"Hmm."
"That look hurts... but I don't wanna get that look from the jerk who abandoned us for a whole year!"
"Abandoned, my ass..."
Hong Yeon-hwa clicked her tongue. Shin Seo-yul... a close friend, yes, but the memory of the suffering she'd endured because of that name was still vivid.
If not for that mistake that day, wouldn't everything have gone much more smoothly? She sometimes entertained such fantasies.
"Forget it. What's the situation?"
"Stalemate, what else."
Shin Seo-yul shrugged and began to explain.
Inside the Tower, a total of ten occupation points had appeared. Each occupation point bore a number, and the terrain varied.
Number 1 — Rocky Mountain.
Numbers 2 and 3 — Grassland.
Numbers 4 and 5 — Plains.
Numbers 6 and 7 — Mountain Range.
Numbers 8 and 9 — Urban Center.
Number 10 — Snowy Mountain.
The Red Group, to which Hong Yeon-hwa belonged, had occupied Number 2 Grassland, Number 4 Plains, and Number 8 Urban Center, clustered in the upper left.
The Blue Group held Number 5 Plains, Number 9 Urban Center, and Number 10 Snowy Mountain, gathered in the upper right.
The Green Group had taken Number 3 Grassland and Numbers 6 and 7 Mountain Range, concentrated in the lower area.
The place Hong Yeon-hwa had just defended was Number 4 Plains, which bordered Blue's Number 5 Plains, so skirmishes broke out frequently.
At first, occupation points were a jumbled mess with no distinct boundaries, but over time, territory gradually divided by direction.
In the course of that process, the influence of Baek A-rin and Lee Ji-yeon — who held similar status to Hong Yeon-hwa — was immense.
"Ugh, environmental buff bias is so unfair..."
The Blue formation Baek A-rin belonged to had made the snowy mountain their base of operations. It was to maximize the use of Azure Sea. Rumor had it they were even in the middle of setting up a spell workshop that heavily utilized Azure Sea.
The Blue Group was holding Number 5 and Number 9 occupation points, which sprawled upward from that snowy mountain.
Lee Ji-yeon went further.
Her unique ability was Taesan. By fully exercising her power over the earth, she was turning two mountain range occupation points into natural fortresses.
With mages of the same faction adding their strength to lay down spell workshops, retaking those points was exceedingly difficult.
On top of that, Taesan was a unique ability that also included necromancy. If Lee Ji-yeon decided to release all the undead she'd painstakingly stockpiled, no one could beat her in a war of attrition.
Even Number 3 Grassland directly in front of her had its back to those two mountain range occupation points, so even if someone retook it, it'd be stolen right back.
"Tch."
...In comparison, Calamity Flame had no particular environmental buff.
If she had to make one, she could set the grassland ablaze and turn it into a sea of fire, but... if she did that, her allies would be utterly annihilated too.
The defensive installations and spell workshops they'd painstakingly built would also fly away, so it would end up killing her own side while trying to kill the enemy.
Because of that, Hong Yeon-hwa had to do more legwork to defend than the other two.
Either way, the heirs of the Three Great Families, who had enrolled around the same time, were outperforming their senior cadets and playing a central role in this match as the main powerhouses.
"...Thus, four hours into the match, we find ourselves in the current stalemate."
Inside a tent set up near the central structure of the Number 4 Plains occupation point.
A senior cadet with abundant practical experience from training on the African Demon Realm frontline explained the match conditions.
Four hours had already passed since the match began. The originally chaotic mess had been tidied up considerably, settling into a deadlock.
It had already been one full hour since the last change of ownership in an occupation point. Since then, nothing but scuffling — no one had managed to seize another occupation point.
"If we send out a sizable force, they'll immediately gang up on us..."
As time passed, the tangled command structures had stabilized, and once each side could gauge one another's strength, consistent strategic behavior began.
So now, if one side invested a large force to try to capture another occupation point, the other two groups, realizing the opening, would rush to raid the empty nest.
After the Red Group fell for that exact trick and nearly lost an occupation point, all groups became reluctant to commit large-scale forces.
Currently, each group held three occupation points.
Losing even one would drop a group to a 4:3:2 ratio and send them plummeting into last place.
So everyone checked one another and a staredown ensued, resulting in complete gridlock. If you misused your forces and lost an occupation point, you wouldn't be the one laughing.
"How many flags do we have?"
"Two 500-point flags, three 300-point flags, six 100-point flags."
"Hmm... total 2,500 points... multiplied by the number of occupation points makes 7,500?"
"That's the current count."
On top of the occupation battle rules, they also had to consider the flag battle rules.
The victory condition for this Tower entry was simple.
Add up the point values of the flags a group had acquired, then multiply that by the number of occupation points they held.
The resulting score determined the winner.
Therefore, they couldn't pour every resource into the occupation points — they also had to operate detachments including detection-type ability users to search, capture, and fight over flags.
"How many flags does the enemy have?"
"That we don't know is the problem."
Someone's question highlighted exactly why all the groups were racking their brains.
"The number of occupation points is fully known. Ten in total. But the number of flags was never announced, and we haven't been able to ascertain it."
Occupation points were easy to identify thanks to the pillars of light rising from their structures.
Ten in total. Admittedly, if you counted right now, there appeared to be eleven, but one was a special flag and therefore not included.
"Hmph... so we have to guess how many flag points the enemy has..."
"We can't make an exact estimate, but we assume they're roughly similar to us."
That was the problem. Though no one had pinned down the exact number of flags, the overall count could be roughly predicted.
The prediction was that all sides held roughly similar flags.
There would be slight score differences, of course.
So, "Are we in the lead?" — no one could answer that with certainty.
Everyone probably held similar flags, and with three occupation points each, the multiplication factors were identical.
In short, it was like measuring acorns — nobody could be confident of victory.
What could be more nerve-wracking than gambling on an uncertain possibility? People naturally prefer to hang their hopes on a thick, sturdy rope rather than a frayed, worn-out one.
"As we were notified beforehand, the match time has been extended. It might even drag on until tomorrow morning."
It had been announced that the Tower entry would last a minimum of several hours and could continue into the next day if it ran long.
Had things ended overwhelmingly quickly or bogged down with absolutely no progress, they probably would've wrapped it up at a suitable point.
The cadets didn't particularly complain about the extension. They'd been notified in advance, and getting extra time under the Blessing of Growth was actually a plus.
"Then what should we do..."
Time had been gained. No more flags had been discovered, so no additional points were coming.
That meant they'd have to pursue the occupation points that multiply the score — yet everyone was watching each other warily and reluctant to commit forces.
The current war situation was 3:3:3.
If someone launched a full-scale assault and got ganged up on, losing just a single point would mean falling to the bottom.
Conversely, if someone managed to snatch just one point somehow, that was essentially guaranteed victory.
"......"
Those who desired a decisive victory quietly turned their eyes toward the window.
Each group held three occupation points.
Yet there was another occupation point currently held by a different faction.
A faction not numbering over seven hundred people, but a faction of one.
Through the window, at quite a distance, a rocky mountain faintly came into view.
That was Number 1 — Rocky Mountain, situated at the center of the occupation points.
And furthermore...
— Rumble...!
"Didn't they prepare that ahead of time...?"
"Even if they prepped it, do you think that could be built in just a day or two...?"
They also saw the citadel-like fortifications that blanketed the rocky mountain.
The rocky mountain that Lee Ha-yul had occupied looked like a mouthwatering piece of prey to the other groups.
By now, no fool doubted the Special Admission Cadet Lee Ha-yul's strength, but in the end, everyone fixated on a universal limit.
People consume stamina. Breathing, using their brains, moving their limbs — it's a resource that inevitably depletes.
And superhumans, in particular, consume immense amounts of stamina and mana.
No matter how strong Lee Ha-yul was, there had to be a limit. Anti-army magic was a technique that devoured mana voraciously.
They also knew he'd mastered spirit arts specialized for anti-army combat, but even that had its limits, didn't it?
On top of that, Rocky Mountain sat smack in the very center. Fending off attacks pouring in from all four directions meant you would inevitably crumble at some point.
— Boom! Craaaash!
— Guaaaaaah!
...Under normal circumstances, it should have crumbled.
Claire, a third-year from Baengno Class who had experienced total bodily annihilation by Lee Ha-yul's magic, had thought exactly that.
That was in the past. Now, having barely blocked an artillery barrage and tumbled across the ground, she had been disabused of that notion.
— Rrrruuumble...!
The ground beneath her stomach vibrated. A massive tremor shook her insides as if an earthquake had struck.
Sensing something familiar, Claire urgently snapped her head up.
The source of the tremor rose. A gigantic barrier wall surged upward from the ridgeline of Rocky Mountain.
At the incredible height and thickness of the barrier, Claire's face blanched.
'How many of those are there...'
To the left and right of the freshly raised barrier stood identical walls of the same size. In front, and behind as well.
Dozens of layers of these barriers, thrust up from the earth, wrapped around the rocky mountain like castle walls.
It wasn't simply a jaw-dropping sight — there were other cadets who could perform such deeds, mana-guzzling as it was.
— Vwoom!
The truly infuriating part about those barriers wasn't something so simple.
Complex lines of light etched themselves across the pitch-black wall. The cross-section of spell formulas exposed as mana flowed outward. The spell workshop's formula that had spread across the barrier activated.
The instant that brief process concluded, the barrier became part of the spell workshop.
"Fucking quit cheating!"
Lin Xin, who had likewise been completely annihilated by Lee Ha-yul before, shrieked. Instead of gratitude toward the benefactor from her homeland, she shouted with shock and sheer unfairness.
"What do you think a spell workshop is, someone's doghouse?! If it could be expanded like that, nobody on the frontline would've had to suffer so much—!"
The deployment speed of the spell workshop was something ordinary mages couldn't even dream of. Even mages officially certified by the Magic Council didn't achieve such utterly inconceivable speed.
— Tada-dak!
A reply came. The formula carved into the barrier activated.
A completed spell workshop almost always includes offensive magic to repel intruders. The workshop's derived corrections were applied.
Facing the spheres of light shooting into the sky, Claire's and Lin Xin's faces went pale.
Pang! The sphere of light split into dozens.
"Kyaaak!"
Those belonging to Claire's group screamed and pulled out their defensive measures. Every one of them had experienced total bodily annihilation from that same magic.
Aura, magic, spirits, unique abilities...
Hundreds of bombardment shots rained down over the layered shields thrown up by any means available.
"It's coming again! Deploy defensive magiiic!"
"Fuck, it just broke right now...! Wait...!"
"Don't push too far ahead! Go to the very front and you'll get focused fire!"
This scene played out on every side of Rocky Mountain.
While the three main factions engaged in their mutual staredown, they also surreptitiously funneled their surplus manpower toward the rocky mountain.
The opponent was only one person, after all. If they just kept forcing a war of attrition, he was bound to wear down and collapse eventually.
Then they could seize the opportunity, take Rocky Mountain, and win.
Also, no matter what, it stung their pride that one person, a single first-year cadet, could hold a stronghold that hundreds couldn't breach.
"Fuck! It's coming agaaaain!"
But contrary to expectations, even after several hours, Lee Ha-yul showed no signs of exhaustion.
— Rrrruuumble...!
"This is insane..."
By now, he should've run out of mana dozens of times over.
Yet instead, he erected more barriers, adjusted his spell workshop and expanded its range, and poured even more ferocious magic at anyone approaching.
No limit was anywhere in sight. No hint of tiring. If anything, the side that kept feeding in manpower and resources was the one getting sick of it...
"Now! Charge!"
But they didn't just take the magic bombardment lying down.
Those who'd been too busy fighting over occupation points with other groups gradually began their assault on Rocky Mountain.
Several dozen cadets of outstanding ability, after a wave of bombardment swept through, simultaneously kicked off the ground.
The cadets at the vanguard pierced through the magic delivered by barriers that still had force remaining, each by their own means.
Mostly defensive unique abilities. They coated huge shields in aura and pushed them forward to endure the magic bombardment.
"Hrrgh...!"
Most were Intermediate-rank spells. Even so, it was an insane spell workshop that spat out magic — which normally required at least a little deployment time — as easily as breathing.
"We've arrived...!"
But they breached it. They reached the outermost barrier. It was only the first layer among dozens, but they weren't discouraged.
Because normally, if you kept pushing in like this, you would eventually break through.
Because the follow-up forces would widen the small hole into a large one.
— Rrrruuumble!
That was when they entertained such hopeful thoughts. Suddenly, one panel of the barrier directly ahead shot upward.
Not the barrier rising higher — it was the process of an entrance being formed.
Could it be that he was opening the way and inviting them in? A cadet who entertained that flimsy thought blinked in confusion.
As the billowing dust settled, various things came into view.
— Clank! Clank!
Dozens of massive golems of rock and metal, clad in thick armor.
— Grrrrr...!
Hundreds upon hundreds of undead as meat shields, far beyond a trivial count.
— Vwoom...
— Hrrh, hrrh...!
Flying behind them — each individually capable of fighting a high-ranked monster — dozens of mid-level spirits displaying strength beyond that grade.
"This is seriously unreal."
"Isn't this just a fucking demon king castle?"
"Pfft, demon king castle, my ass..."
At the joking remarks from beside him, the shield-bearing cadet found himself nodding before he knew it.
And silently, he thought something else.
'Maybe instead of thinking about capturing that, we should be thinking about keeping him from coming out...'
Hundreds of troops surged forth.
[Player Correction System: Pioneering Progress]
[Sub-quest 「Birth Festival: Tower Entry」 completed]
[Sub-quest 「Occupation Point 1 — Rocky Mountain Seized」 completed]
[Sub-quest 「Special Flag Held」 completed]
...
[Sub-quest 「Master of the Defence」 completed]
[Sub-quest 「Impregnable Fortress」 completed]
[Sub-quest 「Demon? Lord」 completed]
[Points are accumulating]
...
[The Tower Master of Knowledge nods with a proud expression]
[I t%ght y% well]
[The Tower Master of Harmonization shrugs]
[Ah, yeah~ good for y&u]
