The Best Kind of Spectacle
Normally, you shouldn't let the enemy know a trap is waiting. But Tae-hyun took the opposite approach.
You receive a bonus from your Intermediate Speech skill.
Intimidate skill successful. Enemy morale decreases, and Terror increases.
Speech skill proficiency has increased.
Those vampires were too proud to run away anyway. Striking fear into them like this was a much better tactic.
"Yaaah!" Gu Sung-wook went wild, like a fish in water. The absolute stability of his dual swords showed just how many battles he had survived.
"Ugh! Watch out for that guy's swords!"
"His blade energy is dripping with bloodlust!"
Even the vampires recognized and warily guarded against his sword qi. Gu Sung-wook's eyes burned crimson, resembling a vampire warrior lost to bloodlust. There was only one reason for this.
"Cold Cry's Sword!"
"What?! Is it a skill?!"
The vampire flinched and tried to dodge, but no skill materialized.
"Cold Cry's Sword!!!"
"How dare you use such cheap tricks! I'll show you!"
"Cold Cry's Sword!!!!!!"
"Ugh, uuugh!"
Overwhelmed by Gu Sung-wook's sheer intensity, the vampires flinched and retreated. That was how much raw presence he commanded right now.
"Ignore those bastards! Deal with the pests first!"
The vampires, battered by the traps, gnashed their teeth and shifted their strategy. They decided to target the players firing arrows from afar.
The archers' raw skill was manageable, but their arrows were absurd. Where on earth had they gotten them? They bent in mid-air, exploded, split into fragments, and carried every bizarre option imaginable. Even with the level gap, the vampires couldn't just ignore the archers' barrage. Since only a few enemies were currently holding them down, it was better to strike the archers directly.
"Go!"
A vampire swiftly closed the distance to the base of a tree and leaped with explosive leg strength, aiming for the archers perched in the branches. The archers shrieked in panic.
"Mwahaha! Die, you insects—!"
The Silver Net Trap has been triggered.
Engineering skill proficiency has increased.
Crash!
"Wow. I might actually hit Intermediate today."
Tae-hyun grinned as he raised his weapon. He couldn't use his signature skills here, but even basic attacks were more than enough to handle these vampires.
"W-Wait... cough!"
Tae-hyun mercilessly battered the trapped vampires. Hmm. I wonder if I can take these vampires prisoner and use them as punching bags to practice my magic skills? If the trapped vampires had heard his thoughts, they would have bitten their own tongues in despair.
"...!"
Tae-hyun clenched his fist. Finally! Well, of course! I littered this entire forest with traps; it's about time my Engineering skill leveled up!
The vampires were being successfully repelled. Seeing this, the players cheered.
"They're retreating! We won, right?"
"We totally did!"
But Tae-hyun frowned. This is strange. Looking at the retreating vampires, they were still in good enough shape to keep fighting. Or at the very least, they should have sent in reinforcements.
Unless Marquis Marden was an absolute idiot, he had to know his subordinates were getting utterly thrashed inside the forest. Yet he was letting them retreat after merely stalling for time? He's definitely planning something... Tae-hyun's mind raced. What could he gain by stalling like this?
"Ed-an, go check our escape route outside the forest."
A moment later, Ed-an returned, his face pale with panic.
"Marquis Marden's army is bypassing the forest! Their mercenaries are circling around to cut us off!"
"Just as I thought."
"This is no time to be calm!"
The only reason they could leisurely harass Marquis Marden's forces in this forest was because they had a clear escape route. Slipping out the back of the forest would lead them straight to Anong Castle, and Marden's army would be too slow to catch up. But while his vanguard was getting beaten black and blue inside the woods, Marquis Marden had routed his main army around to encircle them. He truly was a high-intelligence boss monster.
"It's fine. Breaking through the encirclement won't be an issue."
A fair number of players here would probably die, but Tae-hyun was entirely confident in his own ability to escape unscathed. It was a cold-hearted pragmatism that didn't spare a single thought for anyone else!
"What about the people here?"
"Well, once I punch a hole in their line, they'll have to fend for themselves. That's why I only brought high-Agility players in the first place."
"What a brilliant idea!"
Ed-an, possessing just as little conscience as his master, chimed in. They truly were a match made in heaven.
"By the way, are those guys over there the mercenaries?"
Tae-hyun asked, pointing at a group of people approaching their escape route outside the forest. They were heavily armed and mounted on horseback, exuding an imposing aura.
"Huh? No. They shouldn't have reached that point yet. Did he send a vanguard ahead?"
"How dare those miserable insects mock me! They will pay dearly for this!"
Marquis Marden was certainly not an opponent to be underestimated. He had laid one more trap. He had personally marched alongside his mercenary forces. Knowing that the pests inside the forest would flee toward the escape route once they realized they were surrounded, he had positioned himself right in their path. Anyone attempting to break through, expecting only mercenaries, would be horrified to find Marquis Marden himself waiting for them.
"Hehehe... Hm?"
Marquis Marden suddenly twitched his brow as he sensed a surge of holy power nearby. Having suffered greatly at the hands of divine entities, holy power was an utterly repulsive sensation to him.
"Who goes there?! How dare you reek of that disgusting stench in my presence!"
Marquis Marden roared in fury. He could feel the holy power radiating from a group approaching from the distance.
Normally, anyone would be terrified of Marquis Marden and his mercenary army, but the approaching group showed no fear whatsoever. In fact, they took it a step further.
"A disgusting stench? Has a mere vampire lost his mind? You should know that your own stench is far more repulsive! Step aside this instant, and we shall overlook your insolence."
"W-What did you say...?"
Marquis Marden doubted his own ears. What did these fools just say?
"You must be eager to die, throwing away the mercy I offered! Fine! I shall slaughter you all!"
As Marquis Marden bared his fangs and let out a menacing hiss, the mounted figures threw off their cloaks, revealing their true identities.
"How dare a lowly creature, untouched by the grace of the great God Sadiq, behave so insolently!"
They were none other than the elite paladins and high priests of the Sadique Order!
Boom!
Marquis Marden immediately lunged forward, sending the Sadique paladins flying with a powerful knockback.
"Ugh!"
"How dare a filthy vampire—!"
"Hehehe. Keep barking, insects!"
Marquis Marden relentlessly pressured the Sadique paladins. With every swing of his arm, a crimson gale swept through, blowing them away. Although the elite paladins of Sadiq were formidable warriors who rarely met their match, Marquis Marden completely overwhelmed them. Without the constant support of the priests, the paladins would have collapsed long ago.
"Is this all? Huh? Is this all you've got?!"
"Ugh. We have no choice! Use the weapon we brought to defeat that demon!"
"But High Priest! If we use that now—!"
"This monster takes priority!"
"Understood!"
As the Sadique paladins prepared to unleash their trump card, Marquis Marden moved to intercept them. However, the Sadique high priests blocked his path.
The Great Protection of Sadiq!
"You miserable wretches! So you serve a petty, false god like Sadiq!" Marquis Marden spat, gnashing his teeth. "Now that I think about it... that arrogant, cunning bastard from before... I see it now! The Sadique Order! None of you shall escape death!"
Meanwhile, Tae-hyun and the other players were slipping through the weakened encirclement, retreating toward Anong Castle.
"Wow. They're really going at it."
As this unexpected battle erupted, Tae-hyun moved to the very rear of the retreating group to get a better look at what was happening.
To the other players, however, his actions looked like a display of profound responsibility.
"To think he would guard the rear in a crisis like this...!"
"The rumors were true! He might look rough on the outside, but on the inside, he's...!"
Whether the players were trembling with deep emotion or not, Tae-hyun simply watched the fight with immense relish. After all, watching a fight was the best entertainment in the world!
Even better, every single participant in this clash was his enemy. It couldn't possibly get any better than this. Tae-hyun realized that the ones fighting Marquis Marden were assassins sent by the Sadique Order. They had undoubtedly come to hunt him down, only to run into Marquis Marden instead. Since the Sadique Order was a religious faction, they were naturally incompatible with Marquis Marden, who loathed anything divine.
"Now that I think about it... that arrogant, cunning bastard from before... I see it now! The Sadique Order! None of you shall escape death!"
"...?"
Tae-hyun tilted his head. Was he talking about him?
"Wait, is he actually confusing me with the Sadique Order?"
Meanwhile, the Sadique Order unleashed their trump card. As a high priest tore open a scroll, powerful demonic beasts began manifesting in the air. They were formidable enough to force Marquis Marden to fall back and summon his own subordinates.
Watching this, Tae-hyun thought, Wow. If I had to fight those things myself, it would've been a real pain.
Regardless, the outcome was highly satisfying! Having his enemies tear each other apart was the absolute best.
Behind them, the battle grew increasingly chaotic.
Boom! Crash! Bang!
"Aaargh! Boiling Blood! Vampiric Drain! Eye of the Vampire!"
"Wrath of Sadiq! Servants of the Great Sadiq! Demonic Beast Empowerment!"
From a distance, it looked like an epic, tragic clash of titans.
"I didn't expect the Sadique Order to help us out like this."
"I don't think they did that to help us..." Evangeline tilted her head, looking thoroughly confused.
"The good news is that Marquis Marden's army took way more damage than expected. Look at all those craters."
The Sadique Order had come fully prepared, unleashing all the demonic beasts they had intended for Tae-hyun onto Marquis Marden instead. Consequently, Marden's army bore the brunt of the devastation. The once-pristine forces were now in shambles, desperately trying to rest and recover.
"The bad news is that they're resting instead of attacking us immediately. I thought he'd charge in blindly out of pure rage..."
Tae-hyun's original plan was to provoke Marquis Marden into launching an immediate assault. He knew Marden wouldn't back down just because he took a few hits in the forest, and Tae-hyun was confident his Speech and Taunt skills could trigger an attack. The problem was that the clash with the Sadique Order had inflicted such heavy casualties that Marquis Marden had been forced to halt and regroup.
"Can't we provoke them?"
"The difficulty has spiked too much. Unless Marquis Marden is a complete idiot, it won't work."
"What about a surprise attack?"
"A surprise attack on an army stationed in the open plains past the forest? Is your head just a decoration? Why do you think we're trying to lure them into a siege in the first place?"
Having been thoroughly scolded, Ed-an slumped into a corner, looking utterly dejected. Seeing this, Rufo opened his mouth to speak but hesitated.
"Rufo. You were about to say something."
"Ah, it's nothing."
"Just spit it out. What, are you shy?"
"It's not that... it's just that the drawback is too significant..."
"What is it?"
"Since Marden Castle must be completely empty right now, I was wondering if we could go there and completely demolish it. There might be some guards left, but surely someone of your caliber could easily break through."
"...!"
"But of course, we have to defend this castle, and you bear a heavy responsibility here, so that wouldn't be possible. Haha!"
"Haha. Actually, I can."
"Huh?"