The Pursuit Force (2)
"I'll tear you to pieces!"
"Blessing of the Wind, Blessing of the Earth, Protection of the Wind, Protection of the Earth."
"Flame Hell! Land of Flame!"
Killing intent streamed off the enraged pursuit force as they charged the spot the spells and arrows had come from. Jin-soo could feel how well trained they were. The surviving healers cast blessings, protections, curses, and corruption skills without losing their calm, and the mages answered with offensive magic.
The archers loosed as one. Attack spells detonated, and arrows punched into the trees.
"Die!"
The melee damage dealers who reached the target swung with everything they had. All they cut were trees already bristling with arrows and burning.
"They're not here?"
"Did they dodge already?"
"No mage is that fast!"
While the pursuit force floundered in confusion, Jin-soo and the shadow assassin struck the mages and healers still holding the rear under the tanks' guard.
"Aaaagh!"
"An assassin!"
"Protection of the Earth!"
"Guardian Shield!"
The healers snapped out protection skills, and the tanks triggered their guardian skills, but three mages and two healers were already dead. The ambush did not end there. Arrows from the shadow archer sought out the archers, whose defense was comparatively thin, and killed them where they stood.
"You rat bastard!"
A tank, fury boiling over, swung an enormous rectangular shield at Jin-soo.
Touch of Darkness. Shackles of Binding. Crown of Thorns. Body Weakening. Twisted Steps.
In that instant Jin-soo dumped curses onto him. Tanks were among the classes with the strongest resistance to curses, but not even that could withstand what Jin-soo poured out, not with magic power and spirit stats as overwhelming as his.
"Guhhh...!"
Stacked curses veiled the tank's sight and weighted his feet, and his movements turned sluggish. Jin-soo had bound those feet with curses, and the moment he swung Baekcheonsingeom, the healer's protection melted away. The sword's Skill Nullification had triggered. Together with the shadow assassin, he cut the throats of the healers whose protection had vanished.
Healers first. Mages next.
Jin-soo, the shadow warrior, the shadow assassin, and the shadow archer went for them. The two swords in Jin-soo's hands severed lives. The shadow warrior swept a greatsword in from the front and cut the mages down, while the shadow assassin never stopped moving, throwing daggers and swinging them, clearing mage after mage. Those who ran for the tanks met a rain of arrows from the shadow archer. Jet-black shafts buried themselves in vital points, and the mages died where the arrows found them.
"You sons of bitches!"
The enraged tanks came in swinging sword and shield. Jin-soo, the shadow warrior, and the shadow assassin did not give an inch. Going after the healers, mages, and archers first had been a tactical choice, not fear of the tanks.
Even so, the tanks who took Jin-soo's attacks had no choice but to be horrified. The guardian skills that were a tank's lifeline melted like snow in sunlight the instant they met Baekcheonsingeom.
"Why won't the guardian skill—!"
"Hold with your bodies!"
"Block them, no matter what!"
With their guardian skills nullified, the tanks were badly shaken. They had not been chosen as elites of the Yellow Dragon Guild for nothing, though. Bodies like steel turned aside the attacks of Jin-soo, the shadow warrior, and the shadow assassin.
In that gap the melee damage dealers, who had struck nothing but air, closed in on Jin-soo and the shadow assassin with killing intent boiling off them.
Shackles of Binding. Body Weakening. Twisted Steps.
Jin-soo and the shadow healer cast the curses straight at them. The moment their mobility collapsed, Jin-soo and the shadow mage poured offensive magic over the lightly armored melee dealers. A huge blast rolled through them, an enormous blaze swallowed their bodies, and they died.
In a flash the melee, the ranged fighters, and the healers were annihilated. Only wounded tanks remained.
"Run!"
"Smash the Rescue Stones!"
Realizing they could not win, the tanks scattered. A shadow knight and the Stone Golem were already planted across their escape routes, immovable.
"Break through!"
They tried to shove forward behind their shields. It was impossible. Slow, and weak on offense, they could not punch through a shadow knight and a Stone Golem that carried Shin Sua's blessings and protections on top of Jin-soo's summon-only buffs.
"Eek!"
"Move! I said move!"
Watching Jin-soo and the shadow summons draw closer, the tanks thrashed in desperation to flee. No amount of struggling broke the shadow knight and the Stone Golem. Blocked, they died one after another, until every last one of them was gone.
Jin-soo let out a long breath.
The Blood-Sucking Sword drank every drop spilled on the field, so there was no smell of blood. Even so, he had the uncanny sense that the air around him was thick and sticky with it.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
He answered Shin Sua shortly.
"Reinforcements will come."
"I know."
He had deliberately let the tanks trigger their Rescue Stones, so the Yellow Dragon Guild would learn that its pursuit force had been wiped out.
"Let's go."
"Yeah."
After gathering the loot, Jin-soo and Shin Sua slipped quietly off the battlefield.
"The pursuit force was wiped out?"
"Yes."
"Ha? Hahahaha!"
At his subordinate's report, Zhou Tianguo, Guild Master of the Yellow Dragon Guild, burst into a great laugh. People said that when something was too absurd, laughter came out on its own. It was true.
"Summon every high-rank party that's out hunting."
The laughter died. His face went cold, and he called in every elite the guild had. This was no time to be leisurely out hunting. First his guild members, and now the Yellow Dragon Guild's elite pursuit force. This was not a matter of sagging morale, or of becoming a joke to the other guilds.
I have to settle this. No matter what.
If he failed, members would quit the Yellow Dragon Guild in droves—or he himself would be driven from the Guild Master's seat.
The moment the muster order went out, ten of the guild's elite parties assembled. In an instant more than a hundred of Floor 100's highest-ranked players stood in one place.
"We move at once."
At Zhou Tianguo's command, the finest of the Yellow Dragon Guild set out to catch Jin-soo and Shin Sua.
That's a lot of them.
Through the eyes of Kkami, flying above the city, Jin-soo watched the Yellow Dragon elites. There were more than a hundred, and their gear was impressive.
So they scraped together every last bit of strength they have.
Even among elites, a single party was easy. Three parties, he could annihilate without taking a scratch.
Still, luck played a part.
The enemy had been badly careless and had not prepared for an ambush at all. Jin-soo had used that opening to cut down the healers and mages at the start, which was why wiping three parties had been simple. Now the situation was very different.
The Yellow Dragon Guild isn't in any position to get careless.
If anything, they were venomous with rage—the sort who would throw everything they had at a single ant.
There are too many of them.
Slashing their numbers with a surprise attack looked difficult.
They're braced for an ambush to a ridiculous degree.
Even inside the city, tanks, healers, and mages moved together.
Can I split them?
The tank who had been guarding the Undead Hidden Dungeon had paid the price for speaking lies instead of the truth. The Rescue Stone he carried, though, was still in Jin-soo's hand.
Worth a try.
The place where he had wiped out the pursuit force lay quite far from the Undead Hidden Dungeon.
About fifty kilometers.
His Shadow Summon skill, now grown to level 522, had a range of sixty kilometers.
If I set it up ahead of time, it's possible.
Jin-soo handed the shadow assassin the Rescue Stone that had belonged to the tank guarding the Undead Hidden Dungeon.
Sending Kkami would be easier.
But Kkami had to keep watch on the Yellow Dragon elites. The shadow assassin took the Rescue Stone, activated a stealth skill, and raced for the objective. Meanwhile the elites, having left the city, moved quickly toward the site of the last battle.
"The fight happened here."
"Track them. Fast."
"Yes, understood."
Watching and listening through Kkami, Jin-soo frowned.
Figured they'd have someone with a tracking skill.
It was only natural, and still a shame.
I hope the plan works.
He waited a suitable while, then ordered the shadow assassin to smash the Rescue Stone.
"What? The Rescue Stone just broke—the one belonging to the party that was standing watch in front of the hidden dungeon, where the bastards who wiped out Zhang Hong's party were."
At the mage's report, Guild Master Zhou Tianguo frowned.
"Now, of all times?"
"Yes. What should we do?"
"Split our people immediately—wait."
He had been about to order the split, and he stopped.
"How many are in the group we're chasing?"
"Seven."
"The ones who went into the hidden dungeon were seven at first, too. Later they dropped to two."
"That's right."
"Ignore it. Keep tracking these ones."
"What?"
The player with the tracking skill jolted, aghast. The murderers of a sworn brother and a younger brother had shown themselves, and they were simply going to ignore it?
"There's a strong chance the ones we're tracking are the same ones who hit Zhang Hong's party."
"Ah!"
Only then did the other guild members look startled.
"Even if they aren't, dealing with the ones who killed more than a hundred of our people comes first. We can chase those others down and erase them later."
Zhou Tianguo was making it plain that he valued the grudge of the entire Yellow Dragon Guild over his personal vendetta.
"As expected of the Guild Master."
"He puts the guild's dignity and safety before anything else."
His words won the members' favor.
It's a bust.
Confirming the scene through Kkami's eyes and ears, Jin-soo frowned. He had thought the Rescue Stone might split the Yellow Dragon elites into two groups. It had failed.
Then guerrilla work is the only answer.
Hit and fade, and cut the elites down one by one. That was the best move available to him now.
Still, being able to watch them out in the open makes this a lot easier. Getting Kkami as my second summon was a real stroke of luck.
In truth, he had been more than a little disappointed when Kkami first appeared. Leo was already earning his keep with sheer cuteness and a wide-area taunt roar that pulled monster aggro. What always nagged at Jin-soo was the lack of combat power.
So I'd hoped the second summon would be something strong in a fight.
Preferably an inanimate type, like the Shadow Summons—something that needed no work to secure its loyalty. What came out instead was Kkami, another summon with no combat ability, and from where Jin-soo stood there was nothing to do but be disappointed. Once he experienced the scouting and the intelligence work firsthand, though, that disappointment vanished, replaced by a satisfaction so complete it startled even him.
It feels like playing with a map hack turned on.
As the saying went, know the enemy and know yourself, and a hundred battles hold no danger. Hold the information, and the war was as good as won.
Then I should go and get ready.
Jin-soo moved to a chokepoint the Yellow Dragon pursuit would have to pass, and set his ambush.
Far off, the Yellow Dragon elites came into Jin-soo's view as they approached.
Their precautions are thorough.
The protection around the healers and mages, in particular, was nearly ironclad.
These are people used to fighting other players.
Even so, there was still something clumsy about it.
Get ready.
At his order, the shadow archer drew.
Guess I'll start, too.
Jin-soo stored Baekcheonsingeom and the Blood-Sucking Sword in his inventory and took out a bow and arrows. The strings he and the shadow archer drew shrieked as they pulled taut. Shin Sua's blessing and an archer-only Synthesis skill he had picked up not long ago sparked off each other, and tremendous mana settled into the arrows.
They released at the same time. The moment the strings sang free, Jin-soo and the shadow archer were already flowing into the next shot. From long range, dozens of arrows tore toward their marks faster than sound—and one after another, they struck dead on.