Shortly after, news of Serpent's Coil securing a 130-acre territory spread across the servers, leaving the player base in absolute disbelief.
"How is there such a massive gap between Serpent's Coil—the second guild to upgrade—and Crimson Bloom?"
"Crimson Bloom must have triggered some hidden system bonus."
"Doubt it. The system announcement was clear. First place got an Uncommon Relic, second got a Common Relic. Nothing about territory size."
"So you're saying Serpent's Coil's raw strength could only secure 130 acres?"
"I heard they wiped twice on the first boss alone."
"And they completely failed to hold the line against the final boss wave."
"Makes sense, then."
"I guess that’s the absolute ceiling for an average guild."
"Who else has five level 45 bosses on a leash like Crimson Bloom?"
"We should probably wait until our guild’s average level is higher before hitting the Demon Tower."
"If we over-level, the rewards will scale down."
"Better than wiping."
"People need to stop dreaming. Serpent's Coil hit their absolute limit with those 130 acres."
Serpent's Coil's upgrade served as a harsh wake-up call. Guild leaders who had planned to rush their members to level 35 to hit the Demon Tower were now second-guessing their strategies. Pushing early meant a low completion rate and a tiny territory. Waiting, however, meant all the prime real estate would be snatched up by rival guilds.
Take Serpent's Coil: their land might be small, but as the first official guild in the Oasis of Zafira, their headquarters sat just a stone's throw from the main city's teleport nexus. Size or location? It was a brutal trade-off.
Just as the chatter around Serpent's Coil began to die down, another server-wide alert shattered the calm.
[System Announcement: At 9:00 AM tomorrow, Starlight Town will initiate a [Destroy] operation against Starting Village 9139.]
Players had been waiting a week for this drop.
"Hell yes, finally!"
"How's this event going to work? Can solo players join?"
"Probably. No point in a server-wide ping if the player base can't get involved."
"You guys backing Starlight Town or the WarChief defenders?"
"Starlight Town, obviously. Dawnbreaker is there."
"I'm heading to the Thunder Horde. I want to see what kind of defenses the WarChief has cooked up."
Before the forums could reach a consensus, the system chimed again:
[System Announcement: By order of the WarChief, summoning 10,000 warriors to defend Starting Village 9139 tomorrow. All braves of the [WarChief Faction] are welcome to enlist.]
Players hoping to align with the Burning Horde groaned in disappointment, while the rest eagerly refreshed their logs, waiting for Starlight Town's recruitment parameters.
Starlight Town. The Mayor's Assistant's Office.
Isolde disconnected the voice call with her brother, staring blankly at the wall. His parting words echoed in her mind: "I'm tied up and can't log in. You're making the call for tomorrow."
Make the call.
Her mind went completely blank. How was she supposed to orchestrate a siege? She had never made a major decision in her life.
Now, coordinating the complete annihilation of an official system village rested entirely on her shoulders. The weight was suffocating.
No way. I need Lila. And SkyVault. I need the guild.
Minutes later, Lila, MirthBringer, SkyVault, and Lotusbond filed into her office. Taking one look at Isolde's panicked expression, factoring in tomorrow's siege and Kael's multi-day absence, the group instantly connected the dots.
Lila broke the silence. "Isolde, what's wrong? Stressing over tomorrow?"
Isolde nodded frantically. "My brother can't make it. He told me to draft the recruitment orders."
MirthBringer patted his sizable gut. "You post quest commissions all the time. Should be a walk in the park, right?"
Isolde flushed, shrinking into her chair. "This is different. If I mess up the parameters on a standard quest, nobody cares. If I screw this up, we lose the war."
Lotusbond offered a reassuring smile. "Lay out the options for us. Let's brainstorm."
Taking a deep breath, Isolde dumped the siege mechanics onto the table.
The system had allocated her a rigid cap of 30,000 Deployment Points (DP). A single player cost 1 DP. NPC units, however, scaled wildly across over a hundred different categories:
· Miners and Lumberjacks: 1 DP
· Engineers and Builders: 2 DP
· Heavy Cavalry and Archers: 3 DP
· Ranged Siege Rams and Heavy Armored Assault Vehicles: 5 DP
· Level 35 Siege Bosses: 10 DP
· Level 38 Combat Bosses: 20 DP
No wonder she looked sick. The permutations were endless.
MirthBringer chuckled. "Just draft a thousand bosses and steamroll the place."
Lotusbond shot him a glare. "You think the WarChief's defenses stop at those 10,000 players? You think the native garrison is just going to roll over?"
SkyVault nodded in agreement. "The NPCs in that village are sitting between levels 35 and 40. They'll have a massive roster of Elites and Chieftains. Hell, they might even have a Lord-tier mob."
"Alright, then max it out," MirthBringer countered. "Thirty thousand pure players. Zerg rush."
"Still won't work," Lotusbond shot down the idea. "Players lack raw siege damage. We'd bounce right off their walls."
Isolde watched them argue in circles, eventually shifting her desperate gaze to Lila.
Lila had been dead silent since Isolde listed the unit types, lost in thought. Seeing the assistant look her way, she finally spoke.
"You guys are focusing purely on combat. Pound for pound, players deal the most versatile damage, yes. But the system is telegraphing this heavily: raw DPS won't win a siege. We need a hybrid composition."
The room quieted down, waiting for the real strategy.
"Look at the roster," Lila continued. "Miners. Lumberjacks. Why offer resource-gathering units in a siege? Because we can farm nodes mid-battle. And if we have a live resource economy on the battlefield, we can use those mats to..."
Lila paused, locking eyes with Isolde to let her connect the final dot.
The realization hit Isolde like a physical blow. "To build our own Siege Rams and Assault Vehicles on site!"
Lila nodded with a sharp smile. "Exactly. And with the Builder units, we might even be able to..."
"Build forward barracks!" Isolde's eyes lit up, the panic completely replaced by adrenaline.