In truth, Imperator had planned to ambush Kael’s forces long before they even set foot on the battlefield.
When Kael was marching with over six thousand players and a massive escort of defenseless utility NPCs, the strategy was simple: wipe out the workers. Even if it cost him thousands of players, crippling the enemy's infrastructure early would guarantee a swift victory.
But as he prepared to march, the interface chimed.
[System Alert: The battle phase has not yet begun. You cannot enter the enemy war zone.]
An invisible system barrier blocked his army.
By the time the barrier dropped half an hour later with a new alert—[System Alert: The battle has begun. Players may now freely traverse all zones.]—the attacking main force had already arrived. The window to crush them with a numbers advantage had slammed shut.
"Bullshit!" Imperator cursed, watching his golden opportunity evaporate. "These system restrictions are absolute garbage."
But he wasn't one to quit. Kael’s forces were currently spread thin, conquering resource nodes across the map. Imperator decided to mobilize a massive NPC legion to force a decisive, early team fight. He had no intention of letting Starlight Town scale up; the longer the siege lasted, the stronger they would get. Crushing them in the cradle was the only viable play.
But the system screwed him a second time. The Burning Horde faction was supposedly "upgrading equipment" and heavily restricted his command. He was only allocated 20,000 Deployment Points worth of NPCs.
Running the math, he had 10,000 DP in players and 20,000 in NPCs. Kael had 20,000 DP in players and 10,000 in NPCs. The tactical advantage was completely negated.
Kael could simply pull his utility NPCs behind the lines and grind out a war of attrition with his superior player count. Unless Imperator could pull off a flawless total party wipe, an early skirmish was pointless. As long as a single enemy Priest survived to start chaining mass resurrections, the whole assault would crumble.
Weighing the risks, the famously aggressive Imperator scrapped the all-in assault. Plan A was dead. It was time for guerrilla warfare.
Surveying his available troops, a cold, calculating smile spread across Imperator's face.
Meanwhile, halfway through his lunch in the real world, Kael's phone buzzed with a message from Lila.
Mining NPCs are getting ganked across all nodes. Over a hundred casualties already.
Kael typed back a quick reply: Got it. I'll play with them later.
He didn't elaborate on a counter-strategy or explain what "play with them" meant. He just went back to his meal.
Back in the game, the guild leaders were gathered inside the Main Camp command tent, staring grimly at the incoming casualty reports.
"Mine One: Thirty miners dead. Quarry Two: Twenty-five dead. Lumber Camp: Thirty-three dead. Builders: Twenty-eight..."
Draevan, the guildmaster of Titan Guard, slammed his fist on the table. "Cowards! They won't fight us head-on, so they send Rogues to rat out our workers!"
MirthBringer, leader of Laughing Tribe, scowled. "Spineless bastards. Abusing our lack of True Sight gear. It's a cheap trick."
"Keep your heads," Apocalypse_Dreadclaw rumbled. "Just deploy more players with stealth-detection."
Silverwind snapped his fan shut, shaking his head. "Inefficient. The map is too vast, and there are too many blind spots. Worse, the classes with detection abilities—Archers with [Flares], Priests with [Light Orb]—are incredibly squishy. They're just getting one-shot by Rogue ambushes the second they step out of line."
Draevan drew his greatsword, Ashfang, the metal hissing against the scabbard. "Screw this. I'm going out there to hunt them down myself."
"Stand down, Draevan," Lila intervened sharply. She turned to the rest of the table. "Look at the big picture. We aren't suffering permanent losses. Dead NPCs can be rebuilt. Dead players can respawn. But those enemy Rogues? If they die on our side of the map, they can't corpse-run. Every Rogue that falls is out of the battlefield for good. They are trading permanent casualties to delay our development and burn our respawn cooldowns."
Lotusbond of the Petal Veil guild leaned forward. "Then why don't we give them a taste of their own medicine? Send our Rogues to gank their NPCs."
"We can't," Lila said, shaking her head. "They started fortifying yesterday. I sent scouts. There are three heavily reinforced checkpoints blocking the Eastern Forest. The walls are lined with cannons and Level 35-plus Archers. We can't break through."
She tapped the tactical map spread across the table. "We are here. To reach the Eastern Forest, we have to breach those three checkpoints. Their resource NPCs are tucked way in the back, near the western edge of the woods. Sneaking a raid party through that much heavily guarded territory is impossible."
A heavy silence fell over the tent.
Draevan slumped back into his chair. "Dammit. So we just sit here and take it?"
MirthBringer patted his massive stomach. "Sure feels like it. Who's the enemy commander, anyway? I'm gonna camp his corpse for a week after this event ends."
Lila pulled up a player dossier. "He goes by Imperator."
The guild leaders exchanged blank looks.
"Imperator?" MirthBringer scoffed. "Never heard of him." He wasn't on the gear leaderboards, which meant he wasn't worth their attention.
"I know him," Apocalypse_Dreadclaw interjected. "During the Starting Village invasions, my vice-guildmaster was stationed in the same settlement. Imperator was just a squad leader back then. The village was weak and ultimately fell to the Burning Horde. But my vice-GM swore that if the local commander had actually listened to Imperator's tactical advice, they would have held the line. The guy knows what he's doing."
SkyVault, who had been quietly studying the map, suddenly dragged his finger across the parchment, stopping at the far western edge of the enemy village. "What about the West Cliff? Defenses have to be paper-thin there."
The leaders blinked, realizing the potential. During the initial Burning Horde invasions, a horde of monkey mobs had scaled the western cliffs and wreaked havoc. Several villages had actually fallen because the Horde's main army launched a frontal assault while using the cliffs for a devastating pincer maneuver. If they could replicate that...
Lila expanded the holographic map projection. "Theoretically, yes. We could scale the mountain on our side, then use players with [Slow Fall] to drop directly into the western rear of their village."
A murmur of excitement rippled through the tent.
"But practically," Lila continued, instantly dousing their hopes, "it won't work."
"First, an aerial drop requires a massive strike force to be effective. A group that large guarantees a spy will leak the plan. Second, it's a suicide mission. Once you drop down that cliff, you can't climb back up. Unless that strike force can immediately breach the inner city gates from the rear, they will be surrounded and slaughtered."
The excitement died. It was a tactical dead end.
Suddenly, SkyVault bolted upright, his eyes wide. "Wait a second... doesn't Dawnbreaker know how to fly?"
Lila froze. She had completely forgotten.