Realizing reinforcements had broken through the outer perimeter, the trapped players erupted in cheers.
"Sir Dawnbreaker is here! Guildmaster Lila, too!"
"Hold the line! We're breaking out!"
"Kill these bastards!"
"Victory is ours!"
The rallying cries reignited the fighting spirit of the encircled Starlight Town players.
Kael surveyed the ruined battlefield and the mountains of corpses, amazed they had held out this long.
"You're all heroes," Kael typed into the faction channel. "Leave the rest to me."
He drew his bow. The slaughter was about to begin.
A sudden gale swept through the area, blinding onlookers with dust. Golden light engulfed Kael. When it faded, his hair was swept back, his gaze razor-sharp.
[Apollo’s Descent]!
He triggered his ultimate skill as a tribute to the brothers and sisters who had held the line. Kael swore none of the enemies before him would escape alive. He wanted nothing more than to slaughter them all.
The transformation completely altered his aura. A mere glance from him sent a chill down the spines of the Orc players. Only now did they realize the true terror of this legendary reaper.
But the real nightmare hadn't even begun.
A storm of arrows blotted out the sky, plunging into a fifty-by-fifty-foot zone. A terrifying cascade of damage numbers floated into the air:
-477,897 (Phantom Barrage)
-963,232 (Phantom Barrage + Pierce)
-1,545,577! (Phantom Barrage + Pierce x2)
-4,577,754! (Phantom Barrage + Pierce x2, Critical x3)
"Holy shit! The lowest damage is over four hundred thousand!"
"There's a four and a half million hit!"
"Is he even human?"
"Is this a joke?"
"The damage numbers have to be bugged!"
"How the hell do we fight this?!"
"Where's Imperator? What's the plan?!"
"Screw the plan, run!"
In an instant, over three thousand Orc players broke and fled, abandoning nearly ten thousand DP worth of Orc NPCs to draw the aggro.
Kael had no intention of letting them go. "Guard Imperator's corpse," he ordered over his shoulder.
Together with his clone, he hunted down the fleeing Orcs. Moving at four to five times the speed of an average player, he gunned down anyone in his sights. But the retreating forces scattered too widely for him to wipe them out alone.
Lila and the others redirected Norlun and the rest of the bosses to tank the Orc NPC vanguard, rallying the remaining players to chase down the deserters.
The tide of battle instantly flipped. Two thousand players chasing down three and a half thousand was a comical sight. Terrified of being bogged down in combat, the Orc players didn't dare turn back to fight.
The rout ended with three thousand Orc players killed and five hundred MIA.
Why MIA instead of returning to their bind points? Because they literally couldn't go home.
Lila had preemptively stationed squads at the three mountain passes. With their escape routes blocked, the surviving Orcs were stranded in Starlight Town territory. Too afraid to approach the outpost or the mines, they roamed the wilderness, ironically grinding wild mobs and earning a decent chunk of points in the process.
When the dust settled, Rena approached the densest pile of corpses and cast [Mass Resurrection].
Brilliant light washed over the area, and more than two hundred Starlight Town players pulled themselves off the ground. Other Priests from the camp rushed into the battlefield, casting single-target resurrection spells. Naturally, they prioritized reviving players with their own resurrection abilities.
One by one, players were pulled back from the dead. However, Priests only made up a fifth of the player base—roughly four thousand active healers. Combat resurrection skills shared a two-hour cooldown, and a player's spirit would automatically release after an hour.
It was mathematically impossible to save everyone.
Final casualties: 5,000 players and 6,000 DP worth of NPCs. These were the first Starlight Town casualties permanently removed from the battlefield.
They died as heroes.
Despite the victory, the mood was somber. The survivors solemnly gathered the drops and salvageable resources, mourning the teammates who couldn't be revived.
Meanwhile, the mood at the Grom'kar Outpost was purely explosive. The players who had died early in the clash were the first to voice their fury.
"Ten thousand DP versus two thousand, and you cowards just turned and ran!"
"Spineless trash!"
"Fucking embarrassing."
Others directed their rage at the raid leaders who had recruited them.
"Those raid leaders are fucking scammers."
"Yeah, 'strength in numbers,' my ass. Did we win?"
"I actually bought that bullshit about easy points. I'm an idiot."
The raid leaders, in turn, passed the buck.
"Imperator! This is all on you and your ego!"
"You're trash, Imperator!"
"Who the hell made you commander?"
"I was blind to listen to you."
"I voted against a full assault from the start! We had perfectly good fortifications, but you just had to charge out."
"Exactly! Our arrow towers took out dozens of their catapults earlier."
"Our Orc grunts are only going to get better gear. Why force a field battle now?"
"Cat got your tongue, Imperator? Speak up!"
Imperator had already respawned in the city. He read the vitriol flooding the public channel, bearing it in silence. He didn't offer any excuses.
According to his strategy, wiping out the enemy vanguard should have taken thirty, maybe forty minutes. That would have baited out Dawnbreaker's transformation, clearing the path to flatten the enemy base in one fell swoop.
He had vastly underestimated their tenacity. It took a full hour, and they still hadn't completely cleared the enemy cannon fodder.
Starlight Town's gear was just too good.
Imperator reflected on his three fatal miscalculations: the gems, the number of level 35 players, and the raw stats of the level 45 bosses. All three errors stemmed from a single variable: Dawnbreaker.
Finished with his after-action review, Imperator felt no grief or despair. He simply stood up and gazed toward the battlefield, Kael's image flashing in his mind.
Dawnbreaker. I overestimated your forces to be safe, yet I still underestimated your personal power. You destroyed my reputation today. Next time, I'm taking everything back.