The sky was torn open and a scene of battle was shown on the other side. From the crack came almost 100,000 soldiers of Camelot, along with the 6 remaining Knights of the Round Table who were the only ones still loyal to Arthur as well as alive.
Arthur broke their fall with his control of the wind. Just like Fragarach, Excalibur was a legendary blade that bestowed powers of the wind and high offense. However, Excalibur was slightly stronger than Fragarach, due to its offensive power being the highest in mythology.
Arthur gazed at Draco on the throne and his eyes sparkled. The fellow seemed much more powerful than when they met in that meadowland.
Unfortunately, neither Arthur nor any of the soldiers of Camelot were able to remember the fight against the Metal Dragon. After all, the Seal of Camelot summoned them right before the Battle of Camlann.
It was as if the System created a digital copy of the soldiers and summoned them for an hour to do Draco's bidding. Once the duration was over, they would be removed from the battlefield.
As such, each new instance in which he used the skill, the new ones only remembered Draco from the Battle in the Central Meadowland during the Flora and Fauna quest. Unfortunately, this would be how things would work for as long as the Seal of Camelot was active.
Arthur turned to the army of players and NPCs with an analytical gaze. Before he could speak out, Galahad said exactly what he wanted to say himself.
"Unremarkable."
That was right, according to the Knights of Camelot, the 500,000 players before them were completely unremarkable. Their stats and postures were improper, making them seem unskilled and untrained.
However, that wasn't all. A large roar could be heard as an army of wood-based monsters like Shamblers, Dryads, Assassin Vines, Killer Trees, Ents and more rushed over from the horizon.
Their momentum was even greater than the Army of Camelot, who had baffled players present. They had heard that Draco could summon Arthur and his army, so many of the men - and especially the women - came to take a look at the Legendary King Arthur.
What they had seen was extremely excellent. Arthur looked like a handsome hero who would fight a dragon to save a damsel. This tugged at the heartstrings of many girls and even some fellows.
The guys mostly felt a mixture of envy and respect, due to his heroic bearing and his equipment.
However, no matter who was looking, they felt a chill in their hearts as they saw the monsters approaching with such force and presence. The trembling of the earth due to their charge alone made many turn pale.
Arthur and co gazed at the Wood Monster Army with light smiles. After all, they had fought with some of these fellows before, so they knew how good they were.
The Wood Monster Army came to stand beside the Army of Camelot, their bodies still but their eyes full of menace and evil. Even the soldiers of Camelot felt like the Wood Monster Army would be a tough foe to fight.
Draco activated the Tactics Tradeskill and entered his Personal Command Center. Unlike in the battle against the Metal Dragon, he didn't plan on taking a too active part in this fight, so he could devote his time using the Tradeskill to its fullest.
Sofia came bobbing in from wherever it was that she hid when he was away. The robotic orb looked at him in a very eerie manner, and Draco couldn't help but sweat beneath his armor.
"Greetings, Commander. Welcome back to your Personal Command Center after a long period of inactivity."
Sofia came uncomfortably close to him, placing her giant red sensor-eye right in Draco's worried face. "Might I ask the Commander why the Personal Command Center was inactive for so long?"
Draco answered stoically. "There were many issues to resolve that did not require combat. However, our current predicament can only be resolve through combat at the moment. That's why I came here."
Sofia bobbed silently for a bit before the intensity of her glare and presence became normal. "An acceptable response. What does the Commander require of me today?"
Draco sat down in his chair and gazed at the screens before him. "Do not use my Control. This time, use the Divine Eyes of Caelo to analyze the battle and figure out the best path forward."
Draco hadn't done so during the battle with the Metal Dragon because he needed Omega on standby in case things got out of hand, and the skill had seen an important use at a crucial moment.
Now though, it was unlikely that Myriad Cards and Lorebinders could push him that far. Besides, Draco didn't want to create more tears in space that lead to the Null Realm. For all he knew, it could make the upcoming Abyss Event even worse than it seemed to be right now.
Sofia acknowledged Draco's command. "The Personal Command Center shall re-route your abilities of sight to judge the battlefield."
Just like when Sofia was making use of his, Draco didn't feel the Eyes of Caelo do anything in particular. Nevertheless, the screens before him began to update themselves so rapidly that it was clear that analysis was going on.
Draco waited patiently while this occurred, and on the outside, he nonchalantly watched as Myriad Cards and Lorebinders made the first move in this battle.
Their army split up into 100 regiments. One regiment possessed 5,000 players and 500 NPCs. Each regiment had an optimally distributed force of tanks, healers, ranged damage dealers and melee front liners.
Each regiment would be extremely hard to kill on its own due to this optimal distribution. Tanks would cast aggro stealing skills and buff themselves to resist damage. Healers would also add their own stackable buffs into the fray, and heal the tanks whenever they endured a difficult salvo.
Then the ranged damage dealers would form the main offense as they lowered the health of their opponents through rapid and calculated salvos, while the melee players would tag in and out with the tanks on the vanguard, dealing damage where necessary.
Wars and large-scale battles in the real world were long, tiring and very traumatic, but the enemies only had one life bound by certain biological limits.
When you shot or stabbed someone, they would die. Maybe not instantly, depending on where it happened, but eventually until proper medical care was given.
As such, the tactics crafted for real-world confrontations emphasized carefulness and craftiness. Shoddy commanders would lead their army to lose a great amount of manpower, lives which were crucial to the military strength of a state, and that kind of manpower was not easily replaced.
Wars in games, and especially in the FIVR games before Boundless, were very different.
The battles were quick, exciting and very motivating... as long as one didn't feel 100% of the pain like in Boundless.
Not to mention that stabbing someone with a sword didn't mean that they would die. No, it only meant that they would lose an equivalent amount of HP, but they could grin menacingly at you while your sword was in their chest and even retaliate.
One fatal strike was not enough to take down a fellow player and that was just the icing of the cake.
There was also the fact that magic existed, which f.u.c.k.i.e.d up every single common strategy used in real-world battles. Magic was a game-changer in how the world worked, not to mention things like items and skills.
So, one had to use a different method to fight in such wars or they would be slaughtered like pigs.
This arrangement was the perfect counter to large-scale active spells like Armageddon, which could wipe out a whole city on its own. By spreading out into controlled regiments with optimal force distributions, the range of spells like that was countered.
This was a basic war strategy for any competent commander in Boundless. It was only monsters or armies without classes aside from footmen like the Army of Camelot that would group up and fight in a large group.
Joker and Happy Scholar were talented, but at this point in the timeline, they were still noobs in the grand scale of things. It was the NPC commanders who came up with this tactic and showed the duo how to utilize it.
The spectating players were confounded by this. After all, how could groups of 5,500 people hope to fight a group of 200,000? The larger group should be able to steamroll through the smaller ones really quickly.
It was then that the Allied Guilds of Myriad Cards and Lorebinders displayed one of their biggest reliances for this war.
｢Cannon – War Weapon
Durability: 100/100
Rank: Common
Atk spd: 0.1
Dmg: 234,500-547,987 (Splash)
Effect: Nil｣
｢Trebuchet – War Weapon
Durability: 100/100
Rank: Common
Atk spd: 0.05
Dmg: 301,415-692,506 (Splash)
Effect: Nil｣
Two of the most notable war weapons were brought out shocking numbers. The players who accessed the betting arena had already been informed of this, so they weren't too surprised.
Those who didn't were confounded. Putting aside whether or not Umbra could deal with these weapons, where the hell did Myriad Card and Lorebinders get them from?
Draco frowned slightly. It seemed that the Hidden Powers had really furnished the Allied Guilds for this Guild War. To even grant them fragile war weapons that were relatively hard to produce was truly surprising.
After all, one needed to be a Master Rank Engineer to work on even Common rank war weapons. This was one of the few limitations put on the Tradeskill as War Weapons would be too overpowered if they could be mass-produced by mere beginners.
Just look at that goddamn damage. A Rank 1 Captain with a typical amount of HP would die in just one hit. How were players supposed to deal with this?
Once the players had seen this, they had bet on the Allied Guilds because Umbra only had 2,500 people. Even if they had some tricks, the damage was more than ten times the maximum a normal tank should have at this stage.
However, with the Army of Camelot as well as the Wood Monster Army, things were looking to get really hot. The summoned armies on Draco's side countered the formation of the Allied Guild's armies, but their war weapons countered the summoned armies on Draco's side.
However, just because Draco had decided to enjoy this war didn't mean that things would be fair for the Allied Guilds. His Personal Command Center was currently abusing his Eyes of Caelo to read the minds of the enemy and formulate the proper counter plans.
As such, Draco commanded the Wood Monster Army to split into four divisions. Each Division contained 25,000 monsters which were split according to their abilities. The druids like the Dryads and Sprites made up the last division at the back, while the tall and large monster like the Shamblers and Ents stayed at the front in the first division.
In the third division were the ranged wood monsters like the Leshy and Satyrs who could use magic. In the second division were the pure offensive types like the Killer Trees and the Assassin Vines, as well as the Manticores.
Draco then turned to the Army of Camelot and split them into six divisions. Each division contained about 16,600 men with one of the 6 knights leading them.
Draco then told them to march forward in two different directions. The Wood Monster Army moved towards the location of the war weapons while the Army of Camelot advanced on the players.
The armies on both sides marched steadily, creating a mounting suspense and tension in the hearts and minds of onlookers. They felt their throats become dry and their hearts begin to pound.
When both armies were within attacking range of each other, they suddenly accelerated into a brisk walk. This brisk walk intensified further into a light jog and then broke into an earth-shaking sprint.
Before the frontline of both armies even collided, the war weapons and the ranged fighters fired out their attacks. The tanks on the side of the Allied Guilds absorbed the hits while those on the side of the Wood Monster Army tanked the explosive damage from the war weapons.
In just one salvo, many of those in the first division were destroyed, around 500 of them. The rest were either crippled or their HP was left in the red zone. This was naturally quite a surprise to the members of Umbra, but they continued to watch silently.
Draco simply smirked. How could the Personal Command Center not have factored in these losses when it saw through the strength of the war weapons?
The Dryads and Sprites began casting their stackable H-O-Ts that brought the critically injured monsters of the first division back to healthiness. The players of the world - and especially the Allied Guilds - got to see the same mind-boggling sight that the monsters of the Central Meadowland did.
Unlike when the Wood Monster Army fought in the Central Meadowland, the Dryads didn't consume too much mana. This was simply because the war weapons had abysmal reload speeds.
By the time the second salvo was fired, the Wood Monster army had closed the distance by 20%. Assuming they could maintain this speed, the war weapons would only have four salvos to kill as many of the Wood Monster Army as possible.
Not too many defenders were present around the war weapons aside from those who operated them. After all, the majority of the army were on the field currently.
However, the NPC commanders saw this and made the Allied Guilds split the field army in half, with 50 regiments moving to intercept the Wood Monster Army.
This was exactly what Draco wanted, as the Army of Camelot would have a hard time handling all the players at once, without any healers amongst their ranks. Most of them were either swordsmen or lancers, with no ranged classes in the mix.
Now that the army of the Allied Guilds had been split in such a manner, the Army of Camelot dug into the remaining regiments powerfully. Each and every soldier of that army was as strong as a Specialist Rank monster while the Knights were at the level of Captain Rank monsters.
Players turned into pixels so rapidly that one couldn't help but feel a chill. It was like watching a grinder devour flesh, turning it into mincemeat. Whole bodies were split in half or had their limbs cut off.
The players who experienced this pain paled or screamed. They wondered why they even signed up for this war as their minds crumbled due to the pressure of death and agony.
However, the moment they left the battlefield, their brains were chemically altered, severely downplaying the trauma of the event. Whenever they tried to recall it, they wouldn't remember the exact pain, just that it was painful and they regretted being unable to fight for longer.
The NPCs among the regiments though, were truly powerful. They had all reached the ceiling of Rank 1 and were one step into Rank 2. Each and every one of them was a topmost elite gathered from the myriad races that served the Rank 7 powerhouses.
Why would the Rank 7 powerhouses be so confident that 50,000 troops could route Umbra when they knew exactly how overpowered Draco and his guild were?
Not only that, they were outfitted in the best weapons and armors from the treasuries of the Rank 7 powerhouses. Not a single piece of equipment on their body was below the Uncommon Rank.
The army of Camelot boasted incredible military skill, yet only Arthur and the Knights had top-quality equipment.
Camelot had been embroiled in so much war after Lancelot's betrayal, which - coupled with Mordred's antics - meant that the equipment of the soldiers that were marching into the Battle of Camlann was worn down and quite poor.
As such, these NPCs who were present in small amounts within each regiment were able to cut down the numbers of the Army of Camelot slowly but steadily.
Seeing this, the eyes of Joker and Happy Scholar glinted. They both made a field changing command that they hesitated to before.
"Use your lives to protect the NPCs within your regiment! Support them as best as you can!"
Instead of fighting along with the NPCs and providing minimal support, the 5,000 players in each regiment devoted their whole existence to protection, thus extending the lives of those NPCs.
This greatly increased the death rate of the players in each regiment. They were cut down like weeds on an arbor, but the trade-off was that the death rate of the Army of Camelot increased as well.
No matter how hard the Knights fought, they were offensive damage dealers who could kill a hundred with one swing of their blades, but they could not provide defense for their own men.
Draco saw this and countered by commanding the Army of Camelot to focus on the healers. He had a plan to deal with those pesky NPCs.
Draco's eyes glinted with malice as he cast all his buff skills in order to increase his total attack damage in preparation for one of the most broken skills in gaming history.
War Monger!
Absolute Void!
｢War Monger: Activating this skill allows the user to merge with the Fire of War, boosting damage by 100% for as long as there is stamina to burn. No cooldown.｣
｢Absolute Void: Create spatial anomaly in an area of 100*50 yards around the user which boosts attack and movement speed by 10% for each enemy within. No cap on percentile increase. Duration: 1-minute Cooldown: 10 minutes｣
Before he did so, Draco also blinked as close to the enemy army as possible. Since he was going to use these two skills, he might as well maximize their benefits.
Draco didn't bother to add Dragon's Force into the equation since it had a cooldown of 12 hours - 6 when cut by the Richmond's Herald title - which would serve a different purpose later on.
Black Dragon's Roar!
A soundwave erupted from Draco that covered the entirety of the battlefield. It washed over players harmlessly, as the skill could not be used on them, but it was different for the NPCs.
They tried to do their best to defend against the skill, but it was futile. How could they, when the skill moved over a one-mile radius and maximized Draco's total attack power by a factor of 30?
For all the NPCs in regiments within 1 mile of Draco, they all saw an outrageous amount of damage taken before they turned to pixels.
-420,000!