Max/Jak POV
The Helllion Army was assembled, the demons didn't seem to care at all as they stayed in the middle of the endless corrupted grounds.
To reach them the Army would have to pass two mountains, or pass through a rather dangerous canyon, it was evident that they could only use the mountains to launch an attack.
There were 106 great armies camping at the borders of the corrupted lands, each big enough to build a nation. Each holding their own champions and plans, the most important army however was not the Helllion's or some npc kingdom's army, it was the Dragon knights' army, With their four immoryal npc commanders present.
Another power to reckon were the mages' council, they had sent at least a dozen of council members, in other words twelve immortal powerful npcs mages with the troops, but the one to behold was non other than a girl called Blue who was among them.
She had short blue hair and wore a fancy blue dress, her fingers and neck bore jewelry made of blue saphires and she held onto a strange blue staff.
If Max however was there he would have recognized another member of the mage guild, among the mages were thousands of apprentices and average mages from the magic academy. One of them was Lidie, another was Galie and even Darknym and little Brown were there.
Of course they had just entered the magic academy a few days ago, but all adventurer mages of the academy were forced to join the war. After all they were dealing with the demons, a threat to the whole world or so the npc said.
Max was in charge of a small unit of no more than a hundred players, each having their own npc soldiers with them. Max had his own soldiers as well but they were last minute merc npcs, but their number made no less than half his unit. Max's leadership status was rather overwhelming, even his shout the system had named it as Lion roar and with his mastery of the skill it had many different effects.
Their armies had surrounded the whole of the northern mountains and there was no way to way for the demons to escape.
The npc mages were sent to purify the land while the players and other npcs protected them and killed any monster or demon that approached the borders, even underground monsters weren't spared, since the life detection spells found all and any life form, even birds and other animals were slain.
It was a purge that would take years to finish but once it had there was no way out of this, since the demons were purified, instead of killed.
When you kill a demon from Allastar they normaly would return to the demon world, but if you purify them, they will simply die and their avatar was deleted and all their hard earned items and skills were lost forever, but more and more players flocked to the demon side, even the system had made the demon city as the only spawning point for the demon race, meaning that demon became an official race and it had so many different types that multiple players wanted to try it out, at least until the purge ends, which all players saw as a lost cause, some even wanted to join the other side and purge the demons but the players under Blue simply threated them as enemies.
The reason behind it was that the demon players could easily be spies and although Domina wasn't as smart as to do something like that, Green was no Idiot, she could easily send one or two spies over and when the battle begins, the demons could simply strike them from behind, after all demons gain nothing from purging the demon city, on the contrary they lose their only way to evolve, since the strange mucky pools had an effect of evolving demons overtime, although non knew why.
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Tonight was a peaceful night and like always the patrols were on their guard, the last few days were rather hectic and troublesome as the demons begun restlessly retaliating and although the demons were weak, they had their oblivion armors, which made them rather hard to kill.
The most however troublesome thing were the assassinations that happened a few days ago.
The demons had begun killing the npc mages responsible for the purification of the land which slowed down their advance even more, if not for the merging of abjusent armies it would be a lost cause long ago, but as they went forward there was less space and the encirclement became tighter, making things like assassinating mages pointless, since there were simply too many players patroling at night.
Max was laying in his tent when he suddenly felt the ground shake. It was easy to hear the hundreds of stomps if you have your head near the ground and Max was a spartan when it came to that, other than a light sheet on the ground he needed nothing more, even without it he could sleep even on the steep ground.
"Alarm! Everyone take positions!"
Max shouted, making the whole camp wake up, little by little, there was complete chaos and disarray, but it was preferrable to them being killed in their sleep.
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At a distance away from the camp Jak could see hundreds of lights like a sea of fireflies lighting up far in the distance, a beautiful sight to be seen but it also ment that their suprise attack had already failed, non the less however they still charged.
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Max was now at the front lines, the mages had long begun their preparations, applying buffs and summoning creatures, while the stronger ones begun chanting their incantations, since casting speed for powerful spells was rather long, there were even spells that needed hours to cast.
Not far away Max could see the glistering shine from their opponent's armors, they were just a few sparks but the light from their camp still reflected on thir armor from a long enough distance.
It was a good thing that they only camped uphill, making it an advantageous battle, but this time they felt somewhat desperate when they saw the sheer size of what was to come.
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Jak while riding on a huge armored demonic monster, was charging non stop, the demons at his side were all rather excited, this was the first organized counter, they had been saving their strength for a long time now and this was only one of multiple such units, each was of course commanded by its own Jak.
Suddenly a rain of arrows and magic begun, explosions and cries begun sounding from all around the place as the demons were now at shooting range.
A booming voice echoed once in a while shouting "Fire!" from hill, making the demon players feel somewhat miserable.
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Uphill Max had taken full control of the situation, after the first chaotic volley everyone begun listening to his voice, each fire command he gave to his npc soldiers was also followed by the other players and their npcs.
It was as if they had joined the army and Max their drill instructor, if they hadn't readied their magic or bow, they would have to wait for the next volley, but the damage they did that way was overwhelming.
The demons who were at the front were overwhelmed and the whole charge had halted in a chaotic way as the monsters in the front were killed and revived only to be killed again and again by the next volley.
The ones behind them however were blocked from advancing, making their charge stop then and there.
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Jak was enraged, but even more enraged he was from the demons raining from the sky. The flying demons fell to the ground with the first arrow or spell hitting their armors, after all it was too short a duration for the demon players to master flight.
Jak could only clench his teeth as he abandoned his mount and went forth on foot, there was no way for the players on the hill to see a small soldier crawling towards them and they still had to stop the huge beasts and flying demons from swarming them.
The flying demon players were retreeting to regroup and fly once more, while the mounted demons followed Jak and begun "crawling" up the hillside, in truth they weren't exactly crawling, they were just running to slowly since they were still away from the hilltop and spells and arrows were still raining from the sky.
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"Prepare for Melee! archers and Purifiers to the back of the formation! riders and beastmasters get ready to charge afterwards!"
Max was ceaselessly giving orders to his troops, which in turn made the other players somewhat amazed.
Of course for him who was trained by Rain and Leo something like that was casual, he had been trained in battle many times before, although his fighting skills lacked, his judgement and ability to comand his troops was rather good, well more like average if you compare him to npc generals but as a player he was a good general.
You will ask why don't they just hire npc generals if they are so good and all, but the reason is simple, npcs are not trustworthy, an npc general might as well betray you if he finds that it's easier to win if he betrays you, giving all npc generals a rather bad reputation. In few words, if the npc hasn't something to protect he will simply prefer not fight, making most npc generals unfit for conquering wars, but matchless in defensive wars, a pity of course that in hard situations they will use the unmatched strategy of retreat, like at eal Island, after all cities can be rebuilt, while people are to be treasured.
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Jak hadn't even reached the hiltop when arrows begun shooting from behind, their demon archers begun their counter attack but the enemy on the hill had already built barricades and small walls, for the exact reason of sieging the demon city's walls, if they had any of course, but building simple siege machines like arrow shelters was a must, so they move them with the camp each time they relocated.
Of course they were also useful for attacking uphill fortified locations, but the demon leaders were too weak of an opponent strategically.
Jak could only curse when he saw the metal shielded moving walls, they looked like large shield from a distance but they were arrow shelters non the less.
They even had spell resistance enchantments so that the demons have no way to fight them back.
Jak's charge however hadn't ended yet, they charged once more as the flying demons had also regrouped and took flight, it was difficult to shoot all the flying demons down and even if they did kill them, if they didn't break their oblivion armor, they would just revive after a minute or less.
The experience and pain of their death however was so real that many of them had lost spirit and wanted to retreet, but a fury burned inside their mind, a deep hatret against their opponents.
The story behind this was simply described in by something the a winged demon shouted, "DEATH! to the oppressors, death to the large guilds, death to the guardians"
If Green had heard those words she would have most likely choked then and there, but that's what drove the players to join the demons' side, demons had no psychic powers, meaning that against them the elite guardians could do almost nothing, since to join the guardians you had to be a powerful psychic.
Jak could only laugh as he shouted "Death to the guardians! Death to the oppressors" and charged into the fray.
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Max was at a loss now, after the Phrase "Death to the guardians" sounded, "death to the oppressors" he was at a loss for words, but he couldn't stop the battle to talk, they had to fight.
"For Honor! For Glory! For the Helllion guild!"
Shouted Max, this shout echoed through the camp and not long after everyone was shouting these words as the Helllion guild charged out of their cover.
Riding whatever horses or mounts they had Max and the Helllion players led the charge.
Trampling those that tried to climb the hill, while cutting down those they found troubling.
Behind them like a wave came the infantry and mages who kept the downed demons dead, killing them again and again, for the purifiers to take them out of their misery.
The archers from the back were mowing down all the flying demons, most of which fell from the air to their death.
One could only wonder who came with this stupid plan, to attack them from downhill, but not everything went as smoothly, once the large demons were no longer baraged by the archers, the players had to fight with the enraged armored monsters.
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Jak came out of his cover as he attacked the leader of the charge, a large man who felt somewhat familiar. Of course Jak couldn't remember the weakling Max from his crew, after all it was too long ago and he wasn't even worth remembering, if it was Dublin however, Jak would with delight cut him to bits.
"You command well"
Said Jak as with a swift attack, he dispatched Max's horse.
Max could only glare at Jak, as he stood up, while two people on horseback run to his aid.
"Die Demon"
Shouted the samurai as he rode towards Jak.
Jak's rapier and Honda's katana were for a funny reason a rather equal match.
The two of them were locked in battle, although Honda couldn't use his soul attacks to fight against Jak, he had plenty of ways around it, using soul powers to buff his stats and skills was not bad as well.
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"Oh an oriental swordsman, I've seen a few of your kind, but at the sea you are worth shit, lets see how good you are on land"
Jak shouted as he shaped a strange sigil in the air with the point of his sword, shooting it towards Honda.
"Are you looking down on me!"
Honda shouted angrily, in truth it wasn't that samurais are no good at sea, it was that it was hard for any class to fight in the sea without the sailor or pirate profession and there were two few people who would sacrifice a profession spot for that kind of profession.
Honda with a swing of his sword, as if ripped space apart, making the sigil disappear without a trace.
This was a rather high rank skill, contrary to Jak's skill, which was probably one of the few low level duelist skills.
Honda of course didn't know that Jak had mastered the skill, it took him no magic powers at all to use and it was at least as strong as Honda's void splitting slash.
The fight that followed was, rather one sided as Honda was trying to evade the slim rapier from hitting him, while finding no way to attack at all.
Their weapon's range was different, the rapier had greater reach and was even lighter than his katana.
All he could do in the end was sending wind cutter spells and sometimes deflecting the rapier to try and destroy it. If this wasn't a game and the rapier made of the strange mystical oblivion material with the armor, then his plan would have worked, but world isn't fair.
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Max and Red were fighing off any demon who tried to interfere in Jak's and Honda's duel, Honda of course had long dismounted to duel with Jak, maybe if he hadn't the battle would have been more in his favour but it all ended with three arrows in Jak's head from Max's side. After all it was a battlefield, there was no justice on a battlefield and a void splitting slash beheaded Jak as he fell down rather angry and full of regret.
The battle took hours to end but Max and the Helllion guild were overly victorious, the demon players and monsters were rather chaotically rampaging but they couldn't do much against an almost equal force.
Not to say that the players or the Helllion guild were much stronger than the demons to begins with.
There were too few demons like Jak who gave them a little sport before he was purified.
The next morning Max, when they were celebrating their victory, he heard some horrible news.
This attack was but one of hundreds, some even wiped out the units breaking through the blockade and after rampaging a little they went and attacked other nearby units.
Max was rather lucky that there was only one army attacking them, otherwise they might have taken heavy loses and even more lucky that he had heard them coming.
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Simon's POV
Green was nagging the demon Domina day and night, she even organized some night raids, which went horribly wrong, of course it was her guardians who suffered but Domina could already say that they were too weak, since they had just started the game, or at least in this world. Probably in some other world these noobs were high level experts.
Only Zephir and a few others were high leveled, but Zephir was Domina's underling and once he became a demon, he was even more terrifying, the same went for Verina his wife.
Zephir who was a dragon knight became a demon Dragon, or something called Dragonoid, in the start he was almost similar to the western dragon, only more robotic or so he seemed when he wore the oblivion armor but as he evolved he looked more like his former appearance only under his armor he looked rather ugly, something like humanoid lizard, he even had wings on his back.
Verina on the other side was even more miserable as she turned into a leech or something, a rather ugly being and all she could do in the start was crawl on the ground, later however when she evolved she became a little more humanoid.
It was good that the first few evolutions needed only a few days to happen, meaning that most players had to experience strange things, like being a rock, a snake or a spider for some days. Some who liked it however continued evolving into a more monstrous form, one rather unlucky fellow had evolved into a living armor, the reason he was unlacky however was that someone else was wearing him and he couldn't even control where he was going, well he was a guardian so he didn't really mind doing it for Green and their cause.
After the tremendous loses from Green's guardians, Domina after being nagged for an eternity, or so it seemed to him, used his special ability to comunicate with Simon who in turn asked his two advisors, the small angel and devil he had made, since kaj had long gotten bored of the matters on Allastar, after all it didn't even matter if the demons lost, they could simply go down and destroy all those armies by themselves. It was then that the assassinations begun plaguing Blue's army as a result of Demon's many suggestions, of which this was the most humane, believe me you don't really want to know the other plans he had in store for the opposing armies.
Domina's head however was like a steaming cauldron, Green and Purple were really nervebreaking, Purple had come some some time afterwards and she was in charge of the assassinations.
At first everything went fine, but Green wanted more, after all slowing down the opponents was not exactly a way to victory and the demon players had reached their fifth evolution, after all a few months had already passed, but the most troublesome enemy the mage guild had not slowed down at all, not only they supplied the enemy with npc mages skilled at purifying the land, they had also sent a few armies that purified the land at a much faster rate than the others.
It was because of them that this night rade had to be started, for each army a Jak was sent as a leader. Jak could now multiply himself, making clones of himself, but they still had to be given an armor from Domina.
This night raid on all the enemy armies was however just a diversion as the main force marched on the mage guild's army and afterwards broke out of the encirclement.
The encirclement had two layers, one was the purification camp and behind were the respawn bases, which were even better guarded and even had teleportation circles for reinforcements, donated by the mage guild.
The plan was a success, the mage guild's forward bases and respawn base was throughtly destroyed and demonic filth was sowed onto the ground once more.
Domina had given them strange seeds that were to be planted in the ground after the work is done, and they could either return or go attack whatever they liked, he didn't realy care what they do afterwards.
The seeds would spread his domain and the ground would become corrupted and other than Zephir,Verina and a few guardians the others were dismissed.
The small group were to make the round of the encirclement and spread the seeds behind their backs, so that they would end inside the corrupted territory and slowly turned demonic.
Even if the mages returned, they couldn't possibly purify all the corrupted terrifory around them without first finding the seeds and destroying them and they would have to go backwards buying even more time for the demons to become stronger.
Simon was looking all that and felt conflicted, at the moment he really wanted to evolve Domina even further but didn't know if it would make any difference after all it could spoil all the fun, but even more seriously there were some system thingies that would make Domina's life miserable.
At the moment only the mage guild were zealeously fighting against him, but if he becomes more powerful, more npcs will amass armies against him and even some of the immortal npcs might move against him.
Would the npc Domina survive such a thing, to tell the truth simon still remembered how the portal guardian went crazy on him, inta-killing him.
If not for his special psychic ability kicking in he would have been dead at that moment, returning back to the demon world, although returning some days he thinks returning there would have been better.
Green was rather despotic and impatient, but the worst thing about her was that she wouldn't shut her mouth even for a moment, each day of Domina started with a sermon from Green, about how he doesn't go to fight himself, continues with and interogation about his abilities and other things about demons and ends with screams and shouts about how they lost another day of her life with their incopetence.
Simon after this success and after seeing that their elite demons were no lesser than the enemy elites, decided that it was time for an upgrade, after all what could go wrong.
Domina who simply sat on his throne suddenly begun in front of everyone turning transparent, his body now looked like the night sky, a strange black with small light dots. He had now become a Void fire demon. His form was no longer humanoid and he looked like an invisible fire, or more like a fire that gave no heat at all, a dark fire.
He could now give Voidfire armors that looked like black glass armors but their ability made everyone gasp in surprise. It had an 80% physical attack immunity and 50% magic resistance attached with it making them almost impossible to kill, while his corrupted territory refilled their health points like crazy.
Some time later strange plants and little demons wisps begun appearing from the ground and begun expanding the corruption. His territory and building had also experienced changes, the mucky pools and strange gus chambers now looked more astral and mystical, as well as beautiful. The ground that was corrupted turned into a strange dark glass with glitter inside or something, while from time to time these specks of light came out and attacked any foreign substance, non demonic being turning it rapirdly into demonic.
Simon and Domina were both laughing loudly when they saw the change that occured, at the moment there was zero chances for anyone to kill Domina, he had become immune to physical attacks and had an 75% resistance to all magic. Simon with difficulty held himself from evolving Domina into the next rank of demon. In the end he just couldn't hold it and just went and did it.
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Darknym POV
Darknym was somewhat, well for a being that was no longer human, he was thinking a hundred matters at the same time while also accompanying his daughters and their friend.
After they had left the dessert and reached a town they simply joined the mage guild and left for the mage academy. It was a pity that their peaceful days there ended with the demon invasion.
Of course low level mages like them weren't worth more than cannon fodder, but Darknym still had his psychic powers and a few tricks up his sleeves.
When the raids occured he used his psychic power to make them invisible and he and a few others hid for most of the battle. He could hear the onslaught from outside, but the others were obliviously sleeping inside the large tent the ten of them shared.
After all his daughters needed their beauty sleep, not that he realy cared of course about the others, but they could consider themselves lucky to survive.
Darknym was rather bored but he couldn't just leave them and go, the whole night he stayed awake, thinking about what he would do later on that day.
Though the whole attack Darknym's tent was the only tent that had simply disappeared and only reappeared after everything was quiet again.
Darknym could only laugh at their faces when Lidie,Galie and Brown came out of the tent only to find that everyone else were gone. Inside their tent were also Magie and Raf, who also had a strange disbelieving expression on their face.
After all they couldn't have teleported away and left them behind or could they.
It took some time for them to understand their situation, but when they chatted with their long respawned collegues they were simply looking at Darknym somewhat strangely.
Their new order was to go to the nearest main camp and teleport to another main camp from there.
Before they could even take a breath Darknym teleported them all to the main camp, to the onlookers it was as if they had just teleported out of the magic circle but Lidie and the others of his group knew that it wasn't so.
Magie and Raf were somewhat shocked to find themselves there but they were more interested in reuniting with the others whan asking questions, after all there were too many guardians among them to know if he had used some cheat method or not.