Chris, Irla, Kayta, and Seth were all present among the new Demon force. The latter wore the smirk and the condescending wave. More dire than that, each of them had substantially leveled up. They couldn’t quite equal the fearsome power of Andrius, but all four had reached level 58. The only member of their original band missing was the Assassin, T, who had been killed on Mercura Island.
It didn’t take long for the remaining party members to join Jay in sizing up the Goodfighters, the name of Seth’s guild. The party had no edge in total numbers since T was dead, but Sarah lived. Ken, defeated during the siege, couldn’t rejoin the current battle. The collection of friends quickly discussed a plan of attack as calmly as possible, given the situation.
The most prudent and obvious action involved immediate, complete tactical withdrawal, breaking for the government sector since it remained the intended destination.
Taylor Lynn and the surviving guild leadership put serious effort into wrangling the troops before the enemy attacked. Their efforts, unfortunately, were ultimately in vain. Worse, the line had already broken and left space for a steady flood of Demons into the rally point. The ranks tried to reform, but the enemies outnumbered Red Player’s Society five to one.
The siege tower moved slowly since the elephants pulling it dragged substantial bulk across the streets. Their large, robust frames nonetheless created cumbersome movements. The Goodfighters didn’t intend to wait for their elephants, as evidenced by their choice to leap from the tower.
Sailing over the skirmishing armies below them, Seth and his party landed in front of Jay and the others, still grinning ear to ear.
“I’d hoped we’d meet again, my friend,” Seth beamed. “Where is the young, bratty one? I was looking forward to kicking him up and down the street.”
“He sends his regards,” Jay acknowledged, drawing his crossbows to his sides. Watching the larger guild battle, he knew they didn’t have long to deal with Seth’s party. Many of Jay’s guild members currently endeavored to escape the melee. The only positive to this centered around the battlefield being spread out. Many of the Demon players thoroughly enjoyed running down errant Elves.
“I owe you some payback for getting T’s character deleted,” Seth mused, sliding his greatsword from its sheathe. No light caught on the polished black metal, which seemed to exist in the absence of it. “Crafted this myself and named it Monster Hunter Slayer.”
Before he finished, Sarah stepped forward first to engage Seth, bringing a smile to Jay’s face. His sister’s class was tailor-made to counter Seth’s own. While the Plague Knight revolved around slowly weakening the enemy, the Paladin class relied on boosting itself up and surviving any onslaught.
Bringing her sword in a wide arc, Sarah’s blade slammed against Seth’s larger weapon. She followed through with the attack, knocking his blade aside with her shield. Their echoing blows took over the sounds of the whole battlefield as each looked for an opening in the other’s guard. The glowing yellow-white light of Sarah’s attacks clashed against the disgusting green hues of her opponent.
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The opening for Seth to kill Jay did not exist.
On the other hand, Taylor Lynn relished in the direct support she received from Jenny. Together, they fought against Katya and Chris at the same time. While Jenny couldn’t bring much in terms of damage output, her tags prevented Taylor Lynn from being overwhelmed by instant kill levels of damage.
The Evoker opened with her crown of meteors, boosted by cooldown abilities, which sent oversized meteors crashing into the other spellcasters. The destructive opening move promptly sent them into defense mode, but Taylor Lynn couldn’t maintain the same offense for long. All too soon, she joined Jenny to merely stay above water by matching the other mages. The balanced conflict wouldn’t be settled quickly.
This meant that time was of the essence in Jay’s conflict with Irla. She was the only remaining combatant, so he turned his crossbows on her. Her charge was swift, clearly aided by some ability. Maintaining a steady stream of magic bolts from Wrath, Jay dodged precisely three giant swings of Irla’s weapon before a new plan formed.
Getting struck by her sword, shaped like a swordfish and larger than Seth’s weapon, would send him to respawn in a second. All he needed to do to win was avoid being hit. That process, complicated by fighting bladed weapons with ranged weapons in melee combat, would be infinitely more straightforward in the air. So, calling on his beetler queen wings, he took to the skies.
Irla was a Champion player. While they maintained a heavy level of dominance in grounded head-to-head conflicts, the class was maladapted to dealing with flying enemies. Jay, as a borderline rule-breaking player, constituted one.
He sent a volley of magical bolts down at Irla from the air. He charged each bolt with an enchantment to deal necrotic poison damage to her. The damage quickly stacked, overwhelming the Champion, whose healer remained busy surviving Taylor Lynn. His opponent died, cursing him from the ground and pointing in the air.
His party allies maintained stalemate conflicts with their opponents, so he took the spare moments to check in on the larger battle being fought by the guild as a whole. The Red Player’s Society troops escalated into a full-scale retreat before his eyes. The guild was outnumbered on a level that couldn’t be overcome, especially without extreme care being taken to equipment choice.
This did not mean Jay couldn’t render aid to his guild. From the air, he fired enchanted trap bolts to disrupt the Demon alliance’s movements as dramatically as he could. The mucky swamp traps were rendered much more effective against this group of enemies for whatever reason. He could not identify the cause, but he didn’t much care at that moment, either.
The elephants were fortunately uninvolved in the conflict in the sense that they did not directly attack. They did make for excellent methods to obscure line of sight or evade attackers, which most benefited the players in full retreat—the Red Player’s Society.
Sarah required no help ending Seth, managing to slam him with a magically-summoned spiritual hammer that stunned him. Once rendered unable to react, and with Taylor Lynn barring his healer from intervening, the Plague Knight fell to a flurry of light-empowered blade strikes.
Jay spotted the problem before anyone else.
Seeing Sarah getting the better of their leader, Chris and Katya gave up on surviving the battle. Instead, they focused on launching simultaneous, vicious offensive spells at Sarah. Their clear goal, removing the tank from the battlefield, would leave Taylor Lynn and Jenny sitting ducks. Jay could only escape by relying on his wings, which only existed for a limited time.
If he did not act, Sarah would be gone, and saving the Mayor and city would rest solely on Jay’s shoulders.