"Hehe, let's go with aerial bombardment... Berserker, stay here," Maria said as she slipped down the large ogre's shoulders and landed stably on the ground.
Berserker grunted indicating that he understood her orders. He grabbed his weapon and stabbed it into the ground before sitting down. The other ogres saw this and they did the same.
"Good, you ogres, wait for my signal! Vampires, on me!" Maria yelled.
She spread her wings in the next moment and the vampires of her personal army, including Alexa, spread open their bat wings as well.
Maria launched herself into the sky and her vampires followed after her. 51 vampires followed after her as she flew across the sky heading straight for the ogre settlement.
"Prepare your spells! We're going to create a breach in their defenses!"
'Lilah, get ready, once you see the breach, that's the signal. Immediately, have Berserker and the ogres charge.'
'Yes, Master!'
Maria left behind Lilah with Berserker so that she could relay her orders even if she wasn't actually there. She could just play the commander and stay at the back while giving out orders. However, this was a game, not reality. She wanted to be right where the action was at.
The ogres down below saw the flight of vampires in the air and quickly sounded their alarm. Very quickly, the ogre settlement was placed on high alert. They didn't have any war machines to take note of, but there was a pile of large boulders located in different areas on the walls.
A few ogres grabbed those boulders and began hurtling them towards Maria and her vampires in the sky.
"Evade!"
They quickly broke formation and began evading the large boulders flying towards. Since they were nimble in the air, it was easy to dodge the boulders. Maria, however, took the more straightforward way. She pulled out her ax and smashed a boulder heading towards into pieces.
"Hahahaha! DIE!"
She opened her [Gehenna's Eye] and a thin black laser shot towards the ogres down below. The ones struck by the laser immediately died and Maria absorbed their stats. Luckily for Maria, the option on her skill [Gehenna's Sacrifice] had triggered.
A small portion of the sacrificed ogres' stats flowed into Maria, buffing her by quite a substantial amount. Since the ogres' stats were heavily focused on STR and VIT, Maria received a large boost in STR and VIT as well.
Her HP quickly reached above the 25,000s closely reaching 30,000 in total and her buffed STR stat greatly increased her ATK until it reached almost 1,000. Unfortunately, for her, [Gehenna's Eye] was still at level 3 so she couldn't absorb any more stats and stack more buffs onto herself.
It was a Legacy Skill so it was naturally hard to level up. The maximum amount of stacks she could receive from the buff was 5 and the 5 flaming eyes that had opened up on her wings were the indicators.
Around 12 to 15 ogres were struck by her [Gehenna's Sacrifice] and she had luckily been able to buff herself 5 times in one go. Triggering the [Sacrifice] effect was already hard and it was even harder for her to steal her enemies' stats.
The buff lasted for only 30 minutes but since it was stacked 5 times, it lasted 150 minutes in total. This was more than enough time for her to quickly end this battle.
Maria flew down and landed powerfully on the settlement's walls. With her STR, her landing caused the walls to shake and crack. Maria flapped her wings and pushed back all of the ogres surrounding her.
"Hehehehe~"
Her STR stat was now high enough for her to send the large ogres a few meters back with just one powerful flap of her wings.
"This is where the fun begins~"
Maria didn't strike out at the ogres just yet. She instead raised her ax and slammed it hard onto the walls.
Her strike created a large crack on the walls. Seeing as her attack worked, she continued slamming her ax down onto the ground repeatedly.
The ogres quickly figured out her intentions and rushed forward to stop her. However, a few spears of blood rained down from the sky and protected Maria from the ogres' attempted assault.
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"Support her Majesty!"Alexa cried and formed a new blood spear in her hand and quickly flung it towards an ogre who tried to get too close to her big sister.
The rest of the vampires who had now reached the air space just above the walls quickly moved in to support their Queen. It was hard for them to face an ogre head-on so they grouped up in pairs and dealt with the ogres using their nimbleness and spells.
"Protect her Majesty!"
"For the Queen!"
"For the Dire!"
The vampires raised their battle cries and defended Maria until she completed her task.
Maria's repeated strikes on the walls caused multiple fractures and cracks to appear. She just needed to deal one final blow to break the wall but somebody did that for her. It was then that she noticed the area around her had begun to darken so she looked up.
Alexa also noticed this large boulder heading towards her sister and the vampires around her and she quickly warned, "INCOMING!!!"
The vampires all saw the boulder and quickly disengaged the ogres they were fighting and began sending attacks at the boulder in a vain attempt to break it apart. They weren't just going to leave their Queen behind and evade knowing that the boulder was aimed at her.
"Ohohoh~"
An impossibly large boulder was falling towards her but Maria only chuckled and met the boulder head-on. She activated [Calamity Cleave] and struck out three times with her ax, splitting it into pieces. However, the pieces were still heading towards her and it was already too late to dodge the attack.
Maria quickly shielded herself with her wings and yelled, "Flee or brace yourselves!"
The falling pieces of the boulder quickly struck her and the wall beneath her. Her earlier intention of breaking the wall worked and the breach was soon made. However, she and a few of her vampire soldiers were struck by the boulder shards and hurt during the wall's collapse.
'Dammit, Lilah, now!'
Far away, Lilah saw the wall break down and the attack which had struck her master. She grew quite worried but after receiving the telepathic message from her master, she quickly urged Berserker to attack now.
"Berserker, now!"
Berserker and the rest of the ogres were already on edge, impatiently waiting for the order. Berserker quickly received the orders from Lilah and roared.
"ATTACK!!!"
Berserker grabbed his weapon and pulled it out of the ground and charged forward with a loud battle cry. The rest of the ogres did the same and with disregard in forming their ranks, rushed forwards following after their commander.
At this point, they didn't need any ranks or formations. The goal was clear as day and they only needed to get to it as quickly as possible. They all didn't rush forwards mindlessly, however. Some of the ogres stopped running at one point and began digging up the earth or rocks nearby and launching them at the walls, covering the others who were still running towards the breach in the walls.
"Little Red, that's our cue! Let's regroup with Master!" Lilah said as she flew on top of Little Red's head and patted the over-sized red dog on the head.
Maria's stream had peaked in viewers at this point. Many joined after looking at the enticing title and their acquaintances' urging. The stream was indeed worthwhile to watch from the start.
Maria had given her speech, marched her way to their battlefield, and led the first assault herself. The realistic scene of a fantasy-style war that was only possible to capture in VR was caught by Maria's butler, David.
He was adeptly controlling a few streaming probes at once and displaying the entire battlefield from many different perspectives. He was even able to catch and show the moment when Maria ordered Lilah and Berserker to attack.
David was even able to catch footage of Maria still caught under the rubble with a few of her soldiers.
...: Is our angel okay?! ...: She was struck by that attack, why did she try to tank that?! Death_by_Cuteness: Overconfidence kills, this is a prime example! Anon1: The one above, shut the fuck up! Our Queen hasn't died yet! Can't you see she's still alive?! ...: @Death_by_Cuteness, shut the fuck up! ...: Shut the fuck up +1! ...: +2
The one under the username Death_by_Cuteness was immediately flamed for their thoughtless remark. Everyone could see on stream that Maria was still alive and the fans were naturally angry that someone tried to write her off as dead.
Many of her viewers were worried when they saw Maria struck by the massive boulder attack and crushed under the rubble. She had shielded herself with her wings thinking that with her stats, she would be able to endure it, but it was a misconception.
The boulder throw was actually a skill so it damaged her far more than she had predicted. Some of her soldiers had been killed while the few near her she was able to protect.
"Crap... that didn't go as planned..."
Maria quickly recovered from her shock and the after-effects of the boulder skill. Her wings were still shielding her, but they were broken in many places. She still had to concentrate and keep the earth barriers surrounding her and the few subordinates around her maintained so that the rubble it was blocking wouldn't collapse in on them.
...: Our Queen is alright! ...: She's okay, that's great! Anon1: Please be more careful next time!
Maria released a breath and mustered her strength. She quickly twisted her body and pushed away all the rubble using the centrifugal force of her spin and the power of her wings. The earth barriers also lightened her load as she manipulated them to push away the rubble.
When her body was revealed to the viewers, everyone grimaced at how badly injured she was. The game was way too realistic at times and it was very horrifying to the fans to see their little angel injured so badly.
Her wings were broken in multiple places and a few of her wing bones were showing. There were even a few dents on Maria's armor. She began coughing and from her helmet, blood began pouring out.
She quickly took off her helmet and wiped the blood off her mouth.
"Ouch..."