*DING*
The Great War has begun! Win condition: Destruction of opposing faction’s castle!
Once Maria and her faction saw this notification, their castles’ gates swung open as a massive horde of around 2,000 NPC soldiers rushed out and began heading towards the center of the battlefield.
“Wait! Don’t follow them out yet!” Lizzy quickly yelled in the faction chat and commanded all of the participating players.
Everyone wondered why Lizzy told them not to move when the NPCs were already going to start fighting each other, but when they saw that the opposing two factions’ players had also not moved yet, they stayed put and did as they were told.
“What’s wrong, Liz?” Maria quickly asked.
“Wait, I want to see what the NPCs are going to do.”
Lizzy wanted to see how the NPCs were going to battle and it wasn’t just her who was thinking like that, the other 2 factions’ leaders were similarly of one mind and hadn’t made a move yet. The 3 factions’ soldiers moved to the center of the battlefield and just before they clashed, the armies each split into two before branching off to attack each other. The players thought it was going to be a very chaotic clash, but surprisingly, it wasn’t.
Each army had two battlefronts, and the players could support either one of them. Eos, Caedes, and Arthur both had the same thoughts as they immediately ordered their players to support the battlefront that was attacking the Goddess Faction. They needed to get rid of this third wheel as quickly as possible and eject all of their players and NPCs out of the Realm of War.
Lizzy immediately took note of the enemy players’ movements and couldn’t help but groan.
“I knew this was going to happen. Maria, Sky, you guys know what to do, right?”
Sky only nodded before rushing out of the castle gates to support the side that the Pantheon was attacking, while Maria flew out and went to support the side the Celestial Order was going to attack.
“Guildmaster Box, Team Leader Pilos, you guys go support Sky! Team Leader Red, Mercenary Leader Hose, you guys support Maria!” Lizzy quickly said in the faction chat.
The people in question quickly brought their subordinate players and rushed over to their designated battlefronts while Lizzy split her guild into teams who quickly charged onto the battlefield. Not all of the players were sent out. There were still a few groups left behind in the castle to serve as reserve forces as they needed to be there to provide backup and to defend the castle from any attacks because, although the NPCs were moving to the center of the battlefield, the players didn’t have to follow them as they could just straight-up attack the castle on their own.
Eos and Caedes sent out a few teams to do just that and attack the Goddess Faction castle directly. It was quite annoying because, despite having so many NPC soldiers inside of the castle, not one of them moved out to attack the enemy player groups that were attacking.
Lizzy sent out the reserve teams to defend against them but the enemy was there only to chip away at their forces and keep their reserves preoccupied while the enemies’ true forces were attacking the Goddess Faction NPCs and players on the main battlefield. It wasn’t clear at first, but there was a number disparity between the forces that the two factions sent out compared to the Goddess Faction. The Goddess Faction would always deploy 20% more NPC soldiers to the battlefield than the other 2 factions.
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So, despite the player number disparity being against them, the Goddess Faction was still able to hold up their two battlefronts without much of a problem. Maria and Sky also played a part in it since their power alone could rival the power of a few hundred players.
Maria was a one-woman army with her [Nightmare] form and minions, while Sky had her Charybdises to help her out. She wasn’t as impactful since she didn’t have the terrain advantage as she normally did. Summoning a flood wasn’t ideal in this situation because it would impact her allies as well, so her battle power had been cut by half at the very least, but still, she was powerful in her own right and neither player nor NPC could cut her down.
Even though summoning the flood wasn’t an option, none of the players from the Pantheon dared to pressure her too much because if she was desperate, Sky could easily summon the flood and literally turn the tide on everybody. Thanks to this, a few of the Pantheon players began to gravitate over to Maria’s side of the battlefield and began attacking there as they worked with the Celestial Order’s players. The Celestial Order’s NPCs would attack them if they got too close, so the Pantheon players made sure to not stray too close to them.
“Dammit, these guys are teaming up!” Maria cursed.
Maria saw that there were now more players on her side of the battlefield, so she had to start fighting a bit more carefully. Sky noticed this and it sort of ticked her off because their enemies were seemingly undermining her. she had it all wrong though because the Pantheon players were gravitating over to Maria and avoiding her because they were more afraid of her than her friend. In this scenario, they saw Maria as the easier target than Sky, so they moved to eliminate the former first since it would be easier to deal with the latter if she was on her own.
The NPCs continued to pour out of the castles in waves every few minutes, which expanded the battlefield and made things even more chaotic. After the fifth wave, the NPC soldiers actually began using Summons, which prompted all of the players on the battlefield to use theirs. With the addition of the Summons, things became even more hectic, but the enemy Summons’ appearance caused all of the Goddess Faction players to smile like maddened idiots.
Lizzy immediately ordered every player to start attacking at their full strength while exclusively targeting only the Summons. She left behind only the minimum of players at the castle to defend against the annoying flies buzzing around and sent the rest to the main battlefield.
“Mary, I’m coming over to you!” Lizzy said in the faction chat.
She rushed out onto the battlefield to support her friend and started cutting up all of those Summons near her. Their side sent back numerous Astrals and Gods to the Void Sea Realm, which provided Gaia with an abundant amount of Aether, the energy she was going to use to repair the planet.
Maria and Lizzy both hadn’t used their Summons yet and Sky wasn’t planning on using hers but they were able to do without them for the time being, since no powerful Summons were used just yet. None of the enemy factions’ leaders had stepped out and used their Summons yet, so they were likely saving them for their final clash after they dealt with the Goddess Faction. However, as the battle continued to rage on, both of the enemy sides began to notice that they were slowly being pushed back.
The Goddess Faction players, especially those that were weaker than the rest, stopped caring about playing things safe ever since the Summons were used. They didn’t need to win this particular battle. They only needed to win the entire war and to do that, they just needed to kill more Summons than the rest of the two factions. With that thought in mind, the weaker players began putting their lives on the line just to kill one more Summon because the more Summons they killed, the more contribution they would also get. Once Maria, Lizzy, Sky, or any of the other more powerful players of their faction began making a move, these weaker players wouldn’t be able to farm for contributions anymore.
Thanks to this, although more players from the Goddess Faction began falling and getting ejected from the Realm of War, more Summons from the two factions began to fall. Whenever a Summon was sent back to the Void Sea Realm, the Summoner would receive a backlash due to the reverse summoning, which gave the NPC soldiers the perfect chance to kill them. This resulted in the two factions experiencing more casualties than the Goddess Faction, so it was only natural that they were being pushed back.
When Eos and Caedes saw this, they contemplated doing the same tactic as their mutual opponents, but it didn’t seem worth it because the Goddess Faction was losing players for every Summon they killed.
“It’s only a last-ditch effort! Keep the pressure up!” Eos roared into his faction chat as he spurred his factions’ players on.
Caedes did the same and even decided to join the fray. Lizzy immediately went to attack him because she wasn’t going to allow the guy to hunt down her faction's players.
“Oh no you don’t, Caedes!”
Caedes clicked his tongue when he saw the draconian girl blocking him, “Tsk, Guildmaster Lisbet, it’s not a pleasure to see you here.”
“Heh, likewise, why don’t you turn around and just quit this mission? I promise to give you a lot of compensation for letting me clear this Main Story Quest.”
“Hmph, no thanks. How about you leave and I compensate you? I heard from a friend that you guys receive no penalty for failing this quest, so why not take my offer? It's a win-win for both of us, no?”
Lizzy sarcastically thought for a moment before exaggeratingly shaking her head and replied, “Naah, I’d like to see what the reward is for screwing you guys over, hehehe~”