While Mikael went to finish his quest, over at Maria’s end where the Main Quest of Planet Vanhal was currently in progress, the war between the Dire and the Lycan Kingdom was near the end.
Maria’s forces had successfully entered into the core areas of the Lycan’s territory and they were systematically attacking all of the important areas and taking control of the territory little by little.
The resistance was great, but Maria’s player and NPC armies were able to defeat their opponents and win the important battles that allowed them to slowly take over the territories.
It went without saying that despite the numerous victories, Maria’s forces had suffered a great deal of damage.
Thanks to Zhuge Lan’s plans and the PK Alliance’s players that were hiding within the enemy ranks, causing a lot of havoc in every battle, Maria experienced significant damage to her armies.
She didn't really care about the player losses, since the players could just respawn and reacquire their equipment and levels, but the NPCs she lost during the duration of this extremely bloody campaign were a heavy blow to her nation’s military power.
Maria couldn’t easily replace her well-trained NPC soldiers. They were invaluable assets to her military and she had been prepared to sustain some losses at the end of this war, but before the war was even over, she had lost around 200,000 soldiers already and that number was slowly increasing as it dragged out.
Most of them didn’t even die from a head-on confrontation with the enemy players and enemy Lycan soldiers, but to the tactics and strategies that the enemy strategist, Zhuge Lan, had concocted.
At this point in time, Maria was already 100 percent certain that the nuisance she met back then was directing the enemy military forces against her own. Not just anyone could think up such immaculate tactics and execute them perfectly without too many mistakes happening caused by unforeseen variables.
The tactics employed by Zhuge Lan were a real nuisance and it vexed Maria that, despite her being able to predict some of them to a large extent, there were other plans stacked on top of it which made her previous predictions unhelpful and instead made it seem like she was purposefully walking into the mire that her opponent had set up for her.
It was certainly like Zhuge Lan to purposefully allow her to predict a part of his plans only to bait her into moving as he expected her to move after finding out a partial bit of his overall strategy.
The only reason why Maria was able to constantly win each battle was because she completely overwhelmed her enemies using absolute force despite all of their strategies and held the upper hand at the current stage of the war. Naturally, she had to pay a large price for that and it was by losing a significant number of her precious soldiers.
“Dammit, with every battle, we lose around 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers! By the time we finish the war, we’ll only have half of our soldiers left!” Maria cursed and slammed the table in front of her after she read through the casualty reports for today’s battles.
She was conducting battle on many different fronts, so there were a lot of reports to read through.
Maria was doing this in hopes of trying to spread her enemies’ forces thin so that no matter what tactics they used, she’d be able to overwhelm them with her forces’ superior numbers and weaponry.
It did work out at the start, but her enemies quickly adapted to it. She even mobilized her air force earlier than she wanted to. However, they did little to help with the situation she was facing.
The battles became a little bit smoother now that she was using her airships, but the losses her ground forces experienced still didn’t lessen.
In fact, they only increased after the enemy soldiers began fighting even more desperately than before, but there seemed to be something that had changed.
She didn’t know why, but her enemies had apparently stopped caring about their losses and were now just throwing bodies at her army. The strategic finesse that was present before was nowhere to be found and the enemies were just reusing strategies that she had already broken.
This resulted in the enemy losing ground and their military assets even faster than before.
This change was definitely something that Maria should’ve welcomed, but unfortunately, she had to remain skeptical and cautious because this could still be a trap.
Maria believed that Zhuge Lan was purposefully doing this in order to lure her into a trap and pull a fast one on her. This was her belief and she wasn’t going to fall into such an obvious trap that could result in her forces experiencing even more casualties than before.
“Tsk, if only I could clone myself, then I wouldn’t be feeling so stressed since I could fight and direct the battles in person…”
Things would definitely be easier if she could do that, but that was impossible. Sure, she could make doppelgangers of herself, but they weren’t truly her. They were just phantoms that could only be used temporarily in battle and would disappear after a couple of seconds.
Maria was aware that, as a strategist, she was definitely lacking. She was smart, that much was undeniable, but she unfortunately wasn’t the kind of person who had the smarts of a proper strategist.
She could come up with her own tactics and plans with the help of her numerous retainers, but she lacked a certain aspect that real strategists had. Since she wasn’t one of those people, she couldn’t tell what it was she was lacking. She didn’t have a mentor or someone close to her that could tell her about it, so she could only shake her head and reluctantly admit it.
“If only he was on my side…then things would be much easier for me!”
She wasn’t afraid to admit that she was lacking in that regard compared to Zhuge Lan, her opponent who was a true strategist to the bone. She likely wouldn’t lose in a frontal battle against the man, but in a battle of wits like this, she unfortunately had to surrender.
Maria was endlessly envious of Hecate, who somehow managed to pull such a talented person to her side.
Speaking about Hecate and why the enemy soldiers were acting so brainlessly. This was because they unfortunately lost their strategist because of her.
Hecate had ordered Zhuge Lan to pull back and stop directing any of the battles. She needed him elsewhere, so she ordered him to withdraw. The fall of the Lycan Kingdom was inevitable since things have already reached the current stage.
Fighting anymore was pointless as it would only cause Hecate and her PK Alliance unneeded losses. Her band of battle-crazed players already had their fill slaughtering enemies on the battlefield, so it was time for them to withdraw.
This was actually a good call because their opponent, Maria, was already on the verge of deciding to go all out and crush her opposition with the entirety of her military might. Once she did this, she’d expose most–if not all–of her cards and secure her victory immediately.
The outcome would be harsh on the Lycan’s side and the players that supported them. Hecate’s instinct was telling her to withdraw and, thankfully, she did, or else Zhuge Lan would’ve cornered Maria into making her decision to go all out, which would cause her PK Alliance to suffer extremely heavy losses.
Maria didn’t know this, so even now, when Zhuge Lan had actually been ordered to retreat by Hecate to withdraw from the war, the man in question was still living rent free inside of her head.
Due to Hecate’s orders, the enemy army was now relying on brute force and old strategies to handle things, but this resulted in them veering away from experiencing something far worse than what they were going through now.
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A week later, inside of the game, Maria had gathered most of the high-ranking individuals who were a part of her NPC army and those who were from the player army.
Today, they had finally conquered the core areas of the Lycan territory after fighting against their enemies who were desperately defending against their attacks and were now moving to take the capital city of the Lycan Kingdom.
This was the only place left in the kingdom that Maria and her forces hadn’t trampled on yet due to it being heavily guarded.
The mounted defenses of the capital city were beyond what Maria had initially expected. The city was large enough to accommodate all of the refugees that escaped from all of the areas that had been decimated by the Dire.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
With this being the final stronghold of the Lycans, it wasn’t too surprising that its defenses were extremely powerful.
Maria had used up a lot of her cards so far in this war, but not everything had been used. Her airforce and army had been deployed, but not to its maximum potential. She still kept a few things hidden and refused to use them.
If she had, the casualties her forces had received would likely not have been so high as what was stated in the reports she received everyday. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped because if Maria used up all of her cards, then her enemies would know what to expect the next time she clashed with them.
The Lycans weren’t her only foes. After dealing with them, Maria and her Dire still needed to deal with the remaining enemy player forces that were on the continent. She wouldn’t be able to truly dominate the world of Vanhal if she didn’t eliminate all of the opposing forces that went against her.
The PK Alliance and the Alliance of Players were next after the Lycans were finished. She was currently at war with the Lycans, but her intelligence network had constantly been supplying her with information about the two remaining forces that were still a threat to her.
She needed to quickly take down the Lycan Capital City and begin preparations to deal with her remaining enemies. Her forces were about to lay siege to the city, so she gathered everyone of importance so that they could begin strategizing about how they would go about this final battle with the Lycans.
“Thank you all for gathering here today. This will be the last battle that we’ll have with the Lycans. I thank you all for your contributions up until now. Once this war is over, you will all be greatly rewarded for your efforts,” Maria said as she eyed everyone present.
Her words were directed mostly towards the player leaders who were present, namely the adventurer party leaders, mercenary company leaders, and the guild leaders that had rallied under her banner.
Naturally, not everyone of them could attend, so only a select few who had been voted as representatives for a large majority of the players from the different divisions were present at the meeting.
One of the players took half a step forward and cupped his hands in greeting before saying, “Your words grace us, Your Majesty. I, Venweld, representative of the Blue Lion, Red Wolf, and Black Tiger Mercenary Corps, will see to it that the Dire emerges victorious in this upcoming battle.”
“Mhm. Thank you.”
Maria still found it a little awkward that players were addressing her in that fashion. It was fine if NPCs did it because it was in their nature, but for the players, they were too modern to be calling her ‘Your Majesty’ and the like.
Of course, some players actually wanted to do this since they were ‘roleplaying’. Venweld and the others he was representing were part of those that loved roleplaying.
Maria had heard about those 3 mercenary companies before, since many players on the forum and NPCs within her army had talked about them. They were a group of mercenaries who were known for their outrageous battle cry whenever they ran into battle.
‘It went along the lines of ‘For the Dire, for Her Majesty the Empress!’...So embarrassing…’ Maria inwardly thought.
She had recognized the name Venweld, but it was not because this person was the representative of the 3 mercenary companies that loved roleplaying. She had recognized the name as someone who was a regular viewer of her gaming stream.
It was highly likely that the others in the mercenary companies that he represented were her fans and regulars of her game stream.
“Hehe.”
Maria repressed her blush and eyed her best friend who had just let out a chuckle. She was standing at the side with a few other guild masters who were representing the alliance of guilds that they were spearheading.
There were 5 guild alliance representatives and Lizzy was one of them. The remaining 4 were notable guild masters who were from guilds that were in the top 50 guild rankings, but only Lizzy was within the top 5.
The Fallen Angels were currently sitting at number 4 in the guild rankings, with Nine Hells, Testament, and Camelot being ahead of them at ranks 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The Fallen Angels guild had fewer members than the guilds ahead of them, but if one were to strictly judge them only based on the quality of their members’ combat power rating, then the Fallen Angels would be ahead of their rivals.
The average CP (Combat Power) rating of the Fallen Angels guild was around 1.4 million points, which was really high since the average player base was currently sitting at around 650,000 to 700,000 points.
Thanks to this, the quality of the players in the Fallen Angels guild was guaranteed and many other guilds wanted to ally with them. In this war, Lizzy had recruited around 10 guilds that were within the top 50 guild rankings into her alliance and this made her alliance the one currently standing at the top of the player base–even above her guild’s other rivals, namely the Nine Hells, Testament, and Camelot guilds.
Lizzy herself is currently the strongest known player in the game with a CP rating at around 3 million points, which ranked her as the rank 1 player on the CP leaderboards. Eos and the others were lagging behind by around half a million points, more or less, but they were closing in on her.
Of course, this disparity was only possible thanks to Maria taking Lizzy and the others to level up in the Underworld. Emily and the others didn’t reveal their CP ratings and voluntarily dropped out of the leaderboards, because it would attract unnecessary attention towards them and in turn attract attention towards Maria.
Lizzy had decided to reveal her level and CP rating only because she needed to show her prowess as the Fallen Angel’s Guild master to bolster the morale and drive of her fellow guild members while also using those numbers to help attract better guilds into her guild alliance.
This worked very well in her favor since she managed to pull in 5 guilds within the top 50 global guild rankings. It was hard to resist the temptation of joining her alliance when she, the alliance leader, was so powerful.
For reference’s sake, Maria’s CP rating, which she had kept hidden, was a little over 4.6 million points. This was insanely high in comparison to the average player base, which wasn’t even in the 1 million point range. Of course, this average was dragged down by the many casual players who were only playing the game out of amusement and weren't actively trying to improve their stats and levels.
If people found out about this, they would suspect her of cheating, but unfortunately for them, she got to where she was based solely on her own efforts and luck–though there were plenty of times where her ‘luck’ forced her into a situation that she didn’t want to be in.
Maria and the rest of the player representatives in the hall they were gathered in finished exchanging their pleasantries and she quickly moved on to talking about how they would approach this time’s battle.
“First of all, I will be dividing the players into 3 different groups. Each group will be in charge of attacking one side of the city along with some of my NPC forces. The Dire’s main force will move with me to launch a frontal attack on the city,” Maria explained.
Venweld raised his hand and after receiving a nod from Maria, he quickly asked, “Your Majesty, if we spread our forces too thin, will it not be a problem?”
“There won’t be a problem. The majority of the Lycan’s remaining forces have gathered within the capital, there won’t be any fear of ambushes from our flanks or rear, but we should still keep in mind that the enemy player forces that they’ve been keeping in reserve could ambush us.”
“Yes, there’s also that, so why spread our forces thin?”
“We need to do this because this way, the enemy forces inside the city will also need to spread their forces to deal with us. Our forces vastly outnumber them 50 to 1. If we concentrate our forces and attack only one side of the city, we’ll be putting our advantage to waste since there’s only so much room for our people to attack,” Maria said before continuing. “In the case of an enemy ambush outside of our walls, I’ve prepared a few defensive siege equipment for everyone to use and I’ll be deploying 4 magic tank squadrons for every attack group to guard your flanks and rear. They will only be used to guard your respective groups while you initiate your attacks, but once you’ve breached the gates, they will immediately move out and enter the city. Follow them and quickly occupy the important points in the city that I will be listing later for each group.”
Venheld paused for a moment and thought about it before nodding after all of the worries in his mind had been cleared, “I understand. Thank you for clearing up my worries, Your Majesty.”
Maria nodded before turning to Ash, who was standing faithfully behind her and saying, “Ash will explain the details of the plan.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ash replied before stepping forward. “The battle plan will consist of 4 phases. The first phase is the siege. This phase is self-explanatory. Siege the city and capture the gates. Once we’ve captured the gates and breached the city, the second phase will start and that is the capture of the strategic points Her Majesty has previously mentioned. After that, the third phase will begin and that is to deal with the citizens who have and have not surrendered. The last one will be storming the Lycan’s royal castle. The last phase will not concern anyone present as Her Majesty will be the one to personally storm the castle along with her imperial guard.”
A few hours later, after Ash finished explaining each of the important points of the strategy and answering all of the questions the players and NPCs had for him, the strategy meeting ended and everyone returned to their respective areas to rest.
Maria and her forces were currently occupying a fortress and a town that was close to the capital. The place they were occupying was overlooking the capital city on a slightly elevated hill which was about 3 to 4 kilometers away.
The strategy meeting had started early in the morning and now it was about midday, the time when everyone would be having their lunch.
Maria could see that smoke was coming out from the chimneys inside of the city. It was quite obvious that most of the households there were preparing lunch. The same went for her forces. Everyone was either already eating or was preparing their lunch.
Some players had to log off to eat in real life, but for Maria, it was midnight in the real world right now, so she didn’t need to. She had already eaten dinner with her family a few hours ago.
A group of maids came over and immediately began setting a table in front of her. Once it was set up, they immediately began placing a few dishes on top of it. This was her in-game lunch, which was definitely much more luxurious than the other players currently eating lunch inside of the game.
“Your Majesty, the food is ready.”
“Mhm. Thank you. You can all go and have your breaks now,” Maria thanked and dismissed them.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Just before they all left, Maria quickly called out to one of them and said, “Amara, please call my friends over. You should know which ones I’m referring to, yes?”
Amara was Maria’s first-ever personal maid. As her royal maid, she followed Maria everywhere to attend to her needs, whether it be in the castle, on the battlefield, or whenever she went out hunting.
Thanks to Maria’s strenuous activities, Amara had many opportunities to train herself with her Master–though most of the time she was reluctant, but had to do it in order to keep up with all of Maria’s dangerous activities–so she was now the most capable maid–both in terms of combat capability and housekeeping capabilities–under Maria.
Amara always went out with Maria, so she knew who the players she was referring to, so she bowed and said, “At once, Your Majesty.”
Maria looked up at the midday sky and sighed, “It’s almost over…”