A few hours later, after many of the players in her army had returned, Maria rallied all of the guild leaders, generals, and captains under her command together once again.
This time, she planned to launch an all-out attack on the Lycan capital city and finally take it down. Maria was even willing to participate in the battle herself even though it would expose her to a lot of danger.
No matter how overpowered her stats were, it wouldn’t be enough to ensure her safety when hundreds of players and NPC attacks were aimed her way. The cumulative damage dealt by many attacks would eventually zero out her HP bar, resulting in her death.
That’s why there were many who protested her involvement in the battle so early on. At the very least, the people she commanded wanted her to wait until they secured the Lycan city’s walls before she decided to join the battle.
There was no lack of so-called champions in Maria’s large army, so it shouldn’t be a problem for them to at least secure the walls first.
In the end, Maria had to give in to their demands and decided to wait in the backlines, but even though she was in the backlines, she still had to be wary of any assassination attempts.
In the past few battles, there were many players and NPCs who had attempted to try and assassinate her as the fights were still going on. Since many of her strong allies and subordinates would be fighting on the field, this left her vulnerable–at least, that’s what her enemies thought.
Maria was capable of holding her own in a fight, even if it was up against 50 high-ranked players or more. Of course, her enemies thought they could just overwhelm her with numbers, which was definitely a sound strategy, because no matter how many people she was capable of fighting, she would still eventually fall in the end if they piled up on her with enough numbers.
This problem was something many in her army were worried about and they would consistently bring it up whenever a battle started. It was nice that they were concerned and all, but Maria found it annoying because they would always repeat the same words at every war meeting to the point where it only sounded like nagging to her.
Her friends, Lizzy and the other 2, were no exceptions. The most annoying one, though, had to be Ash.
During the first skirmish where Maria was ambushed for the first time by a large group of players and Lycan assassins, Ash witnessed how she nearly lost her life because the enemies were constantly chaining crowd control effects on her.
If it wasn’t for her brief immortality buff from her skill [God Save the Queen];
[God Save the Queen
Rank: Epic
As a Queen, you are blessed by God and cannot easily die.
When receiving fatal damage, you will be granted 5 seconds of immunity to all damage
and you are immune to all Instant Death Skills and the Death Sentence debuff.
Cooldown: 24 Hours]
Maria would’ve lost her life on the battlefield that day. Maria had summoned Ash to her side before that happened and her subordinate helped her repel her enemies and bring her away to safety.
Thanks to that near-death experience, Ash had become so annoying during the war meetings, though Maria couldn’t say anything back to him because it wasn’t like he was trying to annoy her. He was just genuinely worried about her and that wasn’t something she should reprimand.
Maria only wished that Ash, along with everyone else, would tone down their concern for her. She had only been caught off guard that one time because she never expected her enemies to resort to ambushing her directly.
Ever since that ambush, Maria had become ever more vigilant on the battlefield and the subsequent ambushes had always failed until now. Nothing was going to change that fact, because she always kept her Undead Champions next to her.
Her Undead Army could still participate in the battle despite their commanders hanging around next to her, because they could remotely command their underlings. It was a nice perk, because they could stay by her side to protect her while still directing their minions to do battle.
Thanks to the added protection, no ambushes had been successful, but even before she had put her 3 Undead Champions next to her, Maria was able to thwart the ambushes on her own.
The only reason why she started putting Morte and the others close to her is because Ash and her other retainers requested that she had guards around her at all times. If she were to fall, the morale of her troops would fall and this was unacceptable.
Their enemies could seize the moment when she was outside of the game due to the death penalty to try and try some things to turn the tide of the war in their favor. Of course, her subordinates and retainers weren’t so incompetent to let that happen, but they didn’t want to see their Empress fall to their enemies.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Maria was a player, so she wouldn’t ‘die’ permanently. After the death penalty was over, she could just log back into the game and resume the war. Her allies, however, didn’t want her to die.
The meeting that proceeded basically left Maria out of the entire equation, so her retainers and allies discussed things among themselves. The detailed plan had already been discussed a few days ago and just a few hours ago, before Maria ordered everyone to take a break.
Right now, they were just going over things and reviewing what they already knew. No matter how tedious it was, it had to be done because no mistakes were allowed to happen since this was a crucial moment for the Dire.
After this battle and they succeeded in conquering the Lycans, the Dire would become the de facto power on Vanhal.
A few hours later, Maria ended the meeting by giving an army-wide speech to everyone before she sounded the horn for battle and the siege, at long last, finally started.
Her soldiers were at their peak morale when they started marching, but Maria’s speech was loud and so resounding that her enemies heard it on the walls and this brought down their morale.
Seeing as their enemy’s armies were splitting into groups and moving to surround their city, the lycans and players within the city couldn’t help but be dismayed at their seemingly bleak fate.
Once the Dire’s armies surrounded the city, the siege soon began in earnest. War horns were blown and the first round of attacks started.
The catapults and siege cannons that Maria had prepared for this final battle began firing at the Lycan capital city’s walls. Some of the blasts and projectiles were deflected by the magic barrier that surrounded the walls, while others splintered and pierced through it and impacted the walls directly.
The city’s walls didn’t collapse thanks to the magical enchantments that were bestowed upon it, but once more and more projectiles began piercing through the magic barrier, it started to show prominent signs of damage.
Under the cover of the catapults and cannons, the Dire’s soldiers began charging towards the city. Leading the charge were the magic tanks that had been constantly used throughout the war and behind them were the infantry.
Many players and NPCs that were following behind these tanks were carrying ladders and other siege equipment to scale the tall walls of the city while the large mobile siege towers were moving forward rather slowly just behind them.
The cavalry, magitek armor pilots, and heavy-armored soldiers were protecting these siege towers. The magitek armor was a hidden weapon that Maria decided to pull out from her secret arsenal for this final battle specifically.
The armor was basically a mana-powered mech suit that had a soldier inside of it. It was quite large–almost as big as an orc champion–so it was cumbersome to move in. The lacking agility and flexibility of the armor was compensated by the overwhelming firepower it had that nearly trumped even the magic tanks.
The magitek armor was still being revised and upgraded by the dwarves in order to make it more nimble and easier to use, but Maria was a little impatient, so she decided to just bring out the model that they had already produced.
There weren’t too many of these magitek armors, just 20 of them and they remained with the Dire’s main army–the army Maria personally commanded. They were a secret until now, so when they suddenly appeared, all of her allies and soldiers–besides her close retainers who naturally knew about them–were surprised and shocked to see those mechanical monstrosities walking alongside the large siege towers.
“W-What the hell are those???!!!”
“It’s a mecha! It’s a freaking mecha!”
“I want thaaatttt~!”
Maria smirked when she heard one person desperately shout that they wanted one of those mech suits. It looked pretty cool, but she thought it was a bit confusing to pilot. She had tried out the first prototype that her dwarven engineers and artisans had worked together to create and she was hardly able to make it move.
The stat and class restrictions made Maria unable to pilot the thing and she was dismayed because she wanted to at least try it out. Unfortunately, she couldn’t because the mech suit was restricted to only be handled and used by engineers and their related classes.
Of course, you could still try and pilot the suit like Maria had, but it was impossible since the system’s auto-correction and guidance didn’t kick in to help her pilot it. Engineers could immediately use it because the game’s system would help them understand how to use the mech suit.
If Maria or any other player who didn’t have the engineer class wanted to try to use it properly, then they would need to study and obtain the relevant sub-class: Mech Pilot–just like how Maria had studied magic and obtained the Magus sub-class.
The engineer class wasn’t even a combat class but a lifestyle class, so not many players wanted it as a main class or even wanted to get any of its sub-classes. However, with the introduction of the mech suit, that was soon going to change because it could now be categorized as a hybrid class.
The ones piloting the mech suits were engineer-class NPCs and they were able to move the large heaps of metal very expertly, despite it still looking rather encumbering. If those suits were any nimbler, they would be running alongside the infantry right about now.
Maria clicked her tongue and thought that it was probably better if she had waited before revealing these weapons of hers because, at this rate, they wouldn’t be so impactful to the battle since all they were doing was guarding the siege towers.
The enemies weren’t even trying to rush out of the gates to engage the infantry because they were too scared of the magic cannons and other siege weapons.
“Well, it’s not like this is the only card I wanted to reveal today…” Maria said as she turned towards one of the officers below. “Pass down my orders, send the airforce in. I want this battle to be over today!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
Maria’s army consisted of all 3 basic military powers; the army, navy, and, naturally, the air force. Until now, only the army and navy had been revealed, so this was the first time the air force was going to show up in battle.
Once the orders reached the designated personnel. The captain of the Airship that Maria’s dwarven craftsmen had developed for battle quickly acknowledged the orders and sat down on his chair on the bridge of the large airship that had been waiting high in the skies above the clouds and he quickly relayed them to his subordinates and the other captains of the other 2 airships that were waiting alongside his.
“Men, our Empress has finally given the orders! It’s about time that we also had our time on the battlefield! This is an important battle for our nation and for our Empress, so let’s not screw things up!”
“Yes sir!”
“Yes sir!”
“Then let’s do this! AS Endeavor, set off!”
“Setting off!”
“AS Resolution, setting off!”
“AS Zenith, setting off!”
The 3 airships’ pilots began steering their ships and lowered their altitude so they were now passing down through the clouds below them, in formation.
When the skies began to darken for some reason despite it still being daytime, many soldiers on both sides of the battlefield turned their heads up and looked towards the sky.
“W-What is that?!”