While Maria and the Lycan King were fighting each other, the battle around them continued to wage on without their regard.
The Dire’s forces continued to encroach on the capital city’s land and they slowly pushed back their enemies within their encirclement. Their purpose was to force back all of the Lycans' military forces into the capital’s castle.
Maria wanted to gather all of the enemy forces within a single place, so it would make it easier for her and her army to eliminate them in one fell swoop. It was definitely much better than fighting all across the city without any purpose.
Maria’s forces slowly forced their enemies back with their ground and air superiority. No matter how hard the Lycan forces tried to fight back, they were constantly pushed back and had to continuously retreat from the defense lines that they worked so hard to establish.
Despite occupying rather advantageous areas, the Lycan soldiers couldn’t do anything except die and retreat from their enemies’ relentless and merciless assault.
The only area that hadn’t been pushed back was the place where Maria and the Lycan King were currently duking things out.
Their battle had reached a peak and they were fighting without any regard for their surroundings. A boss monster against a player in a one versus one situation where no one interfered or helped either side. It was truly an unbelievable scene, especially since this battle had been going on for about half an hour already.
Neither side was tired and they continued to lash at each other, trying their best to hurt their opponent. Maria was superior in both technique and agility, but the Lycan King was able to keep up with his immense strength and masterful battle experience.
However, he was just barely holding on. Maria’s tactics were just so plentiful and ever-changing that he could hardly keep up. Beowulf had to expend a lot of his focus on her attacks and quickly detect the changes to her patterns in order to block them ahead of time.
While he was doing that, he also needed to think of ways to counterattack, so the battle was taking a heavy toll on his mind. His physical stamina was able to keep up with Maria, but his mental stamina was draining really fast.
If this went on for a bit longer, it would end up with Maria’s victory without a doubt. Even Beowulf knew this himself. If his concentration slipped for even a single instance, it would spell disaster for him.
He had to make a decision. Continue fighting here against this lunatic woman and hold the line…or retreat with his men and fall back to their next defense line. If he stubbornly held on, Beowulf believed that he and his soldiers would be annihilated once Maria defeated him–something he truly didn’t want to admit but had to, since he needed to face reality because it wasn’t just his life on the line here.
Once Maria ordered her soldiers to begin attacking them, Beowulf knew that his soldiers wouldn’t be able to put up any sort of defense against them, especially since there was still the looming threat of Maria’s champions waiting nearby.
Before the battle had started, Beowulf had taken notice of the people who had gathered around, especially the 3 beautiful individuals, Ash and the other 2 vampire women. The aura they exuded felt threatening, even to him, so if they decided to start attacking his soldiers, there was just no way his men could put up a fight against them.
‘Dammit, I have to retreat! Even if I lose here, I can’t die here or else everyone will be annihilated!’
Beowulf raised his spear and slammed the ground, kicking up debris and a large dust cloud.
“EVERYONE, RETREAT! FALL BACK TO THE NEXT DEFENSE LINE!” he roared.
Maria was surprised by the sudden roar that spewed out a command that was seemingly unthinkable to her. She ground her teeth in anger and waved her ax to blow away the dust cloud that had been kicked up.
“Coward! How dare you turn your back on me!” Maria yelled as she quickly lunged forward and swung her Calamity down on Beowulf’s head.
The Lycan King didn’t try blocking the attack. Instead, he backed up and dodged the blow before swinging his spear on the ground and tossing up a few large pieces of debris that were from the buildings that had collapsed due to their fight and began flinging them in Maria’s direction.
Maria quickly cut them all down and just as she was about to charge forward again, her opponent had already disengaged from the battle and was off in the distance, bringing up the rear and protecting his soldiers from her forces’ attacks.
“Dammit!”
Maria was angry, however, it wasn’t because she had let her opponent escape. It was because her fun time was now over. It was pretty well-known already to many people that Maria, the Dire’s Empress, really loved to fight.
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She wasn’t a warmonger or anything, but she genuinely just loved to fight and swing around her weapon at a strong opponent. This was one of the very few satisfying battles she had had in a long time, so since it was cut short, Maria felt extremely upset and dissatisfied, especially towards her opponent, Beowulf, who had decided to run away from her.
Since he was a boss monster and an important NPC, the least he could do was act like one and fight with her until the end. This was the first time that Maria met an NPC that was of such a high level of importance who willingly chose to run away from a fight.
Normally, they would fight to the death and shout something about preserving their honor despite knowing that they were about to die. This shameless NPC ran away from her when the fight was at its peak and most entertaining part.
Maria stomped on the ground in a tantrum and was just about to fly off and pursue her prey, but she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder that immediately grounded her and prevented her from flying off.
“Your Majesty, please calm down!” Ash, the person who had prevented Maria from pursuing Beowulf, quickly advised.
Maria was angry that it was her closest subordinate who prevented her from pursuing her enemy, so she snarled back at him, “Ash! You let go of me right this instant or I’ll–”
Before she could finish her words, Ash quickly cut her off and replied, “Your Majesty, please take a look around you! Your soldiers have been inspired by your battle and are waiting for your commands!”
When she heard this, Maria calmed down a little and took a look at her surroundings. The soldiers that should’ve been fighting were now staring at her expectantly with bright eyes and waiting for her commands, just like Ash said.
The soldiers were fighting a while ago, but after Maria had decided to seriously fight back and attack Beowulf, her battle style, which was so unique and extremely ‘beautiful’ in their eyes, attracted the soldiers' attention and stopped them from fighting.
This allowed their enemies to disengage from their melee and fall back behind their King. They wanted to attack their awestruck enemies, but when they turned to look at their King's battle against the enemy forces’ Queen, they couldn’t help becoming awestruck as well.
That fight was a fight between the two leaders of each opposing side. They were fighting to the death and trying to kill each other, but it was inspiring to both sides’ forces.
Even though Beowulf decided to retreat in the end, his soldiers weren’t dismayed. Instead, they were inspired just as much as their enemies. Seeing their King fight against the enemy’s powerful Queen to a standstill was incredible.
Everyone on the Lycan’s side had heard about Maria’s incredible fighting prowess and, although they were confident in their own king’s fighting abilities, even they had some doubts considering that Maria was actively participating in the war in some battles and decimating their forces with ease, so seeing their king fight against her was inspiring to them regardless of the outcome.
Not only that, but the Lycans had the situational awareness to understand why their king decided to retreat from the battle. If they continued to be held up there, then they wouldn’t be able to retreat once their enemies take down the rest of their frontlines, leaving them isolated and cut off from their only path of retreat.
Their king was worried about their safety even though he didn’t say it and this became the factor that didn’t allow them to be dismayed by the outcome of Beowulf’s battle with Maria.
Back on Maria’s end, she only watched her enemy retreat but didn’t pursue him. Instead, she turned to her soldiers and raised her Calamity high in the air. This caused the soldiers that were watching her to let out a loud cry.
“Long live Her Majesty, the Empress!”
“Our Empress is invincible!”
“Invincible!”
“Invincible!”
“Our Invincible Empress!”
They continued to chant those words and they were heard all throughout the battlefield, even from far away. Both ally and enemy turned to where the chanting was coming from and they couldn’t help but wonder what had happened.
The captains that were watching the battle unfold quickly told some of their soldiers to quickly spread the news to the rest of the army, who weren’t able to watch what happened and this only served to boost the morale of the Dire’s soldiers.
With even more fervor, they began pushing back their enemies, destroying the defense lines of the Lycans one by one without rest.
After 5 hours of constant fighting, Maria’s forces were finally able to push the Lycans and enemy players all the way back to the Lycan’s castle, where the Lycan King and the rest of his subordinates had retreated to.
The situation for them wasn’t favorable and after hearing that the King had retreated in the face of the enemy’s Queen in a one-on-one battle, their morale began to plummet. Only the soldiers who were around to witness the awe-inspiring battle were able to remain positive in their bleak situation, but unfortunately for Beowulf, the rest of his soldiers couldn’t.
They were now stuck inside of the castle, like a turtle huddling inside of its shell. It was impossible for them to escape the encirclement and they couldn’t think of a plan out of their current situation.
Things became worse for them after Maria began setting up a perimeter around the castle and setting up her army’s ranks and formations there. The 3 airships also loomed up in the skies above the castle with their cannons aimed at them, which only strengthened the worry and unrest within the castle walls.
“My King, how are we going to get out of this situation?! If this continues, then we can only die here once our supplies have run out!”
“Then what do you propose we do, Sir Bar’thok?! Surrender to the witch and become her slaves?!”
“I’d rather die before that happens! We Lycans are a proud warrior race! I’d rather die in battle than enslave myself to the enemy just so that I can live!”
“Stop talking out of your ass! Are you saying that we should all die here together? Are you saying that we should let our wives and children die while we remain stubborn?!”
“The traitors…if it weren’t for those goddamn werewolf traitors!”
“I told you that we should have exterminated them!”
“Don’t you think it was because of our flawed policies that the werewolves turned their backs on us?! Now look at them! At least they are able to live while we’re stuck here in this…cage, waiting to die!”
The high-ranking Lycans who were present in the great hall of the castle were locked in a fierce debate, split between two sides that wanted to surrender to Maria to live another day and the side that would rather die in battle than be enslaved by the Dire’s Empress, who was an invader.
The King was torn between what to do because it was only a while ago that he found out that the person who led the werewolves to rebel against his nation and the Lycans…was his own daughter.
“My King, please make your decision! What shall we do?!”