MMORPG: The Elementalist

“Just what the hell are you doing?! We’ve put so much faith in you and you so abysmally butchered your task! Perhaps I should have taken the command myself from here; at least it wouldn’t have resulted in the enemies taking down the west side so early!”

“Yeah! Berserker Lord, come on. If you can’t handle this, just step away from command… I’ll go to the west side and you can come to my side here…”

Seeing the west side of Sin City falling so fast and the advancing forces of Angel Faction flooding the streets, several experienced League Leaders and Clan Leaders were pissed.

Berserker Lord was quite upset himself. If only he had more time to discuss with Savior and the others, and if he hadn’t been blocked out by the darn stupid newbie Leagues earlier, the west side here could have been saved.

Luckily, Dark Emperor and the other morons here did not join in the trash talk. If they did, he might have actually gone berserk!

“Can it. You all just found out about the situation here and you’re all none the wiser. If you’ve got time to complain, why then did you send that order to your men in the city in the first place…”

After taking a deep breath, Berserker Lord calmly shouted, “All troops to battle stations!”

“Take note! All non-Tier 5 players, you are required to log off immediately! If you don’t, you will be heavily penalized!”

“Every player who owns a pet with flight ability! Rendezvous at these coordinates…”

“Summoners who can teleport allies! Gather up and teleport all the Tier 5 players to the west side!”

“Each Clan must assign ten Tier 5 Archers to the west side. Go to the roof and root yourself there! The enemies will try to take foothold on all the higher areas next; so we need to take high ground before them!”

“In ten minutes, I want no one but Tier 5 combatants here in Sin City. We’ll strike back from all angles! Hmph! We’ll see if the Angel Faction can get two hundred and fifty thousand Tier 5 players to break through this defense!”

Hearing Berserker Lord’s surefooted and explicit orders, the high ranking members of the Sixteen Leagues could not help but be surprised by his plan!

Getting all the Tier 5 players from Demon Faction to gather in Sin City was not too difficult of a task. Also, if they could pull it off, Sin City would become as impenetrable as Fort Knox! In addition, once they were able to stop the Angel Faction’s advances on the west side, they would then be able to retaliate with all their might. All that retaliation from over two hundred thousand Tier 5 players… this was not something the Five Leagues of the Angel Faction could simply hold off!

This Berserker Lord was quite a character. It was no wonder that Savior, Sinistress and Zeus recommended him to be the commander in this battle of defense… He was quick on his feet and capable of coming up with great battle plans in mere minutes! And his methods were ruthless too!

It was no wonder that this man was their worst rival in becoming one of the inner circles elder League Leaders.

***

As more and more players started to log off, there were more spots for the Angel Faction players to take a foothold; the sudden drop in the Demon Faction combatants in the city had encouraged the Angel Faction’s army to push more fiercely by the minute.

With the combined efforts of the Winged Champions and other Tier 5 players, every street in the city’s west side were now occupied by the Angel Faction.

Berserker Lord was correct in his estimations…

After the Five Leagues entered the streets, the Elementalists started leaping onto the roofs utilizing their Elemental Magic. Using the roofs as their vantage point, they were able to provide more covering fire for their fellow brethren on the ground as they advanced further into the city!

In less than ten minutes, a quarter of the city was now in the hands of the Angel Faction!

***

“….”

Violet Orchid, Majestic Hero and the others sensed something peculiar. Although they had gained the upper hand, they were still not letting down their guard.

“League Leaders, I suggest we stop our advance and focus on defense for now!”

Determined, Violet Orchid voiced her suggestion in the commanders’ chat channel, specially set up before they commenced the operation. The channel included the League Leaders, all the Leagues’ Clan Leaders, Field Commanders and also the other Clan Leaders who were not a part of the Leagues but wanted to help.

“What? That’s too early!” Scarlet Bauhinia responded, “I haven’t reached my designated spot yet. If you stop advancing now, we’d lose the chance to besiege from all sides…”

“What?!”

Terribly shocked after hearing this, Violet Orchid quickly glided up to the sky with her Angelic Wings to scout. From high above, she was able to see a huge flowing army flocking into the west side of the city without obstacles. She then saw Black God and Netherclaw, who were both handling the south and north sides respectively, sending in their War Behemoths…

However!

There were only three sides that had reached the walls with their troops. Only the east side was still extending toward the walls—their War Behemoth was also nowhere to be seen too.

“What went wrong?”

Scarlet Bauhinia continued with his inquiry, “I thought we’re progressing well? What changed? Why are we stopping?”

“Yeah, I am curious too. We’ve only just arrived and Leader Violet wanted us to stop. What a bright idea.” Netherclaw’s bitter voice sounded in the chat channel too.

Violet Orchid carefully explained what she had discovered earlier to everyone in the chat channel… they were no fools and she knew they would understand as soon as they heard what she had in mind.

“Squealing Hog reported in earlier. The Sixteen Leagues had now ordered to rid all the non-Tier 5 players of Sin City and summon all their Tier 5 players in.”

“They were preparing to use their flying pets against our Winged Champions… and… we couldn’t gather that many flying pets in such a short time.”

And sure enough, Majestic Hero’s intel had reaffirmed Violet Orchid’s deduction on the enemy’s plan. Thus, after the two of them had finished their words, there were several voices that were agreeing to Violet Orchid’s suggestion…

If they were to continue pushing forward, the battles would get drawn out for too long. When that happens, the Five Leagues would lose their advantage in battle over time.

“They’re getting all the Tier 5 players here? Wow, that’s a checkmate!”

“Yeah! Let’s stop and focus on defending the west side first. One hour! We could hold it for one hour!”

“No… this is too…”

“Of course, we can do that only after the men on the east side have reached the walls!” Violet Orchid added.

Indeed, if they tried to go on the defense before everyone arrived at their designated locations, the Demon Faction would then see that the east side is a weak spot. Then, once they focus all their efforts to break through the forces on the east, the Angel Faction would surely lose the chance to besiege the city from all angles.

Scarlet Bauhinia responded quickly, “I’ll need at least four minutes…”

“…four minutes.”

Violet Orchid let out a bitter smile. If they were to progress like this, in four minutes, about two-thirds of the west side would have fallen back to the hands of Demon Faction. Indeed, the Angel Faction had a powerful line-up of Radiant Priests and Priestesses. Yet, it was still not enough to hold off hundreds of thousands of Tier 5 Demon Faction players.

On battlefields like this, one small error or mistake would result in a cascade of failures, a domino effect, resulting in each frontline getting affected. There were too many mediating variables for them to maintain their momentum like this!

Violet Orchid let out a sigh. At this rate, they might not be able to maintain their advantage for long on the battlefield.

They had not thought through everything carefully enough. Indeed, there were some great strategists amongst the Demon Faction—by pulling off all the incapable men from the battlefield, they could lure the Angel Faction players to enter the city and then strike them from behind. That was a great move.

As everyone was pondering hard on what to do next… Qin Ruo’s voice suddenly blasted in the channel!

“I’ve got an idea but it could be dangerous…”

“Oh, for fuck sake! If you got any idea just spill it out! Dangerous? Aren’t we in bloody danger right now ourselves?” Black God laughed anxiously.

***

After voicing out his plan calmly, everyone in the “commanders” chat channel could not help but to take in a deep breath.

“You…”

“Are you nuts? This is too risky.”

“… you do realize that by doing, you’re going all-in?” Black God and Majestic Hero responded first.

“I told you earlier.” Qin Ruo responded calmly, “This method is a little dangerous. Even I don’t have much confidence if I could pull it off. Yet, to win this war, it’s a wager I’m willing to go all-in.”

“Now, I’ll leave it to you all to call the bet or not.”

Laying out his plan, Qin Ruo pushed the decision-making to the other four League Leaders.

“This is not risk-taking you’re doing here. It’s suicide… creating a diversion amongst the Demon Faction ranks? What makes you think we can succeed? With your darn Water Elemental Magic? Any Tier 5 Elementalists could see through you miles away.” Netherclaw mocked.

“Look… Little Qin, you know I’ve never seen eye-to-eye with Netherclaw here. But he has a point… I’m telling you. You need to abstain from your habit of risking every piece you’ve got all the time. This idea of yours is…”

Before Black God was able to complete his sentence, Majestic Hero suddenly spoke, “Agreed.”

“There’s not much time. Qin Ruo’s method might be risky but I have faith in him! Scarlet Bauhinia, what do you think?”

On the east side of Sin City, Scarlet Bauhinia had summoned his War Behemoth and led his Tier 5 and Tier 4 players towards the east gate. After hearing this, he paused momentarily. Then, a smile beamed on his face…

“Two months ago, he was just a Tier 3 Aquamancer… now, he becomes the League Leader of Fallen Angels. Me? I’ve not grown any stronger or wiser. Just the same old me. Hehe!”

“I’m calling the bet too. Let’s do this.” Scarlet Bauhinia had also responded!

“Fuck! You’ve all lost your fucking minds! Little Qin, I’m warning you! Don’t mess this up! Or else, I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this to my brethren in the League later.”

Even though Black God did not say it out loud, it seemed that he and the Black Prison League were willing to play along too…

“Netherclaw, what about you?”

Qin Ruo asked calmly.

“If you don’t agree, I won’t go through with it.”

“Alright.”

Being someone who was able to see the bigger picture, Netherclaw agreed too.

“I want to see if you can create miracles yet again… like the last time where you could suddenly leave the Underworld and appear in the Death Valley… if you can’t pull it off… Hmph! Then, I swear I will lead everyone in the Netherspirit’s Claw to crush your darn Fallen Angels… you have my word!”

This was this first time Netherclaw set aside his differences with Qin Ruo.

Boooom!!!

It was then that Scarlet Dynasty’s War Behemoth rammed into the Sin City’s east walls…

The all-sided besiege was now complete!

“Let’s do it!”