Vow of Valor faced a storm of attacks, but he wasn't entirely helpless. A sword aimed for his right shoulder. The demon swiftly turned away by half a step. But to his shock the sword changed its trajectory mid-air, now aiming for the centre of his chest. The level of control over one's own strength made the demon even admire his enemy.
The sword hit and the three Holy Marks on top of Vow of Valor's head exploded. Right at the last moment he activated his own skill, conjuring an armor of darkness to protect himself.
"My turn!"
Just as Vow of Valor let out a grin and prepared to retaliate he realised that Bleary Mirage showed none of the arrogance a top player might have. After delivering one blow the enemy instantly withdrew behind the frontline, biding his time until his skills were off cooldown.
Letting out a snort the demon turned elsewhere, striking with his halberd. The unique weapon's effect triggered, and two dark shadows appeared, repeating the attack, causing quite the trouble for the tanks opposing him.
The clash between Vow of Valor and Bleary Mirage was only a small speck in the collision between the two factions. If it weren't for the fame of the two players, it would be entirely inconspicuous. But even so it couldn't influence the situation much. The two factions fought fiercely back and forth. Rows of tanks formed impenetrable walls, thieves attempted to reach the enemy's healers, and mages covered large areas with their spells.
Fortune stood at the back of the crowd, sending a massive sphere of arcane magic into the enemy ranks. The sphere struck every opponent coming too close, going crazy among the densely packed enemies.
Cyclone rained down thunder. The Zen brothers, who were also assigned to the same army together with Final Fend and the rest of their party, conjured vast flames and ice. Final Fend himself stood at the front of the battle, laughing brightly as he swung his chainblade left and right. His passive triggered continuously, causing those hit by his weapon to stagger, greatly impacting their movement. From time to time someone managed to make use of the opportunity, catching a staggered enemy off guard, delivering a fierce blow.
It didn't take long for the chaos faction to feel an enormous pressure. It couldn't be helped, they were simply outnumbered. However, at that moment an eerie sensation hit all the players. Everyone's attention was drawn by the five strange cannon beasts.
The beasts had finally gathered enough power for an attack. They directed their cannon-barrel-like heads towards the sky. Dense void energy gathered in their slimy maws. A tremor ran through the world as the beasts finally launched their attacks. Spheres of dense void energy erupted from their maws and shot through the sky. They drew long, black, trails behind them as the very space disintegrated.
"Careful!"
"Shields!"
"Dodge!"
The order faction players let out terrified shouts but before anyone reacted they realized that the enemy didn't target them. However, this didn't lift their spirits at all. Instead, they were filled with worry.
Some distance away Therim immediately felt the threat when it appeared. His face was incredibly grave. Even his two generals felt their hearts palpitate. As they looked up, they could see the black and violet threat in the distance.
"Let us handle that!"
"Can you?"
"For a while…"
"Go!"
There was not much time to waste. Therim and his two generals communicated concisely. A moment later the two generals darted out.
The human general grabbed his battleaxe tightly. His eyes were filled with determination. His thundering shout shook the air as he swung his axe. An enormous, invisible force was released shooting into the sky, meeting the void head on. There was no loud explosion or anything. The force released by the general simply disintegrated but the void spheres were also reduced in size.
The general took a deep breath and produced two more attacks. The void was worn down, but it didn't completely disappear. Instead, it turned into fog which slowly drifted towards the ground. The soldiers in its way hastily escaped. When the void fog reached the ground, it was instantly corroded. The fog spread to the surroundings and touched a few unfortunate souls before losing its momentum.
"AH!"
"Healer! Healer! Quick!"
"My hand!"
Pained shouts could be heard. Those touched by the void would at least lose a limb. Even a timely heal could only prevent the worst.
The same was happening on the other side. The wood elf general conjured a massive tree, dancing among its crown, slashing at the incoming void with two daggers. But when the void energy touched the tree, the latter was easily corroded, causing barely any loss to the void energy. It took the general quite some effort to reduce the void spheres until they turned into the less harmful fog.
"This void energy is so dense. I have never seen something like it before without a void dweller controlling it. How are those damned devils able to produce something like this?"
"F*ck! Who cares! But look at the destruction they are causing. Are they adamant on destroying Crunaboul?! We need to stop them!"
The two generals talked among themselves, their expressions showing an unprecedented graveness. At this moment they suddenly noticed something. They turned towards the north and spotted a few black dots rapidly enlarging in their vision. As soon as they came closer everyone could make out massive flying warships throwing shadows on the army. They resembled modern blimps with the main bodies of ships carried by enormous, white balloons.
All the players exclaimed in awe. Instantly many of the dwarven players had their eyes light up, boasting about their roles in building the warships.
When the warships approached, they received a signal from Therim. Without stopping they advanced and hovered above the fortress. Magical circles lit up on the bottom of their hulls. Devouring the surrounding mana, they conjured beams of flames which rained down on the barrier below them. Dark magic undulated on top of the barrier, but this backlash was not powerful enough to reach the warships hovering in the sky. And yet Therim didn't dare to drop his vigilance. The reason why he didn't send out the warships right away was because the infernals were not without means to specifically target them.
Liam and his friends didn't know what was happening behind their backs. But they could hear the persistent rumbling. They players realized that they couldn't waste too much time here.
"Target those cannons!"
"Ignore the players!"
"Bring out some scrolls if you have them!"
Immediately the intensity went up a level. The player even retrieved spell scrolls to attack. Although no one dared to use their most precious items, the spells covering a wide area still brought a lot of pressure to the enemies. Add to that the fact that the order faction had the number advantage and the chaos faction was pushed back again and again with nowhere to hide.
A lot of players also figured out the enemy's weakness. They realised that their job wasn't to eliminate the chaos faction but to destroy these chaos beasts. Thus, many attacks were targeted towards the back, forcing the chaos faction to defend in a fluster.
Suddenly a few thieves appeared next to one of the beasts. Some of them held back the guards while the others punced on the beast. The strange creature clearly had no other means of attack. It was entirely defenceless in the face of the players. When the sharp daggers cut into its body its HP dropped freely, soon reaching zero.
"Careful!"
Some discerning players noticed something, instantly issuing a warning. At that moment the beast's body was instantly corrupted in its entirety. With a strange gurgling noise, it weakly fell to the ground, spreading a cloud of void energy in the process, which hunted chaos and order factions alike.
"Get away!"
"Ah! No! Save me!"
"I thought those were on our side!"
The backline immediately turned chaotic. Even the other strange beasts were affected. This only put the chaos faction in an even more passive position. As the order faction completely focused on killing the beasts the chaos faction was forced to bring out their own scrolls, creating barriers to buy time.
After a while the beasts managed to launch another barrage. But the order faction repeated the successful strategy from earlier, sending thieves to assassinate one more beast.
Liam and his friends were in the midst of the fierce struggle. Thanks to their reputation they managed to coordinate about a third of the order faction. It was them who organised the fall of the second beast. Meanwhile they fought steadily, going back and forth, never falling into danger. The seconds ticked by and the other beasts all carried heavy injuries, tattering on the brink of defeat.
Just as Liam was waiting for the task to announce their victory, he felt multiple pairs of piercing eyes on him. Turning his head he spotted a team of dark elves rushing towards him.