Chương 108: B2 Chapter 16 - Bombing The Castle

Veyra:" I just got two levels from one kill, oh my god xD" A grin was glued to my face as I watched the comical scene atop the battlements. Our little trick utterly embarrassed the monster AI. Shaltar's guards were jumbled beyond confusion like a group of cats who couldn't figure out where the laser was coming from. Except, chasing the laser also burned them alive.

I would have thought that Wind Virtual's improved monster AI would make the guards flee once they realized that staying on the battlements gave them certain death, but the burn was gradual enough that it didn't cause panic. The guards just kept searching for whoever killed them while calling for more reinforcements. I spied with binoculars again, seeing just over a dozen demons moving about, most of them burning with the subtle blue flames of [Torment]. Another fell, and a loot orb was left on his body.

Veyra:" Another full level. This is insane." Assassin:" There's twelve more guards. Keep firing. What level are you now?" Veyra:" 275, I'll pass you in a minute." She wasn't lying. I was at 276, which was just above the average in the top five hundred leaderboard. The gods were approaching three hundred. Dragrath could have hit it already, but he hadn't shared his details since Worlds. Another one of Shaltar's goons died, and I saw Veyra's level increase in the party tab.

At this pace, she'd approach the gods in pure levels. My XP bar stayed still. Our party was set to divide all experience we got, but Wonderwind had a prevention mechanic to stop players from powerleveling friends. In order for me to get XP, I needed to get a little bit of contribution in, either by dealing damage, buffing Veyra, or keeping the monsters aggroed. Just watching while she did all the work wouldn't cut it. I would have loved the XP, but in this specific case, I could only get in the way by helping.

Still, I couldn't complain. Some cheeses benefited Veyra more, and some were the other way around, like the Ray Dragon Embridge cheese. I'd catch up in levels soon enough. Hopefully… If I didn't, and if Veyra grew dozens of levels above me… I'll catch up, I convinced myself. She won't run away from me. For now, her level kept increasing as we kept cheesing Shaltar's guardsmen.

Fully clearing this section of the battlements took over half an hour due to a few stubborn guardsmen standing at the edge of [Conflagration]'s range. The final demon collapsed. Assassin:" All done. I'm teleporting to you." She accepted the teleportation. My vision flickered, and I found myself in the tavern room.

"Wow," Veyra said with the smile of someone who just won a prize she definitely shouldn't have. Her level had grown all the way to 284.

"Just wow. That was the most brainless gameplay I've ever gone through."

"Unskilled, maybe, but I'd say that was all brains. Let's see the loot." After the nerfs to Veyra's portals, [Conflagration] actually had more range. We returned to the streets to search for an angle to let us teleport up there. In the end, Veyra had to portal to a small ledge in the wall's structure and hang there to wait for the cooldown. There, she just barely had line of sight to an arrow hole near the tower.

She portaled next to it and hung with one hand from the arrow hole for a bit before one final portal brought her up. I teleported to her. The whole place smelled like burnt fireworks. The sparks of [Conflagration] had left their mark on the walls and the dark stone floor. Loot orbs floated amongst the corpses and fallen weapons. I had to watch my step to not slip or trip on an armor piece. The keep was really close now. I had to lift my head just to see its roof, which nearly touched the cave's ceiling.

The green necromantic energy overflowed from its roof, into the castle's bailey, covering much of the grounds in streams or puddles of straight poison. Between the streams were barracks, workshops, forges, all sorts of smaller buildings. Usually, Veyra was the type to admire scenery like this, but the loot orbs took priority. She was already opening one of them.

"This one dropped a rare staff. Not a unique."

"Is it any good?"

"Meh," she said.

"Probably a hundred gold. Maybe two hundred since it looks like a new item." The loot from the guardsmen wasn't anything insane. A few rare weapons like Crystal Longsword (Rare Crafted Sword), and some pocket change in gold and silver coins. The guards weren't carrying any crafting materials or anything truly valuable. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. But we now had access to the castle. We were definitely in range to hit the windows.

"So, your plan was to just bomb the castle from here?" Veyra asked.

"I was thinking we should fire at the windows randomly to see what happens. If the guards behave similarly, we should be able to keep grinding XP."

"I'm not in a tavern room anymore, though," Veyra said.

"They can actually fire back this time."

"We'll save a portal for relocating or escaping. The ideal situation is that by firing in the castle, they send more reinforcements to the battlements. We can then retreat to the tavern and repeat the process to kill all the guards."

"I'll feel bad for Wind Virtual if that works," Veyra said, though she was smirking.

"But I won't turn down free levels."

"Let's fully clear the walls first, then," I said. I could already see more guards leaning against the wall further away on the battlements, guarding the northern side.

"I'll drag them to the cheese spot."

"Yep. Let's hope this doesn't turn into too long of a grind." She returned to her position in the tavern to spam the same spell over and over again.

After the initial excitement of watching guards stumble around wore off, the job of clearing the battlements turned into more of a menial grind. I aggroed demons and dragged them to the cheese spot while dodging arrows and spells. A few of the spells actually gave me trouble. The mage demons had a homing skull spell, which forced me to [Shadow Dash] every time to dodge it, since blocking it would one-shot me. Still, its cooldown was long enough that dragging them to the cheese spot was far from impossible.

With a group of demons on Veyra's firing range, I disappeared just far enough that the guards kept firing at me with bad accuracy, but not too far that they returned to their patrol points. They had to stay within Veyra's AoE range. Her job was much simpler. She literally just had to spam one spell over and over again. Boring as the process was, killing level four hundred monsters was immensely profitable. The XP alone kept us working for over three hours, until the last two guardsmen fell.

Veyra:" So that was the last one? I'm at level 287 lmfao. I could start leveling another spell at this point." Assassin:" That should be all. TP to me" Veyra:" Time to bomb the castle >:)" I laughed at the dumb little emoji, and she teleported to me on the battlements. The surroundings were all clear now, and reinforcements weren't being sent.

"So," I said.

"The perimeters are fully cleared. The walls should be entirely in our control." Veyra rolled her shoulders and adjusted her robe before readying her staff.

"Now this is the Wonderwind I signed up for. Let's bomb this place." I admired her outfit with a grin. If any mage in the game was fit for the job of bombing a castle with sparks that inflicted a deadly curse, it was the woman in front of me.

"What?" she asked, feeling me staring at her.

"You look like a full archmage," I said.

"This robe was such a good purchase."

"Well, it's far from paying itself off," Veyra said.

"A few dozen levels aren't worth four hundred thousand gold if it gets nerfed now."

"At least it'll still look good." She rolled her eyes and smiled at the same time.

"Yeah, sure. So are we attacking this place or what?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," I said.

"I think you should stand back. If any goons jump out of the windows, they'll need to spot me first. I'll kite them backwards, while you'll keep firing."

"Conflagration might hit you as well," Veyra warned.

"That's fine. I have health potions. The monsters don't." She nodded.

"Alright. And if something keeps chasing, we're pulling them back to the cheese spot, right?"

"Yep. Should be foolproof enough." We both already wore our full sets. Veyra's previous job was essentially risk free, so she'd worn her full set for additional mana regeneration and cooldown reduction. With the cheese spot in operation, retrieving our items from here shouldn't have been too difficult. Our first target was the largest archtop window. There were no shutters or glass, just an open spot radiating a green glow.

Veyra retreated as far from the keep as her range allowed, while I stood next to the window on the battlements, ready to keep any nonsense that came out aggroed. I glanced at Veyra, who seemed ready. I nodded. She nodded back. The sparks of [Conflagration] popped inside on the window like a tiny explosion. The AoE nearly hit me with many of the sparks hitting the battlement wall below me. If anything was inside, just two or three [Conflagrations] would hit them all.

Not a second after the first sparks hit, a devilish screech came from inside. I heard the clutter of glass and ceramics, as if a table had been knocked over. The first enemy jumped on the windowsill from inside. A thick humanoid creature with harsh black skin with the texture of dried lava. Runic enchantments cast a whirling glow around the shaft for a weapon I knew I couldn't block. The nametag read, Istvan, Third Knight Of Shaltar (Level 481). And of course the fucker had wings.

He jumped, flapped his wings, and breathed flames onto the battlements. Shit, shit, shit, I thought as the flames hit stone, spreading all around in a powerful burst. If not for a max ranged [Shadow Dash], there would have been no dodging that. Veyra fired again to keep [Torment] active as Istvan landed on his flames, which now burned the corpses of dead guardsmen. This was worse than I'd thought.

I wondered whether I could keep that thing aggroed at all without dying, when another heavy monster landed on the windowsill with a heavy thump. This one wielded a sword on both hands. Its name tag read, Titan, Second Knight Of Shaltar (Level 492). He was immediately followed by Hound, First Knight Of Shaltar (Level 495), a mace wielding giant demon. Oh my god, what the fuck were their levels? They were higher than Heywin! My dash was still on cooldown. If they attacked now, I was fucked.

I considered jumping off for a small chance of surviving. The knights didn't immediately chase, however. They stood next to each other, kneeling before the window, as if expecting someone else to follow. One final figure jumped out of the window. A smaller woman with strikingly vibrant silver hair full of red streaks, though unwashed and scraggly. One of her eyes was black and red, the other blue and surprisingly beautiful. She reached into the pockets of her raven's feather cloak and pulled out two small sickles.

Her nametag read, Shaltar, The Queen Of Aetherdale (Level 539). Shit. We're fucked.