FB: Chapter 106 – Dark Herald Whiterose Everbloom

“Save meeeeeee!” One of my guild members called out as a massive vine monster dragged him away into the depths of the Rampant Growth.

A hell zone and a black zone at the same time. “Fire! More fire!” A Champion called out.

Baron Hayfield looked over at me. “You aren’t going to help?” he asked as we observed from the backline on a hill under a tent. The rain was coming down in a light trickle adding some ambiance to the screams of the players fighting against the forces of the dark god and the terrain.

“I am here to counter any high level opponents. The men and women can fight through the mud and blood,” I casually replied while sipping from my thermos of tea. It tasted good and protected me against temperature changes.

“Ent! Fire team! I need a fire team!” Baron Hayfield gave me another concerned look. I thought about going out there, but my guild members were having a grand time apparently. When you create a guild of prisoners and battle maniacs, they love battle. Even the most miserable type of fighting possible. No one complained about me sitting back, since no one doubted my ability to fight in adverse conditions.

I was on a small hill with the other command staff. A star fort was being built up. Somehow Quant Z had gotten the Great Bear Guild to shell out for our construction team. The man might be a menace, but he sure could squeeze money out of a dead stone. It was his superpower, generating money, along with being a complete asshole.

The Great Bear Guild was holding the flanks and the rear of the hill while my forces were advancing forward towards the enemy base in the distance and dealing with all the aggression. The front line was holding, but it was a miserable mess.

If this was real life, everyone would have just left and given up on fighting in this hell. As it stood, I had promised the full rewards from this job to the guild members who signed up based on how many war merits they earned. It was one platinum for every 7 war merits, so a large number of individuals were motivated. Everyone who could use fire magic in the Fanged Fox Guild had been called up.

A giant living monster tree, an Ent, was hit by at least three separate barrages of fire magic. Even then it managed to push back the front line a bit. The monster fell to the ground with a crash, sinking partially into the mud.

“Deploy light flare, rotate out the third group for the fourth group. Keep up the ranged fire on over leveled targets,” Kill Blade ordered. The command staff quickly relayed his orders as the fourth group advanced to relieve the third group. We had eight groups to rotate in and out of combat. Each group had to fight for one hour, then they would get to fire a magical gun for three hours, before having to go out again to hold the line. Each group was around 4,000 people and two were fighting at once. Each of the eight groups would fight twice, before being dismissed for the day to rest and recover in the real world.

“Causalities?” I asked Kill Blade while watching the battle.

“Only around 40 so far. The rotation and overwhelming numbers are helping. Plus, we aren’t trying to advance quickly. The main threat are the vines, but once they appear we target the node they come from quite quickly with our dedicated artillery team,” he replied.

“Good. The first day should be to deplete the natural enemies in the Rampant Growth nearby and clear out a good portion of the jungle,” I said with a firm nod.

“We are only a tenth of the way to the enemy fortress and they still haven’t deployed troops,” Kill Blade said.

“That is because the Rampant Growth kills everything. They will only make a move once we get close or overextend,” I said.

“They won’t retreat?” he asked.

“It is possible, but doubtful. It depends on how the next fight goes. Buff me,” I replied and left the tent as my honor guard quickly began laying on buffs. I had spotted an opponent I would need to deal with. It appeared the forces of the dark god were not going to sit around as we advanced towards their base.

“Unbalanced Life Link.”

“Unbalanced Soul Shield.”

“Unbalanced Second Wind.”

“Blessed Aura Of Recovery.”

“Resistance Boost Plus.”

The ice cold rain fell down upon me as I made my way through the mud towards the front of the battle.

“All troops withdraw! Red flare!” I heard Kill Blade shout from behind me. He had seen what I had seen advancing through the forest.

“Run, while you can,” the figure in a white cloak called out in a feminine voice. They weren’t walking but were supported by a massive tree root that carried them over the battlefield. I counted eight Ents advancing with the figure as well. Each of these tree giants was five times the height of a regular human.

“Group three, left flank! Group four, right flank!” I heard the shout as my soldiers kept retreating and split to either side of me. I drank a feather fall potion.

I kept advancing through the mud, stopping about 50 meters away from the white cloaked figure who looked down at me. “God Slayer Foxy Blight,” I introduced myself.

“Dark Herald of the Forest, Whiterose Everbloom,” my opponent declared back towards me. They were level 250. They had a 90 absolute level advantage over me. That was with my title of God Slayer helping out. This was why I was needed, for this high-level kind of fight. She was clearly here to wipe out the entire army before the fort could be built.

I put on the Visage of Horror while my opponent drew forth a gleaming white staff with a glowing white crystal on the end. The buff skills applied to me still worked, since the mask only stopped my regeneration, not skills that were applied to me.

“Dark Forest Bloom!” I had never heard of this skill before. I began to swing downwards.

“Blink!” I teleported directly above and behind Whiterose Everbloom. “Slice!” The magical attack hit her white cape just before my blade smashed down on the back of head. Her cloak collapsed as my blade cleaved through her. As I completed my swing, the cloak was ripped apart as bundle of vines burst out of it and quickly began wrapping around my mega blade.

“Vomitatis!” I spewed acidic poison on the vines, which quickly began melting away. Most immobilization skills were easily disrupted.

“Dark Forest Bloom!” As I yanked my mega blade free, I saw Whiterose Everbloom standing on another massive elevated root off to the side. Fire spells began targeting the ents which had moved to block off my forces from interfering.

“Blink! Vomitatis!” This time the cloak melted to reveal more vines as I took an MP potion. Whiterose Everbloom took a potion as well. That was annoying but expected of a high level NPC.

“Dark Forest Entrapment!” Hundreds of spiked roots began rising out of the ground around Whiterose Everbloom. She had targeted herself to prevent me from using Blink to get in close.

“Slice!” I unleashed my ranged attack, but after cutting down several of the emerged roots the skill stopped. Thankfully most skill effects were incredibly weak even with the absolute level advantage. I rushed forward at Whiterose.

“Gloom,” she said calmly, and my vision quickly began to fade. After three seconds, I could only see ten meters. Whiterose had already moved before I could reach her position. My low Perception stat hurting me a lot at this moment. It was also harder to hear, which made it impossible to determine her location and the skills she was using.

I quickly retreated while taking in another MP potion. The problem with my opponent was that she focused on status and entrapment effects. With her ability to replace her physical body with a decoy, I couldn’t deliver an instant kill blow.

“Cleanse,” one of my honor guards used this skill reducing the length that Gloom was impacting me. The battle had fallen into a stalemate. While Whiterose’s forces had been pushed back, her area of effect skills forced my forces to attack her from range, which she easily tanked without concern using her absolute level advantage to easily stay in the battle. She would command the various plant life and roots to attack as well, carefully managing her MP.

That was the other challenge with high level individuals, they had a much better combat sense than low level individuals. I couldn’t beat her. She didn’t have a high damage attack, and I couldn’t take her down with my high damage attack. The big risk is if she managed to get any kind of advantage on me with her status and entrapment skills. Once I was pinned, I had no doubt she would pile on more and more skills to drag me to my death.

When she had used her skill Gloom, that was the reason I had immediately retreated. There was just too much risk running around blindly. She was the kind of opponent that could easily counter two or three individuals like myself. She wouldn’t win, but she wouldn’t lose either.

Even with the barrage of magical gun fire, she kept moving and interposing roots to block the worst of it while trying to lure my forces out of position. Her ability to control the flow of the battlefield was immense. I fell back to the command area. I could always move forward quickly with Blink.

If I hadn’t spoken with QAI I would have suspected that it had created a counter NPC for me to face. I still didn’t know how I felt about QAI knowing about my time travel. There was relief, since QAI had so much more power than me, there was no way I could resist anything it might do. It was something that kept popping up in my thoughts, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I walked up to Kill Blade who gave me a look. “I can’t kill Whiterose Everbloom. She has a stall and entrapment build with a direct counter to critical damage.”

“That is unfortunate. Even if we had a team of Champions aid you?” Kill Blade asked and I shook my head.

“This is the most annoying kind of opponent to fight. She also doesn’t hesitate to use consumables either, so exhausting her is out of the question. I would need at least three people with my combat ability in addition to me in order to kill her. Two to push her back safely,” I explained.

“You think she has someone else with her?” Kill Blade asked.

“Of course. Someone who is a DPS,” I replied. That meant damage per second, which implied an individual whose main role in a team was damage output.

“No one has been spotted,” Kill Blade replied.

“It isn’t that hard to cross the space from the Rampant Growth we haven’t burned down. Once Whiterose over there layers on enough entrapment skills, it is certain death when her companion comes swooping in,” I stated plainly.

“Then we can only push forward slowly with numbers,” he replied with a heavy sigh.

“We are likely to be ambushed on the flanks once we push forward more. This entire battlefield has fallen into the mud,” I said.