FB: Chapter 53 – Guild Battle

Rebel Rising had said they wanted 10,000 combatants on each side, which was fine by me. I wasn’t that worried, since I had my third special legendary skill, Dice Roll. It increased my Luck stat passively by 2% per rank. Since the experience applied to the skill was entirely personal experience I had earned and it was a Legendary rank 6 personal skill, that meant my boost to my Luck stat was 12.6% from the skill shard and another 11% from my titles for a total of 23.6%.

My base Luck stat was 400, since all my stats points that I could allocate had been put in Luck. After all my modifiers it was at 497. There was a hidden decimal there of course, but it didn’t matter and I wasn’t about to waste time calculating it myself. Now I only needed to keep increasing that stat as much as possible.

While I had 10,000 as a benchmark, I would keep increasing the Luck stat beyond that. Since an opponent’s Luck stat would cancel out my own. But once it got to such an insane amount, it would be near impossible to counter fully unless an enemy was much higher level than me. Even then, they would need a lot of levels and the absolute level advantage would kick in before I met someone with a Luck stat that matched mine. But critical hits bypassed the absolute level advantage, which was overpowered in my opinion. Still, it allowed for dramatic comebacks in desperate battles, by targeting critical weak points.

This battle would cement that fact in people’s minds. “You are smiling quite a bit,” Kill Blade said as our forces moved into a defensive position and began building fortifications.

“Oh, I recently had a small victory over a very difficult opponent, which is why I am planning to change strategies,” I said.

“Who did you beat if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Garren Tine. She was an incredibly difficult opponent. I honestly don’t think anyone will ever beat her again after the beatdown I gave her. She won’t forget such a loss,” I replied.

“I haven’t heard of that name. A new S level champion?” Kill Blade asked.

“No. Someone much more difficult to handle and the wager on the outcome of our fight was quite a bit even by my standards. I am sure there will be rumors going around soon enough. Let us focus on the battle in front of us. Any reports from our scouts yet?” I asked.

“Rebel Rising is marching forward in a large mass. There isn’t much order to their deployment,” Kill Blade answered. I shook my head.

“They are a combat focused guild, and their small unit teamwork is very good. Tell the scouts to confirm that there are groups of players moving together,” I ordered. Kill Blade sent off messages and then waited for replies. After thirty seconds he got the information back.

“They are moving in small units that are keeping looser formation with the rest of their units,” he said, and I nodded at that.

“Like I thought. Initiate long range attacks from our forward units,” I ordered. We were set up on a plain, on top of a small hill with a forest in front of us. Already defensive works were being put into place. The battle had a time limit of one and a half in game days. Starting at dawn and ending at dusk the following day. That meant about 8 real world hours.

“Champions are requesting to move forward to engage,” Kill Blade said.

“Order them to hold for now. Once I move out personally, they may move independently as well,” I replied, and Kill Blade looked at me in surprise. “Hurry up and relay that.” He quickly relayed the message.

“You are attacking directly?” he asked.

“Yes. They will most likely stop once they hit the edge of the tree line and see our fortifications. They will charge us with long range support, and I will counter charge their entire army, breaking their assault. Hold position with our army. Rushing out now will just create confusion,” I said.

“If you die, the blow to morale will be immense. They will target you specifically,” he said.

“Do you think I would do this without knowing? I suggest you focus your mind on how to take advantage of such a situation, rather than worrying about me,” I rebuked Kill Blade.

“Yes, Guild Leader,” he said as I saw explosions in the forest in the distance. My forces were harrying their people with some long-range attacks. I used a feather fall potion and leapt down off of the command tower that had been built at the back of our battle line. I then used a voice amplification potion.

I calmly walked forward into the empty grass field past various guild members who cheered for me. I came to a stop in the middle of the grass field just as Rebel Rising’s forces reached the edge of the tree line and came to a halt.

I made a point of looking left and right. “Coming to a halt just because I am standing out here. Well, I didn’t trap the field. Any of you want to go up against me. I know you are literally ready to die for another match Hammer Crusher.” My voice sounded out across the battlefield.

Glexx’s voice sounded out as well, not using the command and control system I had set up. It was a sub-par method of communication to shout across the battlefield. “Teams A, B, and C. Target Foxy Blight. Remaining teams, attack on your side and avoid the middle.”

“Ah, but can you avoid me!” I yelled out and rushed forward while Glexx was yelling out orders, making it hard for his forces to hear what he was saying. I then began the most annoying no-skill technique, that was hated universally by everyone. Many people thought it should be declared a war crime with how horrible it was.

I let out a keening scream that was amplified by the potion I took. One didn’t have vocal cords in game. QAI just translated mental commands, into movements. It felt real, but it wasn’t really real. One technique that people could learn was a banshee scream combined with a voice amplification potion. It didn’t do any damage but was incredibly distracting.

I threw out two flashbangs in front of me and closed my eyes while I kept screaming like nails on a chalkboard. I was now in range of the enemy players. Vomitatis. I turned to run sideways, while keeping my head pointed at the front line of enemy players who were moving forward, strafing them with my attack. Once my attack was over, players rushed at me unleashing ranged attacks, but I was ready and used Blink to go directly upwards. Vomitatis.

I covered a large portion of the battlefield beneath me with my improved vomit attack. I popped potions and an ass fruit. I had to deploy several force and null barriers to block attacks in my direction, but that was expected. I had money to spare. I then used Blink to teleport in the air back towards my battle lines. I unleashed another Vomitatis at the people rushing at me to give myself time to land on the ground.

Once I landed, I began to retreat, while I kept screaming constantly. I stopped screaming as I neared my battlelines. I used more potions and another ass fruit. “Fire!” the roar went up across the defenses. Rebel Rising deployed portable barriers to block the bombardment and began building fortifications of their own.

They were going for the rapid tower strategy to gain a height advantage. It was a decent idea, but the base of their towers wasn’t sturdy. We would let them build up and then knock them down. “Grenades!” the cry went up across my battle line and my guild members pulled out consumable fire grenades and threw them.

The melee players rushing forward died in the chain of explosions. Traps had not been allowed as per the rules requested by Rebel Rising, but they hadn’t banned consumables or inventory use. A costly decision. For them it would be the battle, for me it would be my pocketbook since I had leant the guild more money.

Ballista bolts went flying into their lines. I saw Hammer Crusher block an attack with his hammer, but then took a ballista bolt in the side and died. They also didn’t ban siege weapons, another mistake. They probably thought they could rush in close, deploy fortifications while their melee pressured us. Unfortunately, we could create a barrier their melee forces couldn’t get through with the use of grenades.

That was also why I had completely retreated. It didn’t matter how skilled you were. In a battle like this, you would be blown apart if caught between the main battle lines. Unless one had a small elite army of Human Emperors, then tactics didn’t matter that much. Just run and kill the nearest group of enemy units. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a small squad of elite human warriors, so I had to use another tactic.

“Mages!” the cry went up and our magic users began unleashing long range attacks. Fireball was very popular as a long range attack skill. More explosions burst across the enemy lines. They had hunkered behind the fortifications they had built, but things weren’t looking good for them.

After thirty seconds, the mages were gassed out on their MP. “Mages halt, melee forward!” The guild members let out a roar and charged forward. I had insisted on color coordinated uniforms for large scale combat so people would be able to recognize each other. Large scale battles could get confusing very quickly. Only Champions were exempt from this requirement so they could have more flair and gain recognition. I stayed at the front line looking over things in case I needed to intervene, but it appeared the battle was going in our favor. As the melee closed in, they threw out another round of grenades as they had been instructed beforehand. Another wave of explosions rippled across the battlefield.

“Call up the reserves from behind! Sweep the battlefield clean!” I called out on a whim, which was relayed back through the nearest player handling communications. That would panic Rebel Rising, forcing them to deploy units to their rear just in case. I then deactivated the vocal effect from the potion I had taken and made my way back to Kill Blade. I looked in the distance at the flanks.

“So, how much damage did I actually do, it was hard to tell?” I asked.

“You probably killed only ten or twelve players, but you disrupted their initial plans. We caught their front line melee completely out of position with our initial attack since they overextended chasing you,” Kill Blade said.

“Our flanks? How are the Champions holding up?” I asked.

“Holding for now, but our flanks have deadlocked. We are looking at a breakthrough here,” Kill Blade gestured out at the battle in front of us. While Rebel Rising’s teams were more skilled, they had taken too much damage and were a bit shell shocked from the waves of consumables thrown at them.

While no force would break, since they wouldn’t really die, morale was a thing. Also, numbers mattered. Since two people had an easier time killing one person, no matter how skilled that single person was. Perhaps someone like Hammer Crusher or another Champion could take on ten regular people and win, but that was why I had ordered them to be specifically targeted by the siege equipment at the start and made sure the people manning the siege equipment knew what the enemy Champions looked like.

Fighting fair was for idiots. The pockets of Rebel Rising were being surrounded and grenades tossed onto their groups. The expense was obscene, but I considered it 200 platinum well spent on grenades. They were like free to use fireballs that would also knock everything near them off balance.

If the Rebel Rising teams split up, the individual members would be attacked from multiple directions and cut down. I was literally winning this battle with my massive bank account as I watched explosions continue to occur.

“There, our people have broken through their battle line and are sweeping up either direction,” I pointed out where the breakthrough was occurring. I had set up a 100 platinum prize pool for my guild. Since this was a sanctioned event, each guild leader would get a report on how their members had done, if they were willing to pay a fee to the observers from the Human Empire.

I had paid the fee for my guild and told my members that I would publish it. While there were no classes in game, we had instituted general classes within the guild. Mage, melee, healer, and scout based on certain skills and methods of fighting. The top 500 people in each class would get cash rewards for how well they did in battle. The top individual from each class, would each be granted a guild merit.

Guild merits were given to individuals who had done exceptionally well in a guild event and were general members. Instead of a medal, they were able to request help from the guild for a specific skill, quest, or other activity within reason up to 10 platinum. Or they could request 8 maxed out epic skill shards with their merit. Basically, it was the equivalent of one portion of a special legendary skill.

Champions, their teams, and staff were excluded from the payout, since they were under contract. The idea was to motivate the lower members to work hard for scraps that were handed out. Also, it was fun to be on the winning side, throwing grenades at your enemies while they were shellshocked by the sheer amount of wealth being exploded at their feet.

A knife suddenly appeared in my peripheral vision and went right into my neck.