Chương 122: Chapter 121: The Court Arrives

I entered the game the next morning. When my vision cleared, I was standing near the river where I'd logged out the evening before. Serendine's morning was warm, the sun already climbing above the eastern hills, and the river flowed past gently, creating a soothing ambience. I summoned Lune; I was getting used to having her next to me. My companion materialized, stretched, yawned, and looked up.

"Morning, girl." She flicked her tail and trotted ahead, leading me toward the market district as if she had her own agenda for the day. I didn't get far. Alice was waiting near the bridge, leaning against the stone railing with her arms crossed. She wasn't wearing her usual composed expression. Her jaw was tight, her eyes scanning the road behind me as if checking whether I'd been followed.

"Orion." She pushed off the railing.

"We need to talk."

"Good morning to you, too."

"It's not a good morning." She fell into step beside me and kept her voice low.

"Crimson Court hit one of our farming parties at dawn, in Tranquil Valley. Eight members, all between level 18 and 20, grinding in the valley. They got jumped by a group of about twenty Court players. Our people fought back, killed four of them, but got wiped in the process." I listened without interrupting. Tranquil Valley was one of King's Glade's primary farming areas. The Stoneback Gorillas yielded strong materials and good experience, too.

"It's not the first time they've done this," I said, recalling the ambush on Alice a couple of days ago.

"No. But this was different." She stopped walking and turned to face me.

"The group that attacked wasn't local. These weren't the thirty or so Court members who've been lingering in Serendine since launch. These were organized, well-equipped players from Salt Throne. Higher levels, better gear, coordinated tactics. They knew our farming schedule and where our party would be."

"Someone's feeding them information."

"Maybe. Or they're just scouting properly, which might actually be worse." She started walking again.

"I sent a message to Gaul this morning."

"And?"

"He said what I expected him to say." Her tone darkened.

"He won't commit Vanguard to a conflict with Crimson Court. Not over a farming party skirmish, not over anything short of a direct attack on his people."

"I hate to admit," I said, "but I don't think he's wrong." Alice was quiet for a moment, and I could tell she wanted to argue but knew the truth was more complicated.

"No. He's not wrong. Vanguard has sixty members in Serendine, and most are still below 20. If Gaul throws them into a guild war against Crimson Court's main force, he'll lose half his roster before the week is out. He told me as much."

"Did he at least offer something?"

"Visibility. He'll keep Vanguard's presence visible, maintain patrols on their own routes, and respond if Crimson Court targets his people directly. And he will also share their location if possible. But Gaul's not firing the first shot." She shook her head. It was a practical stance. Gaul wasn't a coward; he was a guild leader protecting sixty players who couldn't afford to die repeatedly against a larger, better-equipped force. The distinction mattered even if the outcome was the same for Alice.

"So King's Glade is on its own," I said.

"In Serendine, yes. Phantom can't deploy the main division here without leaving Silverwing county exposed. A couple guilds have been probing our territory there, and he can't risk it." She looked at me directly.

"I have about forty-five combat-ready members in this county. After this morning, some of them are rattled."

"And what numbers are we looking at on Crimson Court's side?" Alice's expression darkened.

"Almost a hundred of them came through the teleport gate this morning." A hundred? More than double Alice's roster, and unlike King's Glade's Second Division, these weren't a developmental branch. If they came from Salt Throne, they were Skull's main battalion.

"That's not a harassment campaign," I said.

"That's an occupation force."

"Exactly," Alice's grip tightened on her sword.

"And they're not being led by some mid-tier officer. Skull sent his Vice-Guild Leader."

"Who?"

"A Conjurer who goes by Mädusa," Alice said the name like it tasted bad.

"I know her by reputation. She ran Crimson Court's PvP operations in Knighthood. Ruthless doesn't cover it. She doesn't fight for territory or resources; she fights to break people. Her philosophy is that if you make the game miserable enough for your opponents, they leave, and then you take everything they had without a fight." I'd seen that approach before, in competitive esports. It was effective because it targeted something stats couldn't measure: the willingness to keep logging in.

You didn't need to beat someone in a fair fight if you could make them quit.

"What's her level?"

"At least 23, probably higher. She's been grinding in Salt Throne since launch, and Skull funnels resources to his officers. She'll have gear to match." Alice hesitated, which was unusual for her.

"There's something else. I got intelligence this morning, about an hour before the attack on our farming party. One of our scouts overheard Court players at the inn talking about a strike against our 'supply line.' I think the farming party was just the opening move." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"What's the real target?"

"Denxy's team," Alice's said.

"He runs our main farming operation. Twenty-four players, our best-geared non-officer members, operating in the hills above Dukestar every day from nine to two pm. They're our primary source of materials, gold, and experience for the division. If Crimson Court wipes that team and camps the area, they cut off our economic backbone." Denxy's team was King's Glade's engine.

Without the materials and gold they brought in, Alice couldn't equip new recruits, couldn't fund consumables for boss fights, couldn't maintain the operation that kept the Second Division competitive. It was the kind of target that a strategist like Skull would identify immediately.

"When?"

"Today. The intel wasn't specific on timing, but if the dawn attack was designed to scatter our attention and pull defenders to the east, Dukestar is exposed right now." She looked west, toward the mountains beyond the city walls.

"Denxy's already out there. He left at first light."

"You sent a warning?"

"Of course. He's on alert. But I don't have the personnel to reinforce him and protect the other farming routes. Forty-five players against a hundred, and I have to cover four different zones." Her hands were restless at her sides.

"If Mädusa hits Denxy's team with even half her numbers, fifty against twenty-four, they won't last."

"Where exactly?" I asked. Relief crossed her face, although she was careful not to let too much of it show.

"The terraced hills, to the west, just above Dukestar on the map. Denxy's team farms the Golems near the old quarry. The terrain is surrounded by mountains to the west and south, with scattered boulders and a ridgeline to the north. If Crimson Court comes, they'll come from that way. The ridge gives the best approach for a surprise attack."

"I'll head out now." Alice nodded.

"I'll pull what I can from the western defense and follow. It won't be much, maybe fifteen, but it's better than nothing." She paused.

"Orion, I want to be straight with you. If Mädusa is leading this, it won't be a skirmish. She'll bring her strongest players, she'll have a plan, and she won't stop until the job is done. This isn't ten Court grunts jumping me. This is the Vice-Guild Leader of the largest guild in the region executing a strategic operation."

"Understood."

"One more thing." Alice met my eyes.

"Thank you. I know this isn't your fight." I considered that for a moment.

"I'd rather face Crimson Court on my terms than wait for them to decide I'm a target, too." She gave me a quick nod and left, moving fast toward the King's Glade staging area near the market district. I watched her go, then turned west and started walking.

The village of Dukestar was quiet when I arrived. It was a cozy village carved into the side of the mountain range, making a living out of mining and stonemasonry. The morning sun sat high enough to wash the hills in amber light, and the landscape opened into farmlands, bordered by the old quarry to the north-west, and a long, tree-lined ridge to the north. I could also see Denxy's team. They were spread across near the quarry, engaged with a cluster of Golems.

Denxy was at the front with his Mythril shield, two other tanks flanking, and a mix of melee and ranged DPS working through the mobs efficiently. Their healer rotation was smooth, and the team moved with the discipline that Alice had drilled into every member of the Second Division. They looked fine. Alert, capable, and aware that trouble might be coming. I circled wide to the north and climbed the ridge, keeping below the tree line.

The elevation gave me a clear view of the entire place, from the quarry to the road leading back to Serendine. If Crimson Court was coming from the north, I'd see them. For twenty minutes, nothing happened. Denxy's team cleared golems, collected materials, and rotated their formation like clockwork. I stayed on the ridge with Lune beside me, scanning the northern approaches and listening to the wind through the trees. I saw them about an hour later. Movement in the treeline.

At first, it looked like a few players moving through the forest, but the more I watched, the more I saw. Groups of five and six emerged from different points along the edge, converging on a rally point behind a hill that shielded them from view of the quarry below. I counted heads as they gathered behind the hill, and the number kept climbing rapidly, only stopping in the sixties. I opened the message interface and notified Alice. Orion: Court assembling behind the northern hill. Sixty-plus and still arriving.

Her reply came in seconds. Alice: I'm ten minutes out with eighteen. Denxy knows. He's pulling his team to the quarry wall for a defensive position. Orion: Math is not in our favor. Alice: I know. The Crimson Court formation was taking shape below the hill. I could see officers moving between the groups, organizing them into what looked like three separate strike teams. Then someone walked out from behind the hill and stood at the front of the formation, and the entire force went still.

She was tall, with dark hair pulled back tight and pale skin that looked almost grey in the morning light. Her robes were black with crimson embroidery, and she carried a staff topped with a crystal that pulsed with a violet light. Mädusa, I reckon. She didn't address the group, didn't give a speech or rally the troops. She simply raised her staff, pointed it toward the quarry where Denxy's team had taken position, and started walking.

The sixty-plus Court members followed in silence, spreading into their strike formation as they descended the hill toward the terraces. This was bad. Alice was still minutes away, and Denxy had less than half the players, pressed against a quarry wall. Even with the defensive position, they were outnumbered three to one by a coordinated assault led by a high level Conjurer with the resources of Crimson Court behind her. I nocked an arrow and tracked Mädusa's advance, weighing my options.

I could open fire now, slow the advance, force them to deal with a Ranger on the high ground before they committed to the attack on Denxy. Before I could decide, Mädusa stopped. The Crimson Court force halted around her, fifty meters from the first terrace, well within sight of Denxy's team. The Guardian had already spotted them, and I could see him barking orders to his team, tightening the formation against the quarry wall with shields forward and healers tucked into the stone alcoves behind.

Mädusa surveyed the defensive position for a few seconds, then turned to look at the quarry itself. The old stone face, exposed rock, boulders, carved shelving left behind by whoever had mined it. She smiled. It was a small, clinical expression that I could barely make out from this distance, but it carried no warmth, no amusement, no competitive fire. It was the smile of someone looking at a problem they'd already solved. She raised her staff and planted it into the ground.

"Animate Stone." The quarry wall behind Denxy's team came alive. The boulders nearest to the formation were the first to move. Two massive stones, each taller than a person, shuddered and cracked as necrotic energy surged through them. Limbs formed from broken rock, arms splitting from the sides, legs cracking free from the earth.

Stone faces emerged with hollow, glowing eyes, and within seconds two stone constructs stood directly behind King's Glade's defensive line, inside the position they'd chosen specifically for its protection. Stone Guardian Level 25 Elite Denxy spun around as the first construct swung a boulder-fist at his backline. The impact sent a healer tumbling sideways, and the second construct drove its arm into the ground, sending a shockwave through the floor that staggered half the formation.

They'd fortified against the wall because it was supposed to be solid ground at their back. Mädusa had turned their cover into their biggest threat. I watched from the ridge, arrow still nocked, as the Crimson Court force charged the terraces in three coordinated waves and Denxy's team scrambled to fight in two directions at once. The Twinfire Burial Site. The stone guardian statues. A skill rune that Lothras had claimed immediately, before we'd even opened the boss room.

"I want this one," he'd said.

"You can't use it," I'd pointed out.

"No kidding. I need it for a friend."