War Games

by Nikita Thorn

  Their destination was the spot marked out by Umiko earlier, under the shade of a giant red pine.

  “Hayata!” Umiko shouted.

  As Seiki threw a look back, he spotted several shadows dropping down on the lizard’s rear. Smoke burst around its four feet, and Seiki realized it had stunned the lizard in place for a second, allowing most of the Demonic Swordsmen to catch up. The Ambition of the Sun Priestess gleamed silver in Hayata’s hand as he plunged it through the reptile’s thick skin.

  The Yamiimori screeched.

  “Full connect!” Hayata cried.

  A wave of silence washed over the NPC troops on both sides in the lizard’s immediate vicinity. It lasted for only a split second, before the Demonic Swordsmen turned and screamed as they rained blows on the reptile. A mist seemed to come over Genta’s eyes as he spun toward the reptile and drew his sword.

  “No!” cried Seiki in alarm when the man ran to join the frenzy. Rumi, Saburo and Ojisan were in a similar state and followed Genta with a battle cry.

  “It’s okay,” Ippei said as his unit of men also dashed off to attack the lizard. “This will be over pretty soon. We have ourselves to worry about.”

  The NPC healers seemed to have once again topped off the villagers with health, but no one had attempted to heal Seiki and Ippei yet. And this was apparently intentional, to ensure that the lizard kept its attention on them.

  The lizard ignored the NPC units hacking at its body and continued to charge. Seiki dismissed Fubuki and dove aside as the Yamiimori swept its claw at him. Before he could scramble to his feet, the reptile’s other leg came slamming down, and he rolled out of the way. The attack missed by only a few feet. Ippei ran in and Parried before the reptile could attack again, and the force of the impact threw him far to the right. Seiki, still on the ground, rolled onto his back and drew his Hikari to Parry as the lizard tried to maul him, trading all his remaining energy for defense.

  “Eighty-two percent!” one of the ryoushi girls yelled.

  “First group, resist!” cried Umiko. This also appeared to be some sort of a command, and about ten of her soldiers stopped attacking the reptile.

  The Yamiimori pauses in an attempt to recover!

  The lizard abruptly halted mid-attack as it reached 80% health, perhaps just in time before it could completely kill Seiki and Ippei, now that they were both out of energy. The Yamiimori turned around, and Seiki was relieved to find that it had indeed switched to its defensive stance.

  The lizard bent low, its mouth open wide, baring rows of sharp tidy teeth. A strong wind lifted as if a ventilation fan had been turned on, and Seiki felt it peeling away a few points of his health as it brushed past his skin.

  Arrows continued to whisk at the lizard, flashing white as they pierced through its scales, and its health seemed to be draining at a steady rate. Umiko ordered the un-charmed portion of her unit to position themselves directly in front of the lizard. And as they reached it, they quickly collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

  The lizard was resuming its attacking stance, but damage from all directions came heavy on it—helped very much by the charmed demonic troops that had turned on their own weapon of mass destruction. Before it could move around to look for its next victim to kill, its health had dropped to 40%, and it once again activated its defensive stance.

  The Ambition blade’s fifteen seconds were up, and the demons resumed attacking Umiko’s soldiers once again. The West Defenders leader quickly ordered her troops to retreat, drawing the demonic horde in front of the lizard. The health drain affected those closest to its mouth, and the majority of the demons quickly dropped dead as their health got sucked away.

  “Come back!” yelled Seiki to his unit, and they ran back to his side, looking utterly confused.

  “I don’t know what happened, Chief,” said Rumi quietly. “It was as if my mind was not my own.” Seiki told her not to worry.

  Ippei was observing the West Defenders’ flawless execution of their strategy in slight fascination. “They’re good,” he said, sounding rather surprised.

  Even through the defensive stance, with the lizard stealing health from the demons, the clan was doing a remarkable job in steadily bringing its health down. Soon, it was almost at a third.

  “It might enrage,” said Umiko. “Prepare to unload. Now!”

  The lizard snarled as the hails of arrows intensified, and all of Umiko’s unit rushed in with battle cries as they slashed and stabbed at the lizard from all directions.

  Seiki glanced at Ippei. “Should we?” He thought he should contribute.

  Ippei shrugged. “Why not?”

  Seiki gulped down an energy potion and readied his Hikari. His unit seemed to sense his intent and followed suit, their eyes full of determination. As he moved in, aiming to land at least a Sliding Focused Strike, the lizard’s scales suddenly started to flicker.

  Then it was gone.

  Seiki blinked as he found himself staring into blank space. The NPC troops stopped and looked at each other in confusion.

  Ippei ground his jaw.

  That was when an invisible lash hit them. Seiki grunted as he, along with his unit and all of Umiko’s mounted soldiers around him, were sent flying with a forceful blow. Crashing and skidding across the ground, he found yet another quarter of his health gone. It had not been a direct hit, but all around him were the dead bodies of Umiko’s soldiers that had borne the brunt of the attack.

  Seiki looked up across the now-open space where the lizard had been. Umiko’s eyes were wide in horror as she stared at Ippei. “You gave it Camouflage!”

  The lizard was apparently still there, but was now imperceptible. And this had made the NPC units unable to attack it.

  From the looks on the West Defenders’ faces, Seiki did not have to ask to know that this was one of the unlucky random boss abilities Ippei had been talking about earlier.

  Ippei was on the ground beside him, having also been caught in the invisible attack. Two more of his men were dead, and his eyes were now filled with wild, exhilarated terror. A smile was on his lips as he got to his feet, both his hands on the sword. “Now this is more like it,” he said. “You can still attack it even when you can’t see it.”

  The West Defenders were well aware of this. Although the NPC troops could no longer automatically target the lizard, the players could still manually command them to attack.

  “Fire!” yelled Michiyo and Otome from further away, and a hail of arrows shot toward empty space where the lizard was last seen. The darkness seemed to shimmer, and arrows still flashed when they connected, giving hints as to where the boss was.

  Seiki ran in with his troops. The effect reminded him of a ninja’s Camouflage, and luckily he had been training himself to spot it. “Do this,” he told his unit as he closed in with a Slide and rammed his Hikari into what seemed to be an invisible wall. Ojisan quickly copied him, and the rest followed suit.

  Formation discovered! Would you like to save this formation for future use at the cost of 1 War Coin?

  Seiki had no idea what that meant. “Uh, yes?”

  Cannot save formation. You need a free utility slot to save.

  It was not as if he had time to be confused since the lizard spun around, and he could almost make out its invisible tail whishing through the air. “Duck!” Seiki cried as he threw himself to the ground.

  Formation discovered! Would you like to save this formation for future use at the cost of 1 War Coin?

  Seiki knew better this time. “No,” he grunted. He was quite certain he did not have to say it out loud, but too many things were happening all at once and it was making it difficult to think. “What is this formation thing?” he shouted to Ippei.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Reiji!” cried Umiko in exasperation, as she motioned her troops to attack once more. All around, the West Defenders were shouting orders to their units and unloading everything on the lizard and the remaining demon
ic troops.

  “Kaito, energy?” said one of the ryoushi.

  “It should be dead by now!” Hayata said.

  Seiki noted more smoke bombs going off, greenish in color, as some of the ninja’s men lurked around in the shadows. He could only guess this was some kind of poison.

  Even when they could not see its health percentage, the lizard was clearly taking damage, since Seiki felt the familiar gust of wind as the boss presumably entered its last defensive stance at 10% health.

  Umiko scrunched up her face. “Which way is it facing?”

  If there was no melee unit in the vicinity to sacrifice their life to the drain, the Yamiimori took from the rest of the troops, at a much larger percentage. And as the lizard started absorbing air, Seiki could feel his health evaporating at an alarming rate. Beside him, Saburo and Ojisan—who only had about half of Seiki’s total health—grunted as they gave their last breath.

  A wave of heals washed over Seiki and his NPC troops, saving them from certain death. But without tackling the mechanics properly, the damage was punishing. Within seconds, Seiki’s rather ill-equipped unit was on the brink of collapse again.

  “Drink your potions,” said Seiki, as he struck blindly at the invisible wall.

  The villagers did so, grabbing the potions from their pocket and filling their health. Something cut Seiki on the hip as a loose Demonic Swordsman [Level 17] had decided to attack him.

  If Seiki had thought the tutorial was crazy, he realized now this was on an entirely different level. Their health still continued to drain as Seiki turned to parry the blow, and his troops quickly assisted with stabs, killing the demon without much difficulty. They would not be able to last much longer, but luckily Umiko had managed to locate the point blank location in front of the lizard and hastily ordered her troops to run into it. “Brace!” she shouted.

  This was what Ippei had done earlier, and this time Seiki could guess it was some kind of an area Brace, which benefited more than just the user. The health-draining wind stopped. Seiki watched as Umiko’s small band managed to hold out for a few more seconds, before the lizard’s cone of air absorbed all their health. A dozen men and horses dropped to the dirt, for good.

  Umiko had lost more than two-thirds of her troops, and about half of Kaito’s NPC war healers were dead. That sacrifice, however, had pushed them through the last defensive stance phase, and the lizard—still invisible—continued to attack.

  “We can do this,” said Umiko. “It should be at slightly below 17K.”

  Apparently, she had been keeping track of the numbers the whole time.

  Projectiles continued to hit the invisible wall, flashing bright light. With the whole instance in chaos, the Yamiimori in its attacking stance was running back and forth as it tried to kill the unit with the least health, trampling everything along its way, which upset its list of attack priority even further.

  Seiki glanced at Ippei and found his friend smirking as he and his one remaining soldier chased after the invisible lizard, his bared Hikari glowing.

  “This is a mess!” cried Hayata angrily.

  The houshi Kaito had on a worried look as he filled his energy with a potion and continued to frantically manage his two surviving NPC healers.

  Without a way to check the lizard’s remaining health, they kept attacking blindly. Seiki managed to land a full combination with a Focused Strike into an Upslash, making the best of the sluggish rate at which his energy replenished under Slight Fatigue. The Hikari in his hands glowed to confirm the hit, and he could see the air shimmering as his sword cut diagonally upward, spilling what might have very well been invisible blood. Again, the Crimsonfire Tekko was warming up on his left hand, but nowhere near fully charged yet.

  His combination did almost a thousand points, and with the West Defenders being much higher-level than him, Seiki guessed they were getting very close. The Yamiimori struck again, and this time—since he had been looking for it—Seiki could almost spot its wavering claw cutting through the air. An idea occurred to him.

  “Try this,” he said to his unit as he stepped forward and stabbed his Hikari down into the ground with his Vertical Strike.

  Without further instructions, his unit copied his move, and Seiki could feel the shockwave bursting out all around him in a sphere, about twice the radius of what he could achieve on his own. To his delight, the move trapped the swinging claw in mid-air for a split second. The lizard gnarled as it tried to shake itself free.

  Formation discovered! Would you like to save this formation for future use at the cost of 1 War Coin?

  “Yes,” said Seiki. His unit had drunk their consumable potion and this had freed up their utility slot.

  Formation saved. Please name this formation.

  “Stun,” said Seiki, going with the first thing that came to his mind.

  [Standard Slot] – Stun: Level 1 Formation. Vertical Spike.

  There was more information, but Seiki did not have time to look through it at the moment.

  “Stun!” he shouted to his villagers as the lizard prepared to attack again. Suddenly, he realized he could imagine a circle of light on the ground, very much like how he could mentally map out the path of his Slides.

  Before he could try to mark the spot where he wanted his unit to unleash their Vertical Spike, the West Defenders let out successive cuss words.

  Seiki looked up. One of the few remaining Demonic Swordsman had dashed off from the group into the dark. In his hand was a shard glowing deep purple. A desperate arrow whisked toward him, but seemed to simply go through the demon.

  The Demonic Swordsman [Level 22] let out a furious cry as he smashed the shard onto the ground in front of him. A flash of dark purple light burst out around him.

  Demonic card in play: Fog of Wild Fear

  The Demonic Clan calls upon malicious natural energy to create a dark fog that sweeps through the area, causing all non-player troops within 100 feet to flee in terror for 30 seconds. Any attack on affected troops heals the demonic attacker for 200% of the damage done.

  Seiki remembered then that they had picked the first-level challenge after all, which had allowed the Demonic Clan one use of a random Demonic War Card. He would have cursed, too, if he did not have to brace himself against a tide of terrified soldiers.

  Panicked cries went up among the NPC troops all around, and they all turned and mindlessly fled in all directions. His four villagers were lost in the stampede as every non-player units ran from the scene of combat.

  Umiko sprinted forward to cut off the invisible Yamiimori before it could kill more of her soldiers, both to protect them and to prevent the lizard from recovering health. With a shout, she Parried while mounted. The blind parry was not perfect. Although it connected, the impact threw her off her seal armored horse onto the ground.

  Having temporarily lost their will to fight, the troops in retreat were easy pickings for the invisible Yamiimori. The giant mass of nothing, with its claws and deadly tail sweep, hissed and hunted down the fleeing men, women and horses. Bodies flew through the air wherever it struck, and the dead were quickly strewn over the forest floor.

  Seiki perfectly understood now why people never went over the second-level challenge. It was always unexpected randomness that wiped groups.

  “We need a soft reset!” yelled Umiko, picking herself back up.

  Standing in the midst of fleeing troops, watching in fascinated dread as the invisible monster went on a killing rampage, Seiki glanced at Ippei.

  His friend had only a sliver of health left, and his armor had nearly lost all durability. In his eyes was a kind of horrified glee, perhaps like one who had just realized how exquisitely they had engineered their own doom. But finally, the man seemed to be enjoying himself.

  The samurai grinned as he turned to Seiki. “That means run,” he said.

  CHAPTER 10

  Up on the ancient red pine, hidden in the cool thick foliage, the
y quietly watched as the forest returned to its original state of calm. The Yamiimori had chased fleeing troops deeper into the instance, and now most of the commotion had died down. Still, they could occasionally hear the invisible lizard moving around the area as it looked for more confused, wandering NPC soldiers to kill.

  The red pine branch they crouched on was high enough not to be easily reachable by the lizard should the thing manage to locate them, so they were in no danger. Seiki guessed this had been the spot where Hayata the ninja had concealed earlier with the Ambition Blade.

  Beside him, Ippei and Umiko sat, looking around as they tried to gauge how much health the boss had recovered.

  Technically, Ippei—who was not a Woodcutter—should not have been able to climb, and Seiki had been genuinely surprised to see his friend easily scaling up the trunk of the red pine. At the time, both of them had been rather preoccupied with watching the invisible lizard pick off the unfortunate fleeing troops, so Seiki found no occasion to ask. Now, as Seiki inspected his friend, he realized he did not need to. Ippei had somehow switched out one of his usual attack-boosting charms for a Wild Camphor Branch +2 defense, which also gave him Level 8 Woodcutting and the corresponding climbing skill. The man had come prepared after all.

  The soft reset was exactly what it sounded like. When things were about to end badly, players could choose to temporarily disengage the enemies for a chance to regroup and recover. No matter how terrible the development, if at least one player could hide in safety, and as long as there were still tano-shrines active in the instance, it was possible to revive dead troops and players with a War Card and continue the challenge.

  After the Wild Fear hit, Michiyo and her archers, who had mostly been out of range and unaffected by the Demonic Card, had opted for a rather drastic strategy. To prevent the lizard from healing itself up, she had burned a Friendly Fire Card at the nearest tano-shrine and proceeded to order her unit to scatter Rapid Shots into everything—including fleeing friendly troops, killing them before enemies could damage them and recover health. Her split-second decision was bold, and it almost worked. The ryoushi unit managed to slay the last of the Demonic Swordsmen, and the rapid arrows even helped to reduce some more of the Yamiimori’s health. Unfortunately, ryoushi groups alone were vulnerable against direct melee attacks, and as soon as the invisible lizard turned on them, she and her unit did not last very long.