Everlast Online

Liz eventually left the fortress, leaving behind not only a series of bone-crafted weapons, but also a group of grave diggers and finally Ustad - the death knight she felt was most suited to defence.

“I will protect the fort with my unlife Iron Chief.” Ustad said as Liz left.

Perhaps the amount of support she had given to the fortress was unnecessary, but Liz was determined to emerge from the guild war victorious and was happy to reinforce her side to such a ridiculous degree.

As Liz stepped out of the fort a wave of blistering, hot air washed over her, Liz’s discomfort only prevented by her race's inability to differentiate between temperature.

Once she was clear of the fortress’s walls, Liz did not hesitate to bring forth her army of the dead - displaying close to her true might, publicly, for the first time.

Before she had only used her standard high-end soldiers. The draugrs and heavy bones were barely more than cannon fodder compared to what Liz was actually capable of.

Before the war Liz had managed to summon multiple new types of undead that now marched along with her army; the sheer variety was staggering.

The spectating players could hardly believe what she was capable of, the mixture of undead made Liz’s force one that very few could hope to entirely stop.

The thundering steps of giants and golems created waves of lava as they led the charge across the volcanic wasteland, with new types among them. However, that group of undead had come to include both [Bone Golems] and [Bone Crushers] in their ranks, increasing their attacking options drastically.

Just barely behind them were the defensive units and fodder undead such as the heavy bones, skeleton guardians and zombies - their purpose being nothing but soaking up damage - with zombies making up the largest number.

Those undead served to protect the cavalry and infantry of Liz’s army, her most highly diverse groupings.

Bone Slayers, living armours, wraiths, draugrs, dullahans, bone cavaliers, bone knights and dozens of skeleton professionals covered every speck of the path Liz was taking; each monster ready to charge forward and rip her enemies apart on Liz’s or a commander’s orders.

Named undead were littered within the formation, with Demeter and Gloria taking the highest positions.

Behind the primary attackers were various ranged fighters primarily consisting of wights, bone rangers and ghosts, but Eren also remained here as it was one of the most highly protected parts of her army and she was arguably the most vital asset Liz had available.

Finally, taking up the rearguard, was Garnet and a number of smaller blood golems - their fluidity making them perfect reactionary units.

However, Liz did notice the heat was heavily affecting the unnamed blood golems she had created.

Worrying… She thought. But ultimately fine since they seemed to be regenerating fine.

This was one of Liz’s main concerns when she found out about where the final event would take place.

Undead did not feel the heat, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t affect them. It was a widely known fact that undead were weak to fire due to its purifying properties - Liz could only really hope that it wouldn’t come to that.

Unfortunately, that was a fruitless hope as one of Liz’s scouts noticed something crawling its way out of a distant pool of lava.

Through their strengthened connection Liz was able to make out its shape, but since she had never seen something like it she failed to identify the creature.

Molten lava dropped from its scaly, black bone like water from a freshly surfaced swimmer and yet it remained entirely unfazed; the creature even seemed to enjoy it.

It was quite a large monster, perhaps as long as a flesh golem was tall, but walking on all fours like a dog made of charred-black stone.

The creature’s eyes burned a deep orange and as its menacing tail moved back and forth at an increasing speed Liz noticed lines of a similar orange glowing beneath what she quickly discovered to be its carapace.

It finally noticed Liz’s approaching army and glared at them with a starved fervour. The monster released a hideous screech, creating specks of magma that fell from its mouth as it did, before moving at an unexpected speed.

Before Liz could relay orders the monster had already pounced on top of one of her flesh golems and began ripping it to pieces with its incredibly long jaw.

Now that it was closer Liz could finally determine what the creature was:

[Salamander (~) (MON)]

Since it was closer Liz could more easily see the lizard-like traits of the monster like the black skin that actually turned out to be scales of molten rock. However, what Liz was most interested in was its lack of level.

Is that Loki’s tampering or simply a restriction of the guild war. Liz wondered, before quickly dispatching the creature - though, not in a way she really wanted to.

The golem the creature had been devouring was almost entirely gone by that point with its flesh melting inside the salamander’s molten stomach. However, before the flesh was entirely gone, Liz commanded it to detonate; literally blowing the creature up from the inside, killing it instantly.

“Damn… Already down one undead.” Liz muttered despite the massive army she possessed, still, not everything was awful:

[You have killed [1] monster] [Streak Buff: {+STR (1)}]

A wave of power rippled over Liz after the kill , a buff that was even extended to affect each of her summons - to a lesser extent of course.

“... Ah!” Liz stared at the notification incredulously before finally coming to a realisation, “Wolf’s card.”

The image was of a human figure surrounded by monsters with large muscles.

“So, I get buffs for killing more monsters.” Liz nodded, no longer all that annoyed at her loss, “Guess I’ll have to be more careful.”

She then charged forward, moving her army at an increased speed as she attempted to cross the volcanic pools faster. Even with Wolf’s card in play her plan had not changed much, Liz simply wanted things to end and decided against hunting down more monsters actively - even if she would kill any she did find.

However, even if she wasn’t searching for them, the field Loki had sent Liz to was unreasonably large and she still found a large number of them.

The monsters varied in power and group-size, salamanders were fairly common, but were also large solitary predators weaker than her giants so were not a real problem; the most annoying monsters she faced were the lava hounds.

They always appeared in groups of no less than ten and while they were significantly weaker than the undead giant they were still formidable.

Since they were too small for her largest tanks to deal with and too slow for any regular skeleton professional to catch, Liz lost a lot of undead during her first few encounters with them.

They would hop between the ranks of her army and spew lava from their mouths, completely decimate large numbers of her skeleton professionals before a superior undead finally caught and killed them. They were honestly a headache.

Eventually though, Liz got into the groove of handling them and they wound up not being a threat after a while; as a result her kill streak grew rapidly while she headed for the opposing beacon.

[You have killed [173] monster] [Streak Buff: {+STR(15)}, {+AGI (10)}, {+Armour Bonus (2)}, … ]

The buffs she received could be anything, but the more useful the buff was the less likely it seemed to appear and therefore stack. On the other hand, Liz found that stronger monsters usually offered better buffs than the weak mobs that populated the entire cavern.

Nevertheless the monsters kept coming and were gradually getting stronger, to the point the buffs did very little. Luckily Liz was never caught off guard thanks to the scouts she had sent out ahead - even if they did occasionally end up dead - and the undead who vigilantly watched the lava pools at the sides of her army.

After more time than Liz had expected to pass, she finally located something other than monsters: Enemy players.

A grin spread across her face as the reconnaissance reached her and a plan began to form.

With a single mental command her ranged units began to move forward, the giants and golems obscuring themselves from view as much as they could given their size.

The less information they get, the better. Liz thought.

Her goal was to kill without being noticed since she had no idea if the group ahead was being observed or not. She knew full well that a force of her size would not be able to sneak up on the enemy fort, but being discovered so early would only be to her detriment.

Given the size of their group and the weapons they’re using, they’re probably scouts. Liz thought as she received even more information. Even better.

Eventually, a group of bone rangers reached a vantage point where they could easily spot the players. They were well out of range, but that did not concern Liz much.

She simply activated [Undead Enhance], one of her least used skills, and the bone rangers were bathed in an immoral black light, their bones changing and emanating an evil and oppressive power.

In the distance one of the scouts seemed to notice something, their ears perked up as they looked around in confusion, but it was far too late.

Like a strike from the heavens, a rain of black arrows crashed into the group - killing them instantly. The force behind the attack could have made someone believe Liz had used ballistas with the amount of damage they had caused.

The oppressive arrows stuck in the upturned ground as lava began to flow through the cracks; and as the enhancement faded the arrows shrunk to their normal size, their form eventually swallowed by the encroaching magma.

Liz merely grinned, a small chuckle escaping her cloth lips.

“Onwards.” Liz commanded, verbally speaking her desires even though she didn’t have to.

The players had not counted towards her streak, but that hardly mattered since more monsters presented themselves for Liz’s army to slay.

We will arrive soon. Liz thought with giddy expectation, enjoying the thought of using her army in a siege - she simply couldn’t wait.

- - -

“They should have reported back by now.” Crim groaned. Anger flashed across her face before she noticed a group of people approaching from the distance: The scout group.

Only that they were approaching from the wrong direction.

“Why are you coming from over there?” Crim asked, her anger rising.

“We were killed.” The leader of the group responded, a mixture of tension and irritation washed over the crowd.

Crim, especially, was infuriated. She had been chosen as the leader of the largest attack force and desperately wanted to succeed over the others - especially Damien after he had been chosen for the duel event over her.

Normally her position would be left to Wolf himself, but he had remained rather insistent that he remained back to defend - a rather peculiar stance for someone like him to take given his rather aggressive personality.

“Haah… What happened then?” Crim asked, rubbing her temples slowly, however, as the scouts continued to remain silent her anger grew - a vein beginning to bulge on her forehead, “WHAT HAPPENED!”

The scouts flinched back at her outburst, but they eventually explained what they knew - or more accurately, what they didn’t know.

“We just kind of died.” One scout explained with a subdued voice, “We’d just killed a monster then out of nowhere we were hit by something and died.”

“... You useless sacks of shit.” Crim sighed, not even finding the energy to be angered, “How could you not have learned anything!?”

The scouts tried to stutter out reasons, but were unable to as one of the members hit the floor moments later - dead.

Seconds later a rain of black ballistas rained down onto the crowd, racking up a significant death toll almost immediately.

“SHIT! Take cover!” Crim yelled as she immediately took action. Crim was certainly arrogant and prideful, but she was still an excellent leader.

At her command a number of skills were activated and shields began to block the rain of arrows. After a few seconds the arrows stopped and the party let out a sigh of relief, only for their fear to return in full force as the sound of a marching army rose in the distance.

It was not long before that army came into view.

“Shit.” Crim muttered, immediately realising the danger they had wandered into, “How the hell has she already gotten so far?!”

Crim’s team had moved cautiously the moment they realised monsters populated the terrain while also strategically finishing off monsters to increase their fighting power - neither of these were things Liz had to consider.

She had a mental connection with her undead and received a hundred percent of the buffs from killing the monsters. This combination prevented Liz from running into most the time-wasting factors every team from Wolf Fang had, ultimately all she needed to be watchful of was the unstable environment.

“Get ready to engage!” Crim called, but inside she had lost most of her confidence.

The size and variety of undead charging towards them was well beyond what she had expected from Smokey, she hardly saw herself or her team coming out victorious.

However, she did not for a moment even consider giving up.

There’s still a lot to gain. She thought. 

Crim realised that not only could she reduce the number of undead her opponent had available, but could also give her allies back at the fort her attention since there seemed to be a revival feature for the event.

Soon enough the two forces clashed and it was immediately clear who the winner would be.

The tanks at the front lines of Crim’s team were immediately swept away; between the destructive power of Smokey’s numerous giant-type units and the strange creatures that would jump at them and explode before using Wolf Fang members to reform, Crim had no chance of victory.

Within seconds, a horde of skeletons began to cut disorientated players into pieces since very few could react to their brutality and efficiency.

Crim herself was one of the very few who had managed to react, launching many large-scale fire spells into the crowd. For a moment she felt there was a small chance she could come out victorious as the spells from her [Pyromancer] class since, unlike its sister class [Fire Mage], its spells dealt almost entirely explosive and AOE damage.

However, that hope was short-lived.

In the middle of casting her third [Pyroblast] spell, Crim began to hear cries of pain from behind. She looked back to immediately be hit with a rusted sword and as she hit the ground, that same sword piercing through her chest to finish her off, Crim saw exactly how outsmarted she had been.

Behind her - and littering the backlines of her team - were holes in the ground, from which numerous living armours were climbing out of; each slaughtering a different mage or ranger.

With Crim dead, the morale fell and soon after, their entire team.

And through the evaporating blood, between the soldiers of bone and flesh, walked a single woman wearing a delighted grin.

“That wasn’t so hard.” Smokey giggled before her army continued its march.