The latest of the Ogre forces are much more organized than the others. All five groups charge at the same time, with siege ladders at the ready and makeshift catapults throwing boulders at the defenders. At Cain's instruction, Laura begins to encircle the entire plateau in Dragon Breath, stretching it out into a much thinner field than usual to cover as much of the ridgeline as she can before the Ogres arrive.
They manage to get the cliff face sections done before the Ogres arrive, leaving the combined forces at the top of the hill to take the combined charge of two sections of the Ogre's army, one from each side of the hill, slowly blending into one. Cain makes a swirling motion in their direction and Laura guesses he wants her to circle and freeze them once her Breath is ready again.
On the cliff sides, the frosty ladders have slowed the assault, hands freezing to rungs and feet slipping off giving the defenders enough time to break ladders or kill the Ogres climbing them. Cain's position between the left and center, with Char at the right is sending a lot of lightning their way, which does an excellent job of preventing anyone from climbing, even as the debuffs begin to spread through the Ogre Army.
Their King has taken a position at the back of his forces, behind the groups closest to Cain, feeling safely out of range of anything the defenders can throw at him. Even Gillian admits that his strategy is masterful. Two converging forces at the easiest to breach point, with the majority of the army climbing the walls to attack from the back.
The Ogres have given up on the ladders, instead forming pyramids for their allies to climb up. Even when they're killed, the bodies form a tangled ladder up the cliff face that spreads with every group they kill. It won't be long now until they're reaching the top and in range of the melee fighters. [Cripple] and [Pestilence] have infected every Ogre they can see, the Shamans unable to keep up with cleansing, instead opting to heal them through the debuff where possible.
Even counting summons, the cliff faces are ten to one outnumbered by the Ogres, but with the two person sub groups inside the main raid they still had plenty for the initial rush. Those have all long since fallen now, and won't be available again for a while.
It's an interesting trick the Orcs learned years ago. Join a group and have the group leader join the raid and the system will count you as being in both groups at once. For most or doesn't do anything but give them an extra private chat option, but today it helped stop the initial rush of the Ogres.
The main force is beginning to struggle, most of the Greater Golems have already fallen, their replacements, chosen to be Wrath Bringers so Cain can triple their numbers, are running over now to take their places, as Cain can't Summon them that far away. This big of a battle it simply isn't possible to have all summons on the front lines, but how often will something as insane as this happen to him in the future?
'No, don't think of that, you'll just jinx yourself.' Goes through Cain's mind as he checks up on the Snapping Turtles that are now engaging the first Ogres to make the top of the hill. They're only coming from three points so far, and the Turtles plus Kone and the Summoned Kone Clones bears are enough to hold for now.
Nothing is in good shape when it makes the top and comes into the direct line of fire for the defenders, all of the Ogres dying short and brutal deaths. On the other side, they're faring even worse. They've had to spend a substantial amount of time in the Dragon Breath, which now extends far enough to cover their entire force.
Laura is beginning to make a two Dragon wide sweep across the army at the cliff face, engulfing them in Ice and lowering the health of the attackers even further. One wave of Dragon Breath got them across one of the attack points with a bit to spare, so only a minute or two more and the whole area near the cliff face should be engulfed.
The Ogres have begun launching Spears and boulders at the Dragons with minimal success. The incoming healing is simply too much for them to whittle away her health, and they don't have the power to knock her out of the sky with a single shot. The two of them have started making dive bombing runs into the Ogres, picking off Shamans, commanders and anyone who looks to be in charge. They pull them back up into the air and tear them apart, knowing that even if the Ogre escapes their claws it will be heavily injured by the fall.
A second and then a third round of Dragon Breath pass this way, and the Ogres making it to to the cliff are now so severely injured that they're no longer making it to the top before the defenders take them out. So many have fallen that from a distance it looks like the plateau itself has grown, the pile of Ogres easily reaching the top and extending backwards.
The King is starting to look like he intends to retreat, so Cain calls Laura back to him again, intending to repeat his earlier performance. This time the King expects it though, having his guards form a shield above and around them to prevent incoming attacks.
They've greatly underestimated [Might of Many] though. Cain fires Lightning Arrows into the ground by their feet, letting the effect Arc inward and destroy the defensive shield. Five Multi Shot sets of Lightning Arrows as rapidly as he can and the shields are gone before Cain and Laura reach the ground. Both Dragons turn away to fight the Ogres coming to protect the king while Cain draws his sword and prepares to meet the King himself.
Ogre Overlord Kibal, level 98 to be precise. An Epic quality monster, tagged as a boss, indicating he has much higher than usual durability.
The Ogre swings its giant axe in a savage figure eight, a flowing path that gives Cain no easy opening to attack. That's quickly remedied though, the Ogre is so much larger than him that Cain waits for the axe to reach the outermost portion of its pattern again and ducks between the Overlords legs, chopping them both off at the calves.
Surprisingly the monster still lives, at least for half a second until Laura bites his head off.
[The fight at the hill is winding down, the Ogres have lost. You can call back your Tanks if you need them.] Misha sends to him as he joins the Dragons in slicing apart the Ogres back lines.
That is both excellent news and a great idea. Cain calls his Greater Golems to him, summoning a fresh set of Wrath Bringers around the three fighters on the ground, before tripling them with [Lesser Demon Army] and the Ogres go berserk at the sight of their reinforced enemy. The blind rage is making it even easier on them, as many Ogres are outright ignoring them trying to get to the Giant Demons.
The fight doesn't last long after that, the Trolls and Elves chase down the last of the attackers at the hill, while the Guilds charge down the mountain of corpses to crush the remaining forces at the cliff. Not a single Ogre survived to flee the Carnage of the day.
[Ogre King Defeated Quest Partially Cleared]
[Rescue the Troll King Quest Cleared]
[Level Up]
So there were two quests in action, both the one from Sunnybrook plus a hidden one to rescue the Troll King? No wonder the experience was so good.
"How did everyone do?" Cain asks with a weary sigh once the stragglers are dead and the two Guilds have joined up again.
"I got Level 90!" Belle cheers. She was the lowest level among them by a little bit, so everyone else should be Level 91 or 92, with Cain and Kone at level 94.
"I made Level 93. Not long now until the Yellow Tusk will expand beyond the valley." Gillian informs them with a smile. That reminds Cain, they should check out the city at the exit of the valley and see what's going on there before they're force relocated and find out unwillingly. If it's occupied or worse, become a deadly trap, they don't want to be sent right into the middle of it.
But first the capital, and a quick look at his stats.
[Name] Cain
[Level] 94
[Class] Puppet Master
[Race] Human
[Stats]+25->10
[STR] 125
[DEX] 115->125
[CON] 115->125
[INT] 115->125
[HP] 920->1000
[MP] 1150->1250
There, perfectly balanced. Now Cain intends to save the rest of the Stat points he gets until level 100, in case it matters to one of the two skill path options he can see waiting for him.
The details are still hidden, but they're no longer Greyed out, so he has reached the minimum requirements, other than level. One is called [General] one is called [Lord]. There are a lot of questions left unanswered about what those two options entail, but at least now Cain knows what they're called.
He knows one more thing too, only one can be chosen at a time. According to the tooltip, no points may be put into the other until the first path is entirely complete. How long that will take is not information they have provided, nor does Cain get to know before choosing what he will get for skills from either path.
That sounds about right for this System though.. No elaboration, no second chances.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m