Chapter 96: Vol. 4 – Episode 9
The fight, which would decide who would become the ruler of the continent and how the lives of people would be, began.
Sungjin was watching from the waiting room when his chosen soldiers walked onto the battlefield. From the other side, the Golden Wise King Kapitle walked onto the battlefield with his four selected lords from his kingdom. It was a five-on-five battle.
Eustasia told everyone about Sungjin’s first plan on behalf of Sungjin. “Our first objective is to get rid of everyone around Kapitle, who is the head of our enemy.” The plan was to defeat them one-by-one by operating a formation of force that would be unexpected from the enemy side. It was a tactic Napoleon had used in many battles—concentrating superior combat strength in one place. It was one of Sungjin’s specialties. First, he would defeat Kapitle’s military force one-by-one, and then he would kill Kapitle when he was isolated by himself.
“Sungjin rebuilt this battlefield to implement our plan,” said Eustasia while pointing at the map with her finger. There were three curvy paths and two dense forests between paths on the battlefield, and there were tiny paths in the forests, so they could move around the forest by following the paths. And there were many neutral monsters in the forest compared to general battlefields.
“Three paths and two forests. We need to use them all to collect enough crystals. If we follow the rules, each one of us needs to take each location.” If they followed the rules, and the rules were the first trap Sungjin had prepared for Kapitle. “We should expect them to take the bait,” said Eustasia with a smile.
Kapitle ordered his four lords. “Haha. The extra likes to defeat his enemy one-by-one, but we don’t need to deal with such a stupid tactic.” His fake eyeball, which was said to see the future and read people’s minds, shone with a suspicious light. “You will be my force.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
When Kapitle raised his hand, the ring on his finger started to s.h.i.+ne. “All the creation of this world shall become my gold.” Light from his bracelet covered the four lords and crystallized their bodies from head to toe. “The ring that contains infinite wealth, take everything with your light, Draupnir.” The crystallized bodies of the lords scattered. Their bodies became a scattered light that was sucked into the ring to increase Kapitle’s crystal. The legend said it was the ring that was owned by the main G.o.d of Midgard, and now Kapitle was holding it to activate its full power. It was a symbol of gold itself, and the legend said the ring was able to endlessly duplicate itself.
He sacrificed his army to own the equivalent amount of crystals. Kapitle was a king who valued items more than his team, but he was a very strong king, nonetheless.
The ring created another secret treasure using the crystals. Kapitle’s favorite weapon appeared in front of him. “Haha. It is so beautiful.” He preferred the beautiful treasure more than his silly lords. Humans are weak and they betray. But gold was different. Wealth never betrayed anyone. Treasure was the true power, and the divine power of Draupnir could be the best counterattack against Sungjin’s specialty of defeating the enemy one-by-one, because when there was only one person with all the power, defeating the enemy one-by-one wouldn’t work.
This is the end of one of his tricks. It is time for him to cash in the rest of them.
Kapitle didn’t waste a moment and ruthlessly marched to Sungjin’s camp and turret. It was a march of absolute power.
“Marching in right away…” Sungjin crossed his arms, looking at the battle status. The power to transform your army into crystals—that’s the power that suits the name the Golden Wise King. It reminds me of the Midas touch. The Midas touch was not just a legend. Kapitle stopped one of Sungjin’s plans with his touch. But that is not everything I have prepared for you.
Eustasia’s Holy Sword Durandal tried to stop the Wise King from heading to the turret. The flying sword was powerful, free from the limitations of human movement, and could attack the target from all directions without stopping. The moment you thought it was attacking from the front, it would attack you from the back, and when you turned around, it would attack you from the side. It would attack you from above, and when you thought you had stopped it, it would attack you from below. That was the power of Flying Holy Sword: completely free movement of the sword, which made human movement meaningless.
“s.h.i.+eld.” But to stop all the attacks from the Holy Sword, the Wise King only said one word and drew a shape in the air, and that was enough. A semi-transparent blue and gold layer covered Kapitle.
Cling, cling, cling.
It didn’t matter how sharp the sword was or how refined the attack. There was no way to get through it. An absolute and divine power neutralized the Holy Sword. That was the “True Rune.” It was the highest magical power that the G.o.d of Midgard, Odin, achieved travelling across the worlds of life and death. The concept from it became the absolute s.h.i.+eld that stopped the unstoppable Holy Sword.
“Is that all you got?” Kapitle asked arrogantly.
Eustasia’s face lost its smile, and she called her team for backup. “Everyone, gather around the final turret in the middle paths. I will form a cordon around it,” said Eustasia, and as soon as she finished speaking, she quickly pulled back. She didn’t stay, even though there was Sungjin’s turret to defend. It was a cowardly move, but she didn’t have a chance against Kapitle without her sword.
“Running away?”
“It’s stupid to try to stay here while I can’t guard.”
“But I am not done with you yet,” said Kapitle, drawing another shape in the air with his finger. “Fire.”
Bam! Fire started to erupt around Eustasia. It was a simple shape from a finger tip, but the destructive power from it was much stronger than any magic cast from a proper magic square by other wizards.
“Ugh.” Eustasia didn’t have enough to time to avoid the fire and became covered in fire. Her skin and armor were engulfed in flames. She couldn’t fight, so she ran as fast as she could to escape.
“Pff. At least you have a talent in running away,” Kapitle laughed at her, looking at her running away using the path in the forest. Haha. I am not going to walk into your trap.
He didn’t follow her, although it is a common battle tactic to finish an enemy who is wounded and easy to finish. But I know that is another speciality of yours, pretending that you’re running away to lure the enemy into a trap.
Sungjin’s team had many different kinds of traps. Sometimes the trap was a neutral monster, and sometimes it was a landscape. All Kapitle had to do was not walk into their traps.
Even if Jenna joined the fight against him using the turret, it didn’t matter, because he was much stronger than the combination of power they could gather. And that was the reason it was possible for Kapitle to just attack them right away.
So what will you do to stop me now? Of course, there was no way to stop him. Kapitle effortlessly destroyed the turret and walked ahead, following the path.
He was so confident―just like a mountain that could stop a loud wind just with its existence. His march was majestic. But only for one more step.
The next moment, the destroyed turret disappeared. All he could see was a wide open forest in front of him. “Huh?” Kapitle thought he had been walking toward Sungjin’s camp and had destroyed the turret along the way, but he was instead only walking on the path in the forest, and Eustasia, who had just run away from him, was with all her team members on the other side of the forest.
Kapitle was confused for a brief moment but then started to laugh. “Hahaha. Not bad. So you know how to make this kind of trick.” His laughter showed his confidence that it didn’t really matter if he was tricked.
Zakiya laughed seductively, listening to the laughter of Kapitle from far away. “Haha. My ultimate skill can be useful if used like this.” Her ultimate skill: The Kaleidoscope of Heaven. She was able to create any illusion she wanted.
Sungjin said it was a great skill that could be used in an unlimited number of ways, although it couldn’t cause any direct damage to the enemy.
Many people thought it was a difficult skill to utilize in battle, because even though an illusion could be an effective way to divert the enemy, once they found out it was an illusion, it hardly had any power. Unless it was an illusion that was close to the original, rather than a simple illusion, it wasn’t very useful in a battle, especially in a battle against a strong opponent like Kapitle.
Using my skill had actually been a great plan. Filling the gap between her illusion and reality had been especially great. The weakest point of the illusion was that once the opponent suspected it was an illusion, the opponent could easily find its faults.
In this case, they knew that if Kapitle was attacked by the turret, Kapitle would have realized the turret was an illusion Sungjin and his team had created. But Sungjin and Jenna used that fact against Kapitle. Jenna made it feel like Kapitle was attacked by the turret, but that was just a trick Sungjin and Jenna used to confuse him.
The path was at a slightly different angle from the regular paths in the forest. It was so slight a difference that people couldn’t realize it was an illusion, especially when there was a turret standing in front of them in the middle of the path. Jenna made it feel like Kapitle was attacked by the turret while Eustasia ran away calling for backup.
Kapitle thought he had been marching and pus.h.i.+ng them to the corner, but he actually had been lured into the middle of the forest as Sungjin had intended. And although Kapitle thought he wouldn’t walk into Sungjin’s trap by not following the running enemy… that was Sungjin’s counter trap. He wanted to give Eustasia time to move away from Kapitle.
Sungjin had already calculated the possibility that Kapitle wouldn’t distribute the power and would simple try to attack right away.
“Now you know but too late,” said Sungjin outside of the battlefield, laughing at Kapitle.
Kapitle was smart enough to realize that he had been tricked, but the smart thing he could have done was to not have been tricked at all.
Kapitle was wise. He had studied Sungjin’s battle history and had planned his attack accordingly. Sungjin had decided to use Kapitle’s study against him to trick him into the plan. It was a fight to read the opponent’s next step before the opponent read his.
“Now start.” Although Sungjin couldn’t talk to his team, they all knew what to do next. As soon as Sungjin said the words, the fire covered up the forest and left Kapitle in the middle of the fire surrounded by heat and poisonous smoke.
Sungjin had made the forest easy to burn and had placed many neutral monsters in the forest as bait in order to burn the enemy to death when he walked into the forest. It was a trick. Sungjin had planned to make the enemy believe his plan was to trick him with Zakiya’s skill.
Kapitle was trapped in the middle of a burning forest that could burn his organs with its heat, but he didn’t look worried. “Winter.” His hand made a shape in the air. The shape was the Rune of Legend found by Odin, the G.o.d of Midgard, while traveling across the world of the dead.
The secret character activated the power, and the air started to freeze. The magical power overruled the rule of nature. The burning fire was covered by the cold air, and an ice wall formed around the burning forest.
Kapitle walked out through the wall. He marched slowly. It was a true royal procession. He didn’t rush or look around. The whole forest was burning, but there wasn’t a hint of soot on Kapitle’s robe. He slowly marched as if to prove his absolute power.