episode_0156

It is said that crisis creates opportunity, and Violet, faced with an extreme situation, created a useful technique.

That was the Violet Strategic Map.

As long as the Violet Wards, acting as actual wards, remain alive, we can track enemy positions in real-time. The map is currently expanding in real-time, and the fog of war is lifting.

“Ugh! It’s difficult!”

It was still impossible to fully realize the entirety of complex reality.

My head ached, so I flattened the map for easier viewing. The extremely simplified battlefield situation was revealed before my eyes.

I assigned colors to the enemies one by one for easy recognition.

The Violet team was yellow, friendly individuals were blue.

Conversely, the Magnavis units were red, monsters and fanatics were purple, and finally, the ghoul creatures were green.

“It’s horrible!”

“Enemies everywhere…”

On the map born from the Violets’ power, countless dots were moving. This was only the number they had identified.

The sizes of the dots varied, determined by my subjective sense of danger and perception.

At the top was a fallen outpost. According to reports from Violets who had infiltrated various locations, most of the fanatics were gathered near the base.

Following the back gate down the nearby commercial thoroughfare, a small fountain plaza marked with a white circle welcomed us.

Currently, red dots were moving down the thoroughfare and clashing with yellow dots there. We were struggling to hold back a massive red dot at the fountain plaza.

Down from the plaza, a residential complex with narrow alleys connecting to it was built.

Past the residential alleys, near a haphazardly developed area, there was a broken elevator where people were building barricades and holding out.

Our team members had also evacuated there.

However, countless monsters were scattered throughout the area, moving between paths. Furthermore, small ghoul units, consisting of ghouled Federal Army soldiers, were roaming around.

But the biggest problem right now was Magnavis’s strike force.

They were moving towards us along the thoroughfare. They were coming down further!

We needed to generate more troops quickly. The current numbers were insufficient.

However, the map alone couldn’t do anything.

Think. What should we do?

Even now, the 2nd company was fiercely holding them back.

“Take cover, take cover!”

Violets armed with crossbows rushed into buildings or hid behind cover. Immediately after, a massive blue flame fiercely heated the air above their heads.

“Where’s my arm?”

“Oh, look at my hand. It’s turned to ash!”

At the scene, they were desperately holding on, waiting for our decision.

“Command! We’re holding on for now, but we need a strategy. We’re getting pushed back like this!”

Calmly, I categorized what I could and could not do. The Violets’ minds rapidly accelerated.

“The problem is firepower!”

The clan’s forces were broadly composed of three types.

Mercenaries. There were Awakened and non-Awakened among them, but at least if you shot and hit them, you could kill them.

Next were the mages; these guys poured out troublesome magic.

And the worst were those wearing opaque, sealed masks. Those must be the Vanguard agents.

They were like tanks. Even after several hits, they weren’t breached, and every time they unleashed lightning or wielded fire, Violet squads evaporated and platoons burned.

Even if we surrounded them with numbers and beat them down, it didn’t seem like we could definitely win.

“Can’t we bring Levi over?”

“He’s being treated in the rear. We need a few more minutes!”

I thought. With explosives and heavy weapons neutralized, there were a few weapons we could rely on.

“Aim for the head!”

The power of a single bolt fired from a crossbow had penetration power incomparable to mere bullets. Bolts imbued with magic easily pierced through armor plating.

The problem was the rate of fire. Unlike a gun, which fires instantly with a pull of the trigger, a crossbow or bow required imbuing the arrow with magic before shooting.

The projectile speed was also slow, so it could easily be intercepted. Just like now!

“Ugh! What the hell is this! What is that woman doing?!”

The flying bolt was intercepted before it reached their bodies.

In the center, a little distance from the front, numerous magic circles surrounding a certain mage’s body moved, firing beams of light that knocked down arrows.

Due to the perception-inhibiting equipment, the faces of the Magnavis individuals were blurred and broken like mosaics, making them unrecognizable.

Her slender figure made her appear female, but that was all that could be discerned.

“That one’s also a problem!”

If the Vanguard agents were battleships with punching power and armor, the individual standing in the center was an interceptor system with missile defense capabilities.

It was utterly vicious in that it blocked all our attacks while unilaterally launching its own.

My mind rapidly spun, searching for another way.

“Let’s use the Aether Emitter!”

Aether Emitter. It was a short-range energy weapon powered by magic, purchased from the arms dealer Armas. With this, they would surely get a taste of heat.

“Let’s use the Blazing Blade!”

“Chains! Let’s bind them with artifact chains. If we can just drag them into the crowd…”

Artifact weapons began to appear one by one, preparing for a deadly strike.

Meanwhile, a hastily launched hang glider soared up towards the dark ceiling of the dungeon.

Among our gliders, it was the only one that ran on electric batteries.

“Damn it! If we can’t even bomb, what use is an air unit?”

“No! The wingsuit bombs are still valuable!”

No. 661 stretched out a hand, looking at the ground where magic and bolts flashed back and forth.

A wingsuit Violet began to fall.

“CRASH!”

Since explosives were neutralized, we couldn’t display overwhelming firepower. However, we could use our bodies as weapons!

Amidst the exchange of fire, a wingsuit Violet, armed with a spear, slammed directly into a Vanguard agent’s body. This was the so-called Flying Cavalry Spear Charge.

“Ugh!”

“It worked a little!”

The agent quickly got up, but seemed to have taken a heavy blow. In the darkness, wingsuits charged one after another at the Magnavis forces.

“Ram them!”

“Ugh, aah! They’re coming from the sky!”

After successfully impaling two more enemies in a row, we turned our attention to the witch.

“Die! You coward!”

No. 127 slammed into the witch who had been intercepting bolts.

“No, it’s a shield! SCREECH!”

Lera raised her head in surprise. As someone flew towards her from above the darkness, she activated the defensive spell array she had prepared beforehand.

With a dull thud, something that collided with the barrier exploded.

‘Wh-what is this?’

The fragments of flesh adhering to and dripping from the barrier proved that it was undoubtedly a person.

‘Ramming into a force field with their bare body?’

What kind of training and brainwashing would one have to endure to charge bare-bodied into an electromagnetic force field? Whatever their true nature, they were certainly crazier than the fanatics of the Unification Council.

Lera shivered at the unimaginable madness she encountered for the first time in her life.

“What kind of crazy people are these?”

The Vanguard commander spoke immediately after incinerating an enemy.

“Calm down, it’s a clone! Look closely at the corpse! Can’t you see it slowly dispersing into particles?”

Only after confirming the truth could she calm down.

Nevertheless, something remained unexplained.

“Just what, with such cloning abilities…”

She had thought they were unilaterally winning against the enemies a moment ago, but it felt as if their numbers were continuously increasing.

‘Surely, there aren’t more, are there?’

As the thought finished, she felt a shiver run down her spine. What kind of human was this?

While the team members received treatment, a Violet near the elevator declared.

“From now on, I’m going to use teleportation magic. Watch carefully! And don’t tell anyone! Legion, assemble!”

Instead of a smoke bomb, I pulled out a fire extinguisher and sprayed it. Countless soldiers poured out from the dense white powder.

In exchange for reverting dormant bodies into magic, countless troops streamed out and rushed past the barricade.

“CHARGE!”

While troops were continuously being produced and preparing for attack, I summarized two key points for winning this battle.

First, to neutralize the combustion-blocking magic that was making this battlefield a mess.

Second, to annihilate all dangerous elements within the dungeon.

To solve the first problem, the element causing the combustion-blocking magic had to be removed.

As far as I knew, it was either magic or an artifact. Someone among the Magnavis mages was definitely behind this trick.

“It’s true that it’s among them. But how are we supposed to catch it? It’s like belling the cat!”

The problem was that I wasn’t a magic expert. I also didn’t know much about artifacts.

The answer was simple. Ask an expert. And I knew experts who were well-versed in magic and artifacts.

Command ventured to call the experts.

“Professor Albert! It’s urgent, please answer immediately! What are the characteristics of combustion-blocking magic?”

-What? What’s this sudden nonsense?

“Mr. Wembly! It’s me, Ariel Group, looking for an artifact with combustion-blocking magic functionality! Please send me photos if there’s anything recently released on the market or anything famous!”

-You needed artifacts? It’s better to come see them in person… Understood.

While some personnel at Command were collecting information by all means to solve the first problem, a discussion among great figures transcending time and space was taking place on the Violet Network.

A Violet wearing a bamboo hat and an ao dai slammed the table.

“The answer is guerrilla warfare! The terrain here is complex. We need to wage guerrilla warfare, moving between buildings! If all our forces gather, our numbers will be overwhelming. We need to slowly chip away at them! Like Dien Bien Phu, like Tet Offensive!”

A Violet wearing a bicorne hat irritably threw a musket pistol at the Vietnamese Violet.

“Eek!”

“Idiot! Magnavis aren’t the only enemies. Look at the map. Can’t you see monsters roaming every alley? What about the ghouls? Plus, we lack absolute firepower. If we mobilize in small groups, we’ll be cut down. Let’s use mobility to encircle them until our numbers gather!”

“But this fountain plaza is too narrow! Even if we bring battalion-sized forces, it’ll be impossible to fully utilize all those numbers. And there are people behind us!”

Yes, the problem was location.

The fountain plaza we were in was too narrow for battalion-sized forces to enter.

Moreover, there were evacuated people behind them. Students and non-Awakened individuals.

At the moment they all felt frustrated by the impatient debate, the General Violet, who had been silent, stepped forward.

“Then, let’s move the battlefield to a place advantageous to us. Look here!”

Violet’s fingertip moved from right to left. The moment I saw the location indicated by her fingertip, I gained conviction.

At the far right of the map, there was a wide plaza.

“This plaza. The entrance is narrow, but it’s wide inside. If we can just lure all the enemies here…”

Chancellor Violet snapped her fan open.

This place was similar to the terrain where Zhuge Liang’s strategy, which defeated the arrogant Southern Barbarian King, unfolded.

“Yes, this is it! Let’s make this their Valley of Reflection!”

General Violet exclaimed.

“If we can draw them here, we can encircle and annihilate them! Like Hansan!”

Objections poured out.

“But the problem is how to lure them! Why would they obediently follow us?”

“The enemies aren’t fools. They need a motive to break through that long passage!”

Violet suddenly remembered.

“No, there’s an answer!”

What our enemies desired most.

In a corner away from the battlefield, a Violet from the artifact team, who had been waiting, suddenly stood up.

“Hey! You’re Ennis, right? This artifact. You know how to handle it, don’t you?”

“A Prism? You had it…”

“Just answer the question! You said you operated this. Do you know how to handle it? Or not?”

She nodded with a gloomy expression. I asked again.

“Can you, perhaps, activate this artifact?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

I quickly conveyed my request. She thought for a moment, then gave a somewhat satisfactory answer.

“Yes, it’s possible. But it’ll take some time…”

“I’ll buy you some time! Follow me!”

The artifact team picked up the Prism and Ennis and frantically ran towards the distant plaza.

Meanwhile, Command obtained a few pieces of information.

“Good! We got information.”

Professor Albert, who had been questioned without knowing the reason, explained the characteristics of the magic, despite his irritation.

According to the information provided by our lifelong professor, the magic’s wavelength itself was weak, but because it continuously unfolded in real-time, it could be quickly pinpointed with concentration.

“This is too difficult. What next?”

Next, Mr. Wembly, the CEO of the artifact trading company, seemed to think we were looking for artifacts and sent us several expensive artifact catalogs and various auction advertisements.

While Command reviewed the materials, we hastily tried to track the flow of magic.

One Violet felt nothing.

Ten Violets felt a faint tingling sensation.

Fifty Violets began to feel a strange flow.

A unique form of magic was spread like a carpet throughout the entire area.

Simultaneously, something peculiar caught the eye of a Ward Violet who was secretly observing the Magnavis mages.

“The Interceptor Witch! That one has a strange device strapped to their back!”

An artifact similar to the image sent by Mr. Wembly was visible. It had complex mechanical parts, but it resembled the peculiar pattern seen in the photo.

“That’s it!”

It was time to call in the team members.