Second World Online

With the skill [Wind Walk] controlling the air currents beneath my white military boots, I glided down from the remaining ruins of the gargoyle statue, cutting through the air toward the rear courtyard that led directly to the main gate of Ironhold Castle.

Below, the sight was like a dam that had just burst.

The one-meter-thick black steel gate that I had melted into hot liquid iron had now become the only entry path. And through that ten-meter-wide gap, a sea of black-armored players bearing the coiled serpent emblem Ouroboros began flooding in like a tidal wave. Behind them, the wolf banners of the Black Wolf faction pressed forward as well. Thousands of angry, bloodthirsty players intended to stab the Knights of the Round forces from behind.

I landed gracefully in the middle of the path, exactly twenty meters in front of the gate ruins that still glowed orange-red. My long white cape fluttered down, sweeping the dusty ground.

I stood alone. One person, blocking thousands.

My hands tightly gripped five [Ironfang Siege Grenades] between my fingers. My calculative brain began working frantically. Five high-explosive grenades. If I throw them all at once into that narrow chokepoint at the gate, the shockwave will destroy their front ranks, creating a barricade of digital corpses and chaos. After that, I must use consecutive shots with sulfur arrows.

I took a deep breath, lowered my stance, and prepared to pull the grenade pins with my teeth.

However, just before I could release the trigger of destruction, a very familiar, high-pitched, piercing voice cut through the thunder of thousands of enemy footsteps.

"SIS! I'M JOINING!"

A flash of snow-white light shot from the direction of the castle courtyard stairs to my left. Its speed was completely unreasonable, leaving silver-blue afterimages in the air.

The white silhouette landed right beside my right foot. It was Yuuki. My little sister in her small white fox form, with blazing red patterns on her legs and ears, staring straight at the sea of enemies. Her three thick tails radiating blue-red spiritual fire swayed wildly, sweeping the dust around us.

I froze, my hand holding the grenades paused in mid-air. "Yuuki? What are you…"

BAM!

The sound of heavy metal slamming into the ground cut off my words. From the same direction, a dragon Beastman girl leaped down, planting both of her sturdy legs into the earth. Yuna landed with sweat soaking her forehead, immediately driving her [Dragonscale Heavy Shield] into the ground in front of her, creating an impact that shook the stones beneath our feet.

Behind Yuna, Lumina ran gasping for breath, her new priest silk robe fluttering. Her magic staff already glowed with holy light. On her shoulder, Flora the flower-spirit girl flew circles around Lumina's head, her pink petals fully bloomed as a sign of readiness for battle.

"Teacher… don't forget about us!" Lumina cried out, her breathing rapid yet her eyes radiating unshakable determination.

"We won't let Teacher monopolize all this fun alone!" Flora added in her clear voice.

I looked at the four of them in turn. The formation that was supposed to be relaxing and eating stamina-boosting apple pie in the city had somehow followed me all the way to the deadliest battlefield on the server.

"You girls…" I slowly lowered my hand holding the grenades and stored the weapons back into my belt. I let out a long breath, but this time, a truly sincere smile, a smile I rarely showed in either the real or virtual world, bloomed on my lips. The coldness in my heart that always appeared when I prepared to kill alone suddenly melted, replaced by an indescribable warmth.

"Didn't you say you wanted to eat stamina-boosting apple pie?" I asked in a deliberately surprised tone.

Yuuki turned toward me, tilting her small snout upward and grinning widely enough to show her fox fangs. "The apple pie tasted completely bland after we saw the system announcement that the main castle gate had been breached! I immediately knew it was your doing, Sis! There's no way I'd miss the chance to burn thousands of enemies crowded into one narrow doorway!"

Yuna laughed softly, spinning the handle of the Wyvern bone axe in her right hand. "The moment we saw that announcement, Yuuki immediately ran like lightning toward the Waypoint. We could barely catch up to her. But she's right, Teacher. You've always taught us about combat efficiency. And the gate you melted is an extremely perfect chokepoint to defend."

I stared at the gate that the Ouroboros forces were slowly beginning to pass through. The width of that gate was only about ten meters. No matter how many ten thousand people lined up behind, they could only enter in groups of dozens at a time.

"You really are terrifying girls," I chuckled, quickly touching the system interface screen.

[Sending Join Request to Party '5 Beautiful Girls'.]

Within seconds, the icons of my class and my companions reconnected. The party screen lit up, displaying all five of our names.

Yuna immediately took command of the formation without needing my order. The dragon stepped two meters forward, becoming a living fortress that separated us from the enemy.

"I'll block right in the middle of the gap! Not a single sword will pass my scales!" Yuna shouted, the blood-red aura of her provocation skill beginning to radiate.

Yuuki leaped forward, positioning herself right behind Yuna's shield. Her wooden magic staff floated at her side, spinning rapidly as it channeled an extraordinarily dense vortex of Mana. "I'm the main artillery! You two in the back, make sure no one sneaks through!"

Lumina and Flora stepped back a few paces, forming a safe line (backline). Lumina raised her staff and chanted [Aura of the Guardian], granting physical and magical defense buffs to all five of us. Flora spread her arms, green tendrils beginning to creep out from her small palms and burrow beneath the stone courtyard ground.

And me? I leaped lightly with the agility of my class, landing atop a broken stone pillar about ten meters behind them. This vantage point gave me visibility across the entire width of the gate. I drew the Titan's Ironbark Compound Bow, nocked a sulfur arrow, and locked my mechanical pulleys.

Perfect formation. Five players, challenging tens of thousands of Ouroboros troops.

At the end of the bridge, the first wave of Ouroboros vanguard forces had successfully passed through the melted gate. They were a squad of Berserkers and Knights tasked with opening the path.

The captain of that squad, a man in black plate armor with dual axes, halted his steps for a moment upon seeing us. He observed Yuna, Yuuki the small fox, Lumina, and finally his eyes fixed on me standing proudly atop the pillar in my pure white uniform.

He laughed loudly, his laughter echoing with contempt.

"Hahaha! Look at this, comrades! The Knights of the Round must already be desperate! They're leaving five women… correction, four women and one pet to guard their back door!" the captain shouted, triggering laughter from the hundreds of troops behind him. "Crush them! Don't waste time! The Castle Core is right ahead!"

"HEAAAAAA!"

The wave of black armor charged forward in unison. The ground trembled heavily from the steps of hundreds of steel-clad feet.

I smiled coldly behind my military collar. "A pet, he says?"

"Yuuki. Show them," I ordered in a flat yet deadly tone.

Yuuki's white fur stood on end instantly. Her silver-blue eyes blazed with full fury. "A PET?! YOU WANT TO DIE, TIN CAN HUMAN?!"

When the enemy wave reached a distance of fifteen meters, Flora acted first.

"[Thorn Binding Roots: Area Trap]!" Flora cried.

From beneath the rocky ground in front of Yuna, dozens of giant thorned roots suddenly erupted upward. The roots did not kill; instead, they wrapped around the ankles and knees of the front ranks of Ouroboros who were running at full speed.

The result was fatal. Their running momentum was forcibly halted, causing dozens of Warriors and Berserkers to stumble and pile on top of one another. The rear ranks that could not stop crashed into their own comrades. A small chaos erupted at that narrow point, creating a densely packed, helpless crowd of enemies.

"Yuna! Now!" Yuuki shouted.

"[Draconic Taunt]!" Yuna slammed her axe against her shield. A red soundwave swept over those who had fallen, completely locking the enemy targets (Aggro) onto the dragon.

Then, the true magic artillery exploded.

Yuuki raised her snout. Her three tails burned with blue-red spiritual fire so bright it dazzled the eyes. Her extraordinary doubled Mana capacity was drained in one long breath.

"EAT THIS! [Fox-Fire: Tri-Burst Inferno - MAX SPREAD]!"

From the air in front of her floating magic staff, not just three, but six giant fireballs the size of horse carriages burst out in rapid succession (rapid-fire). Yuuki's casting speed from her doubled Agility made that deadly magic barrage look like a Gatling gun loaded with elemental rounds.

The magical fireballs shot straight and slammed into the sea of Ouroboros players who were stumbling and piled up in the gate gap.

BLLAAARRR! BLLLLAAAARRRR! BOOOOMMM!

[-14,500 Magical Fire/AoE Damage!] [-15,200 Magical Fire/AoE Damage!] [-14,800 Magical Fire/AoE Damage!]

Screams of pain exploded at once, drowning out the explosions themselves. The temperature in the castle courtyard rose drastically. The black steel armor of Ouroboros did not have enough magic resistance to withstand five-digit damage from a Burst mage whose stats were doubled.

More than fifty front-rank players, including the arrogant captain who had laughed earlier, evaporated into digital ash in the blink of an eye. Their HP bars plummeted from full to zero without any chance of being saved by their Healers.

The wave of fire swept all the way outside the gate, forcing the rear ranks of Ouroboros to retreat in panic.

"D-damn it! What kind of AoE damage was that?!"

"That's not a pet! That's a monster!"

"Quickly call our Mage ranks! Shoot them from a distance!"

From behind the billowing smoke, the ranks of Ouroboros mages began advancing with glowing magic staffs, trying to take a safe distance outside Yuuki's fire range. They started chanting ice arrows and stone projectiles toward Yuna.

"Lumina!" Yuna called while enduring the impact of sharp gravel with her shield.

"I've got it! [Area Greater Heal]! [Holy Aegis]!" Lumina chanted with trembling yet quick hands. Green and golden light enveloped Yuna's body, restoring her scratches faster than the damage she received. The Holy Aegis defense neutralized the remaining ice elemental damage from the enemies.

And exactly when the Ouroboros Mages thought they were at a safe distance, the Cliff Executor intervened once more.

I never allowed enemy mages to chant spells in peace.

Activating [Rapid Shot], I nocked arrows that I had already tied with [Sulfuric Shrapnel Bombs]. I aimed far beyond the front ranks, arcing the arrow trajectories over the heads of Yuuki and Yuna, heading straight toward the enemy mage ranks outside the gate.

"This is for your commanders," I muttered coldly.

DZHANG-DZHANG-DZHANG!

Three bomb-laden arrows shot through the smoke.

BLLAAAARR-BLAARR-BLAAARR!

Concussive explosions shook the earth again. Copper shells shattered, tearing the cloth robes of the enemy mages. But worse, a yellowish-green sulfur gas cloud instantly swallowed their rear ranks.

"AAAKK! MY EYES!"

"Toxic smoke again! These bombs again!"

"I'm blind! I've lost my target!"

The Blind effect ruined their spellcasting concentration. The Poison status continuously eroded their HP. The greatest weakness of mage ranks was their low physical durability, and my copper bombs slaughtered them without mercy.

In less than two minutes since the first clash, more than one hundred Ouroboros players had been forcibly sent back to their respawn tents, contributing tens of thousands of EXP that was divided into the experience bars of all five of us.

Desperation began to envelope the black army. They halted at the mouth of the melted gate, not daring to step forward.

Through the slowly thinning smoke, several elite players from Ouroboros finally recognized who was blocking their path.

Someone pointed toward Yuuki whose tails blazed brightly, then toward me standing atop the pillar with white uniform and silver hair fluttering.

"Th-that's… the three-tailed white fox spirit…" the player's voice trembled in horror. "And the Elf back there… silver hair, red eyes, using modified sulfur bombs… That white uniform is new, but the weapons…"

The eyes of the Ouroboros players widened perfectly as the pieces of the puzzle assembled in their minds. News of the massacre of the elite SteelFang squad last night in the Obsidian Forest had already spread throughout the Guild's internal channels.

"That's… the Mad Alchemist! That's the monster who erased SteelFang's Epic shield!" a Knight cried, reflexively stepping back. "They're not ordinary players! They're the Party cleanup squad from the Knights of the Round!"

I grinned from atop the pillar. Reputation was indeed an extraordinary psychological weapon.

"Yuuki," I called, lowering my bow and reaching for two [Toxic Mud Bombs] from my belt. "Looks like they're no longer willing to advance. Let's give them some incentive."

Yuuki barked full of spirit. "Ready, Sis!"

The five of us had transformed that single ten-meter-wide gap into an absolute meat grinder. No matter how many gold coins Ouroboros possessed, or how arrogant the Black Wolf alliance behind them was.

Tonight, before the '5 Beautiful Girls', those thousands of troops would only become stepping stones for the Alchemist to climb the throne of legend in Second World Online.